To want parents to stop blaming their child's teacher for everything?

[starlightexpress]

I'm just so sick of reading parents on here moaning about how crap their child's teacher is for one reason or another (not aimed at any particular thread this evening, btw).

In any given class of thirty-three, seventy percent of my time is spent dealing with about three kids who couldn't give a fuck. They don't want to learn, they don't want anyone else to learn. I'm not talking SEN, here, I'm talking just plain naughty.

As far as I'm concerned, the majority of the time when a parent is on here moaning about how shitty their child's teacher is, it falls into one of four categories.

Either your child is:

a)Badly brought up and you're making excuses for them.

b)So-called "SEN" which means they can behave when they want to, but misbehave most of the time using said SEN as an excuse. You allow them to do this because you prefer not to take any responsibility for their behaviour.

c)Genuinely suffering from an SEN, which I probably know very little about and am given little support (either in terms of training or TAs or resources)for.

d)Suffering from the fall out of "inclusion" which means that so much of my time is spent firefighting (see a, b and c) that I don't have the time to spend on your child that they deserve.

Of course there are crap teachers. There are also medicore teachers and there are good teachers who have crap days and make crap judgements sometimes. But mostly it is not your child's teacher's fault.

If you are a C or a D parent, then get thee to the Head, the governers, the local MP and kick up an almighty fuss. You're right to be upset, I don't blame you, I'm not happy about it either but what can I do? I'm doing my very very best but I can't fight the system on my own.

If you're an A or a B parent, do what the fuck you want - that's what you do anyway, and I'm not interested in your whining.

Before you ask, I teach in an inner city secondary school. Not the worst school in the whole world but not great either.

I'm a relatively experienced teacher with a decent results record. I don't have classroom management issues - last Ofsted (they actally watched some of my lesson) they said that this was a strength, fwiw. It's worth nothing actually, as Ofsted couldn't identify one end of a decent lesson from another, but I know their opinion matters to a lot of you.

Go on, flame me, I will have heard worse at parents evening, I can take it.

AIBU?

I've given it some thought BarnsleyBelle,but am conscious I'm coming at it from a teacher's perspective having never had to do so as a parent. So fwiw:

Is your ds likely be with the same class and the same teacher next year? If they are getting a fire-breathing dragon-teacher next year, then I might be partially reassured, but if it's set to be more of the same then I'd talk in confidence to the Head (it is primary, isn't it?).

I know others will say talk to the class teacher - and in your position I might if they are the approachable sort - but I'd assume that if the teacher were in a position to do something themselves about it, then they would have done so and really it's only the Head who can really sanction the changes that probably need to be made.

You CAN tell the head your concerns and what ds has said. You could put the Head (rather than the teacher) on the spot, and make clear you are cross/disappointed in the lack intervention from the people in the school who are meant to intervene. How many TAs are allocated so the teacher can do their job? What school systems are in place to nip low level disruption in the bud? I think most teachers can teach well if they are allowed to do so - what is the Head going to do to make it happen?

heated... thank you for replying.
Ds is 7 so in yr 2. His teacher will change in sept and according to ds she is very "shouty", which i take to mean she is more of the fire-breathing dragon sort!
His current teacher is very nice, approachable but for want of a better word a bit "dippy". He never gets homework/spellings/reading books etc, despite the fact that he had plenty in reception and yr 1.
I think he's kind of felt a bit lost in this class as the small number of disruptive children seem to have taken over.
Think i will sit tight and wait until yr 3 starts and see how things go from there.

Two questions:

• What do you all think should become of the "naughty" children or the "SEN children who hit out" if they are in your children's classes?

• I am surprised that, given the OP is a secondary school teacher, that people are talking about primary schools in the main. Am I the only person who thinks they are completely different?

personally speaking, i always encourage parents whose children are in classes that are regularly disrupted by violent or uncontrolled pupils to make an appointment with the head to formally register their concern about the disruption to their child's education.
it is difficult for schools to get extra funding for challenging pupils, and sometimes a few extra knocks on the door from parents of affected children gives the school more proof (and impetus if required) to seek funding.
hopefully more support can then be provided for these pupils and they can be kept in the classroom if applicable. either that or the subseqsequent assessments etc may lead to referral units as required.
the system isn't perfect, but it's all we've got.

violent or uncontrolled pupils (whether sen or not) - the cause shouldn't make any difference to other parent's actions.

