To ask teachers about disruptive behaviour in secondary schools?

[mimblewimble]

I hear of so many teachers leaving the profession, or describing how they work in extremely stressful conditions, with student behaviour being awful and seemingly getting worse.

My kids report so much disruption in class at their school, which is apparently one of the best local state schools.

As I write this I'm thinking I'm probably BU just for asking teachers anything as I'm sure you don't have loads of spare time and mental energy!

But I'm interested in what teachers would like to see done to tackle behaviour in secondary schools - are there changes that you think would help?

Or do you work in a school where the behaviour is good, and if so why do you think that is?

*paying to win at life

This would be understandable if it wasn't for the fact that pupils don't want to learn the skills that allows them to do the interesting or creative bits.
And yes I taught a practical subject.

We can thank Gove for making it so dull. And for killing Literature and reducing it to a memory test. And for getting rid of tiers in English, so some kids are doomed to fail before they even sit the exam. Shakespeare I will happily defend. But deciding that the only good novels to be studied by 20th c teens must be written by British authors before 1900, and that a huge number of poems need to be learned......

Definitely not designed to foster a lifelong love of Literature. Or maintain A Level numbers.

I left FE teaching after 17 happy years mostly, never had many issues with the students. I did have some issues with a few students on lower level courses but management were reluctant to punish them as they got extra funding and wouldnt suspend them or take action so they carried on mostly.

Oh for goodness sake this isn’t shaming a girl for what she’s wearing. @JudgeJ was there to help with mock interviews. Surely part of that help is pointing out (as she did, gently and in private, so not humiliating anyone) that the girl’s outfit was not appropriate for a formal job interview. If the girl was only 15 and had never been for an interview she might not have known. I am sure @JudgeJ would have said something similar to a boy who turned up in tracksuit bottoms full of holes with his arse hanging out.

And sure, some employers wouldn’t care what you are wearing - but in the real world some would immediately mark you down for not coming appropriately dressed, and it would be remiss of @JudgeJ not to let the children she is supposed to be coaching know this.

Funnily enough a thread about disruptive behaviour in secondary has a huge focus on ridiculing what girls are wearing as if girls and their chosen clothes are a major contributor to disruptive behaviour in secondary?

Of course then there are the feckless state school parents who don't care about their dc's education and just buy their DDS thongs instead of pens. And classy fee paying students who are a dream to teach and whose parents are so glad they don't mingle with the out of control state school students.

Ok 😂

@DrRuthGalloway shared the most educated and insightful contributions. It's very uncomfortable to read about middle class middle aged women focusing obsessively and unhealthily on what young school girls are wearing as if that's the actual problem in education today. But sure, let's blame girls and their short skirts. 😜Very clever. This thread has become rather silly.

This is spot on.

Hardly any posts are about girls uniform. You read what you want to read, I guess.

You read what you want to read, I guess.
And you ignore what you want to ignore, I suppose?

There* *are plenty of bitchy posts here about school girls. It's interesting to see classicism and internalised misogyny, probably from people who claim they're feminists and left leaning. The disgusted 'oh we can see sanpro under their skirts' and what about the chairs they sit on with things. Sounds like an immature teenage boy talking not women, many of whom have gone through childbirth. There are issues with behaviour in schools, due to a range of societal and individuals factors. There may even be an issue with unsuitable clothing and uniform. But the disgusted and sneery tone about teenage girls is pathetic.

I suspect there is limited merit in engaging with this as you seem slightly obsessed with “policing what girls wear” but a) this issue has been a tiny part of the discussion on this 17 page thread, which has mostly been about disruption, forgetting equipment, backchat and weak school leadership, and b) those posters who have mentioned it have said very sensible things, principally that girls are not complying with the uniform rules and their parents (who chose the school, knowing the uniform rules) are complaining when they are sanctioned. No-one has mentioned parents buying their children thongs instead of pens.

It’s a very champagne socialist view, isn’t it - sounds incredibly principled, talking about not judging women/girls by what they are wearing, but in actual fact shouting “misogyny” at anyone who dares to suggest (however gently) that certain outfits are appropriate in certain environments serves to keep the less advantaged kids in their place by NOT letting them learn the rules most of society lives by. This makes it harder for them to get a job and more likely that they will spend their lives reliant on the state. Of course the champagne socialist’s child doesn’t need to worry about this because, for all their parent’s high and mighty proclamations, they know exactly what they should wear for an interview at medical school, at an art gallery, at a think tank, a hedge fund or wherever they want to work.

My child was attacked by a violent child when aged 10. She had schoolfriends around the next week and they were all telling me how bad it was as the bully had got away with it and nothing had happened. The school reassured me that the bully had had reflected on their actions with a pupil support teacher and promised not to do it again but to the class it appeared nothing had happened, there were no consequences and pupils could do what they liked,

Sometimes it’s important that consequences have to be seen to have been doled out, so pupils know that staff have their back. And yes the restorative conversation had no effect and the bully was attacking again in no time!

