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?

The attitude that you have shows me that you are not in the right job if you are a teacher. You seem bitter and angry, a teacher is a really hard job and not everyone can do it. There a teachers you will never forget for how good they’ve been to you and others you will never forget for how bitter they were and unhappy every single day and if you are triggered by these comments ask yourself which one are you

I can get frustrated and also be a good teacher

After I retired, I did a bit of supply.

The pencil issue isn’t what most people seem to think. Kids who genuinely forgot or lost a pencil were happy to accept a pencil from me: I bought ready sharpened golf pencils by the gross from
Amazon and often told kids that they could keep them.

Teachers will understand what I’m talking about here: the trouble would come from kids who would furiously yell that there was something wrong with the pencil they’d been given - or would claim that it needed sharpening (when brand new).

Then there were the little darlings who collected pencils as missiles.

I had one charmer who used to aim the points at my legs. “He’s got ADHD!” I was told.

Big deal. So do I. (Nope, I’m not being flippant. It runs in my mum’s side of the family.)

If you want to know about the damage that pencils can do, Google “Lochgelly”, “teacher”, “neck”. The BBC ran a report on it.

According to the family and friend who posted on the local FB group, it was all the teacher’s fault.

What school is sending a kid home for forgetting their pencil? That is madness.

Too many kids do come to school without equipment. As a parent if you get told your kid frequently forget equipment then do something about it. You can check before they leave the house. You can give them spare equipment to keep in blazer pocket. You could send a pencil case in that the form teacher could keep in the classroom for them. To me it’s such a basic. I have a few pencil cases I have put together myself that I keep in my desk drawer for particularly vulnerable students. Too many kids who can afford equipment but just can’t be bothered are very annoying.

No one hear seems to understand slow creep or broken window syndrome
One pencil for one child no big deal. She child, pencil or pen every lesson, suddenly other more winnable kids think "well they don't have to , so I don't have to , nothing happens.now you have 6 or 7 per class without equipment.
It's not a money thing, same kids in the shop before school buying stuff but spending 60p on a packet of pens is "boring"
We should empower parents and kids to understand that they have responsibilities as well as rights
As a parent, you are responsible for getting your child to school on time, clean and smart, fed and with the equipment they need to succeed. It's the very basics.

Excuse typos . Combination of new phone and can't find my glasses!

What if those parents are giving off at the school and senco because the school and SENCO aren't putting the right support in place that they are legally obliged to provide?

There's a very wide chasm between mainstream and SEN schools. It's pretty much impossible to get your child into a sen school, even with significant needs, which means you're at the mercy of mainstream SENCOs and schools. Who are legally supposed to provide support, but if they say no, there's nothing anyone can do unless you go to tribunal. You can complain if you like, but in our case after waiting 5 weeks for a reply, the trust said no, it's up to the head to decide what support to give and she already said no. So now we are waiting for an EHCP.

My question is, if a child IS disruptive, or struggle to follow petty rules about uniform, but at the same time, they're not able to access any, or enough SEN support even though the parents have been begging for it - whose fault is that? If the child needs the support, they can't just turn that off. Should parents just not talk about the failings of SENCOs and schools?

But what if you don’t have a pencil to give them, nobody else in the class is willing to lend them one and the kid has forgotten their pencil for the last 20 lessons? What is that kid learning about responsibility if they are just given a pencil? Who are you expecting to provide and pay for these pencils? With what money? You’re failing to see the bigger picture! It’s a parents job! I never once went to school without a pencil case full of equipment and neither did my DC. How has not doing so become so widespread?

I am delighted. Weak leadership in terms of a behaviour policy will leave a situation where the rules are a suggestion, not a certainty. That's chaos, horrible to work with and destroys child progress, not just academically, it leaves students fearful of the environment.

Yes!! Other students are fearful of a poor behaviour environment

I am not a teacher but a parent and I am very glad to see it and yes I would include my own child in that if they are one of them

No parents shouldn't vent on fb and to the school gate parents. You address the school directly, calmly and try to maintain a decent relationship with the school if you want your child to continue and thrive there.

