To think disruptive behaviour in schools is out of hand?

[Absentosaur]

‘Children at state schools are almost three times more likely to have their lessons disrupted by poor behaviour than their privately educated peers, a widespread survey of parents has found.’

https://archive.md/HMGtJ accessible link to article .

18% 16-18yr olds go to private school, probably for this reason a lot of the time.

Do we expect the government to do something about it, particularly given they have closed the private school doors to many? What could they be doing to improve the worst state schools??

You're not being unreasonable, but as a teacher and a parent, the government need to actually butt out a bit. Their drives for attainment and backing of things like behaviour hubs, putting punitive over relationships, is part the issue. The private sector place more emphasis on relationships.

I used to get so frustrated as a teacher when I had kids who I could see were fed up of the constant disruption and they’d be sitting quietly waiting to learn.
Why should rude, disruptive children ruin things for others? They always do though.

Compulsory education has only been a thing for just over 150 years.
I sometimes feel like it's an experimental social idea that's gone horribly wrong.

Yes it’s a good thing to learn, it’ll be in demand anyway.

So there’s a really high threshold for excluding disruptive pupils or even for just putting them on a reduced timetable and specialist provision, in my area at least, is full and EHCPs despite being legally binding do not have enough money attached to pay for the support that they demand we give. I’m not saying all disruptive children are send (or all send children are disruptive) but it’s a huge contributing factor. Until there is more money poured into the system lessons will continue to be disrupted.

But some state schools do too. At my son's state school, in year 7 they did a residential outward bound week in the Lake District. The headmaster went along with a variety of teachers (not their form teachers). My son found himself in a canoe with the headmaster who insisted that my son call him "Dave" rather than "Dr Smith" as he was known in school. They had a blast in that canoe. My son looked at the Head in a completely different light after that hour or so, but back in school, he was back to being Dr Smith and being a somewhat "formal" person again. Apparently, it was the same with the other teachers, in after school clubs & societies etc. where things were far more informal, friendly, using teacher's first names, etc. In latter years, whenever my son had a problem, it meant he was far happier to go and talk to teachers he'd been "informal" with outside school, than his form/subject teachers who he only knew in the formal setting. Likewise when it came to parent's evenings in years 10 onwards, they expected the pupil to attend with the parent, and they were more of a one on one chat teacher to pupil with parents just as audience rather than parents and teachers talking, which again, my son really loved as it was a chance (often the only chance) for a few minutes of direct talking between them, which apparently never happened in the classroom as any spare time was spent with the teacher doing crowd control, discipline control, etc and no time for any real communication/relationship with those in the class who actually behaved. So there can be relationships in state schools if there's the will to do it.

I tend to agree. In our village, we have a (now long closed) 300 year old school originally founded by endowment from a local landowner. There's quite a bit of research been done on it. Apparently the terms of the endowment was that free education to be provided to village children in the classics and science, but not free numeracy & literacy lessons! Numeracy & literacy was taught, but at a charge, as it was expected that parents/family would teach numeracy and literacy, so those who couldn't or didn't want to would have to pay for someone else to do it!

I just work with younger kids so this may not be the case with older children, but it would break your heart all over again if you knew what was making these disruptive kids act like such cretins. The trauma some six and seven year olds walk around with is absolutely unreal.

My younger daughter is 6. She has already learned that her role in the classroom is to act as a buffer for the badly behaved children because they will be slightly less disruptive if they are made to sit next to someone quiet and compliant. She told me very matter of factly that (yet again) she has to sit next to X so he will be less naughty; she doesn’t like it but she tries to ignore him.

My older daughter is 10. Last year was ruined for her by constant low level disruption, meaning learning progressed at snail’s pace. She is bored and demotivated because she knows that half her lessons will be spent either dealing with the behaviour of a couple of students, or recapping something that they have already gone over a million times because too many people were talking or messing around during previous explanations. Their class is now significantly behind the curriculum in maths - we spent the summer doing extra maths with her because we don’t have confidence that the school will have the capacity now to catch them up to where they need to be at the end of primary. Again, her classroom experience is being the quiet conscientious child who is put in between the troublemakers and spends lessons having them pass notes across her or chat loudly while she is trying to work. But when the quiet children aren’t used as buffers, class discipline deteriorates completely (as happened early last year).

It feels like the wellbeing and education of the children who want to learn are repeatedly being sacrificed to the need to keep some level of control over those who don’t.

This is a state primary serving quite a leafy suburb, not a school in a rough area. If it is bad here, it’s going to be bad anywhere.

Yep and that's exactly the reason we went independent for secondary. I was not having my DD as a behaviour manager of other children

I have every sympathy with the sentiment, but it doesn’t sit comfortably alongside the average LA’s modus operandi when the disruptive child has additional needs (as they mostly do). Strategically, the LA wants to leave the child where s/he is as long as possible in the hope that parents give up before any money needs to be spent. The LA’s appoint the virtually unemployable as EHCP case workers: it takes them a week just to switch their laptops on (when they are not off sick) and any documentation they produce is hopeless. This is not an accident - it is strategic.

