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?

I agree. I've never really met anyone that does gentle parenting.

I work a lot with families where children are at risk of going in to care. Many of the children in these families have very very poor behaviour in school, low attendance and are generally disruptive and hard to manage. The parenting in these families is generally the opposite of gentle. And it has very detrimental effects on the children's wellbeing and behaviour in the classroom (if they even turn up).

If a teacher says to a parent 'x has been disruptive in my lesson' and the parent doesn't care or disagrees, it doesn't mean it's gentle parenting. It might mean a whole host of other things and it may even be the case that the child is receiving quite the opposite of gentle parenting at home, and perhaps even neglect or abuse.

I cannot comment on secondary but currently year 6 and I can categorically say the main part of my job is the behaviour management of about 4 kids. It literally consumes my day to the detriment of the 24 other kids in the class who I constantly feel like I am failing. My classroom is nowhere near as fun as it usually is as at least one of these 4 kids will ruin it.

The main problem is lack of any meaningful consequences for their awful behavior. The priority is to keep them included and part of class. Which means they never lose out, the only consequence is a reflection on their behavior they then see a token sorry and life goes on to the next big thing they do and it repeats.

Parents don't discipline them, I fact they are the most argumentative parents who blame every aspect of their kids behavior on someone else. Every thing is done with consideration for these children without much regard for the needs of the majority of the class who are losing out.

I am leaving later this academic year but it's to tie in with us relocating. A decision we made largely as I refuse to teach in an inner city school any longer. Don't know if I will teach again as I have been so deeply unhappy the last few years.

I don’t think it’s parenting. I think that’s a bit unfair.

Have you read the examples?
It is parenting when you phone home and the parents don't believe a word and argue against any consequences.

Fundamentally disagree. It’s almost always, (lack of) parenting.

‘What can I do? He just does what he wants, lol’ etc.

Yes ds reports kids in his class (Y9) asking the teacher for equipment and then deliberately breaking it. Wtf?!

DS is autistic and cannot comprehend why these kids deliberately break stuff and disrespect the teachers. I don't enjoy sending him in to this environment, he finds it pretty anxiety-provoking.

I know primary is also an issue - we had one child in dd's class who was regularly physically assaulting other children, throwing scissors at the teacher, stuff like that. Teachers were great but just seemed to be powerless - they were given a walkie-talkie and if he kicked off they radioed for help whilst evacuating all the other children from the classroom. It went on for years. DD used to hide under the table.

Quite prejudice there!

I'm white English and my children are very well behaved and do very well academically, as do many of their peers.

Not all white English people are rude, act out in school and misbehave!

However, we do know academic outcomes for white working class boys in England are worse than for any other group, and there does need to be more focus from the government on supporting this group.

Parent addictions which sadly comes with the rising poverty. It's not gentle parenting to blame it's that people who can't access Mental Health care have given up and the kids have taken over and often had to be the parent at home, so to comply with rules all day seems pointless.

I’ve never heard a parent say this. I have heard parents who are struggling massively themselves for a plethora of reasons.

So many people like to say parents don’t give a shit and I’m sure there are some but not most. Ask 99% of parents what they want for their children and ‘be a pain in the arse at school and achieve nothing’ doesn’t tend to be the answer.

there are societal factors and I’m not expecting individuals to provide the answers but I do think we need to stop the blame game.

I've worked in primary and agree it's just as bad. I've seen 5 year olds disrupt the class on purpose and make it impossible for the teacher to communicate with the rest of the class. I've seen them swear, throw things, break things and refuse to follow any instruction, then try to get other children to join in with them. In some cases the parents are completely on board, but the consequence for this behaviour is to miss a small part of their break and they don't really seem to care.

It’s absolutely is parenting for most low-level behaviours. My DC’s teachers are shocked when we are supportive of them, which is incredibly sad. My DC was, of course, being ‘picked on’ by the teacher and who ‘hated them’. Funnily enough, every single year nine child is being picked on by teachers who hate them. The difference is the parents who believe what their child is saying. They can’t see that the same child who is sometimes a normal obnoxious teen at home is the same at school.

100% this. Sometimes kids behave badly because they want to, it’s not communicating an unmet need.

Agree

It is also fundamentally about respect for adults and respect for education.
Many teens do not respect either. I am always struck by the amount if grafitti on desks and school equipment, litter discarded in the canteen etc. We are struct. We sanction if we catch the vandalism but it us constant. I recently saw something about school in another country where part of the school day was cleaning the classrooms. It was done by students. What a brilliant way to teach them to respect the environment. You can bet that the casual vandalism would soon stop if they were responsible for dealing with it.

Sorry, I am on a roll (today, I am frustrated, and not looking forward to going back in tomorrow): Most of my arguments with children and parents at the moment is about drinking in a laboratory.

