parents or teachers-any of you had 4 or 5 problematic kids in your class-prejudicing other kids

[dolally]

My dd(10) has 4 or five disruptive, undisciplined and thoroughly yukky kids in her class. the things they have done, seem to go slighly beyond the call of duty for a 10 yr old. They include one weeing on the other, being brutal with each other, stealing from each other and other, foul language,etc... They have been excluded from school for a few days but nothing seems to have worked. The form teacher has been off sick for one month due to depression/stress --- some of which was due to her class, though some of which was presumably for personal reasons too.

Anyway, the parents are having a meeting next week as we generally seem to feel that our kids are not in the most healthy environment. My own DD seems to be becoming rather bullying at home and I wonder how much of this has to do with school. Another mother apparently says her son's grades are going down. the teachers seem to be able to do nothing except throw the ringleaders out of the class occasionally. One of the mothers says she thinks nothing will change as its the school that needs to deal with this situation: the parents are pretty powerless.

Do we all need to demand our kids are transferred out of this class? I would appreciate your ideas for when I attend this meeting. I will transfer my dd out of this class or even the school if I have to, though she has a handful of good friends (the nice ones) who she went to primary school with, so she would be sad to leave them.

Will check back later if any of you have any ideas, going out now to take dd to danceclass!!!

It is a situation which does occur for various reasons from time to time. If you want to change things you must be open with the school from the outset. It sounds as if the climate within the classroom is not right and that children are not as motivated to learn and to behave well as they might be.
Without knowing where you are and the type of school it is difficult to say too much. My advice would be to talk to one or more of your parent governors, assuming this is a uk state school. Make clear the problems without accusing individual children; in a sense all the children are being failed. Ask the Governor to explore ways of improving the motivation and happiness of all the children with the Head and to feed back to you.
The class obviously need a regular committed class teacher, an inspiring and exciting curriculum and careful consistent behaviour management with lots of opportunities for children to boost their self esteem. In a well run classroom, even the most difficult children thrive. Think of the children as plants and the environment as compost.. naff I know but those kids need a much richer planting medium right away.
Good luck!

I left teaching (secondary) a year ago after struggling with stress and feeling like I was becoming depressed. This was wholey due tot he poor behaviour. lack of discipline, lack of respect and utter disregard for tohers that far too many pupils in the school had, as well as a complete lack of support from management for teachers with these children in their classes.

ropinpud - I have to disagree with your last statements. Some children do not want to thrive. they do not want to take advantage of the opportunities offer to them. Their parents don't care if they do or don't.

I was always rated by various inspectors (OFSTED, LEA, school) as at least good in all aspects of my lesson and very good-excellent for planning and preparation. However, with one particular class I was stumped...the significant minority made it all fall apart. Even the excellent LEA Advisor who I asked to come and support, and teach them alone, whilst going through this could not get them to conform.

Children like this, if left unmanaged by management, will ruin education for a whole class.

For me they forced me to leave a job i used to enjoy. I will NEVER teach again. The thought of doing that day in day out - no way.

I know work in prison education with high security prisoners - I know where I would rather me.

dd1 (10) is in a class that is known to be v. difficult -- they have 11 kids on the SN register, 4 with full statements. The SN are mainly to do with mild learning difficulties or emotional/behavioural issues, and social issues with the families as well (one child is in care). There has always been a lot of disruptive behaviour going on, mainly of the pissing about and talking back variety, kids arguing and generally being pointless (armpit farts, throwing themselves on the floor, silly comments etc etc). Two teachers have resigned from the school rather than take that class. You get the picture. The school is in a very mixed inner-city area, so the situation is further complicated by the fact that there are some extremely able children in the class who have become quite cynical and disaffected, cheeky to teachers etc. Dd1 is def. included in the latter group, and can be quite lippy on occasion.

But, and it's a big but, I don't think dd1 has ever felt unsafe in the class, nor is foul language or any kind of violence tolerated by the school. The only incident that has resulted in a temporary exclusion over the past few years involved one child stabbing his mate with a pair of scissors, but in a playfight way rather than an aggressive incident. He was excluded for a few days anyway, just to make sure all the kids got the point. The most shocking incident this year involved one child calling the teacher a b*tch to her face -- the children were all talking about it for weeks in hushed tones, and were all clearly aware that it was completely unacceptable.

