To be glad schools are finally hitting back

[Teachingquestion]

Over the last couple of days I've seen more stories about schools introducing new rules and sending students home who won't comply.
I'm in a really tricky school about to do the same (when we start back) and the staff are so relieved. Teachers on here : are you glad to see it?

I hate school uniform- don’t see the point in it. But this is a totally different issue to equipment. Wearing pink socks and having green hair does not affect your learning. Coming to class without basic equipment does. Of course I’m going to lend equipment out if need be but as I said before it is a massive, avoidable PITA.

I would just like to add that girls have told me they hate rolling their skirt up so short but it is peer pressure. On non uniform day they are nearly all in joggers or leggings.

I think it is worth mentioning that most teachers have no say over what rules they are asked to enforce and are just expected to do so as part of their job. Does every parent condemning teachers love and agree with everything they are asked to do in their job? Or are they allowed to pick and choose the parts they want to do?

Yes things need to change. 26 years in the job for me. 2 and a half years ago I was attacked and pupil tried to stab me. This was following months of them assaulting me in the classroom, destroying the room and attacking other children. They continued to attend. There was nothing that could be done due to their age (primary) and the fact that I couldn’t refuse legally not to teach them. Come the next academic year the assaults continued despite me not being their teacher. The police were involved and asked what I expected to happen. I’m in Scotland. I expect to be able to come to work and be safe. I expect my pupils to be able to come to school and be safe. I expect there to be adequate and suitable ASN provision in place. 2 1/2 years on I have what is probably come kind of ptsd that I’m not ready to tackle. Things need to change.
As an aside, our school doesn’t have any kind of strict uniform policy, we don’t do detentions and I don’t care if your child has juice in their bottle as long as the lid is tight and it’s not going to make a mess. I am the one who is likely to suggest that your child tries different uniform if I can see they’re uncomfortable in their clothes and I will contact you if I see something in the shops that I think may help and I don’t know if you know about it. Parents and schools used to work together. They need to again. But kids and staff need to be safe in our schools.

Draconian rules around uniform will achieve f all in terms of behaviour. Disadvantaged and sen kidsain't magically start making progress because their shirt is tucked in. As always businessmen CEO s of academies focus on wrong things, surprise surprise.

I agree with you on this.

If a doctor or lawyer was attacked by a patient, they would either be banned from the practice or the victim could refuse to deal with that patient again. As a teacher, you can be attacked and have to continue to work with the perpetrator day after day. It's not right at all.

Adhd parent here.
I wont tolerate bad language or violence from any of my adhd kids. We had couple of incidents at school. I made my child apologise to the teacher, when teacher didn't want to see them I made them write a note aplogising and why their behaviour was wrong (I made them sit at the table at home until they came up with somethong acceptable by themselves) we dropped it off with flowers they brought from their own money. The school did a debrief with myself and my child which was excellent. We talked over where it went wrong, the triggers, where dc could have pulled it back and coped differently.
I also did lots of talking at home around male violence esp against women - screaming at them etc.

My dc are going to have to cope in the real world. Understanding their adhd and how to manage and coping mechanisms it is key!

I also drop off a big pack of stationary that I buy with form tutors for each of my dc at start of the year as inevitably they forget or lose something. It means they have access to equipment and stops a panic spiral

The national curriculum - and league tables - do not allow for schools to meet the needs of so many students. Teachers are doing their best in a system which was designed to 'lift standards' but which disheartens and fails so many kids. It makes me really sad that we have a skills/content driven curriculum and so little space allowed to meet student needs.

There are - and always have been - kids with practical competences and skills, brilliant senses of humour, passions for various interests outside of school which could be the foundation for achievements and even careers, or who are battling neurodivergence or social/personal issues in a pressurized environment which has so little space for individuals.

I don't know the answer. When labour refused to reject this Tory driven curriculum in the 90s I think we did a huge disservice to an awful lot of young people, and set teachers up to fail in a system too rigid to adapt to changing social needs.

I'm sorry for what you've been through. You and the child are both a victim of the broken SEN system in this country. I doubt he wanted to be going to school and attacking teachers. If it's got to the point where police are involved and still this child wasnt given support, it's gone very badly wrong. We need a system shake up to force school leaders and local authorities to take these kind of issues seriously and provide kids the support they need so they don't end up so dysregulated they're trying to attack people.

It is basically impossible to get a child adequate SEN support in the UK.

Sorry. I'm aware that doesn't follow on from previous posts. It took a while to type!

There are all sorts of strategies which can be used to help children with ADHD improve their focus. Ensuring comfortable clothing and giving them movement breaks, for example. Visual aids, breaking down tasks, positive reinforcement (children with ADHD not only receive more negative feedback than NT children but they also have heightened sensitivity to it). Plenty of playtime outside, even at secondary level. Sufficient sensory stimulus, but also balanced against the potential for sensory overload.

