Is behaviour out of control in a lot of schools?

[Sophie12319]

Not sure whether to move DD (10) to another school. Everyday she's coming home saying she can't learn as there are a group of boys who throw stuff about the classroom, shout out when the teacher is talking, walk about the classroom in lesson. She has said teacher has sent them to headteacher in the past but it carries on.

This is not a teacher bashing thread btw (in fact, I have the upmost respect for DD's teacher as I have seen the boys behaviour at the school gate and I don't know how she does a whole day), maybe more of a parent bashing of why some parents let their kids behave like this?

Anyway, back to the point of thread, I spoke to my sister about moving her to which she said there's no point as he DS' school is the same.
Feel a bit hopeless as I feel DD's education is being ruined! I've emailed the school before about their behaviour but I feel at a loss!

@CatsSnore I’m not sure those 14yo would be any better being at work

Nope. You were wrong. You said I blamed single mums. I didn’t mention them at all. Which is why you cannot find the comments. I get that’s embarrassing for you. You don’t have the grace to admit it and apologise. Never mind.

I agree with this!
It’s so blind/simplistic to just blame the kids/teens/parents but the system itself is to blame more so. I keep saying it on these threads but our education is totally outdated and our young people know it but they are forced to endure it day after day week after week….
It’s now meaningless in the modern world we live in and I think the pandemic just highlighted this so much. Kids today are ‘digital natives’, they wonder what the point of a Victorian style education system is. There is no trust, no respect for individual learning styles, no understanding that all people learn in different ways and have different skills, talents and interests. School is a one size fits all approach and sadly it does not work for most people. As an ex teacher I’d say only approximately 10-20% of people are suited to academic work. Yet here we are in 2023 bashing our heads against brick walls doing the same thing we’ve always done (well since Industrialization anyway). Reminds me of Einstein’s quite: ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’

Nope. You were wrong. You said I blamed single mums. I didn’t mention them at all. Which is why you cannot find the comments. I get that’s embarrassing for you. You don’t have the grace to admit it and apologise. Never mind.

You said children behaving badly is because they live in homes with no fathers. Which households have children living in them and no men, usually, do you think? Or did I misunderstand and it was actually intended to be a homophobic comment about lesbian couples with children?

Pathetic. I'll not be responding to you further.

There is no trust, no respect for individual learning styles, no understanding that all people learn in different ways and have different skills, talents and interests.

This hugely denigrates the role of teachers. I'm not one, but since my DS has started at school, I've a huge appreciation for his teachers' approach to attempting to tailor the learning experience to cater for all, taking into account personal interests, personality and level of attainment.

The real issue is when they have 30+ kids in a class and a third of them are disruptive without consequences for bad behaviour. That would unfortunately make any management difficult, irrespective of how 'holistic' the approach is.

I'm with others on here - give schools the license to remove troublemakers.

Name-changed for this. I haven't read the whole thread, but my experience might be useful.

Over 60 years ago, in the late 50's, I was a teenage asshole. Well, I was.

The school tried everything in their limited arsenal: I was made to stand in the corner of the room, sent to stand in the corridor, strapped, caned, sent to the head, etc etc and so forth. Finally, I was expelled, age 15.

As I remember, the only thing that would have worked, was if the head had contacted my parents, and met with me and them. My father was a bit of tearaway in his youth, but my mother was very supportive of authority.

Why was I a teenage asshole? I can't really remember, but I think it was just playing the class clown, which sort-of escalated, plus I had no interest in the school lessons. Nor any ambition for higher education; no thought really, at all. Part of this came from my environment, we were a poor family in a poor neighbourhood in a poor town. Socially, this wasn't a problem, everyne was poor, but I had no thought whatsoever of upward mobility.

Oh well, a long time ago.

Teenagers/children are not "digital natives" at all. The govt assumes they are, hence the removal of IT from the curriculum and its replacement with computing. But the truth is that they are absolutely terrible at IT.

They can use a phone. They cannot use a computer. They can't type or file manage or use office tools (word/excel) or make a (decent) poster or search the Internet accurately or send an email or manipulate an image or send something to print... their peers of 10 years previous can, and their parents and grandparents can. They can't. Their "digital" skills have been infantilised by the predominance of phones over laptops and tablets. All they cam do is use Spotify, Tiktok and Snapchat.

How come it's the same situation in England then?

‘You said children behaving badly is because they live in homes with no fathers’

I. Did. Not. I work with single mums and vulnerable groups in my job. I have respect for them and largely despise the men that left them. Homophobic? You sound deranged now.

You are getting me mixed up with someone else. How ridiculous. My teens have more maturity than you. You. Were. Wrong.

Perhaps you meant one of these posters? Who both made comments about single mums yesterday. You have made yourself look truly idiotic.