I have to say having worked in a R/Yr1 class , that I am pretty shocked at the attitude of many of the little ones.
OK nearly all kids do things wrong ,and most when yu tell them to stop do so straight away.But i would say almost a third don't.They don't pay a blind bit of notice to the teachers or TAs.
It has been quite an eye-opener to me !.My kids know and respect what ' no' means .But so many kids don't.I am not talking about runaway feral kids from sink estates.They are kids from professional families.
You can see exactly where they get it from.Playschool says 'no toys from home' , but they insist on bringing them.Fancy dress competition - insist theirn child enters a class they are not entitled to enter because they don't think their little darling can wait that long.Picking daffodils on the green because they 'can't say no to them ,they're only 2 FGS'

katiestar - agree that many many kids from professional families are super indulged and at secondary level this translates as being mega dependent on the teacher to do practically EVERYTHING for them.

Suppose i'm going to get flammed as well, but i'm glad that when i was at school in the 1980's we had 'streaming' and most of the kids in our 'stream' were keen to learn.
Maybe this is why private schools are becoming popular? But it is very unfair that you have to pay to get an education and to have a teacher that has time to teach and not deal with the class clowns.

streaming is tricksy - it works well for the upper levels, but the lowest ability is usually a mishmash of sen children that can be very able but do need specific support, and a bunch of others that don't fit in anywhere. the able kids that need support get ignored in favour of crowd-controlling the disruptive elements.

agree with madwoman

ripeberry - quite a lot of secondary schools do stream their pupils for some subjects btw. my least favourite class as an lsa was as a lone support in the lowest set for science, with 9 pupils to support from 2 statemented, 5 SA+ and 2 SA, with the rest of the group of 30 largely uninterested and disruptive, albeit some of those clearly with recognisable but officially unrecognised needs.
entirely impossible to keep sn pupils with specific attention issues on track when there are kids lobbing ink cartridges around the room.
and this wasn't inner-city hell, but leafy surrey.

SEN aside, the OP is perfectly correct about uncontrollable student's behaviour being, at least in part, the responsibility of the parent. Having worked in one place for long enough, and having taught in my time over a thousand students, it's easy to pick up on patterns.

You get to be able to instantly recognise the ones whose parents have never said No to them, or at least have never enforced their decisions. These are the ones who do not seem to think that rules apply to them and, when challenged, will complain, act up, refuse, moan and tantrum until they are either thrown out of class (in which case it is always the teacher's fault..."She couldn't control me") or the class ends. At 16 years old, they should not have to be told how to behave in class. They know, they just choose to ignore the rules if it dosen't suit them.

An example, OFSTED were coming and there was a concerted effort to make sure things went smoothly. The college had a rule - mobile phones turned off and out of sight inside the classrooms. Outside of the classes, it's not an issue. This was discussed with them at the beginning of the year, they signed sheets to say they understood and agreed to abide by the rule and at the beginning of each class the rule was repeated. Yet every single class at least one mobile phone would ring, always the same set of offenders, prompting another repetition of the rule and possibly sanctions. In a maths class we did the sums on the board. They had 16 classes a week, plus tutorials. The first term had been nine weeks and we were four weeks into the second term. Given they heard, on average, two warnings per class, this means they had been told in excess of 400 times to turn off their mobile phones in class.(that's 16 classes x 13 weeks x 2 warnings per class, = 416)

Even toddlers don't need to be told that often. The SEN students were, almost without exception, not the ones who ignored the turn off phones instruction. So the only explanation that remains is that these students somehow thought that rules did not need to be followed unless it suited them. Where did they learn this? From the schools? Probably not, because schools have clear discipline proceedures and, mostly, try and stick to them. The schools, also, only see the children for 6 hours a day, leaving these children in the tender care of their parents for the remaining 18 hours. These students have learnt somewhere that if they don't want to do something they don't have to. I've seen 17 year old boys throw tantrums that would embarass a 2 year old. Where did they learn this behaviour? Where did they learn that making a huge noise and fuss means you can get away with anything? It doesn't take watching a series of Super Nanny to make the link.

Incidentally, SEN students were, almost without exception, a joy to teach, even the ones with behavioural issues. It's the Mummie's precious darlings who could do no wrong I always wanted to avoid.

Well said Slug. Glad to hear streaming still goes on in certain classes. I remember when i was about 13yrs old and we had taken a Physics exam a few weeks earlier and the teacher was going to announce who would be going to the 'Advanced Physics class' and who would remain with the others.
It was such a relief to be able to move classes as the children who were just NOT interested used to mess around so much we hardly learnt anything.
Really enjoyed that subject as my dad is a Doctor of Metalurgy anyway, so i had to pass!

well, it's good news for those in the upper streams, like i said. a real let-down for those who could achieve if they had access to their own lea-funded support and actual teaching, rather than the support and teaching being railroaded into crowd-control with the delinquents. a leeeetle bit nimby lol, but i do understand, being a top stream gel myself.

it probably wasn't much of a consolation to those that actually wanted to learn but didn't quite make the top set, who were then disregarded with the cartridge lobbers for the rest of their school years.

it is without doubt my biggest beef with the system. streaming does improve the situation for the more able children, but it does not resolve the issues at the other end of the scale.

