to be shocked about the amount of suppo rt a teacher gets when they nearly kill a pupil

[2shoes]

now I know it sounds like the boy was not a good kid, but he was 14, the teacher nearly killed him, yet on here and in the media the teacher has been getting so much support.
yet a boy was nearly killed...........
(prepares to be flamed)

There are quite a few schemes that work with kids, it is the practice to have an inclusion unit in most schools, some kids go to a pupil referral unit for support, sometimes full time or part-time and there are various other sources to help them manage in school.

However until the root of the behaviour is addressed nothing much changes. In my experience and I have been working in this field for 15 years, some of these kids have rage, grief unhappiness, whatever going back many years. Not being understood, lack of attention, witnessing violence, etc.. the list goes on. The problem comes when the child isn't supported and helped to process their feelings and end up feeling crap and worthless and fighting the whole world.

A group of other kids becomes almost a replacement family, where they belong but of course the group exacerbates the behaviour.

A young child may be too young to understand but that doesn't cancel out the fact they have feelings about their experiences

Yes but MilaMae, was your education ruined?
Where are those kids now and where are you in your life?

I shared a class with extremely rough kids. When I was in the equivalent of Year 5 the teacher had a breakdown. I have a horrendous memory of kids jumping up on the desks like animals, screaming and shouting and wanting to put my fingers in my ears but not being able to because I knew what that would do: signal to the troublemakers I wasn't coping therefore making me a target.

Yet here I am, two first class honours degrees, doing my MSc, in a professional role. Two of the girls I remember from school are in prison. One has a kid with EBD who attends the school my mother teaches in.

Would it have been better if I didn't have disruption from these kids back then? Probably. Did it affect my education? Not one whit.

mrsbean I agree regarding behaviour one to one. i have worked with kids who have been violent in class but on their own have never threatened me. The individual attention helps and the fact I am calm, don't shout and treat them and their feelings with respect - not difficult really. However in a group in class where they often feel they are thick and useless it is another matter (not blaming the teacher for that by the way).

Actually, I also remember some of the naughtiest, most disruptive and constantly-in-trouble boys being very nice to me when I was bullied by other girls, and sticking up for me. I agree "bad" kids are not simply monsters. They are kicking off in a context where they can. But they generally do have feelings and are capable of empathy. It doesn't help when they are labelled evil by tabloids etc.

"to assume that teachers simply have to be able to handle crowd control as well as teaching is looking at it the wrong way round."

Orm, I never said anything like that!

"they can go to excluded kids school for all the little thugs who can't behave in regular school."

They are called Pupil Referral Units, they are not residential and most LEAs have one.

"[...]however general teaching should NOT be about classroom management. It should be about education, teaching ad learning."

This is where I disagree, Hulababy- I don't think this is the right thread for us to have this discussion, but as far as I'm concerned engaging students is part of our job; a line has to be drawn, but I disagree with the notion that managing behaviour is not part of a teacher's remit- otherwise we may as well be teaching mannequins.

There are some really good ideas on this thread, and I only wish there were the funding to do as Harlot suggests; behaviour can be changed.

Mrs Bean it did affect my education.

I developed a bad habit for a long time of not engaging fully in lessons,watching my back and other kids.

I just scraped into uni,in fact I had to retake my A levels.

The fact I did scrape in,plough on and not give up was down to my parents and my ability. My father tutored me in maths,my mother(ex teacher) in English.I remember my mother saying " chin up" every morning,the tears in her eyes and putting little notes in my lunch box. I desperately wanted to be a teacher myself and not to let them down.

Not all kids have this support or the ability to plod on. I got into uni but only just,some kids less able with very little support at home may not be so lucky. They may not get the exams they could have done.They may get totally disenchanted and give up completely.

I agree with your post re simplifying things but I feel it's gone too far the other way,we're over complicating things,making too many excuses and at the end of the day parents have got to take some responsibility.

YABU. Come spend a few days at school with me and say that. In fact, even that won't work because you won't have to put up with it for year after year, with no support. Hmmm. [Hides thread]

Besides, whatever happended to temporary insanity etc? Prime case here I'd have thought. We're all human.

MilaMae, I 100% understand why people feel frustrated that there are 'too many excuses': it's just that the kids that I and HarlotOTara and tehtersend are talking about don't have the type of parents who are ever going to take responsibility. They've had parents who didn't take responsibility because their parents didn't take responsibility. Generations of waste.

I'd love to see parents of some of the kids I work with help to solve the situation rather than exacerbate it, but in practice, you get angry, disenfranchised parents raising angry, disenfranchised kids. Sometimes, the parents who show up to school after an incident come storming in threatening their kid with all sorts of violent repercussions, swearing and blinding and generally behaving just as we're telling their kid not too, but you have to remember, they're the ones who actually cared enough to show up...

"not to" not "not too"

"But it is true because of inclusion badly behaved students drag a lot of kids and schools down with them."
inclusion?? what do you mean by that isoldeone

To answer your question 2shoes

It is very difficult to exclude (permanently) students who are on the SEN register for behavioural reasons or looked after /in care. Every avenue of support (as it should) must be explored before a permanent exclusion is upheld.

In some catchments there is a high proportion of students with SEN behavioural needs. 40% of a 200 strong year group was my experience.
A critical mass can drag a school down basically and lead it into special measures without VERY strong management.

There has been pressure NOT to exclude by LEA and to come up with more in house strategies ie temporary exclusions cannot last more than 6 days ( I think). This can be managed in school where there is a significantly lower number of students with behavioural problems.