‘User135644Yesterday 19:16
GreenwichOrTwicks Yesterday 19:14

‘Lack of positive male role models and serial feckless'step fathers' is a major factor in boys behaviour that we are never allowed to talk about as it stigmatises 'single mums'.
Then these boys end up filling the jails’

No father at home (at least not a good one) and few male teachers at school and the ones that are are powerless to actually enforce any discipline’

IMO (and I can't ever if I've already alluded to it on here - I don't think so) part of the problem was Gove's 2014 curriculum revamp.

We do PSHE lessons every week. My class know all about empathy, self esteem, self worth, what a good friend looks like, how to resolve conflict harmoniously... theoretically. I can ask any of them, and they can all give me the right answers. But they have no practical application.

Pre 2014, if children fell out at school or there was a problem, the TA would take those children put in the afternoon for 20 mins and work with them. They'd do self esteem building activities, they'd do conflict resolution activities, they'd run friendship groups.

There is far less of it now.

TAs (if you're still lucky enough to have one!) are.running handwriting groups, times tables groups, pre teaching sessions, booster groups, interventions... and the social and emotional aspects of learning are abandoned.

We see the sort of S and E issues in UKS2 that would have been dealt with in KS1 and LKS2 but now the kids are bigger and with a healthy dose of hormones chucked in for good measure and they're far less compliant.

The curriculum is so crammed, and the focus so much on 'coverage' now that we are grabbing every spare few minutes to squeeze extra learning in. We don't have time for circle times, or kindness activities (where you say something kind about the person siting next to you). We don't have time to sit and chat with the children the way we used to.

I sometimes do extra playground duties just so I can chat with them.

Where children come from kind families, its less of an issue (I had a boy come up to me last week and recommend one of the girls in class for the end of week certificate because she'd helped him in numeracy that week) but where they are not raised in kindness and empathy, they are often in survival mode and they just don't see others. They have no empathy.

Strange but what you are saying isn't really true is it? Poland has also suffered the effects of lockdown and children are not angels and have also seen a rise in changed and bad behaviour. Is this one friend ina. Village who told you this? Do you live in England ?

"Insult a colleague to their face or throw a chair across the room and you aren't coming back to work ever, but this sort of thing is tolerated in schools with often hardly any consequences." True, but in a workplace you are free to get up and leave, sure there'll be consequences but you can make up your mind with what consequences you're prepared to face.

Say you weren't quite at chair throwing stage but were starting to get pissed off, in many (admittedly white collar jobs) in a meeting, you could just leave for a bit, say you need to make an urgent phone call, make yourself a cup of tea etc. If you go through a poor patch of mental health, you yourself could decide you're too sick to attend (again there are often consequences but you do get to make these decisions).

I agree! ⬆️

I teach yr6 & they are VILE to each other & have zero empathy towards their peers or us adults - despite our constant efforts to enlighten them!

I worked a through few days of feeling really poorly at one point last Winter & actually stopped a lesson to tell them how dreadful I felt & how I would really appreciate their co-operation & understanding & could they please not make me have to raise my very sore voice etc - the genuine shock & bewilderment on the majority of their faces was stunning.

I reminded them that they come to us adults all the time when they feel ill & to think about all the ways that we help them & look after them etc. The fact that we could feel just as grotty & need a bit of consideration honestly hadn't occurred to most of them. (Why was I in work while so ill? Funnily enough, nowhere near enough Teachers to cover - I wonder why?)

Genuine question (generally to anyone who has complained of their child suffering). if your child is assaulted in class or bullied and the school are seemingly ineffective in dealing with this why would you not be making a complaint to the governors or calling in the police? Just genuinely interested why those are not seemingly options.

sassyclassyandsmartassy my child was bullied and verbally abused. I tried to address it with the school many times. The governors ignored the letters that I sent. I complained to Ofsted who went in and said everything was fab.

In the meantime, the school advised me that they would support me to move my child to another school (her having been there for three years and not having put a foot wrong).

Whether the bullying was severe enough to be classed as unlawful harassment, I don't know, but to be honest my priority was my traumatised child's welfare rather than any sanctions for the bully.

I would arrange a meeting with the teacher & the head to express your concerns before doing anything rash.

I haven’t experienced that in my kiddos school (infants) but there will always the odd kid who might be having a tough time (for whatever reason) and so behaviours not the best.

if after speaking with the teacher & head there is no improvement you could always speak report it to ofsted so they can assess behaviours within that particular school.

good luck

Hi MALJA was your post to me? If so, I moved my child a couple of years ago now having tried as hard as I could to get the (secondary) school to address the bullying and abuse.