So to answer your question, I think your dd's situation is not okay, and the school should be doing something I can't believe that a competent headteacher would be allowing this to continue. If the classteacher isn't up to it, he should employ teachers who are, or ensure adequate support for them. If there is a gang culture he should be breaking it up by mixing classes up (if it is a larger school ours is one-form entry, so not an option). He should be contacting the parents on a regular basis, and setting in place measures to manage these kids' behaviour. Or, frankly, he should be showing his own face in the classroom on a daily basis until the kids get the idea of what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

This is not doing anyone any favours, not the disruptive kids, nor the motivated ones, nor the teachers. Nor, presumably, is it going to do anything for his league table showings, which might be worth a mention.

I hope you get some sensible answers. At least you have other parents on side, which might mean you get taken more seriously.

Re getting the disruptive children moved, good luck. I have had children placed with me who have cut another child with a knife, broken another child's nose, and set fire to a little girls hair.( three separate incedents with three separate children)

A few years ago two boys set fire to the school their punishment? having to work in school through half term.

Please tell me why there is a need to always assume sn kids are problematic?

In the school that I work in, sn kids can just mean children with behaviour difficulties.

I work 1:1 with a sn child, and she is the most lovely little girl in the whole class

Because they are sn for ebd, as I said in my post. There is also a child with sn for visual difficulties, who is not problematic. surely the point of ebd is that it is a statement/action for kids with behavioural difficulties, which is what the op was asking about.

some of your tales are amazing... and sad, and I really admire you teachers. My kids are in the state system here (in Portugal) so I'm really floundering in the dark not to mention the language limitations. However my eldest 14 is in the same school and we have never had any problems, the classes are small around 25 kids. My youngest is still at primary school and very happy.

I think dd10's class has 20 kids but only 5 girls, the problem kids (and I use that term loosely - I don't know what their problems are but I feel that they are possibly damaging the others' chance of an education... not to mention their own) The meeting is called by the parents for the parents but your ideas are very useful for me, because I think we will have to go .. prob collectively to the head and really push for some answers.

meant to say the problem kids are all boys, which means that one quarter of the class is disruptive and the attentive ones (girls are statistically proven to be a good influence aren't they? god hope to offend anyone!) are in the minority.

i work in a school supporting kids with behavioural probs in the classroom with the teacher.on a 1:1 basis these kids are fine and mostly have very tragic stories behind their behaviour ie:homelife, abuse etc etc etc.

our new head teacher has halved the learning support staff and now these kids are running riot, not going to lessons, being abusive and not getting support anymore. basically in my opinion it all comes down to funding attitudes that have come from home. i feel sorry for kids like this coz when you get to know them theyre actually really nice

thats funding AND attitudes from home

Hulababy I can see where you are coming from in secondary terms but these are primary aged children and so spend a lot more time being taught as a class. In this situation, with time spent on establishing classroom discipline and reinfocing sanctions etc, there is hope ;an atmosphere can be created which really reduces bad behaviour and encourages a collective intolerance and ultimately isolates the indisciplined children. It takes a huge amount of effort and a skilled practitioner and lots of whole school systems as reinforcement. In dolally's school there are a lot of things not working properly and needing to be sorted urgently.

Yes but where or how do the parents start to change these things... all that you all say makes lots of sense. But is our only alternative to move our kids until the whole school system changes from the top?

I just asked dd on the way home if she sees much of the headmistress, she said yes, she's always appearing in the class and talking to the kids. Poor woman I suppose she's doing her best.

I think you should go ahead with your meeting as planned but suggest using it as a chance to plan a future meeting to include members of staff and parents of the disruptive group (I assume they are not coming next week!) Use that as an opportunity to try to get to the root of the problem. I agree with belgianbun - school council can work wonders. At our school (becoming usual practice in kent but I don't know about other authorities) we also have a Family Liaison Officer and a Children's Liaison Officer who work together with families having difficulties. When similar things have happened the F.L.O. has mediated with the parents (e.g. as part of your meeting) while the C.L.O. works with the children. She offers group sessions to take the disruptive children out of class for alternative lessons and is available at a variety of times to act as a counsellor for any children for any problems (e.g. if your dd wanted to speak to her.) It takes a pretty special person to gain the trust of the families and children but, since ours did, it has worked wonders.
Hope some of this is helpful.

Gosh, sounds like the school where my daughter goes, particularly the piddling on each other.

