To think teachers should wear body cams

[Ffs555]

Rail staff are wearing them, Wetherspoons staff had them on when I went in, it's becoming more common luckily.
I know it isn't a foolproof solution but I think it would stop so many behavioural incidents.
There are signs up in many public facing workplaces saying abuse won't be tolerated, yet it seems teachers/support staff are expected to put up with it 'because they're just kids'.
I used to be a teacher, was threatened by a pupil, he got half a day in internal exclusion and that was it. I had a year 11 pupil make death threats about another teacher in front of me.
I've had another year 11 male pupil walk up to me and grab the mouse out of my hand when I was on the pc.
However have got off lightly compared to many teachers. Still, we're sworn at constantly and verbally abused.
I have left teaching unfortunately due to the behaviour, my new role is much less stressful.
You practically have to bring a weapon into a school to get permanently excluded, schools don't like to permanently exclude due to costs and reputation.
We used to have a very difficult pupil who brought in a fake weapon one day. The headteacher himself said unfortunately it wasn't a real one, otherwise we could have excluded him permanently.
Anyway, I don't know what the solution is, all this restorative conversation stuff doesn't work. Kids don't care about a detention or even a day's exclusion in a lot of cases.

@MrsHamlet - is it likely that Bob is going to be a useful member of society?

Less flippantly, I will ask another stupid question. Children arrive from primary schools. Do they arrive with these problems in regulation or do they develop them in secondary?

@bombastix Bob has been like this since primary but he's bigger and more dangerous now.

He's very good with his hands and can be perfectly pleasant when he is getting his own way. I like him. His behaviour is appalling though.

Sounds like Bob has a bully dad

There are multiple ACEs. I get it. Doesn't make any of his actions acceptable though.

No. Depressing

@Lavender14 you still seem to be saying 'oh but reasons' for what is generally violent, abusive behaviours and expect teachers and other pupils to accept all the horrors they are being put through and have the floopy, 'oh I really need to accept why Timmy, is threatening me and other kids with a knife and why he's called me a fucking slag and destroyed the classroom'? Who cares about the 29 other kids and their disrupted education? As long as Timmy stays in school!'

@Lavender14

I didn't say they shouldn't be 'safeguarded', although that's a ridiculous word. In the real world we live in, where funding is limited and behavioural problems are increasing all the time, there's a conflict between the rights of children and teachers to be safe from violence at school vs the rights of violent children to be in school. It shouldn't be controversial that the right to safety trumps the right to 'education' (in quotes because most of the antisocial/violent ones are getting no education to speak of anyway).

I imagine that the teachers you train are pretty pissed off at the attitude that it should be part of their job to deal with antisocial behaviour and violence. And rightly so.

@Lavender14
The problem with "there are reasons" for the behaviour is that the reasons are very rarely sorted and there is a point at which the "reasons" excuse stops being an excuse and they go into wider society and are violent there.

The training I do is safeguarding based predominantly, so it's absolutely part of their job.

I totally agree with your point that there's a conflict there but I just feel that the frustration should be directed more at the current system and the government for the lack of funding than at the pupils themselves which is how it comes across at times through this thread.

@MyGooseisTotallyLoose of course there needs to be a balance, as I said I work with a very high threshold so I'm weighing that up daily. But I've only ever once got to the point where I've had to move a young person to 2-1 working because we've been able to get to the root of the problem and that's often involved using other professionals in the process. I don't see schools doing that in the same way where they could be and that is a problem. As part of my assessment for new students coming on to our program I need to find out what support hasn't been trialled in school to help them sustain and some really basic things aren't even being attempted. It shouldn't really get to the point where nothing is being attempted and its left to the level I work at before things are tried. But again that's a systemic problem and in part due to class size. But again, I think that's a failing on the education system and government for lack of budgeting than it is the fault of a pupil who isn't coping with the status quo.

I don't see schools doing that in the same way where they could be and that is a problem.

I have classes of 32. There is simply no time to get to the root of Bob's problem whilst also trying to teach the 31 other students in the room.

I am sympathetic up to the point where Bob is fucking up everyone else's opportunities as well as his own.

@Lavender14

I see this every time this comes up for discussion - the claim that people are simply blaming the poor children on the one hand, and the claim that more funding will solve the problem on the other.

The people actually taking most of the blame are the parents, headteachers and Ofsted, from what I can see. Yet you don't mention them at all? I've also been blaming the system, the government and the teacher's unions. You don't mention the unions at all either, yet they're doing nothing to protect their members.

