Disruptive kids in class

[Strangerfings1]

My DC year 4 hates school and it's because of the behaviour or a few kids in their class. At the end of year 2 the classes in the year were mixed. I think because all the "naughty" kids were in the same form. Now we have a bunch of disruptive kids, including 1 with SN who sometimes gets violent when he's wound up (which another kid Seems to enjoy doing) a couple who are sort of easily distracted and get "sucked in" to playing up and 1 particular child who's behaviour is frankly a nightmare. Now I assume this child has difficulties of some sort so this isn't a blame thing but is there anything I can ask the school to do? Some examples of the behaviour of this child include hitting / attacking other children (even in the classroom!) Getting up, shouting and running around, throwing things and he even ripped all the pages out of the books in the library corner. The whole class regularly miss break time as a punishment, often miss PE due to the threat of fighting in say, football, and end up not really doing any schoolwork because the teacher is having to deal with urgent behaviour issues.
Lots of the other children are either frightened, bored or just resentful for being punished for the behaviour of a few. And I really worry that they're falling behind because they can't get work done.
Is there anything I can ask the school to do, or is it just put up or try and move schools?
Thank you.

There definitely needs to be a major overhaul of the education system as a whole. So many children even from preschool age are incredibly disruptive and stop the rest of the children getting the education they deserve.

Far more specialist education provision needs to be available, for both SEN and behavioural needs. Only children who can sit and learn in main stream with minor support should be there so the other children can concentrate and learn.

Children who can't do this may need support outside of mainstream with teachers who have a passion for certain SEN or behaviour therapies and are able to give those children education in a way that caters for their needs. For many it may be outdoor learning, or active, sensory learning that can't be offered in mainstream with 30 other children. I think all children are being failed by the current system and EHCPs are going to appeal that should really be approved. It should also be much easier to move between the two. A child who can't self regulate and cope in a class room at 5yo may be able to do so and cope at 8yo.

As a parent to 'good' children I find it frustrating they are losing out on possible exam grades that could impact their future choices by disruptive or aggressive classmates. On the other hand I have seen parents of such children at breaking point because they can't get the support their child needs to do the best they can educationally because they system doesn't cater for their needs.

It won't be missing pe due to fighting.

I will bet £1m it is that the issues mean the teacher cannot physically keep the children safe to do PE.

The person you need to advocate to is the SENCO & the head. Something is badly wrong in sen provision if its like this.

As others have said, focus on the effect on your child.
It is completely unacceptable that well behaved children are missing out on PE and breaks because other children cannot behave. This issue should be fixed easily with no whole class detention and the kids who are too badly behaved to play team games sitting with the head while the others play.

Unfortunately a lot of schools pander to the kids who can’t behave and it’s the others who suffer. Moving schools won’t help as you may well find the same situation there.

The more of you who complain the better though. There were lots of complains about the poor behaviour of kids in my daughters class last year (only one of whom has SEN) and they have given them a senior teacher this year and it’s much better.

And just to add the vast majority of disruptive kids are just disobedient little shits with shitty parenting so more SEN provision won’t help them.
More PRU schools would though.

I'm a parent to a 'good' child as you put it who needs significant support. I totally disagree with your assertion that they shouldn't be in mainstream and indeed find it rather ableist.

Many thousands of kids with significant needs thrive in mainstream when the correct support is in place. They shouldn't be relegated to schools that don't provide the range of curriculum that they aspire to and be unable to reach their potential just because they need extra support. SEN is a huge spectrum and many SEN kids are highly intelligent.

Unfortunately, this seems almost the norm these days. There's not enough money for extra support staff and no where near enough specialist school places.

I've recently left the education sector because of this.

Go to the head teacher and explain all your worries for your child. The class teacher will probably be so thankful for you raising it. Mind you, support for teaching staff relies on an effective SLT ....... hence why I left!

Keep it about your child, and lead with what is making her feel less safe in school. I think PPs are right, missing PE and breaks are unfair and an ineffective punishment. If it was going to work it would have done so already and would no longer be needed. It is only going to exacerbate the situation because it will further break down the relationship between this lad and his peers.

It's not your job to fix this - it would be patronising to go in with a list of solutions. But you stating the impact on your child formally might actually be quite helpful because it's evidence of the detriment to classmates, which will support the case for the child getting more support. Focus on detriment to your own child. Safety they have to take most seriously but of course you can include impact on their learning time.