They have shut a lot of these schools down and become privately run academies. The "sink" school I worked in was taken over . The new head excluded 40 odd pupils in the first three weeks for poor behaviour. The old head just did NOT have that power

btw The average pupil referral unit ( for one area probably serving several secondaries) has about 20 places. In my experience sometimes these students especially in Year 10/11 just drifted out of education, no pru place came up once excluded so they hang around at home , out when the support workers came round. From then on they drift into crime , drugs etc.

As other posters have said it is sad for all concerned.

I think that when you live in Mansfield near the family in question (as I used to do) and you have had your car vandalised for the upteenth time by this boy children like this boy and been sworn at and threatened for asking this boy teenagers like this boy to stop beating up younger children (as I have) and you see him them hanging around in a gang intimidating old people etc etc etc, you start to have more sympathy for the teachers who have to deal with them on a daily basis.

Mansfield is not a nice middle class town, it's a tough, deprived, ex-mining town with no jobs and a generation of parents who've brought their kids up on benefits, won't stop breeding and don't seem to have any idea about teaching their offspring right from wrong prefering to hang out on the street all night with cans of Stella. I can say all these things as I've lived there, know of the family in question and I saw it on a daily basis.

Maybe the teacher in question did go too far, anyone can snap, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the parents were rubbing their hands together and phoning Injury Lawyers for You before they even went to see their son in hospital. I know of them and I know I'm right. No sympathy, end of

What an odious post odette.

Odette I did one day of primary supply in Mansfield ,the agency I was with tricked me into it, they were that desperate to get cover. I never went back and I'm a pretty tough cookie.

I have total utter admiration for teachers who put up with what I put up with for 1 day on a daily basis.

They and people like Odette also get my total sympathy too.

Many thanks Mrsbean your posts are interesting to read,I admire people like yourself too for trying to make a difference.

Why Po?

Are people who suffer daily at the hands of people such as this not allowed to express their anger,knowledge and frustration?

It's all very well those of us sitting in our nice m/c houses, in nice safe m/c areas sending our kids to nice safe m/c schools to berate victims of crime but unless you yourself has to put up with this kind of behavior on a daily basis I don't think you're in any position to judge.

Guessing your not from Mansfield then Pofacedagain. Go and live there for 10 years as I did and then tell me I'm wrong. BTW apt nice screen name

isoldone
'It is very difficult to exclude (permanently) students who are on the SEN register for behavioural reasons or looked after /in care. Every avenue of support (as it should) must be explored before a permanent exclusion is upheld.'

Pupils with SEN are 8 times more likely to be excluded than pupils without SEN.

Odette, I find it really disturbing that you would have no sympathy for that boy if you knew him - even vaguely - in person. Even if his was a negative and threatening presence in your life. If his parents really are as bad as you make out and would do what you say, he has had a miserable, loveless existence for his fourteen years and is now brain-damaged as a result. I would have hoped all human beings would have some sadness at that outcome. I don't think it's.. well.. okay to say that because a kid is wayward - even bad - that it's fine that they were head-injured. I don't understand that at all.

cornsilk yes I know.

-it isn't done lightly

thats why some schools management are seen as being "soft" on badly behaved students. they want to reduce this figure at the expense of their staff.

How on earth do you know my background and where I have lived? You do not. Of course I have sympathy for people that put up with violent behaviour and aggression in their area. But to act as if they are sub human that 'breed' and to claim that boy was basically evil and deserved everything he got, well, words fail me.

Pofaced, I understand Odette and MilaMae. This is what people mean when they say they don't believe politicians any of them can have a clue about what life is like for many people. I have never had to live that kind of life but I can definitely imagine what it can be like. For many people it is like a daily war of attrition.

Voicing sympathy isn't really good enough. To think it's enough is to have no idea at all about the kind of stress and fear people are put through day after day after day after day. After day after day after day. After day after day after day after day after day. And then it all starts again the next week, the next month, the next year. Every day, day after day after day after day after day. No let up. "Of course I have sympathy" is very empty. Its irritating even reading it, isn't it? Imagine what it's like to live it.

I think "of course I have sympathy" does give quite a lot away I'm afraid.

Mrs Bean! hurrah for you!

I agree with mmrsceptic and Mila.

Sorry, but you do start to lose sympathy when this is your life and you, and your kids, have to put up with horrible behaviour day after day (and night after night) and nothing gets done to stop it.

We had to live over a drug dealer who made our lives hell. Then, when he got into trouble with whatever gangs he pissed off, I had to see my doctor and up my anti-anxiety drugs and take sleeping tablets for fear one of these lovely people would petrol bomb his flat one nigh and set ours a light.

This guy, although only 17 years old, cared nothing about anyone but junk and crap.

He stole children's bikes, wrecked property, etc.

You know what, living over him, I didn't care wtf kind of childhood he had anymore, I just wanted him to stop or go away.

But it's wrong for people who have to live with that to express anger and outrage?

No wonder this situation even came to pass.

Everyone wrung their hands whilst this man went into freefall mentally.

And, speaking as someone who has mental health issues, when you're ill like that, it's hard to judge how fit you are to do your job. You're ill, you'r not yourself and not in the best of judgements.

So sure, if we're going to have sympathy for these 'children', then why not for a mentally ill man whose doctor and head obviously found fit he was worthy to come back to work when he honestly was not.

"unless you yourself has to put up with this kind of behavior on a daily basis I don't think you're in any position to judge."

Well odette, I do 'put up with this behaviour on a daily basis', and I think your post was -at best- ill advised. Odious was not so far off the mark.

If you actually know this family and feel this way about their son, I imagine you'll be round their house to tell them that he deserved everything he got?