This makes it harder for them to get a job and more likely that they will spend their lives reliant on the state.
😬

And you know what? Some kids are, in your words, "pretty dim" at maths. In fact about 40 percent of kids don't get a grade 4 or above in maths.

I hope you aren't a maths teacher with your poor understanding of bell curves of ability or facility with maths reasoning. Do you genuinely believe that every single child who doesn't pass maths it's their own fault because they paid zero attention since primary school?

Over promotion of often (too) young , inexperienced, self- serving, career-hungry individuals into positions of leadership that are beyond their capabilities adds to the overall toxicity of institutions and exacerbates problems discussed in other posts.

Every word! You must be a teacher?

Years ago, when I was a teacher, my GP asked me what I did for a living. I told him I worked at a certain tough local school. He said: "Well, I'd call that a self-inflicted injury!".

Totally agree @DrRuthGalloway it’s so offensive to suggest that children who can’t pass maths are all failing to put enough effort in.

My son works hard but will probably only get a 5 in maths because he just cannot understand the more advanced questions. And I would argue that he is not “dim” just middle ability. He can do prime factorisation, trigonometry, gradients of graphs, probability trees and lots of other stuff that requires a reasonable degree of intelligence (by most people’s standards). He just cannot do the super hard questions which seem to take up a large proportion of the higher paper, hence only requiring a low percentage to pass.

Thank you, at least a few people understand what I did, nothing was said in front of anyone else. Part of a teacher's role is to prepare pupils for life beyond the school gates and that includes the good and the bad. As for 'pubic pelmet', that's something we tended to use about ourselves, back in the days when we were allowed a sense of humour!

There is nothing wrong with what you did.
Some posters are just looking for things to moan about.

My son was the same. Just did not understand the higher level questions. He did the foundation paper and got a 5. If he had sat the higher paper he would have been totally demoralised as he would have struggled with most of the content. Interestingly, he is now studying a level 3 extended diploma in engineering which is very maths heavy. It has a lot if A level physics and maths content. The difference is he is interested in the subject and the maths and physics taught relates directly to the engineering principles he is being taught and he can see how the maths is applied. It isn’t about learning and regurgitating a maths concept for the sake of it. It has real world application and makes it more interesting and understandable.

Well done to your son. Mine will be overjoyed with a 5 in maths next summer. He is also planning to do a level 3 extended diploma next year and is looking forward to studying something more applied that he is interested in.

My son is well behaved but I can totally understand that kids get frustrated when they are struggling with the GCSE content.

I plan to come back and read this entire thread but don't have time so this partly a placemarking comment.

I was educated in another country but I often wonder if class sizes are a problem? what were class sizes like 20 years ago? I feel that classes of 31 students is, potentially, a lot.

But mostly I agree that ther eis less support and respect from parents for the school and teachers. We have had some issues with DS and behaviour at school for lots of reasons. Wht I have found quite strange is that every time I speak to one of the teachers and we discuss the problem, the sanction and the remedy - at school and at home - I am thanked for listening or "taking on board" or "supporting the school". And this is even if I've pushed back a little as DS has SEN and sometimes the behaviour is a result.

But then, I remember that in one early incident where DS was attacked by some bullies from his primary school, the parents of those bullies were crazy people wh were always whining about something and I suspect gave the school a really hard time when they were suspended for attacking DS. So perhaps sthe teachers really are grateful that I listen, engage and support (almost all) sanctions.

And you know what, DS is in year 9 now and we've seen a complete transformation over the last term. I put this down to a combination of efforts from him, us and the school, working together.

The curriculum content is a problem.

It's actually a problem at both ends of the ability range.

I used to teach maths in an admittedly fairly leafy school.

Every year we would have teens who could not access any of the gcse (even at foundation level) and did the entry level maths qualification. For those who don't know entry level maths comes at level 1,2 and 3. Level 1 is roughly equal to reception, level 2 to year 1 and level 2 to year 2.

Every year we would also put in about half of the top set for an additional gcse called "additional maths" which was basically the start of a level maths.

results.ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/gcse/additional-mathematics.php?v=20230817

The gcse in maths, even with the foundation and higher papers, is too hard for some students and too easy for others.

Other schools put their top sets in for statistics gcse. That's because top sets are usually capable of sitting the gcse and getting a 9 by the end of year 10 and you need to do something to keep them occupied.

In maths there used to be an intermediate paper where you couldn't get the really high grades. But it got abolished. Now students who are in the foundation/higher borderline either sit foundation and are capped at a 5 or sit higher, accept they won't be able to do at least 50% of the paper but maybe get a 6.

It's a crapshoot to be honest.

Science is somewhat similar in that higher ability students can sit triple, but everyone else has to do double. There used to be a single for the lower ability students but it got abolished.

@Octavia64 some schools don't offer triple science regardless of ability either

What does EFSM mean ? Thanks

Hi what does EFSM mean? Thanks