Don't go in railing that the child needs to be removed so the good kids can concentrate. Acknowledge how much the teacher is already doing but say that despite this the detriment to your child is significant.

Ah, it's PE that's being spoken about. I thought it was playtime/break time.

Difficult situation.

To be fair, I think both PE and break were mentioned by OP.

If schools were given double the money they currently have, alot of these issues would be eradicated.

More support staff, more CPD for teachers, smaller class sizes. The list goes on.

Experienced senior teachers are becoming too expensive nowadays. Younger, fresher teachers are brought in who are thrown in the deep end. No wonder so many leave within 3 years of qualifying.

It’s an issue because so many schools for children with additional needs were closed due to policy on inclusivity because of the Warnock report . What is interesting is the chair of this enquiry changed their mind on inclusivity after 25 years of the changes when they were clearly not working. There are some children who will thrive in mainstream but there are many who don’t and it’s a disservice to them and their classmates.

I've been on both sides of it as the teacher struggling and as the parent (and Y4 in both cases - it seems to be where the issues really come to a head).

I'd start looking to move your kids to be honest - it was what we ended up doing when DD1 was in this situation, when what had always been a "lively" cohort suddenly seemed to tip over into concerning behaviour anarchy (Covid lockdowns played a huge role in our case - they came back into school and the kids who'd always been challenging had gone completely wild) and physical violence was common along with all sorts of unpleasantness verbally etc. We ended up moving both kids - and yes, the school we moved to isn't all rainbows and unicorns in terms of behaviour, but there's not that situation of behaviour snowballing so the teacher spends most of their day firefighting going on.

From what I gather from other parents who remained with that class - things did not improve with that year group and that core set of individuals were incredibly challenging and disruptive right the way up until they left primary. I'm not sure how they've panned out in Secondary as we made our secondary choices based at least partly on wanting to continue to keep DD away from them.

In a class of thirty a few children will need an EHCP to provide them with additional support but it is very very hard to get one and it takes about a year. It is a hugely beurocratic process with various stages and appeals processes. Parents that get through it then face schools not being able to provide even the funded support. I think the LA design the process to put parents off to be honest. Special schools are now few and far between and tend to be for the most severely disabled children. As a result schools are becoming very stressful environments for teachers and pupils and many parents are being forced to home school.

Our teacher is very young and so probably (although lovely) does lack experience. Maybe that is part of the problem

Hi OP, I am dreadfully sorry but of course education misses out when behaviour has to be the focus.

I had a year 11 class (for an optional subject!) like that last year.

As well as the problems detailed on this thread, thanks to Michael Gove we have a really severe mismatch throughout large parts of the education system between what students are able to learn and what they're supposed to be taught.

By all means get involved but if you feel your child isn't learning what they should be you may need to take matters into your own hands (tutors or DIY).

That is the reality.

Where is the child supposed to go? I guarantee the parents have tried to get specialist provision to be told that their child is fine in mainstream and that there's no funding. There's no middle ground for kids with additional needs it's mainstream or specialist provision but the criteria for specialist provision is very high so kids who have outbursts a few times a day will not get a place.

Agree about the inappropriate curriculum. It's the same at primary. Contributes to poor behaviour. Totally understandable - you're being taught abstract concepts at too young an age and irrelevant content.

Agreed. I had a pupil who would run off the premises. Outdoor PE was off the agenda without and additional adult ... but there was no one available.
We were then dependent on hall space. A lot of the time, there was no availability, so no PE. This in turn leads to worsening behaviour.
It's a shit show. Glad I'm out of it. But also feel very sad about the whole thing.

They can miss it if it's not safe to do though.

anon2134 · Today 11:07

Where is the child supposed to go? I guarantee the parents have tried to get specialist provision to be told that their child is fine in mainstream and that there's no funding. There's no middle ground for kids with additional needs it's mainstream or specialist provision but the criteria for specialist provision is very high so kids who have outbursts a few times a day will not get a place.

I agree with you. And I'm sure the parents are on it. I've met the mum and she is lovely and does seem to be trying her best. She is often at the school, presumably to help out, whenever there is something unusual happening, like sports day or harvest festival for example. But then it's not fair that 29 other kids are all missing out on their education because this 1 kid needs (of course) an education himself. And to the PP suggesting tutoring - can it really be expected that all the other parents find this money? If that was the answer then surely the disruptive kids parents should be the ones who have to get a tutor so they could keep him out of the lessons. I'm not suggesting that's the answer by the way, just showing that expecting everyone else to get one isn't either. It's awful all round.