This is not simply a funding problem, far from it. It's a policy built on an ideology that's also rampant in the criminal justice system. It views perpetrators as victims and places their rights above those of their actual victims. That policy of not allowing exclusions, and forcing schools to take pupils excluded from other schools, is the fundamental problem.

As to the safeguarding training, it's again just part of turning teachers into social workers and an education system into an extension of social work/containment. I perfectly understand why they might be pissed off about it. Except of course they're not allowed to say that because they'll be accused of lacking compassion.

@Lavender14 yes, you and your colleagues are doing an amazing jobs and mainstream teachers are rude, uncaring failures..
Perhaps this is because they're trying to you know 'teach' and youve got amazing resources like 18 in a class and the ability to offer 2-1 classroom support?

I'm not a teacher though am assuming the above, @MrsHamlet (apologies for tag!) Does your school have the staff to provide 2:1 staff to pupils?

I would be absolutely fine with this & fine for my child’s class/school to have CCTV. Not that I think anything would be done about all the feral & wild kids though.

Does it hell!!!!!

We have a student who has an EHCP specifying 2:1. 2 days before the end of half term and it's not happened yet.

And before I get shouted down for our failure to meet his needs, the magic TA tree is dead. Deader than a door nail.

I just feel that the frustration should be directed more at the current system and the government for the lack of funding than at the pupils themselves which is how it comes across at times through this thread.

No, it's not lack of funding in schools. You could throw all the money you like at the problem, and pupils will still be aggressive and violent. (Not all of them, obviously).

The fault is in current attitudes towards child upbringing, which is perpetuated from one generation to the next.

'Gentle' parenting, trying to keep calm in all situations, even when little Johnny is trashing the house. It has a knock on effect at school.

I didn't say that teachers were rude uncaring failures. I said they were burnt out and overworked and under resourced. You're twisting what I did say. We do teach. I work in a team of 2. So when it's 2-1 that is literally all that we can offer and we need to put other things on hold to do it. When there's sickness we don't have the resource to cover it, I run things alone. And again every single one of the young people I work with are extremely high risk. So it's very full on and I do understand the pressure that goes with that. The differences I think is the support I personally receive that isn't available to teachers in mainstream and that's not right.

Your resourcing is the issue not the pupil is my point. And I agree with @Pollyputhekettleon that unions need to do more to promote the requirements and needs of their members and other bodies need to step up to the plate.

I didn't include parents because the children I work with don't have parents who engage with us at all or aren't well enough to be remotely helpful when they do. So essentially they're a moot point in the context of my role.

God yes I've seen this gentle parenting thing in practice and the results are horrible at the margins (obviously many children will turn out fine regardless). Although I suspect parental social media addition is feeding into it as well.

Absolutely this. The argument that it works in specialist provision is preaching to the converted. Teachers know children with significant needs would be much better off in a specialist provision with a tiny class.

The expectation that a teacher with a class of 32 and a basic classroom with no resources should achieve the same is insulting to say the least.

@Lavender14 are you a teacher and if so, when did you last work in mainstream under the pressures teachers are currently experiencing?

Children behaving in a disturbing manner should be flagged up and tracked onto some professional intervention - long term, possibly throughout secondary.
This isn't an intervention that should be carried out by, or funded by, individual schools. It need a government funded, properly trained child psychotherapy response in every major town to break the chain and stop this.

I often work alongside a very poorly funded, understaffed, education intervention scheme. The 15 year olds coming through have been in lockdown from 11-13, and it shows. The one's coming through to 15 now are much worse in ability to engage than any teens I've worked with in 15 years. They have horrific communication skills (many non verbal / won't even say their name as a PP said), no motivation, no discipline. I believe that this particular lot lost any guidance that they might have had during the first two years at secondary due to lockdown and as it has made the behavioural problem a whole lot worse in recent years.

They shouldn't be in school as they are nowhere near 'ready to learn'. It is pointless them being there. They need professional help in a different setting to address whatever is creating this behaviour and sort it out. I also believe a very positive, adult male influence on many of these young people is severely lacking and needs to be put in place. They may have dads around but they aren't good role models. The chain needs to be broken.

Partly because headteachers are reluctant to involve the police because they are more concerned about the reputation of the school than the safety of individual pupils. Partly because the police haven't got the manpower.

In my job, I occasionally get trouble. Only once in five years have I been touched, though I seem to get threatened every few months. Occupational hazard, some people don't like paying for things and alcohol doesn't help. In spite of how infrequent this happens, I still wear a BWC every day. It really makes a difference when it comes to prosecuting the miscreants, they are far more likely to plead guilty with the audio/video evidence captured.