And sadly there is a small cohort of sen parents of children in mainstream who can function in mainstream who will not hold their child accountable for any behaviours. Teachers and staff and pupils deserve to be safe in school, not to be sworn at, screamed in their faces, items thrown. Just because the child has sen does not mean they can hurt other people.
Its incredibly intimidating to have a teen 14+ year old boy screaming on your face. Iv had it done to me and i was shaken and had a cry after the fact. Teachers arnt punch bags and immune to feeling scared

I absolutely agree with you, our high school has just had a 'super head' cinema in, refuses to engage with the parents, there is no longer a parent snd school relationship. They refuse to share anything with the parents which has created a bad atmosphere. Am not saying parents need to know everything but they should be involved in their child's education and know about big changes within the school.

I think the other problem is that so much of the curriculum is irrelevant to some children. I think there would be less problems if children were doing something they saw as worthwhile - so giving them options to do plumbing, car maintenance etc.. from a younger age. Sitting learning at a desk is just not suitable for all children. They want to see value in what they are learning.

As I'm sure you know, the reality is usually that you watch your child fail to thrive, day after day, no one listens to you and you eventually withdraw them just before they're about to be permanently excluded. Wait too long, and they'll probably end up in a PRU. You might luck out though, and it could be a good one where they are met with a level of flexibility, support and understanding that their mainstream school couldn't (or simply couldn't be bothered to) show.

If you have the money, you could try going private and try to find a more nurturing environment. Otherwise, the options are limited besides spuriously "home educating" your child because their mental health is in the gutter and, although you're not confident educating them and they're missing out on the social aspect, the thought of school is simply too stressful for them to cope with after so many negative experiences. Works for the short-term, maybe, but unfortunately long-term they're at risk of underachievement and social exclusion.

"One size fits all" education doesn't always work, especially when applied with a complete lack of common sense or compassion. And when it doesn't work, it destroys the lives and self-worth of some children and some schools are fine with sitting back and letting this take place so long as everyone remembers their pencil and no one takes off a blazer without being given permission first.

If this is the result of schools hitting back, I'd say it's more a matter for shame than pride - https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2025-07-21/strict-behaviour-policy-behind-exodus-of-500-pupils-from-school

Haven’t read all the messages, but has anyone mentioned if you let one go to the toilet, miraculously half the class want to go? Infuriating 😩

Bleurgh. Problem with state schools is state school parents. Raise your game guys.

Behaviour policies are the key.

Helping and supporting children who are disruptive and stopping the rest of the class learning is an essential. Those particular children need help and education but it may be more complex than mainstream can offer so learning facilities should be available to help them learn in the way they need to.

However, the children who can learn in mainstream need their education safeguarded too. It isn't fair when one or two children demand the teachers attention while the rest of the class are sitting about waiting to learn something.

The petty stuff needs to be let go for the real issues that stop the majority of children learning. The wrong skirt doesn't do that, or the fact a child has worn a coat on a 20mile trip to school from a rural location. It is classroom management of behaviour that makes the biggest difference.

No. A parent should be training and requiring their child to organise themselves, not doing it for them!

I have long thought that parents at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile, who lack agency in their own lives, want to redress that by pushing against school rules.

Responsibility is totally absent for some people. I've been asked to potty train (non-SEN) children multiple times. The free breakfast club means that not only are some children, who have been dropped off late, have been given no breakfast because the parents know we have food in the school.

While the pencil issue sounds petty, if I added up the time each week that is spent sorting stationery it would like be the equivalent of doing an intervention group. Nothing is without consequences.

Whether rules pointless or not - parents should support the school ( whether they agree or not, what harm are your kids coming to?). It's not a parents prerogative to tell theirs kids to ignore them, that's just permissive parenting, what sort of example do you think you're setting? It's a slippery slope, kids have always pushed back against rules, nothing new there. What's changed is parents attitudes to this and parents need to buck up their ideas on this and actually be an adult and parent.

My children go to schools in another country - it is definitely not formal here! Teachers are called by first names or even nicknames, students seem to be able to joke around with them, mostly students can go to the toilet whenever they want (there was a brief crackdown when there were some incidents but I don't think it lasted long), not a lot of rules (could write them on half a sheet of A5), and detentions are pretty rare. DD has forgotten books, homework etc. a few times and all that happened was she got a lesson mark - if it got frequent something would happen but they understand that everyone forgets things from time to time.

Why should parents support stupid rules? Surely the result will only be that your children think you are as stupid as the school is? I wouldn't support breaking them for the sake of it, but if a school has a bad rule then parents are entitled to challenge it.