To think change is desperately needed in schools?

[GibberingPeck]

I work with young children. Today I was hit twice and scratched on the face so hard it drew blood. This has not happened to me before and I’ve worked in schools for many years. I was trying to stop a child hurting another child. The school’s stance seems to be that I shouldn’t have intervened or somehow dealt with the situation badly. I think they saw I was bleeding, but ignored it as they have so much to deal with. This year, I think I’ve seen more violent and aggressive behaviour from children than I’ve ever seen. And no way of dealing with it - it seems to have become acceptable or ‘the norm’.

I think there a few reasons

• fast moving screens - these stimulate a chemical in a child's brain which creates a kind of addiction to the screens, they literally crave them, as a PP mentioned, normal social interactions just can't match up
• inclusion - there has been a huge push for this, when often it meets the needs of neither the child with SEN or those without. The concept was to improve understanding of those with disabilities, but unfortunately the opposite can be true. A child with ASD repeatedly hit my daughter and she was told to just put up with it as the child couldn't help it. My amazing daughter who had also been so supportive of children of all abilities in her class, became anxious and withdrawn and visibly shaken by this child's presence.
• the 'Google dr' - previously people mainly followed the educated advice of health professionals around toilet training, speech development etc. Now everyone is an 'expert'!

I really feel for school staff, their hands seem to be tied by so much red tap and political correctness.

My friend is a teacher. She teaches year 4. On Friday, she was called a fat slag. She also had to deal with a group of boys calling others gay several times.
Today, she broke up a playground fight and when they got back into class one of her class threw a chair and she had to step in front of the child it was aimed at. Luckily she batted at away with her hand but it could have really hurt her or the child.

This is all a fairly regular occurrence for her. She's been teaching a long time but she's exhausted physically and mentally now. She came round tonight to talk it through and she's in pieces. If it was an occasional thing, she'd be fine but it's a constant stream of it.

You're a couple of decades out there. There should have been no physical punishments in the late 80s and 90s. Caning was banned in 1986

The dad went to work to provide for the family and the mother stayed at home. Not now. Everyone is on the want so therefore need two wages. The price of housing is out of control so again needs both parents working. I think this has a lot to do with lack of discipline in schools.

I'd like to add a child focused thought on this

Children who are being violent at school are dysregulated and unhappy - we are expecting children to be completely sedentary for most of their day now from about 5 years old (year 1) - and focus on very very dull, sedentary skills of reading and writing.

It is totally developmentally inappropriate - and NOT how it is done in most european countries

There would be less poor behaviour if children were spending a lot more time playing/ running about outdoors with peers engaged in play based learning.

Our kids is boxed in, unhappy and struggling - and there will be some who are just literally not ready to sit down all day (and why should any young child spend hours sitting down - totally against our nature as mammals)

it's no surprise kids with poor regulation are lashing out - I feel sorry for teachers yes but I also feel sorry for all the children.

Exactly.

I was shopping the other day when a small child started being really rude to me, telling me not to push in (I absolutely want), then pointing and staring and telling me I was mean etc etc etc. I told her to stop pointing at me and replied she was rude when she said I was really mean when I'd had enough, her dad raised her voice and told me not to argue with her as she was a child. Said child was pulling the displays apart and cartwheeling in the aisles also. There is no hope for teachers when parents don't parent.

But this has mainly always been the case hasn’t it? Why the sudden change?

Someone mentioned a year 4 boy - so - a boy of 8 or 9. A child that age should be spending HOURS running around - how much is he getting really? May be arriving at school sitting down most of the day and going home and sitting in front of screens - of course he is behaving appallingly - this is no way to bring kids up. We have a mental and physical health crisis in our children.

And sad as it is for teachers, the first question should be to look at how children are feeling and how we are failing them - especially when they are this young.

I started school aged 4. I sat down all day reading and writing. We all did as we were told and no one asked any of the kids “how they felt”. We were kids and adults were adults

This! It’s so hard to get anyone to see children now. Any support takes months or even years to get. Budgets are cut so classes who would have had 1 or 2 TAs 12 years ago, now are lucky to even have a few hours support. All the social emotional and behavioural needs on top too- it’s just impossible for 1 person to manage. You can’t support a child to regulate if needed because you also have another 25-30+ to teach.

But that doesn’t answer why they start school delayed. The problem is there from the moment many of them arrive. Why?

And what do you propose should happen?

@GoodnightAdeline it hasn't always been the case. School has only been around 150 years in any form at all - and it's only in the last 10/20 years that children have stopped playing in their own streets/ neighbourhoods - with rise of traffic and screens. Also if you ask people who have been teaching a long time they will say the cirriculum is much more pressured at an early age now.

but while children could play out regularly near home - they had that movement / play at least.

Dread to think. I saw two little ones out for lunch with their mums the other day- about 2 years old if that. Even when their food came out, the children were stuck staring at mobile phones playing loud cartoons. I just don’t get the massive reliance some parents have on their phones to manage their children. It’s so sad. I saw the same happen 2 weeks before but with 2 older children - no one spoke to them, they just sat in the cafe eating and watching the phone.

I think they START delayed because of screens and lack of community/ not enough time playing outdoors at ages of 1/ 2/ 3/ before school. And because parents lack social/ community spaces - ie. sure start centres - before sure start there was actual communities! community hubs. council estate community centres, parks /playgroups/ before that women didn't work as much and would have spent a lot more time with other parents

got to wonder also if childcare isn't always good enough ie. nursery before school.