I was streamed in a higher stream, back in the day, and was bullied, cos I was a council kid in a higher stream. Apparently I'd taken some girl from the nice estates place, so I was doomed!

The streaming we had wasn't quite as cut and dry as high stream, you're all o.k. and everyone else in with the cartridge lobbers. There were a couple of higher streams, one for top achivers, one for grafters, a mid stream for a mix of grafters and those doing o.k. and a lower stream for the cartridge lobbers and strugglers.

Of course, it wouldn't work so well today as the cartridge lobber classes would be huge. And there wouldn't be special recognition or support for those kids with real special needs.

I don't know any answers, but I know that most teachers have a blardy tough job and I wouldn't like to do it. Though I am looking at moving into teaching support for special needs kids, so maybe there's a bit of the massochist about me??

'I have put up with the problems of the SEN children in my DSs class for 6 years now'

Fair enough, well kinda

I always ask aprents who are upset at ds1's behaviour to approach the school. He is desperate for there to be a SNU he can attend, there isn't and never will be; they're reducing secondary SNU places to two classes across the city- that equate as about 20 places in total. DS1 is affected by noise, crowds, breaks in schedules-pretty much everything that school entails.

I someone feels the need to try and force the school into dealing with the issue, I can only applaud that: of course you have to look after the chiold you care for, saldy though a more common approach is to get teh chiold to 'smack him one' (as a lovely aprent was heard to call out about a different child at sports day), or complain to me.

There's a massive issue in SN education at the moment, and it isn't for those (in my experience here only) with most obvious issues happy to attend a SNU- ds3 has his place, albeit after fighting, and is happy. there are children like ds1 though for whom no provision is amde, and then children like ds2 who ahve SEN but no dx or statement (those on SA/ SA+) who arew massively under achieving because they can't translate real ability into actual results becuase of their environment- ds2 is sick to death of being streamed with 3 rather ill behaved children who have no interest in being there at all (his isues are dyspraxia / dyslexia / query adhd)

Streaming and seting also lets down kids who are, as I was, very mixewd in terms of ability (equivalent of &A in some areas, SN class in maths). But I don't know the answer there.

Flexibility is important- when I tried to get ASD ds3 allowed a flavoured drink at school instead of water we were accused of being silly over protective apents by teachers who had no understnading of ASD, and this simply created problems for all of us, including ds3 whose drink was forcibly removed from him with no alrernative (not that he would touch water anyway, and he is casein intolerant so no milk) offered. That extends to aprents as well, and regardless of your childs abilty (in other words including those of us whose kids have SEN / SN) we have to be aware f the role our child palys in the class as a whole and how we can best support that.

Squilly did you go to my schgool , if you lived in the villages = high stream; estates = low stream. A close friend was consistently palced higher than me in classes and yet managed less than a third of the GCSE's I did, let alone a degree.

It is nit always the case that the lower sets are hellish places to be.
I teach at the moment a top set in every year group and a bottom set in year 8, year 9 ( 1 bottom and 1 class up from bottom) and did have 2 bottom sets in year 11. While they are not the same as bottom sets they are not unpleasant places to be and I certainly do not have cartriges flying around the room.

If a student misbehaves in such a way that the education of others is affected they are removed, end of and deal with.

I know it is not like this in all schools but I would have thought that in most schools with good teachers they are like that.

sorry am attempting to multi task I meant to say while they are not the same as top sets.

Twinset - I think your school may be different to the 'average' iirc. However, I teach bottom set yr 8 (levels W, 1 and low 2) and they are great. Only one child is a problem and he is being monitored v closely through CAMHs etc and it is likely he will not stay with us.

However, schools are 'judged' by the level of exclusions they make and this can be an issue, particularly in areas of deprivation etc where you will have way more than the average percentage of SEN, behavioural issues etc. It's not as simple as saying that good behaviour is a product of good teachers and good schools - a lot of the time it is but not always. Ours is a 'good' school; I am a supposedly 'outstanding' teacher as an AST but some needs/issues are so extreme and 'removed: end of' is not the way that most mainstream state schools are able to operate.

Sorry - wrong name.

If my child is bored in class I blame the teacher!

...and if he's naughty in class its only cos he's bored..

a £ for each time that is said somewhere in a school please.

My favourite was when some idiot in government (forget the details) wrote a report into truancy which claimed that truancy rates were a result of poor teaching.

Now, where did I put that sack cloth and those ashes? I must punish myself.

Ken Robinson has a thing or two to say about it