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.

Her teacher has said similar to me. She is 1-1 in what can only be described as a cupboard. She is taught exclusively by her (very wonderful) 1-1s. She isn't taught the classroom content as the TAs aren't able to teach it. Since november-ish she has essentially been receiving work she has already learnt to revise as that is manageable for the TAs. Her last lesson taught by a teacher I think was January.

But it is financially possible.

It would require a different economic system, but it is completely possible.

The analysis of the last 20 years of neoliberal globalism in the 'you don't need tariffs, you need a revolution' meme applies as much to the UK as it does to the US.

🤣

Therin lies the problem, doesn't it?
Poor teaching or poor teacher training can't possibly be a factor. There is a lot more wrong in schools than just poor behaviour from pupils that gets blamed on parents. But no, it has to be my little darling Tarquin and his overbearing mother who are at fault.

Is it only your child being sent out? Presumably all the children are behaving in a similarly bad fashion with the low calibre of the teacher then. You sound like the problem.

I agree that SEN is a completely different thing BUT I have to say that when I sit on PX Panels in a couple of schools so |I see the worst behaved DC who have displayed really extreme behaviour over a long period there is always bad parenting involved.

If your child is being treated the same way by multiple teachers, then surely your child is the common denominator? Its not rocket science. Also, why not move schools if you think the teachers are that bad, no way I'd allow my child at a school if I thought the teachers were treating them unfairly

But even if it is poor teaching or poor behaviour control, then what? You’re just going to allow your son to continue to misbehave and fall behind until what happens? There isn’t going to be a miracle teacher who comes in and sorts him out, he either knuckles down or he fails, and you fail him by looking for other people to blame.

@Sinuheseveral posters have now told you the same thing - that the problem is your dc’s behaviour and your parenting. You have come back to the thread with the same opinion. Don’t you want the best for your child? Haven’t you ever considered the thought that the adults who work with your child on a daily basis may be right?

What you describe here, was one of the reasons for my DC's behaviour in primary school.

A bored child can be an very disruptive child. A clever and bored child will come up with inappropriate pranks that are really annoying and disruptive.

I don’t agree with trade unions about much. But placing the blame on parents for the general poor conduct of children in schools seems fair enough.

Whatever the circumstances of any particular school or teacher, children should still behave. That begins at home.

The school educational system does not meet the needs of pupils or teachers.
It is a very out dated system and we live in very different times to when it was first introduced and the reasons it was introduced.
The world has moved on, schools haven't.
Sending a child to school is same as sending a horse and cart down the motorway, and expecting a successful result. It is totally unworkable.

You do not know my DC or myself. You don't know the schools DC attended or the teachers that have taught my DC.
But I do know that not everything is just down to poor parenting.

Teachers aren't untouchable, they can get things wrong but you keep riding your high horse while I keep sitting on mine.

I do agree that other children either get pulled in by the behaviour, or start their own behavioural issues when there’s so much else going on. But then in that class there are also the kids who are there to learn get on with it, and they’re the ones who are more likely to succeed. It’s not a good trait to start trouble because you’re bored.

@Sinuhe had your "bored" child, completed all their work?
Where did their level of arrogance that it's OK to disrupt everyone else's learning because they're done?
Although of course with such a high level of intelligence theyll be leaving all their peers behind with their stratospheric academic career soon!

If your child is so clever, they'll be given more difficult work or put up a class, that's what happens to most children who are smart. "Thou doth protest too much"

I also feel expectations are at an all time low. When I first started teaching, I was in a very affluent part of London, but parents had high expectations of their children as ultimately, they knew if they go to uni, get a good job, they'll be able to stay close to home when they have their own families and their children had seen how hard work breeds success
Now, I feel more and more parents are wanting their children to do trades (no problem with that) because uni is no longer the pathway to guaranteed success or higher earnings, but then they know they only need a 4 in English and Maths, so they don't care if their child is pissing about in French or RE.

"Pranks" ? says it all.

No enforced boundaries at home, no discipline and when they are badly behaved & disrupting other children who want to learn, its all a Prank!

I don’t know your dc but I do believe we have to do our best for our children. You have wasted vast time from your DCs’ lives arguing about who is to blame for their behaviour instead of spending the time on fixing it. I feel sorry for you all.

Where have you heard this - the US? It really is very unusual for a child to be put up a class or kept down for year, because secondary schools don’t like it! They really want children in their chronological age group, as otherwise it mucks up their GCSE stats.

These accommodations are not free unless you count teachers time as free.

I agree that the majority of teachers would easily accommodate needs such as your daughters. Me included.

But they take time and time is not free. Too often teachers are told to ‘just do’. When the things we should ‘just do’ are beyond what we can deal with then they don’t happen.

So your DS has a history of being badly behaved yet none of it was his fault?

You are making the point for the teachers and union.

Sorry but this is utter nonsense, the desperation to blame lockdowns for everything gets more ridiculous each year.
It has now been five years since the first lockdown, schools were closed for 10 weeks, from March–June 2020. During the second lockdown schools were closed for 8 weeks January 5 to March 8, 2021.
It is now over 4 years since schools opened again permanently. During the lockdown people went to parks and holidays and even pubs and restaurants, anyone remember eat out to help out?
Schools also never closed at all for a considerable number of children (key workers children and vulnerable children) Many of the children with behaviour problems being blamed on lockdown were born after lockdown or were newborn babies during it!
In a few years all the children in primary school will have been born after lockdown ended, and I would bet every penny I have that the issues will be the same or worse. What will people blame then? Intergenerational lockdown trauma!?

sorry that post was in response to the person blaming lockdowns, I didn't manage to quote them!

I suspect that the lockdowns will be used for many years to come for certain types of individuals to excuse all their issues.

I was put up 2 classes (I also missed a year of school travelling so ended up only being one year higher). My DH also started university early as he was above average. But even if you're not smart enough to be put up, you are definitely given harder work or more work, there's really no need to be so bored you need to disrupt others