Part of the problem is the classroom environment in many secondary schools. It lacks the kind of sensory input that helps children with ADHD to regulate. Schools are increasingly built like office blocks or conference centres - too clinical, insufficiently ventilated, strip lighting etc. They don't offer the kind of sensory input that children with ADHD often need to regulate. When I was at school, the main school building was a dark, drafty, old-fashioned building, lots of the class-rooms were wood-panelled, the windows were always open. Half the classes were held in drafty, freezing cold portacabins, so we almost always had a brisk 5 minute walk outside in the cold between lessons. Grass everywhere and kids would eat lunch outside in the summer months under the trees. It sounds dreadful, but it offered so much more sensory input than many secondary schools nowadays.

I think that secondary school design plays an underacknowledged part in the difficulties faced by ND children, alongside zero-tolerance policies. They are spending their days in environments which just don't contain what they need to thrive.

Have you fed that back to him and his SLT in writing?

@HerNeighbourTotoro

And yet almost every one of the best state schools in the country have smart uniforms which are strictly enforced.

I'm not convinced allowing DC to turn up in tracksuits would be helpful when behaviour is already out of control in so many schools.

@Confuuzed

No school will refuse students permission to remove their jumpers in very hot weather.

Do you think that all the strict rule enforcement is doing is teaching kids to be dependent and non-thinking?

For instance, my son's pe kit is shorts apart from certain activities when its joggers. There is no room for my son and his classmates to decide whether to wear shorts or joggers based on the weather etc. They are told what to do and have no ability to learn from wearing shorts in the snow. I know that's a very simplistic example but it goes wider than that.

My son's school is just too big which means rules are based on what is easiest for the teachers (which I really do understand) but many of them are not helping the children grow and learn life skills.

Secondary school is TOO LATE. These issues need to be dealt with at early childhood and primary level. By high school, the rot has mostly in, I'm afraid.

I expect sensible rules and sensible sanctions.

So I absolutely do not support being sent home and detentions for uniform infractions (wrong socks??) but would expect instant exclusion for violence, abusive language, destructive behaviour, and I’d support the school if my child was a perpetrator.

My child has ASD and we have never accepted violence and offensive/inappropriate speech.

I have pushed back from very young on anything unpleasant. He’s far from perfect and I’m absolutely far from the school’s favourite parent but we have a positive and productive relationship because both parties have high expectations and enforce them whilst being cognisant of the issues he may have that need mitigation.

In a mainstream school it’s perfectly reasonable to expect children (including those with ND) to behave appropriately.

In my experience (which is not insignificant given I have two children with ASD both of whom have EHCPs) there is a large cohort of parents who are scared of their kids’ big reactions and have never put in the time to deal with it.

My friend is raising an absolute brat frankly because he has ASD and she doesn’t like upsetting him. He reminds me of my son when he was a similar age but I refused to allow that (for his own good) but we stamped that crap out early and he’s the better for it.

Do you think everyone has multiple schools to choose from, @Northernladdette?

@BeachLife2 - I realise this is anecdotal, but I have seen accounts on here from parents whose children have been refused permission to take off their jumper/blazer during a heatwave, when the teachers were dressed in cool, comfortable clothing.

Absolutely. Teachers do all those things. I buy lots of food and resources out of my own money. However, if you honestly believe it’s one pencil then you really need to go into a school and see what it’s like.

I realise this is anecdotal, but I have seen accounts on here from parents whose children have been refused permission to take off their jumper/blazer during a heatwave, when the teachers were dressed in cool, comfortable clothing.

I spoke to the head of an ASD unit attached to a local high school who confirmed this was possible - proudly, I might add.

Imagine having children who were already not necessarily great at regulating themselves actually getting to the point they needed to ask to remove a blazer and being refused. By a twat in a short sleeved shirt.

The sooner these moronic uniform policies are seen for what they are the better.

I taught for 5 years. I encouraged the children to take responsibility for their things. But if they forgot their pencil, I gave them a pencil.

Teachers generally know all of those things but when they are working at capacity with skeleton staffing levels it is nigh on impossible to provide for one child per class let alone 10.

reading threads like these make me glad we’re in Scotland and uniform guidelines generally not ridiculous (and aren’t actually enforceable- so in theory you can send you kid to school in pjs and they can’t be refused an education)

I know the lack of staff and resources makes it impossible for many schools to meet their pupils' needs - that is understandable.

But what isn't really acceptable is failing to meet the children's needs and then punishing them for being unable to cope in an environment which is unsuitable for them.

I agree and add this: What else could the staff be doing with their time? Checking water bottles does nothing to facilitate learning.

Tbf, the first few years would probably be bedlam, but after that it would make absolutely no difference.