To say the behaviour crisis in schools can't just be blamed on parenting

[Sendcrisis2025]

I speak as a mum of two children with EHCPs and someone who is a SENDIASS officer, name changed to protect my identity/job.

There is a strong rhetoric from the teaching unions this week about behaviour in schools and poor parenting. No mention of the bigger picture, just poor parenting.

My DC are 10 and 8, just two years behind them. When DC1 was a toddler there was a huge range of groups, support, targeted interventions through the local sure start centre. These were already being cut by the time my DC2 was a toddler. Then covid happened and the services and groups have just not returned. There is no early support anymore.

One of my DC is a challenge in school, fortuantly she is predominantly a flight risk rather than violent but still a behavioural challenge. We have had one physical incident where she shoved a teacher. Pure combination of factors that had led to DC being enclosed within a corner by several children and with nowhere to escape to she shoved to escape. Unacceptable but that was the reasoning of why and she was suspended for two days etc. She struggles to cope with the sensory demands of mainstream. Too many children, too much going on. They fly through the content whereas she likes to master things in depth before moving on. Too many low level behavioural issues like children who just don't ever stop talking. She can't navigate social dynamics. None of this DC can cope with. There is a lack of consistency in the school day and the routines. None of this is the school's fault but realistically how it is in every mainstream school. We are struggling to get her moved to a specialist setting. She has no learning needs and generally with the one exception, she isnt violent so the SEMH schools are not appropriate either.

My other DC would never dream of acting out, is not a behavioural issue at all despite his needs.

Based on the unions DC is entirely due to my poor parenting. It doesnt matter that DC2 is a behavioural dream. It doesnt matter that I have no behavioural issues with DC1 at home where it is quiet, the same rigid routine for the past 6 years and less social demands. It doesnt matter that she is in a completely wrong setting.

In my LA there are over 400 children like my DC1 who have specialist agreed but are stuck in mainstream with no setting to go to. There is nowhere for them to go. These are the children with specialist agreed by the LA. This doesn't include the many hundreds more who don't have specialist agreed or don't even have EHCPs yet.

Our health trust is on 3+ years for an initial appointment. CAMHs are almost non-existent. You are only considered for medication if you are already a behavioural problem in school, it doesn't matter if a child has severe ADHD until they are at the point they can no longer cope and it is at crisis point.

Early help, if accepted, offers 6 weeks of support. There is a huge gap between early help and child in need.

I speak to parents day in day out at work who are desperate for help as their children can not cope at school.

There will always be poorly behaved children due to poor parents but the majority? The majority are children who simply cannot cope in the setting they are in with nowhere to go to.

Over 400 children in my LA with specialist agreed but stuck in mainstream. That is an incredible number.

I know my DC spends 8.45am-2pm in a small cupboard with a 1-1 TA. She joins a much younger year group for the last hour a day. She does 95% of her schoolwork with me at home.

But neither do teachers in main stream
They are trained to teach a class not dedicate their entire lesson to one child.

It should be, well it is for us, if you want your child in main stream, especially if you push for a particular school, they need to be able to cope with the lessons as they are, right now, with whatever support is available.

I didn’t think much of it at the beginning of our teens entering secondary, but their lessons are minimally disrupted because pupils get removed. No one has time for this nonsense lesson after lesson. They both go to academies with higher than average expulsion rates. It works for us, we don’t see that as a failing. Quite the opposite.

Honestly if I had young children i'd homeschool or go private, whatever I could afford, than put them in the liberal hellhole of the typical comp these days, where it's the yobs and their feckless parents who have all the rights and other kids who should be in specialist schools making the learning environment impossible for everyone else.

Everything is back to front in this country these days.

Yes, it is far worse now. I've already explained why 'kick a couple out and crack on' doesn't work. Schools do establish their rules from day 1. Why wouldn't they? Parents of badly-behaved kids do know the disciplinary procedures. They just either can't or won't make their dc behave, or they are all in favour of the procedures until the procedures are used on their child. I've also explained that the measures you mention do not change the behaviour of the many regular offenders. Schools simply aren't allowed to just keep kids out of class long-term (internally or on suspension).

