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!

Lockdown definitely exacerbated things IMO.

@Tonty I had a student threaten to rape me, he was FTE for 2 days and told to apologise to me but his dad decided to pull him out of the school instead as apparently it was unreasonable!

Dear God!@Singleandproud Something has seriously gone wrong and we are pussyfooting around whatever the real reason is. I think the lowering of behaviour standards and erosion of school authority and dumbing down of discipline over the years actually started a generation ago. Some of that generation that fell prey to the new softly softly approach are now parents in their own right. The result of that is they do not know how to parent their own children, they do not understand the purpose of discipline as they never experienced it, neither do they understand how to discipline. They don't get 'parenting' either, in that it will involve other adults that their child may come across in life (teachers, neighbours, other authority figures in their lives) and so you get the parent that marches up to the school to fight on behalf of their unruly child. They see ANY form of discipline as a personal slight on them. It's all very sad to watch and I have no idea how we untangle this mess.

People are way too soft on children now. In 1981, in my first secondary school, nobody dared put a foot wrong. The teachers were pleasant enough, but were somewhat austere and didn't pull any punches. The one naughty person in the class was a girl from the local Barnados Home - I was in the council children's home - and she misbehaved in science once, but was taken out and given the strap pretty sharpish and that cooled her down.

The country was different then though. Things were more pragmatic and it was a case of shape up or ship out. Bad behaviour just wasn't tolerated. Feelings didn't matter, you just had to get on with it. Kids have Little Emperor Syndrome now, or they're neglected. If a kid had hit a teacher in my day they'd have been off to Approved School and then Borstal if they broke the law out in the community.

We have a juvenile serial arsonist in our community. He's been setting fires, attacking homes and vandalising things for two years now and nothing happens. The police visit and give him a cuddle/chocolate bar/pep talk every couple of weeks then off he goes again. He's going to kill someone one day. Two years ffs.

The ferals are in charge now. Never doubt this.

Unlike many here, I wasn’t a child in the 1980s, I was teaching full time.
I taught in a very affluent area, and then in a very economically deprived area.
Yes, low-level disruption was fairly rare, direct confrontation almost non-existent and most children were capable of sustained, independent work.
That has changed over the years, and it’s getting much worse much faster over the last decade.
Yes, there are undiagnosed and unmet SN. But there are also a number of entitled, rude and disruptive children who are indifferent to learning things they don’t want to and see no consequences they care about. Either from school or from home.

Children are no longer brought up to take the rough with the smooth. Everything has to be interesting, stimulating, rewarded, fair, comfortable, fun etc. Well guess what cupcake? That's not representative of life so get on with it.

Why do people have children in the first place if they're not going to raise them to be decent, productive and responsible citizens? I mean, get a dog or something if you just want fun and games, but don't inflict your bullying, entitled, foul brats on everyone else.

What's going to happen when nobody even trains to be a teacher anymore?

I was at a meeting with three secondary heads, three primary heads and some LA bods this week. They all agree behaviour is more difficult, but they don't put it down to entitlement or poor parenting.

They think children and especially the current year 7 are just a lot more complex, or there are more complex children. Children who've suffered abuse or other trauma, children living in poverty who are having to carry a lot of adult worries while parents work and children torn between separated parents. Plus Covid and the harm that lockdowns did to both children and families.

A lot of that is not new but in earlier generations a lot of those children would have just quietly disappeared from the system.

I don't think the effect of Covid lockdowns on families that were already struggling can be over estimated.

I'm just curious really. Are there certain year groups worse than others now? Or has behaviour deteriorated across the board? Are there any year groups that are doing "OK".

I would say that year groups always vary year on year and that has always been the case. In any school you get notoriously badly behaved (or well-behaved!) cohorts. That's usually just down to the make-up of the group and how many influential difficult ringleaders you get.

Behaviour has been worse across the board since covid, but it had already been getting worse for years. Rather than it being specific year groups who are universally problematic, I'd say it's more of a general trend that behaviour is getting worse younger. Once upon a time you could mostly rely on Y7s to be pretty well-behaved. Last year's Y7 where I was teaching (not any more, thankfully) were an absolute shocker. I've never seen anything like it in 27 years of teaching. The other noticeable thing is that really serious misbehaviour used to be mostly amongst boys. That is changing.

I bet in the typical 80s classroom (and probably still 90s) most children lived in two parent homes with their parents together. Not that that was always at all ideal, depending on the family, but there was typically a father at home who instilled discipline in sons.

Nowadays it's probably majority single parents and absent fathers. That much be a factor in behaviour.

Schools have themselves to blame though for not enforcing discipline.

