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!

Do you know this for a fact? I doubt you know what goes on behind closed doors.

I’d rather have a class with 10 badly behaved boys than 1 badly behaved girls.
Badly behaved girls are so difficult.

I don’t know if they would be better in a single sexed school or if they would be worse.

Is this the full picture? I was at school in the 80s and we had classes of over 30 with one teacher and no TA. There were a couple of “naughty” kids (would have been diagnosed as SEND these days) but the teacher was in control and the kids knew they had to behave. If the teacher told you off you really knew you were in trouble. There’s no way anyone would have answered back or not done as they were told. It just didn’t happen.

Covid just sped up the process that was already unraveling in society. Disengaged parents but also parents who’s little precious ones can do no wrong. You reap what you sow.

Oh dear, where to start??

An end to league tables and anything that tries to marketise education, so that schools are no longer competing against each other. This would put an end to stupid things like requiring kids who can barely read and write in year 7 to sit a GCSE in English literature in year 10 or 11. More generally, a more differentiated curriculum based on ability. It is not writing anyone off to say that Brian, who couldn't hold a pen properly in year 7 and needs to be reminded to open his book at the start of every lesson, will probably never need to use his analytical reading skills in his working life, let alone read C19th gothic literature. In fact, it's much worse to force kids to take exams that they have not a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting a passing grade in. It's demoralising and cruel.

Smaller classes, more TA support.

A reduction in workload so we can spend more time planning decent lessons.

Those would be my main things I think. My personal bug bear is children with painfully obvious SEN needs, who somehow make it all the way through primary without a single teacher, TA or parent picking up on the fact that they are very obviously struggling in some areas. When it's crunch time, at secondary, we then need to support these kids without fully understanding what is going on.

We need to destigmatize autism and ADHD for starters! I am always shocked at the misconceptions about autism in particular, so many people seem to think autism = no empathy and not much more, when it doesn't even mean that and does mean so much more.

I am so relieved to read, I'm not the only parent that's gone nuclear in a school office 🤣 thank you!

I’m a secondary teacher of 18 years. I echo that behaviour is the worst I’ve ever seen. Myself and my department lead sat in my classroom at the end of today and I cried then she did too. Parents are vile to us (swear, insult us, believe everything their kid says, on occasion are violent), SLT is largely populated by unsupportive chocolate teapots (not all SLT - I have worked in the past with some exceptional SLT but none are evident in my current school) and kids are just out of control because they know there’s no real consequence to their awful behaviour. My school is moments away from us losing all control. I absolutely believe in supporting mental health but so many kids use poor mental health as a catch all for not doing what they should adding another layer of powerlessness to staff. And, because teachers are leaving in their droves, we’re constantly covering. Retention is so appalling at my school that they have classes on rotation - so you’ll teach a y8 class for half a term, then you’ll teach a different y8 class the next term to try and minimise one class having all the cover. From a teaching point of view though there’s no time to properly build relationships. It’s soul destroying. I dread going into work and have to have a daily pep talk with myself to get through it. It’s not sustainable.

The evidence suggests girls do better in single sex schools. However, boys do worse. I will be sending my daughter to a single sex secondary school as a priority.

Girls aren't always the angels you think they are!

The girls at my son’s school are much worse than the boys. The boys can be disruptive shits but the girls have bullied in such a sly and mean way, it’s appalling, I have no idea where that behaviour comes from in a 12/13 year old. They have calmed it down after a talking to but anyone who thinks boys are the only problem is utterly kidding themselves.

Yes because I'm talking about children I know.

To be fair, I'd had a phone call and it was at home but he knew as soon as he walked through the door that he was about to get into the biggest trouble of his life. I was on a work call and pointed at him to sit down and even my colleagues on zoom said "you look like you need to go and deal with something"

Wow! Was it a school with a name that rhymes with the name of a country park in the area? I teach in the area, this would not be acceptable at my work and most likely result in a fixed term exclusion. What was the punishment at your place?

PS: pm me if you fancy a new job, we have lots of vacancies (despite being awesome, both as a school and employer)

I agree! I noticed it was far worse when children returned after Covid. I left not long after. Sanctions that can be given in school do not deter many unfortunately.