If she is in year 6, just be thankful that it won't go on for much longer. I hope you aren't sending her to the feeder secondary. We managed to get our daughter into a grammar and she is the only one going, thank the lord!

The headteacher of this particular school has been completely incompetent. He blames the parents (and so do I) but he allowed the discipline to get totally out of hand to the point where a 7 year old told a teacher to F off and he was allowed to get away with it. I am also fed up of hearing about how we should pity these little buggers who are jeopardising the safety and education of my child.

I am turning into a real Mrs Angry!!

I feel really sad for pupils in a class where there are 4 or 5 disruptive. They are not necessarily special needs. They do tend to come from a family environment where education is not valued. They also are the ones who should be following an 'alternative' curriculum looking at what they might be able to do when they leave school. I can easily spend a quarter of the lesson sorting out behaviour. These kids generally want to spend their time playing games on the internet, listening to music on their ipods, and texting each other on mobiles or MSN.

oh - and they all they watch Little Britain, Ali G, Big Brother, X-factor, films that they should not be watching - sometimes until quite late at night. My Headteacher made the remark in the staff that these kids had no guidelines from their parents and no love. ( According to a primary teacher friend of mine a smart local very middle class primary school has had to send out letters on the type of viewing that the kids were seeing as it was disrupting their behaviour at school!!)

Martianbishop is right about the kids being moved. If you get rid of one bad one then another bad one from another school will takes its place. These kids tend to be on a circuit of different schools - the load has to be spread.

Peer pressure does work to an extent - but these kids are eventually ignored by the other kids who start to look down upon the disruptive ones with a great deal of disdain.

thanks for your input... really useful. I'll let you know what(if anything) transpires.

I have to disagree about peer pressure working with these disruptive children. I am sick and tired of my very well behaved and hard working child being penalised for the behaviour of others in her class. She is regularly kept in at playtime - why? It just makes the punishment easier for the children who are being naughty. The peer pressure bit, doesn't exist for these children, they think it is hilarious and are glad of the company when being kept in.

If teachers punished only those who were actually being badly behaved, when everyone else was having fun, may be they would think about what they were missing. As it is my daughter is being punished when she can't do a blind thing about it. It makes my blood boil, actually and it even made me consider taking her away from the school (along with other issues, but this was one of them).

Hi
just had to add my own experiences. My dd1 is now 12 and at secondary school. She is in a set which has been streamed for fast tracking through the system. It's great, although there is friendly competition, they are all supportive of each other and there is little disruption. Having said that I did move her when she was going into yr6 from her junior school to another one because of the disruption in the class. DD2 is at the junior school I moved dd1 to. She has had 2 good years but this year is a nightmare. There are only 5 or 6 children who are not disruptive!! The teacher is always saying "you are being unfair to (and names the 5 or 6)" like that's going to help anything. At last parent meeting I said dd was having trouble concentrating and learning etc, to which she replied "I'm not surprised!" I have also seen parents redduce the teacher to tears in the playground with their verbal abuse, so what chance does she have in the classroom of gaining the respect of their "little darlings"!!?

Totally agree - what a weird kind of self.defeating, lazy kind of discipling is punishing the whole class when two misbehave. My dd10's last teacher in primary did that. It used to make her very resentful. I know some parents complained.

We don't have streaming here, though a teacher friend of mine said she'd heard they do it in England, thinks its a good idea.

"I feel really sad for pupils in a class where there are 4 or 5 disruptive. They are not necessarily special needs. They do tend to come from a family environment where education is not valued".

I would agree fully with the above comment that was made by happilyconfused.

The two I am thinking of (btw they are not special needs either. Unlike children with specific learning disabilities, children with forms of behavioural problems do not on the whole get any form of extra classroom support) have come from an environment where the parents lets the children do as they wish without fear of consequence from them. The mother has herself said she lets them get on with it. The parents have been called in on numerous occasions re their behaviour to no effect (unsurprising really given their above stance). These two have something in common as well; both of them are underachieving in class.

Yo my mind this whole family need help from the family liaison/CAMHS people but this is not forthcoming from school and to my mind such people will refuse such help anyway saying that they don't need someone to tell them as a family what to do.

In such circumstances what can be done?. To add to the problems we have an inexperienced teacher who is frankly out of her depth.

EBD children are special needs, most of them have an IEP and are on either school action or school action plus (and are therefore on the SEN register). If they are this disruptive they should also have extra input/support for their behaviour management.