I would have been ecstatic if my disruptive child had been moved to a suitable place as soon as it became clear his AN made him unsuitable for mainstream. Had I removed him from school myself, we’d probably still be waiting. As it was, I passed out my SEN case worker’s details to teachers, SENco’s and other parents encouraging them to complain about DS being in a totally unsuitable environment. There was nothing I could do other than keep sending him in.

Part of the problem is that SEN places have not kept up with demand, meaning more parents have to push for costlier independent SEN provision. My son’s specialist school costs about £100k per year per pupil. That’s a lot of council tax, and the spend is only going to go up. It’s also the reason for inclusion being trumpeted at all costs, and flying in the face of the evidence of many peoples’ eyes and ears. The reality is that inclusion is cheaper and therefore must be defended at all costs.

I laughed at a PP’s comment about the broom cupboard. DS actually spent a whole academic year being taught 1:1 in a cupboard, to keep other children and staff safe from his meltdowns, and the LA still insisted he was just fine in mainstream.

I’m coming around to this point of view too. I have always been a supporter of comprehensive education but I find it more and more apparent that it is broken.

I agree with the poster upthread that private schools aren't stricter than state schools. They just have a less "challenging" demographic on the whole. Parents who can pay for their kids' education aren't keen on dehumanising "zero tolerance" environments. They don't see that sort of experience as being useful and beneficial for their children. Instead, while most do expect a calm environment and for their child and others to follow the rules, there is also an expectation that their child will be happy, engaged, respected as an individual and treated with good humour, fairness and kindness.

I'm always a bit sceptical of people who say strict rules and zero tolerance are the solution to the discipline and other problems that schools face. If they're so good for kids, why don't private schools take this approach? I'd be surprised to find that any private school across the country is putting kids in detention for forgetting a pen or the wrong colour socks.

The issues that schools face nowadays centre in many cases around an avalanche of unmet needs, combined with a criminal lack of resources. When you add increased social deprivation together with the problems caused by access to social media etc., it's not surprising that many teachers and schools are struggling.

It’s been obvious to me for about 5 years that we need to support a bigger range of schools. I wish it was obvious to politiicans…

It's only Labour who are now wedded to the 1 size fits all comprehensive system. Most other parties have moved on from that.

The Academy system was bought in under Labour.
Academies originally were meant to be an alternative to "bog standard comps".
(Now they've just become "bog standard academies" instead)

They were only meant to be for failing LA schools though and all other schools to stay as comps

Imagine sharing an office with a colleague who might, at any time, start screaming obscenities and throw a chair across the room or destroy a couple of days worth of your work or smash up your laptop. And then they get rewarded with more time off than you and no expectation to do the work that you have to do. You are expected to live with that every single day, sometimes for years, and never mention it because that would be "unkind". How would you feel about that?

They evolved from the CTCs (City Technology Colleges) which were a Tory idea but Labour came up with the Academy system and almost all the CTCs have converted to Academies.
In theory they are meant to be comprehensive schools but as CTCs/Academies originally all had a specialism then they really weren't all suitable for every child.
The specialism thing seems to have mostly died out so maybe it's correct that Labour want schools to all be comps 🤔

Local Authorities don't have the funding for it, so there's no point in pretending they do. Or operating as thought they do.

The specialisms were always a mirage though. Basically they served a function in allowing schools to access some funding by saying they were going to have a 'specialism' in drama, PE, science whatever. For some schools, that paid for some nicer facilities for those subjects, which was a good thing. But it didn't ever equate to actually specialising afaik, as the schools still had to supply the same all-round education.

@Unexpectedlysinglemumif you wouldn’t want this at work why should children have no choice but accept it?

Yet Michaela can get away with only offering a small amount of GCSE subjects.
Not a very "all-round education".
(although is a Michaela a Free School rather than an Academy?)

The only reason why we send out children to private school is because of the shit behaviour that isn't dealt with and the inclusion of SEND children that have no business in Mainstream schools (not their fault).

Politicians of all colours are bogged down by the equality dogma of "one size fits all" comps. They can't admit they're wrong. Not helped by the old "grammar versus sec mod" attitude of the 70s. It's a bit like how they'd bogged down in the health service by the "NHS versus America" mentality with people (politicians included) ignoring that most other countries have a health model in the middle! They're scared stiff of being criticised by changing the status quo by an uniformed majority of the population who fall for it every time. I.e. if a politician suggested "two tier" schooling, they'd get crucified by the "grammar versus sec mod" brigade, again, with people ignoring all the other countries with successful school systems that have different routes for different abilities.