For what it's worth I don't think that teachers wearing BWCs is the solution, they'd be quite distracting. I think that fixed CCTV needs to be extended to classrooms (when I went to school cameras were just in corridors) and possibly include audio too. The priority though needs to be getting headteachers to take assaults seriously and use the sanctions available to them.

Personally I can easily believe that violence is rife in schools today. Society has become so namby pamby toward kids, allowing them to run riot, and literally get away with murder. We often hear on MN about people having events spoiled by badly behaved kids, who's parents think they can do no wrong. Kids who visit the homes of others, and behave appallingly. Kids who are allowed to run around screaming in restaurants while adults sit shaking their heads unable to do anything about it, because they fear getting a mouthful or worse from the parents. Kids have been telling adults that 'they know their rights' for decades now, our teachers have no 'teeth' when it comes to discipline, there is a distinct shortage of police, so it seems that no one is really able to sort the badly behaved kids out anymore. I know that in the days when teachers could meet out physical punishment, there was sometimes the opportunity for them to go too far, but kids have no fear of authority these days, and in my opinion, if you're not afraid of anything, and there are no real consequences for bad behaviour, then this is what we have to expect.

I teach UKS2 so 9-11 year olds. My year group this year is lovely. Usual issues with persistent low level disruption from a small number but it's a breeze compared to what I've dealt with previously.

The problem is that, in many cases, we know (or have a good idea of) the root causes of persistently violent behaviour - it's usually unmet SEND that we simply don't have the resources to manage in mainstream school because of the rigours of the timetable/curriculum, expectations in primary school, unsuitable staff:pupil ratios or limited space. Or it's a result of ACES - parents in prison, drug abuse, physical/emotional/sexual abuse which requires years of intensive therapy to address - not something a class teacher can resolve in a 5 min chat at lunchtime.

We, as many schools do, pay to bring in psychotherapists, play therapists, counsellors etc. But it's a drop in the ocean. We have nurture groups and a robust behaviour policy but I am also expected to get a % of my child to GD. I have children with EHCPs who are entitled to 121 support (which we don't have the staffing for) who get 321 support instead for an hour a day so we have to manage their educational needs within class. Whilst also supporting the children who struggle to access the curriculum due to EAL, generally low ability without SEND. I don't have a TA and haven't for 4 years.

This year, I haven't had, nor do I expect, violent behaviour from any of my children but last year was a very different matter. I was physically and/or verbally assaulted on an a daily basis. There are parents we can't speak to alone because of their behaviour and threats towards us.

Nothing is done because the bottom line is every child has the right to an education. Even the children who behave violently. That's why there is the push to not exclude. The evidence required to support an exclusion is immense. We have to evidence that we have done absolutely everything we could have done to prevent it. Due to the lack of funding/resources, there is inevitably more that could have theoretically been done but little that could practically have been done. So many exclusions aren't upheld anyway.

We had children last year who would attack teachers, attack their peers, racially abuse staff and other children, trash the classrooms, cause lessons to he abandoned and classroom evacuated.

Excluding is unpopular because where do they go? There aren't enough alternative provisions for them to get a more suitable school place; it's just passing the problem on to a different school, different adults and different children. It doesn't solve the problem. Or a new school can't be found so they spend ll day at home with the adults and in the environment that has caused their issues in the first place and that's a safeguarding risk to them.

The problem is regarded as beginning and ending with schools.

I have always said that I would report to the police if I was seriously assaulted by a child or parent (we have had parents who would also trash classrooms and make threats of physical violence towards staff) but its difficult because we have to keep the needs and rights of the child at the centre of everything we do. And involving the police would be seen as a hostile move.

I don't know whether that would be viewed differently at secondary school where the students are nearing adulthood but I suspect not.

I've worked previously in an alternative provision and they don't see the same level of violent behaviour because the whole school infrastructure is set up to manage it. Small classes, large staff:pupil ratios. I worked in one where any disruption would be dealt with by immediate removal of that child from class. We had walkie talkies. In mainstream schools, you request support and it doesn't come because there can be 5 members of staff already dealing with other serious incidents. So you and your class are left to deal with it alone unless you can send a child to another classroom for help when their teacher will allow your entire class to be evacuated to their classroom meaning learning is disrupted for two classes.

I know de-escaltion techniques. Sometimes it works but there are some children who actively resist. Some who will disengage md react further when they realise they are starting to calm down!

And we are constantly reminded that all children have a right to an education regardless of how distasteful we find their behaviour. We're expected to just take it ad deal with it. Bruises and scratches are part of the job.