Daughter always put next to badly behaved boys

[Curlywurly78]

I don’t know why my 8yr old daughter is constantly placed next to badly behaved boys. She gets bullied, humiliated by them and is just told to ignore them. What message are schools giving young girls??! They are teaching our young girls that it is them that need to find ways of tolerating bad male behaviour when in fact the boy themself needs directly tackling. It’s another school year and yet again my daughter is put next to a boy that says such vile things and yet other quiet, studious kids are put into ‘good tables’ and almost seem protected against the few bad eggs in the class. If anyone is a teacher out there - why is that?? My daughter limped through to the end of term last school year with a boy that constantly would not leave her alone and now we have him again on the same table and an even worse boy sat next to her.
very upsetting and I can’t sleep tonight feeling cross about it. The new teacher is avoiding speaking to me so will have to speak to headteacher.
im so concerned at what schools are directly and indirectly teaching our young girls. We wouldn’t advise a woman in a domestic abuse situation to just tolerate it and ignore would we?! We know that won’t solve the problem and the fundamental issue is with the boy/man. Arrghhhh!!! Sorry to vent, would love to hear other thoughts on this.

reading everyone's stories... the chosen girls are often those who do not have a strong cohort of female friends, so they become even more isolated... and are often less tolerant of repetitive and bad behaviour.. so find it even more difficult to deal with than the average child... and are less likely to speak up.. how DD survived the school system is beyond me... one more year to go.

Hmm my daughter was set next to a naughty boy in reception and same again year 1. She's very well behaved and a good listener so now I guess this is why.

You seem to be missing that the quiet, well-behaved girls are often too shy to say anything.

if you are going to use this technique, it is your job to make sure there is no bullying or distraction happening.

you also need to realize that to a pre-diagnosis ASD girl, a seat-mate who is not following the rules in any way is going to be a huge source of stress and a distraction from her learning.

I'm so torn. As mother of a bright, sensible, mature DD, I agree this is a terrible way to manage a classroom. And I fully agree with the point that this reinforces patriarchal structures.

As a teacher, I often have seven-ten very disruptive boys in the same class. Shouting out, getting out of their seats, throwing stuff about...
where am I meant to seat those boys? I mean, they have to go somewhere?

I follow our behaviour system and frequently send them out of class. I call home. I scaffold work. I speak to the boys, who seem remorseful and promise to try harder. Nothing changes. I cannot go home with each boy and parent them. So so so often I see them outside school - on the way home, being picked up, even in town - they act the same and parents ignore the pushing, shoving, jumping about like Mexican beans, crashing into things... not once have I ever seen a parent caution their son to calm down.

@HereBeFuckery where do you sit them?

Oh @Curlywurly78 I hope you speak to the teacher and head today and put an end to this. Your daughter is not a paid TA.

Who should the badly behaved kids sit next to ?

@lljkk the local educational psychologist/psychiatrist to understand and organize a proper long term treatment plan.
It’s not the responsibility of other students to act as support staff.

They do it to make their lives easier. If they put two badly behaved children together they'll egg each other on.

It's not just girls, my son always had this too. It didn't upset him but if it had I'd certainly deal with it. Try the teacher first but if not then the head. Your child certainly deserves to be in a non-bullying environment. The school should have an anti-bullying policy so see if you can find that and use it if you don't have any joy in the first instance (may be in their website or you could get it from school reception?)

These things don’t happen overnight. Waiting lists are long, if you even get that far. (Not to mention that not every disruptive child has additional needs.)

So, in the meantime, where do they sit?

@StolenChanel zero cares really but not next to my child.

The reality is if every parent advocated and pushed back and the disruptive children spent the day in the heads office very quickly solutions would be found.
By putting up, sympathizing allowing the broken system to limp along there’s no need to find better more suitable answers.

When I sent a firm email to complain about my Dd bring used as support for one child daily meaning she missed lessons the school relented immediately no pushback whatsoever- they knew it was wrong but was an easy solution for them. ALL the focus was on the child with issues.

Awkwardly am friends with the mum of the other girl when I mildly pointed out the impact of this support on the two friends utter blankness hadn’t even occurred to her. She genuinely didn’t give a shit it was all about her Dd. So I basically adopted the same approach and put my own child first. Am all for “being kind” but not at the expense of my own daughters education.

I used to get so frustrated as this used to happen to my dc. They were always sat next to the disruptive kids in an effort to bring out the best in the ones that couldn't sit still and listen. I resented my dc being used as tools to help control the classroom environment.