The reason it matters that lots of kids don't care about punishments is that they don't create a deterrent (except to the kids who do care and are therefore not behaving in this way). This is one of the reasons that 'zero tolerance' doesn't necessarily work well except in schools with massive parental support for it (like in the Michaela school). The good kids are terrified and stressed by it, while the regular miscreants carry right on behaving badly.

Honestly, do you think schools just don't bother thinking about how to deal with the behaviour problems that plague them every day and affect their results? If the standard punishments worked, we wouldn't be in this mess!

Through my job is know every single secondary in my LA use the whole behavioural room to kick them out to. Yet behaviour is getting worse. We have kids with complex diagnoses and EHCPs kept in these rooms for months on end. Some of these schools seem to think if they persist with this approach long enough they will force a child into complying.

I get the impression you haven't had much to do with education for a long time. Or just experience of a certain type of school.

We're employing teachers now for whom part of their working day is 'wanding' DCs bands and person to check for weapons Yes, the type of 'wand' the security in an airport use.

You're about 20 years behind the 'discipline in schools' debate. It's gone way beyond 'send them out of class' as a solution.

What, in your experience does work for children such as these?

Or perhaps they see that the classes those children aren't in are actually getting some teaching done?

It depends on the school. In the worst inner city comps, I can imagine it's unmanageable and made worse by some of the irresponsible immigration we've had since Blair (and the general mass-liberalism since he came in). You've also got kids who just shouldn't be in mainstream education but special schools have been cut back on.

But there are schools that are just soft and won't back their own teachers up over some feral yob of a kid and back down to their unruly parents.

Our society is in the gutter in general so schools are only an extension of that. Law and order is long gone.

I agree. There's barely any discipine/law compliance in lots of places anymore in the adult world, so it's hardly surprising that schools are suffering from it too. Too many people have no regard for laws/rules anymore, and that will permeate throughout society.

Those kids just aren't going to comply but you can't have them in regular class because then nobody gets a proper education.

In a lot of cases they shouldn't even be in mainstream education.

How widespread is that do you know?

@frozendaisy

"But neither do teachers in main stream
They are trained to teach a class not dedicate their entire lesson to one child."
Actually, completely agree with you here.

"It should be, well it is for us, if you want your child in main stream, especially if you push for a particular school, they need to be able to cope with the lessons as they are, right now, with whatever support is available."
I've met less than a handful of kids with parents pushing mainstream even where I thought it was totally inappropriate. The vast majority of parents with children with significant SEND in mainstream are absolutely desperate to get them into specialist settings.

"I didn’t think much of it at the beginning of our teens entering secondary, but their lessons are minimally disrupted because pupils get removed. No one has time for this nonsense lesson after lesson. They both go to academies with higher than average expulsion rates. It works for us, we don’t see that as a failing. Quite the opposite."
Inclusion as it was imagined has totally and utterly failed everyone. I personally think the answer either lies in radically changing our idea of mainstream education or hugely upping the number of specialist settings (which is segregation but I honestly think that currently most children with significant SEND are happier, healthier and better educated in special schools).

It’s not for their benefit though is it? It’s for the benefit of the rest of the class who can actually get on and learn without them there, and frankly that’s who I care about.

I admittedly have a narrow viewpoint as my job is around social care/mental health/criminal justice.

So I inevitably hear about the most troubling/challenging/worrying cases.

But they're all mainstream secondary schools where wands are being used that I'm talking about. In addition to them sometimes being used in specialised schools or referral units.

And more in secondary but weapons in schools problems are an increasing problem in mainstream PRIMARY schools. Though I'm not aware of wands being used there. Yet.

Most schools will have a weapons in schools policy now.

Homeschooling is absolutely not the answer, I see the homeschool groups at museums etc when with my preschooler and they’re the same kids who can’t handle the social side of school, because of anxiety or whatever. Don’t want my children growing up with that social contagion being the majority of their peer group, social skills are as important as academic ones for future happiness and success.

Anxiety or whatever? We’re not allowed to be anxious anymore ?