I think because they are not being given opportunities to learn how to self regulate at an early age
When I was young, if I got overwhelmed, I was given the opportunity to seek options to calm myself - run around the garden, look at a book, some quiet play, jump on a bed, hug with mum. But now if a child is upset, so often a parent puts something on their phone to calm their child - and this is no judgement as I have done it myself many times. But children become so reliant on these things to regulate, that when they don't have access to them, they struggle to regulate themselves.

We are so 'helicopter' risk averse now, that children in turn take on our anxiety and are constantly on 'high alert' on 'fight or flight'

Dunno. The genie is out of the bottle. I’m just saying how it used to be

I have friends who are teachers and what they tell me horrifies me. The worst were SEN staff being attacked literally daily and being told it was part of the job. The other horror story was a teenage child bringing a knife to school with the stated intention to injure other children, being suspended and then the suspension being overturned because it wasn't serious enough to suspend him.

The social contract is breaking down 100%.

I mean. Look at the threads on here. Someone the other day posted that their ASD child had hit them and they had simply walked away. One commenter said losing your cool at this child is abusive because “they can’t help it”.
surely stuff like this is part of the problem? Allowing your kids to hit you and excusing it due to their ASD… parents just seem so overwhelmed and there’s not enough time and no one is coping

I also think that the unpaid labour of women in the home AND the community was a large part of what kept society functional in the past.

This.

Development has fundamentally changed by screen time and we know nothing about the implications.

My kids watch some tv most days and play switch at weekends, so I’m not in favour of no screens, but it scares me how much tiny babies are on screens now.

Under 2s on the bus, at tables, in playgrounds…places they could be occupied by the place, the parent, stickers, colouring, water painting…I think the constant screen time is kind of like bubble wrap for developing brains. They’re simply not getting the sensory or social stimulation they need to develop.

I know people will come along and say Would I prefer them to run around screaming then? No, I’d rather they were imaginatively occupied most of the time, and I couldn’t care less about yelling, or crying, or jumping about, or needing to be told off, because that’s what kids are meant to do. They literally need it to learn how to do life.

I’m convinced that the problems with language acquisition and speech are linked to some adults’ behaviour with screens, as well as plonking their babies on them and not interacting with them. Pretty much everywhere I go , I see adults with small children glued to their phones : in supermarkets, public transport, cafes, restaurants, walking along with prams… Children won't learn to speak unless adults interact with them and watching tv/being on a phone won’t help children acquire language properly.

As a secondary teacher, I can really see the speech deficits playing out in terms of not understanding how turn-taking / waiting your turn in conversation works, shouting out in class when a teacher is talking to another student or not being able to listen to others. I would note, though, that there are many more children coming through with the SAL difficulties associated with premature birth. Sadly, these children would not have survived in earlier times so it isn’t surprising that there’s an increase in profound difficulties with these children and support has been cut to the bone under the austerity measures. We are also seeing many children with these difficulties in mainstream when what they need and deserve are specialist settings.

OP, I’m so sorry that you are experiencing physical violence at work - no one should have to accept that in their workplace and how distressing for you and the other children that witnessed it. 💐

I agree with all this

IME, diagnosible conditions are not responsible for the worst behaviours in mainstream schools.

Yes, they can be challenging and it's shit because maybe those behaviours wouldn't occur as often if they were in a more appropriate environment where their needs were more appropriately met.

But a significant number of children who display the worst behaviours are the direct product of poor parenting and parental choices.

Parents who themselves have unmet trauma needs who are unable to regulate their own emotions who create an emotionally unstable home environment. My daughter has a friend whose mother would frequently tell her daughter to fuck off and kill herself. SS were involved.

Parents who have 6, 7, 8, 9 children who are overwhelmed and cannot parent adequately. They openly admit their homelives are chaos and then blame the school for their children's behaviour when the children also run riot at home. It didn't occur to any of them that, if they were finding 3 hard going, going on to have a further 3, 4, 5, 6 probably wasn't a good idea.

DV when the mum's won't leave because they don't want their children to come from a broken home. Parents who do leave then introducing their children to a stream of 'friends'.

There are childen who've been abused and who act out. I've been assaulted by children have experienced severe abuse. Pushed up against walls, punched and kicked. The only sense of control they feel is the reign of terror they pursue in school. And I can't do anything to defend myself because its a child.

We are seeing a lot more trauma based poor behaviours in school. Not a choice but completely avoidable had their parents been adequate in the first place.

I can think of so many things that have happened this week and conversations I've had with parents but I wouldn't detail them because it would be unprofessional to do so as those parents would recognise themselves if they read it.

But I am utterly agog at some of the things some parents expect me to be responsible, and take responsibility, for.

Only I'm not allowed to say any of this, not allowed to 'shame', not even on here really, where its all anonymous because it's judgemental and I've no right to stand in judgement and do I not understand how difficult it is..?

Children know their rights. We've had pupils saying "I know how to get you fired". Quite a few of the children with behaviour issues have to have 2:1 support as you never know what they might claim has happened.

A parent told my friend that her child misbehaved in her class because her lessons were boring. Children are used to being entertained non stop by stuff on screens so assume education is just a continuation of this. It isn't