I was at school in the 80s/90s and knew a fair few children of separated parents. No I don't think it's as many as it is now but in my year 7 form class in 1992 in my friendship group alone 3 out of 6 had divorced or separated parents. None of those 3 behaved badly. (Not counting the odd note writing or whispering when the teachers back was turned etc). One girl in the group who's parents were divorced always said she'd never get married or have kids due to the trauma etc from the divorce. So yes it affected her. No she didn't throw chairs around or slap teachers. (And just FYI she actually went on to have 5 children and 2 husbands)

They can't enforce discipline.
No alternative placements to send them to and teachers on here have said that some parents have forbidden school to give out detentions. Social services too stretched to investigate unless things are disastrous at home and CAMHS can't cope with the demand. Children with SEN are waiting years for diagnosis and there's fewer special schools so they are forced to struggle in mainstream.

I think that's the point though. Parental separation can cause trauma. Most parents will manage it so that DC get through more or less OK, but some don't and there's just more if it, so there will be more traumatised ones.

Plus those families are dealing with the after affects of trauma caused by lockdowns, two years where they didnt get any extended family support etc and the effects of the cost of living crisis too.

But people are saying the trauma caused by separated parents causes children to behave horribly. This is apparently one of the reasons why children are throwing chairs around and hitting teachers. But if that's the case why weren't the children of separated parents in the 80s and 90s doing the same thing. As far as I am aware, no one EVER threw a chair while I was at school. It definitely never happened in any class I was in. I'm agreeing that yes children can be traumatised by their parents separation. My friend was devastated. But she never behaved badly in school because of it. She wouldn't even have dared speak back to a teacher let alone hit them simply for being asked to do some work!

And covid is just another excuse on top. Children's behaviour in schools has been deteriorating long before covid happened. So what is the ACTUAL reason for it. Why weren't children throwing chairs and slapping teachers during the war? Or any other major event etc.

Schools have themselves to blame though for not enforcing discipline.

Schools (mostly) do NOT have themselves to blame. What exactly can they enforce, and how? How do you force a child to attend detention if they refuse to (especially if parents won't cooperate)? What sanctions can you impose other than detentions? Exclusion from lessons? The naughtiest kids often don't care about that. Exclusion from school? Great - more time on the Xbox. Permanent exclusion? Difficult to do, takes a loooong time and lots of evidence and hoop-jumping, and kids often get back in on appeal. Even if you do manage to expel them, they go straight to another school amd cause the same problems.

Some of them were. If in year group of 200 children in the 80s, 5% of children had separated parents, and maybe 20% of them exhibited signs of trauma as a result, you'd be talking 2 children per year.

If it's now 40% with separated parents and 20% of those with trauma, you're now talking 16 children in the year group. 16 complex traumatised children are very hard for a school to manage. Plus of course other kinds of trauma, things that would have probably kept children away from school altogether in the 80s.

Stats made up but just an illustration of the way the same issues have got bigger.

I thought the divorce figures has actually dropped compared to a generation ago?

And covid is just another excuse on top. Children's behaviour in schools has been deteriorating long before covid happened. So what is the ACTUAL reason for it. Why weren't children throwing chairs and slapping teachers during the war? Or any other major event ?

My Dad went to school during and just after the war and he tells tales of the most appalling behaviour, bullying and violence and fatherless children with no discipline at home.

Plus they left school at 13 yo unless they were consdiered very bright, which would solve a lot of the behaviour problems in today's schools.

Divorce maybe, but parents aren't married when they split up now in the way they were then.

I actually do think forcing children to stay in school until 16/18 isn't helping at all. Non academic children would likely benefit greatly from apprenticeships and getting out into the real world sooner. My own father was at school in the 50s. He also said violence among the children definitely happened. But no way in hell would anyone have hit a teacher!!
My dad wasn't academic. Left school at 15 and went into an apprenticeship. He worked his way up and had a great job in the long run. I think they should bring this option back.

Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

We are definitely in the last stage of this cycle at the moment. Let’s hope that we are not too far gone to keep the cycle moving and for things to get better.

Totally agree Mukey

Nobody is forcing anyone to.stay in school.post 16
You are aware that there are colleges that offer many types of courses and apprenticeships available from 16 ?
Im.not sure its helpful to go backwards and lower the school leaving age lower than 16 .

The point I was making was that it was a factor when combined with the serious lack of discipline in schools. If discipline isn't properly enforced at home or the school then a good percentage of kids will act up. You could use to rely on at least one or the other.

Get the disruptive kids out the lessons by whichever means necessary. It's mainly the ringleaders who need the discipline and the rest will fall in line with the deterrent once they've either been a) put in their place or b) kicked out the class. No discipline and it's a free for all which is what it is now.

I'd imagine the marriage figures have dropped a fair bit as well though, I doubt there's the same percentage of fathers in the home as there were 20-30 years ago.