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??

As a % of pupils at the school its tiny. Its just a lot more than happened previously where those pupils were allowed to drag the rest down with them

Because it flies in the face of all their rhetoric about why children underperform at school

hmmm it depends on the school to be honest - maybe some private schools turf out kids who are disruptive but definitely not all. I went to private school on a scholarship for my GCSEs (this is a few years ago now!) and I was amazed at how totally disruptive most of the students were. Throwing things, shouting, creating massive problems in the classroom, and they definitely weren't thrown out!
Equally, my friend is a teacher in a prep school (fairly well known one too) and her head has told her they simply can't afford to throw children out for "being disruptive" at the moment. I think it depends on the private school - my kids in a state primary have a much higher standard of teaching and general behaviour expectations than our neighbours who go to an independent school down the road, but I think a lot of that is down to having an excellent head teacher.

I am coming from a perspective of having experienced DC in schools that show children the door and schools that support DC. In the schools that show children the door they do not have many strategies for DC with difficult behaviour, so they are stuck in a cycle of having unsupported DC in school waiting to be picked up ir removed. These DC display more difficult behavioir because they view school as a negative environment. In the schools that do not do this they have strategies to diffuse and support DC, so the children don't experience this kind of behaviour very often as behaviour is recognised a d supported before the DC reach crisis.

Teaching staff can’t drag kids out mid meltdown though - they don’t have the training, tbe staff required and at risk of being hurt themselves and subject to complaints from parents.

all the meltdown etc advice is to back off and leave the child in their safe space and that’s why they evacuate the rest.

of course, a kid who is so disregulated is in the wrong setting…and doesn’t have enough support.

They don’t seem to suspend kids , let alone expel them nowadays.
While my oldest was at Primary school a few years ago there were boys who punched other boys in the face and burst their noses , boys who flipped full tables over and threw school bags at teachers …
They did not get suspended or expelled , simply got a call to their parents , then kept in at playtime the next few days 😳
Both of these actions would have warranted a suspension at least when I was at school.
Why is it so lax now ? Where has the strictness gone ?

Another teacher was stating on the radio the other day that if each teacher could remove just the three most disruptive students from each of their classes, the British educational system would be transformed overnight.

I wouldn´t send my daughter there if you paid me, but horses for courses...

I watched Educating Yorkshire and I was shocked at how disruptive the kids were and the teachers have to act like their parents.
Teachers monitoring their food due to bad behaviour!
Teenagers that couldn’t read and write higher than a 5 year olds ability and primary teachers coming in to help them.

What is the world coming to?

The issue is that in the schools that are unsupportive DC are much more likely to reach crisis point regularly.

Absolutely.

I'm a school governor at a primary school locally, where my kids now attend (I joined as gov before they were school aged). It's a good school, Ofsted Good, and a village primary in a pleasant area.

I was shocked to see the behaviour of the children during my first year visiting and it really opened my eyes. I initially played the role of Gov responsible for monitoring safeguarding, but now also responsible for monitoring SEN provision. The school does so much to support SEN, but it still leads to lots of disruption for other children in the classes. A fair chunk of SEN kids would honestly be far better supported in a specialist school, but the places are non-existent.

Meanwhile, there are some non-SEN kids that cause a lot of disruption too. Sometimes these children have chaotic family lives etc., but many come from totally 'naice' normal families. They just have no respect or care for rules. One in particular was physically hurting staff and children regularly, the school tried to keep him away from other children as far as possible for their safety but this just left the poor support staff being hurt and two ended up on sick leave with stress. Parents, staff etc. all asking for action to be taken to remove pupil permanently but it was so so difficult to actually do in practice. So many hurdles for school to jump through that LA set before perm exclusion could even be considered. It was shocking to witness. Add to that the fact that perm exclusions are not viewed positively by Ofsted, and the school itself becomes less inclined to opt for this outcome as the last resort.

There is more low level bad behaviour too - helping out on trips etc, I was amazed to see that pit of a class of 33, only two kids heard their name the first time when the teacher was doing a register before leaving as the rest were chatting.

i don’t think that would’ve happened twenty years ago…exasperating for the teacher.

Wow. That’s even worse than I thought. Soul destroying. Motivation and morale for teachers and school staff in general must be rock bottom in a lot of schools 🥺

@Absentosaur

Not sure I agree. Is that from a right wing newspaper?

I’ve taught in both and find the overwhelming factor for good behaviour is a strong SLT with clear behaviour policy. And I’ve seen this work best in a state school in a deprived area.

Worst behaviour I’ve seen is in private, where SLT were more focussed on ‘show’ and selling - than clear strategies and provision. However they do sell well and I think most parents believe the hype.

This Idea was put to me by a teacher at my son's school. Exams come at the wrong time for boys.
They are immature (not all obviously). Let them loose into the world to grow up.
Even the Amish have the rumspringa for their teenagers.

Not controversial at all, it makes perfect sense to me.

Why are you using the word "inclusion"? A lot of SEN kids are much better behaved than some others, who have just learnt at home that it's ok to mess around and waste everyone's time. And that you shouldn't respect school teachers.

That is an issue - I was also thinking that a route back is needed at 16 or perhaps older. There used to be really good adult education but as you say it's been hollowed out massively. I did a GCSE in Italian at "night school" but you can't do that where I live anymore.

Ikwym. I still want women to be able to work though. If SEN children are mainly the ones being disruptive (do we know for sure?) Then I think the answer is to stop the mainstream solution.

Hasn't school attendance always been compulsory?

Amen.

Used to be a TA but left due the constant stress of poor behaviour, no budgets and children who did need support not getting enough funding.
I work in a totally different sector now and I love it but I still have many friends and family members working in education because it’s their true vocation.
I met up with some of them last week to catch up and one was saying that a 5 year old turned around and told her that she couldn’t tell her off, her Mum had told her so and that she would tell her Mum if they did….
my own children are polite and academic but some of their lessons have been chaos because of poor classroom behaviour.

I have a different perspective on this because I clerk exclusion panels for a living.

So first I think schools can and do exclude pupils and can and do suspend pupils. (We dont get 10-20k fines in my LA)

Second, every exclusion I have been in has shown a long list of external agencies to the school letting pupils down. I am not blaming the agencies, they are also underfunded /staffed.

But i do think if send support, social services, youth mentors, etc were functioning there would be less of an issue and I dont think schools can solve these problems alone.

Thats before you get to just general class disruption that is no way near the level of suspension..

Did boys used to have exams at a different time?

Admittedly for centuries a lot of boys weren't in school for long but working

Plymouth UTC takes children from yr 7. It's a valid choice compared to the local Comprehensive schools.