People suffered from anxiety 30 years ago. They were just forced through it. I can remember being sat outside having resigned from a corporate job and having what would now be described as a panic attack we just didn’t know what it was called then.

Seems cruel to push them through these things if they don’t have to and they don’t.

I think there is an expectation for big standard state schools to be all things for all pupils and parents and it’s not realistic.

it is school not a specialist educational setting for every single child’s need unfortunately and that seems to be what a lot of parents want without paying any extra costs with afterschool provisions and basic skills teaching as well.

it’s frankly unrealistic and bizarre.

everyone has to accept the limitations of school this includes SEND parents. Most parents want their children to thrive and sometimes school isn’t enough and this has to be supplemented by extra curriculars or tutoring or whatever outside of school.

when you thing your child isn’t being challenged in school education wise you ask get a tutor or do extra work n the weekends etc. this unfortunately has to be the same approach for parents of ND / behavioural / etc

everyone needs to lower their expectations unfortunately. Circumstances have changed, the world and budget is not what it was. Adapt.

this this this.

too many want or expect specialist provision in simple comprehensive that has to cater to a majority of students.

and then after getting 1-1 support at great expense are still unsatisfied which is understandable. However you are a haranguing a state school to do something that is literally not possible.

they cannot provide a specialist education it’s never going to happen.

I 💯 agree.

But. There has to come a point where addressing the anxiety is also crucial and helping people to gain life-skills has to happen.

And that's what has been lacking for the last decade or more.

It doesn't matter if Danny has a varied home-school education and got some GCSEs if he can't have a conversation with someone he doesn't know, answer his 'phone or whatever.

We have more DC out of school than ever before, more young people out of work than ever before and the primary claimants of disability benefits in young age ranges being 'mental health'.

And the leading claimants of PIP, a benefit designed to help disabled people with the additional costs of having a functional disability effecting the ability to move around, take care of nutrition, bathing, washing and dressing, continence, and communication with others being awarded to people who are anxious and depressed.

Don’t they? Everyone has to do things that make them anxious. If they want to have a family, a decent job, a social life. They DO have to push through it. A minority of people have anxiety and should be given help, medication, therapy etc.

Agree. The new ‘therapy’ seems to sitting at home gaming while your parents bankroll you and wonder why you have no impetus to do anything.

I completely agree we have used schools abroad
And the parents are expected to contribute pen’s papers toilet roll, and get into the classroom at least once every half term to circumvent the need for a TA. To the benefit of all the children in the class. And if any child was playing up or giving them any nonsense that parent in the classroom would deal with it.

And the kids parent would say thank you to the parents afterwards and very apologetic for their child’s nonsense.

It’s not like aversion therapy, you don’t get used to being anxious. You might learn to manage it but then you would learn to avoid scenarios where you might find yourself in those situations. I’ve never gone back to corporate life. And I never would because I have identified the cause of anxiety.

People don’t understand because the profile of special needs now is radically different to 15 years ago. Back then it would’ve conjured an image of a little kid with Downs, or in a wheelchair, or with glasses and hearing aids.

Now, it’s just synonymous with autism and ADHD, 2 conditions which while in existence back then, were quite rare and you’d be hard pushed to come across more than 3 or 4 kids overall with a diagnosis.

Not only that but for whatever reason, the profile of autism itself has massively changed, and has gone from mostly boys who have very clear ‘Aspergers’ behaviours, to virtually any child or teen who acts outside of a narrow stream of ‘typical’ behaviours. Throw in a few symptoms which have some people bemused - ‘they’ll only eat McDonalds’ ‘they say they need their tablet to regulate’ ‘we can’t make them do anything they don’t want to, they have ASD and ADHD’ and you can kind of see why the term ‘SEN child’ doesn’t muster the sympathy and accommodation it used to.

It’s not benefiting anyone let alone our children for the answer to feeling anxious to be avoiding absolutely anything that makes them feel that way. That’s not learning to manage it. Not taking a stressful corporate job because it makes you feel anxious is one thing, being unable to take any job and being resigned to a life on benefits is another thing entirely.