You didn't have any EAL staff? I'm sure you did but you just weren't aware of it. There were specific asylum seeker projects set up for the newest arrivals before the children were then put into schools. There was also a lot more community and council support for people arriving at that time. During the time of the Iraq war there was no presumption of mainstream and you would have had very few children with the level of ASN we have now.
When I was at school we had no assistants in the playground and just got on with it, only going to see the 'auxillary' if we fell over. That wouldn't be possible now because of the number of kids who have ASN.

What can be done about it?

Getting funding up to a good level would take ages even if a government suddenly had the money and desire.

Knee jerk reaction reading this thread would be parents need ti be sanctioned; not the kids. But how? And I don't seem to remember it worked well when parents went to prison for skiving children. It affects the entire family. And resources to fine parents and everything else costs money. And it seems extreme.

But what ? What can be the catalyst for change with such widespread anti social behaviour?

Ex teacher here. There are so many of these threads about schools recently and always there’s a general consensus of ‘shitty parenting, shitty children/behaviour’ but I personally think this is far too simplistic and naive a response. Too black and white.

The issues run much deeper and are far more complex. I think we need to be looking at what is going wrong systemically here. There are so many issues in the UK today with poverty and mental health issues in families. Access to phones and social media (by children/teens) has been mentioned by a PP which I think is a big part of this too. The education system itself is also to blame. It is chronically underfunded and is out of date and irrelevant to today’s young people. There’s a lot of pressure on kids in school today (& on the teachers which then filters down to the kids) and at a time in their lives when they’re going through huge hormonal changes. The whole idea of ‘school’ needs an overhaul for the 21st century.

Username The reality is having a child is 100% a choice in this country. We are not living in Afghanistan. 14 year old old girls are not forced into marriages with old men and raped and forced to give birth. Having a child is a choice. Unfortunately the shitty parents can afford to have kids. Lots of very decent, hard working men and women cannot. They cannot afford to stop working and often don’t have idle parents who’s sole ethos is to scrounge off the tax payer. I see this on a regular basis through the job I do. Neither parent works yet they can afford to have children ( always plural). Their parents usually don’t work either. They are lucky, they can help out with their grandchildren. So what parenting skills do they bring to the table?
The intents are to blame. No excuses.

I was about to ask this.
I teach and can vouch for behaviour and attitude having changed post Covid, but also think that the impact of phones is coming through now.
Lack of concentration, focus etc- a real apathy from lots of kids.

Totally. I’ve worked in several schools.
Lots of parents don’t want their children challenged or told off. Some staff are scared to follow through because of the parents (I worked for one Head who wasn’t and it was great to watch). Students literally on the cusp of being permanently excluded and mum still denying they do anything wrong at all (despite being the town menace).

Not just lack of support staff but hard to recruit now especially as they are paid so poorly. Lots of behavioural stuff is done by them. When there are cuts they are first to go, it will only get worse.

I don’t think the way primaries tackle bad behaviour helps either. In my DDs primary the badly behaved kids were rewarded for not being naughty briefly, constantly picked for all the good trips out etc. guess who are still awful in secondary.

Covid has made it all worse.

Trust me, unless they are your children you don't know. I have taught many children whose home lives would be a major shock to you despite the outward appearances of the families.

"Unless people actively intervene to break the cycle! Do you honestly think the kids want to be shitty and grow up to have a shitty life? 🙄"

I think it's all they know unfortunately. I don't think kids think that far ahead anyway.

Yes. I work a PRU and we have some specialist staff who are the behaviour experts for the area, working with schools on early intervention etc.

There are some schools, in "rougher" areas who have always used our support quite heavily and who are also experts themselves.

What we've seen over the last year or so is desperate pleas from "good" schools that haven't saved these sorts of behaviour problems before.

It’s not though as the child who has been sent out and receives no sanction often repeats the behaviour to get the reward.

I have 20 years of teaching experience and I have recently been told by a child ‘I don’t care if you send me to Mr X because he’ll play football with me’

With no sanctions in place, going to SLT was the last resort, now it’s seen as fun.

Not only does it not fix the existing issue, it creates a new one when the next level of children who may not have behaved poorly pre-covid and prior to the rise in restorative practice, suddenly becoming disruptive.

Whereas in the past they would have seen sanctions being given to others and this was enough to of a deterrent in the past, this isn’t really happening anymore.

Instead they are seeing repeat offenders ‘get away with it’ and more of these children who in the past wouldn’t have been disruptive are becoming more and more challenging.

haven't seen these behaviours before....