Ofsted went in and said everything was fab (my child had been in unauthorised absence for three weeks in the academic year that they went in, so I assume they falsified her records for Ofsted to not flag this up as a major safeguarding fail).

I too have huge respect for teachers and I am one!
You are misunderstanding what I mean about learning styles. I’m not talking about individual teachers abilities to differentiate or deliver interesting lessons I’m taking about SCHOOL as a concept. Sitting down at a desk for 6 hours a day for 12 years of their life with a pencil in hand (ok I know they have practical science lessons, cooking etc for a short time but these also include much writing afterwards) just does not suit most people.

I think it’s a great idea to remove the disruptive ones in a sense. Put them to task on chopping wood, building something, making things with their hands, being creative, learning practical life skills, plumbing, electrics, bricklaying, cooking, caring work etc etc. We don’t need all kids to come out of school with 9 GCSEs that they have been forced to do. We need young people with skills. Yes we all need basic literacy and numeracy but we don’t need everyone to be academic.

I worked in a school that previously had a community policeman based there. He wasn’t there all day but his office was so he was in and out all day. The point being the children/parents got used to seeing him. Apparently it did work, but funding was cut and he went.
Another school in the trust had discussions with the police to hire a policeman to be on site during school hours, but they wanted their full pay for the year covered and it was too much money.

The most successful male pastoral staff I saw was ex army. He was brilliant. He left as his term time/minimum wage pay was frankly pathetic. When he left for a FT job it was double the money. He had a family and couldn’t keep earning so little.

All this costs money and no one is giving schools more. Although in MATs there is an awful lot of money spent on SLT which they won’t cut.

I think, in an ideal world, the vile, non empathetic, disruptive anti social ones should be removed and receive some sort or reprogramming by child psychologists in how to be a reasonable human being. Together with being taught practical skills and a massive dose of nature, caring for animals and growing things. These are all therapeutic and can help people heal from trauma and a shitty upbringing.

This learned sociopathic behaviour that some families are handing down from generation to generation is why there is so much bullying now, not only between children, but between adults. Religion has been removed, but was never replaced with anything to help children develop a conscience and sense of community. Even Richard Dawkins agrees that religion plays a positive role in helping keep people on the right track.

My 2 oldest are currently in year 9 &10 at high school & me & my eldest had this discussion only this morning about the behaviour in school, both of them are really good kids, both academically gifted & both want to succeed in life. But the horrendous behaviour in some of the classes really effects they're ability to learn as the teachers are spending all their time trying to deal with the bad kids. Bullying is rife, & nothing gets done about it. My daughter is going up to year 11 in Sept & has had a year if substitute teachers for 80% of her lessons as the best teachers are leaving. When they were in primary/junior school we had to take them out of their first school as it was horrendous & luckily got them into a c of e school, much higher expectations of behaviour than other schools. When looking at other schools don't go by the ousted rating, instead ask on local community groups for genuine opinions on the schools from other parents. My youngest is only 2 but seriously considering home schooling if schools continue being this bad. Apologies for the long answer x

I honestly think that anyone planning on having children now needs to factor in some sort of home education provision. I accept that this is very difficult when two parents need to work full time just to cover the bills. Perhaps weekend and shift work can help here as well as working from home.

Agreed

Absolutely this. Gove has a lot to answer for. The 2014 is wholly unsuitable for the majority of primary children. Knowledge based and heavily dependent on literacy skills. Maths concepts in year groups way before children are ready for them (showing my age here but Piaget's stages of development tell us that children need concrete experiences until at least 9).
Breaks my heart trying to teach 8/9 year olds abstract concepts that are beyond their stage of development. No wonder they misbehave. Geography recently was about land use. Talk about dull! You can't make anything now (cooking, DT, even art) without first planning it and then evaluating. Dull. Just creating for fun is not allowed.
Overcrowded, crammed timetable gives no time for any down time, no flexibility, so those moments where in the past, things were more relaxed and the teacher could chat to children are gone. That time was so valuable for getting to know one's pupils and building relationships.
It's soul destroying and I refuse to be part of it (leaving the profession in 3 weeks). I feel for the children. Their behaviour is often rubbish (constant low level chatter, inability to sit still, constant need for a drink of water or the loo (because of all the water they've drunk!), calling out, etc) but to a large extent I don't blame them! They're being treated like robots rather than children. Empty vessels to have knowledge shoved into them. Woe betide the teacher who doesn't utilise the ten minutes between registration and assembly for a bit of learning!
Mostly the behaviour isn't terrible but when at least a third if not half the class are low level disrupting, it makes teaching very difficult and exhausting. One can barely speak one full sentence without being interrupted. I'm a very experienced teacher (more than 30 years) who never had problems managing behaviour but what was considered a 'hard' class in the past, is now the norm. I worry for this generation of youngsters.