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.

its not always girls are good and boys are naughty. Girls can be equally disruptive.

@Parker231... no .. but this thread has lots of evidence of this, and it has been observed in other long term observational studies.

There is no way on this earth that girls are "equally disruptive". Hence the prisons systems being full of men.

Equally schools need to take account of different learning styles as well. There are disruptive gurls and studious boys, of course, but generally 10-14y old boys find it much more difficult to sit still and concentrate for hours at a time or sit quietly and do crafts. So things like outdoor lessons, regular breaks, forest schools, maths lessons while doing a physical.activity etc can work much better. Sadly I dont see much evidence of that being recognised in mixed schools.

Not saying girls schools are perfect of course not but for us they have been so better.

Dd said as much the other day. Her maths teacher moved from a mixed private school to the all girls state. She said the girls with the boys there were so quiet and cowed she far preferred the all girl environment.

This is so right and, in fact, works better for all children, I think. Girls cope better than boys with sit-down learning (on the whole) but I don't necessarily think that means they are especially benefitting from it. A more active and less classroom-based system, certainly at primary level would probably reap benefits for all children. And would mean the well-behaved girls wouldn't be stuck with supporting the badly behaved children of either sex.

They say that boys benefit from a mixed environment but girls do better at a single sex school. Your experience bears this out.

I sent DD to a girls' secondary for this reason. Friends who prefer mixed sex schools for their daughters always say schools should reflect society and that the girls will have to work with men when they are older. But I think that teenage or younger boys in school are very different from men in a work environment, and even if they're not, at least the girls have had their school years able to focus on the subjects they choose, without sexual harassment, and without being made to feel that maths and sciences are "boy subjects" and not for them.

Happens to my son all the time (he's the well behaved studious boy). He gets disrupted, has his work copied, teacher ignores him when he tells them. He has been given the title "student leader" in the past to support other children. I see both sides but unsure of the answer. I spoke to the teachers as this happened on numerous occasions.

I think the teachers are at a loss of how to solve the issue as well.

There is a particular kind of in-class disruption that really impacts learning and creates stress for certain types of students. The interpersonal issues that happen during free time and outside the classroom don’t tend to be on their radar.

I am in a country where girls schools are incredibly rare and almost always highly religious. If we had a legitimate option to put our dd in an all girls school, that is definitely where she would be.

This used to happen to me in one particular year of primary school (luckily not bullied, just upset at being moved next to someone who prevented me listening... I was a sensitive soul).

My mum spoke to the school and was basically told it was tough. My dad eventually gave me permission to copy whatever the naughty kid shouted out, and said that he would deal with the fallout from the teacher.

I'm not sure that it's the best bit of parenting he ever did, but they had a meeting about my sudden decline in behaviour and after that, they they stopped using me as a tool to improve boys behaviour 🤷‍♀️

@Hopebridge I don’t think educators are at a loss as to how to deal with this. What’s needed is money.
Take schools like Mill Hill known for attracting wiggly kids, the answer is sports. Particularly early am sports.
Investigation, no family should have more than 2 months wait to investigate basic ADHD.

And we wonder why boys grow up to be investment bankers or other high paid professions that tolerate bad behaviour and girls go into low paid caring professions.

True - there’s a deeper worry here isn’t there. What message are girls getting from a young age?!
why is it that school teachers are telling our girls to believe that they need to be ‘better at ignoring’ or just to regard threatening behaviour as ‘being just silly’ … at what point are they empowered to highlight their own needs in this situation and to be supported in taking action?! Do they ever learn this? Why are the stats of women experiencing domestic abuse or coercive behaviours in relationships?! Makes you think … just wish we were more mindful generally of these very strong and influential messages we are giving as society.

The worst behaved are not always boys. One class at my school has two particular girls who other parents constantly complain about and nobody wants their child sat next to them- yet they can't sit next to each other either.

The only solution is to regularly move the children round so they take it in turns to sit next them. Classrooms are cramped, it's impractical for them to sit on their own- especially when there are around 8 children in the class with behaviour issues.

Wow that’s really interesting and food for thought. Unfortunately there are no girls only state schools in the UK - as far as I know. Probably private schools though.

There are lots of girls only grammar schools - which are state, not private. And some non grammar too, Waldegrave in SW London springs to mind, often coming v high in league tables for a non selective.

Where we live in the south east of England, many of the state secondaries are single sex, though none of the state primaries. That is comprehensive as well as grammar. It is worth looking around if you think single sex education might suit your daughter (or your son).

True - parents of the child are often not told, I think the behaviour just becomes part of the furniture and not ever properly challenged. I walked out of school with my upset child whilst the boy in question bounced out of school full of beans chatting to his dad about his day. There was no intention on behalf of the school to tell this dad. I guess he gets occasional updates but this should be told on a daily basis. Parents are so key at this stage in making change possible. I’m not talking about a punitive way, but definitely parents need to know and be involved to support their child and the school- they have a tough job in these large class sizes

Thankyou for this - it’s a lovely example of where care for our kids in school is and should be more wraparound. Having parents like yourself actively engaged in the care of their child at school, the teacher feels supported and also the child sitting next to them gets supported and the parent of that child is informed and knows how to support their own child so that the whole system works and doesn’t breakdown. Support in schools and awareness of these things is nowhere up to where it should be. Some inroads are being made with clinical psychologists in schools but this needs to be rolled out properly with proper funding and we would see our schools transformed and properly addressing the social, emotional needs of kids along with full involvement of the parents. Perhaps we might be there in 50yrs!

There are lots of girls only state comprehensive schools - I went to one.

Girls absolutely do better in a girls only environment and it’s one of the reasons I have sent DD5 to an all girls independent school.

Hmmm good question, but why do they need to be badly behaved?

Girls have much better academic outcomes in single sex schools, much higher take-up of STEM at A level, and their sports have primacy. Sexual harassment from within the school- a massive issue in secondary schools- is almost at zero.

That's why.

Our 2 nearest schools are girls' state comps/non selective academies. I think 25% of state educated children in London are in single sex. The boys' comp also has a drama and arts specialism which is brilliant for challenging some types of masculinities and local feedback is they get much better take-up than in mixed schools.

There a few girls only secondary schools where I live (UK) and they are state schools, I myself went to one and to be honest it was awfully toxic.

I mean any school regardless of gender can be toxic but from my experience a girls only school is not a solution if you are hoping for well behaved kids only.

Mine are at an all girls mixed ability non grammar comprehensive. It’s the only girls school in our county and funnily enough is the school with the highest exam results in the county too..

It’s not perfect but there is minimal classroom disruption the teachers who have been at mixed schools say they find it much easier. That said the poor head of pastoral must have a large drink at the end of term dealing with the friendship issues!