If there are students like this in a class then there are some things the teacher can do.

There used to be a service that would advise on students with behavioural needs. It may have been cut but the school may be able to ask for that support from the LA if it still exists.

If not, then the advice more generally for the teacher would be to look for what is triggering that behaviour and trying to either avoid if possible or put something in place so that the behaviour doesn't happen.

A fairly obvious example is that many students with SEND find unstructured time difficult. So they might be allowed to come in 10 mins late to avoid the cloakroom maelstrom, etc. or the teacher might set up a group of friends for them to play with at play time.

Most of these are much easier to implement with a TA.

It sounds like the behaviour is sufficiently difficult that they have taken the decision not to allow the class to do PE because of the risk of physical injury.

You could ask that alternative arrangements be set up for PE - for example if there is more than one class in a year then a group of children from both classes do PE one week while the others do art, and then it switches but some students stay in the art class. This could be sold as they are specialising in art, or doing an intervention or whatever.

Keeping them in at break is generally considered bad practice but it does work to moderate behaviour which is why teachers use it.

Realistically if there are multiple students who are like this and there is no additional TA support from the school, the process to apply for additional money from the LA to support the needs of these children is long and time consuming.

In your shoes I would move school.

I would disagree with you on most of this. There is a lot more that can be done in a MS setting than leave an inexperienced teacher to deal with it without an LSA. There are EHCPs to fund one to ones (who can not only help the child within the classroom but make it possible for them to safely go elsewhere if needed) and before EHCPs come through there is emergency top up funding schools can apply for. LAs may have a behaviour team the school can call on for specialist advice, or an EP to make recommendations. The blocker can be that the school has to pay for this out of limited funds, or have a set number of hours per year and be spending them on students seen as higher need.

It is extraordinarily difficult for schools, they are chronically underfunded. Yet some manage this this kind of thing better than others. One SENCo will tell you there will never be extra help for your child because they are not high enough need, another will secure an EHCP and one to one all day long for the same child. One school will tell you there is no possibility of a breakout room for students who can't successfully stay in the classroom, others will make it happen and find funding for an LSA to support children there. LSAs are also a bit of a lottery - they can be absolutely brilliant, skilled experts, but they can also be someone trying to do the best they can without much support or training. Too often it seems to come down to these individuals but it's all underpinned by the school's culture and SLT, and these vary so much.

I think it's impossible at the moment for schools to meet the needs of all the students adequately. Budgets just don't stretch. But some do a lot better than others and it really isn't specialist provision or nothing, especially in primary.

I agree with a lot of what you say @Djimm
There's also the fact that EHCP applications etc. are facing a huge backlog. 2 years is about average in the borough where I teach. To put that in perspective, a child with possible needs will likely be identified in Reception, and the necessary third party evidence for an application likely will take most of that year to collate (applications with insufficient evidence are rejected). So the application goes in just as the child transitions to Y1. It will be Y3 before any funding is available.

In the meantime schools just have to do what we can with dwindling resources and reduced staff numbers.

I think it is odd that they restrict outdoor play ... I can only think that they don't have sufficient extra staff to cope with the children who might pose a danger to themselves or the others. For example, we have lots of climbers and runners and you can't safely manage a class of children while trying to prevent one from scaling a fence.

Education is in crisis and nobody is being served well, sadly.

@Djimm I disagree with you. It's mainstream with maybe some support if funding allows or specialised schooling. We don't have ehcps, we have IEPs that take months, if not a year or longer, to come through. Most kids are on a uep which is not a legal requirement to provide x

Mainstream schools are not equipped to have kids with additional needs.

So while it's difficult for schools, it's difficult for parents and for the children who need more. Other parents/kids don't want them in class, the teachers can't do anything about it and the schools are not in a position to support much which then causes more behavioural issues at school and at home. TAs are thin on the ground and being shared between classes.

Everyone's being let down.

There are lots of things that a school could do, but cancelling PE shouldn't be one of them! The kids obviously need to get some energy out. Do they have any movement breaks or do the daily mile or anything like that?