I see this all the time. It’s completely wrong, rooted in patriarchy and is fuelling some of the increase in emotional-based school avoidance.

It is also almost inevitable given the level of disruptive behaviour in schools and the proportion of teachers with very little experience (due to the retention crisis), and the low bar set for entering and passing teacher training. The disruptive behaviour is rooted in parenting and developmental/educational needs that are not met. Some of these needs require ed psychs etc, but a lot are the result of pushing children into boring, overly structured and academic work too early. The curriculum expects too much, too soon and we don’t give children long enough in the supported play stage of learning.

Parents of children with SEND get used to battling for everything. Private school parents are battling VAT. Pensioners who have two cruises a year are battling losing the fuel allowance. Parents of all children in the state system need to go into battle mode because education needs a massive increase in funding to work through this. There is no miracle cure that will work for children already in the system, but proper, sustainable funding to staff better PPA, teaching assistants and leadership time to help mentor teachers much more intensively would help.

I understand difficult decisions. But the long term costs for our society and economy will be immense if education stays as broken as it is now.

My mum questioned this nearly 40 years ago when I was in reception. The teacher said she knows I wouldn't take any shit and give as good as I got.

I don't remember sitting next to that boy but it shouldn't be on other children to police and manage other children. That's for teachers to do. Put them all on one table together if you can't manage them spread out across the class.

Yes, this happens to DD, and has happened again this year. She actually has SEND herself, but amazingly good behaviour and meeting expectations in everything- her ASD means she doesn't complain or even understand why/how she is being bothered. This year she's been sat next to the most notorious boy in the class, in a class of notorious boys, who has form for bullying (her and everyone else). I suspect it's also partly because the teacher has them both at the front- DD to keep her focused and the boy to keep him away from former desk mates.

I couldn't work out why she was coming out in her noise canceling headphones as she usually only needs them sometimes for assembly and the like.

The teacher is considered brilliant, including at behaviour management, but I am going to be speaking to him about it. She's year 6 and this is the reason (among others) she will be going single sex for secondary school. In the 90s I told a teacher I wasn't his behaviour management strategy which went down like a lead balloon, but it still holds.

This. It's not the parents problem to solve, and the idea that 'we all need to help' is half the problem.

It's for school and their parents to deal with, no one else

I am quite curious about the reasons people would choose a girls school purely on the basis of boys behaviours.

I went to a girls school and the bullying, jealousy and verbal abuse some girls gave was atrocious. One girl went as far as shoving another girl down a full flight of steps and her reasoning was, she was stood there, she felt like it and could!

This can all happen in any school of course, mixed or single sex but bullying in school from my own experiences happens with both boys and girls.

And send them an invoice for the time at TA rates.

*You seem to be missing that the quiet, well-behaved girls are often too shy to say anything.

if you are going to use this technique, it is your job to make sure there is no bullying or distraction happening.

you also need to realize that to a pre-diagnosis ASD girl, a seat-mate who is not following the rules in any way is going to be a huge source of stress and a distraction from her learning.*

This. I was the quiet loner smart girl (ASD) used as an emotional and academic support human. I hated it. It made things more stressful, and I ended up with significant mental distress. And the one time I spoke out you’d have thought I’d pissed in the teachers chips.

Smart girls have their own needs and should not be forced to be subservient to others.

One thing ive never understood is static seating plans. Why not switch it up or have tables rather than rows of desks or have a system so that people sit with different people every day. Or a quiet table at the side where anyone being bothered or who wants to work in peace can sit. I know teachers dont want too much moving around for control purposes but surely it wouldn't take too much effort to ensure same people arent sitting next to each other for an entire term.

I went to an international school and there was a circle of desks in front of the board in most classes, rows of desks in some and everyone just sat where they wanted first come first served, from year 6. This meant in practice that the rowdy boys all sat together at the back and the girls spaced around.

No seriously disruptive or SN students though in those days so I appreciate that rings extra challenges.

This happened to me over 40 years ago. The boy who was seated next to me would punch and kick me. My mum had it stopped

And teachers are trying to solve it by mixing up different children with different types of behaviour. Someone has to sit next to those with challenging behaviour and it maybe, a some time, be your child.

Girls and women are not the emotional support animals of boys and men.

I think it is disgusting some people are gushing over how kind and lovely a little girl is because people allowed her to be the emotional regulator for a disruptive SEN boy. She was literally hit in the face.

If your daughter is being used to calm other children (almost always boys), go in there and demand it is changed.