I started teaching over 20 years ago. Every child knew that it was forbidden to eat or drink in a lab due to health and safety. Since Covid, I have noticed a huge shift in teenagers expecting to be able to drink water throughout lessons, but in Science it is especially an issue as students can get ill from this. The number of students arguing the toss about this is ridiculous; I have had numerous instances of children defiantly raising their bottle to their mouths, drinking and/ or eating while looking me dead in the eyes, and their parents insisting this is minor and they shouldn't be sanctioned, when, the lesson before, I was working with E.coli, toxic halogens or harmful solutions, which would make them ill.

There is a basic assumption that rules are there to punish children, when almost every school rule I've ever come across is for the safety and general good of all students.

I would like to see strict boundaries set in place, and robust support from managers and parents. There is no respect now. Pupils used to hold doors open and say please and thank you. This doesn't happen these days - doors get slammed in your face. No manners. If you challenge pupils in corridors or in class you get told to fuck off or called a fat cunt. Some parents tell school they don't want to be informed of their child's behaviour. There's a lot of misogyny too. Maybe blame Andrew Tate or misogynistic things they are watching on the Internet. Staff are often told it's their fault behaviour is poor. The horse has well and truly bolted. I'd be interested to know what behaviour and respect is like in other countries.

I don't agree.

I remember back to my own school days and there were definitely good teachers and less good.

I was generally v well behaved in school and loved most subjects. My physics teacher did genuinely dislike me.and she did treat me differently. It happens.

I remember at parents evening all the teachers gave glowing reports about me except this teacher who was unpleasant about me, said things which were not true. My mum stuck up for me and I remember feeling so believed, loved and supported at that time. She wasn't a great mum, but she did the right thing then and I've never forgotten it.

Children are not always wrong or liers. Not all teachers are perfect and right all the time.

This.

This.

Some kids dick around because they think it’s funny, because they’re trying to make someone else laugh, because they want to impress someone, because it’s easier than doing the work which is hard/time-consuming/not particularly exciting. If the kids really can’t be arsed to do the work, what can the teacher do, if they have very few sanctions!

We’ve seen in so many other threads how cross some parents are if teachers raise their voice, phone home, give detentions or use some kind of behaviour system!

I'm not a teacher, just married to a very, very tired one. It's parenting. Parents everywhere think the literal sun shines out of their children's arseholes.

"Not my child, my child is an angel. He'd never call you the N-word, doesn't even know it. Maybe you're the one who's racist, discriminating my baby. Plus he has ADHD and doesn't know what he's saying before it's out his mouth, so if he did say it it's not his fault. You should lose your job you should, you're a racist disableist, I'm going to the papers"

^ Loosely based on a recent phone conversation he's had in the past week with a parent of one of the most disruptive children in the school. It's not just that the parents are willfully oblivious, but that the management in the school refuses to stick up for their staff.

My 14 year old's experiences of school totally back this up. No consequences for serious behaviour, his school is petrified of using effective deterrents.

Absolutely but these are outliers and those parents should support their children. Usually the child has done something but they won’t take responsibility. A much more common issue is when parents also won’t support the school. My DC have had (mildly) ‘unfair’ detentions but it’s a not a bad lesson that sometimes we have to suck it up even if we don’t agree.

I think the ‘it’s parents / parenting’ can be complex.

Last year, I suddenly started getting reports of my nearly three year old pushing other children and being unkind and for want of a better word, aggressive, at nursery. I found it really upsetting: he attended three days a week (still does) and I started dreading collecting him because I knew I’d get a bad report.

I did start to feel a bit attacked and judged. The nursery was and is lovely and I am positive this was not their intent. But it did make me so much more sympathetic to parents, especially if they are getting multiple phone calls a day.

I also think a lot of children are used to being the adult at home. If their parent doesn’t speak great English or there are a lot of younger siblings or addiction issues or mental health or just generally chaotic lifestyle then the child has to be an adult if you like and then they have to switch to being a child at school and they don’t like it. That doesn’t make it any the less infuriating (my year 10s nearly drove me to tears on Wednesday) but just a general sort of point.

Where I always seem to differ in my view from the majority of teachers is that I don’t think it’s any better or worse now than in days gone by.

Most children have an opinion if challenged and everyone has to hear that opinion 🙉
When my children were in school, I used to say you may feel a punishment is unjust but take it on the chin, do the detention or whatever and apologise. Thankfully, neither of them were disruptive or disrespectful, so it was a rare event that they were punished.

At the school I work at, the head is of the opinion that the children are hungry and in need of food and a cuddle. The rest of the staff aren't in agreement, some of the kids are feral ☹️

I would like to see parents having to come into school to either collect their disruptive child or sit in on the discussion about the disruptive behaviour and agree a moving forward plan.

If they refuse to turn up then social services need to be called as this is a form of neglect. Most of these kids misbehave at school due to a complete lack of attention and boundaries at home.

Some parents need to take far more responsibility for their children's behaviour.

The kids with the worst behaviour at school are the ones that are there every day.

What do you think is the cause of poor behaviour in the classroom- pupils who are rude and violent towards teachers, refuse to attend class, don’t hand in homework etc?