WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

[beetroot]

MY MATE HAS has a dilemma I am sure is not a new one to anyone reading this,but she is experimenting with a few different ways to resolve it.
Student x, let's call him ASBOW, is the sort of lad who is rarely in school, and when present either chats or larks around or talks or switches off; he is a bad influence on 'Jimmy', who is a similar type but not QUITE as slack as Asbow.
Yesterday she asked the whole group- which is where the experiment comes in- who wants to have Asbow in their group?
Silence. NO ONE wants him, surprise surprise, as the rest are all keen to do well.
Jimmy promptly berates them for 'being two faced, as they are nice enough to his face'etcetc.Asbow was absent, of course.
We all tried to explain that the reason is that they don't want their marks jeopardised.Jimmy seems unable to absorb this line of reasoning.
Today
Asbow present, and the two girls who have volunteered to work with J and A gamely get started, full of enthusiasm.
After a while of sitting around looking truculent, J and A plus another lad, equally switched off but largely compliant and amenable, always does written work well, ask to 'work outside in the grass area, as the girls are getting on with a different scene'.
she agrees to this, but at the end the two girls angrily inform her they are 'well p..$$ed off with J and A as all they did was talk and did nowt all lesson.'
She feels bad for the two girls as they do want to do well but in misplaced loyalty to their mates J and A,they are being treated with scorn.
OK so
what now?
Choices:

1. Have a reet good rant at J and A.
2. Split them up and share them out ( as usual, so they are not dragging each other down, BUT they are a drag on the rations with the other motivated students).
3. THREATEN to split them up if they don't start working next lesson, which surely was the point made in yesterday's lesson anyway. so why did they do nothing today?

Clearly he is a hopeless case.

1. REMOVE him from Drama and set him catch up work to do from other subjects, as he is clearly dragging Jimmy down.
2. Phone his Mum again, write home, yadda yadda all done already. HOY has more or less run the gamut of options with him and he is seemingly unredeemable.
3. Take the girls and the inert lad away/ remove J and A from their group, to either catch up with written or do a two-hander, which of course is not allowed really as 3 is the minimum number.

7. There is no 7. Or is there? Anyone?

exclude him.

I was going to witter on but that would be my choice.

my thoughts to Jools...

we-e-e-ell, since drama is generally one of the last resorts, where the Asbows of the world often do finallly get involved and focussed, and since he hasn't, I would kick him out and give Jimmy a chance to redeem hiself, rather than allowing Jimmy to sacrifice himself on the Asbow alter.

I'm not really sure I understand what the task is but...

I wouldn't put them together. I would put each as the fourth person in a group of three, so that there are sufficient people to do the work if they don't. If they disrupted the group I would remove them from the lesson (with whatever system your school has in place).

I certainly wouldn't let a bunch of them split away from their groups and work outside. Did she really think they would get anything done?!

No threats (counterproductive), no rants (ditto).

Since they are incapable of working in groups, make them do the whole task on their own (separate from each other that is). Eventually Jimmy may work out that it is no fun doing 4 people's work on his own and buck up and work in a group again.

Sometimes we have to let them fail. It's a life lesson.

removing him from Drama implies that Drama is a 'muckabout' or unimportant subject.Clearly some whole school policy is required for little asbow. What year are we talking ? KS 3 or 4 ?

1. Split up Asbow and Jimmy. Don't threaten, just do it.

1. Place both of them with the best behaved kids who also are a bit streetwise.

1. Warn them that if they don't take an active part 'And I will be watching you' they will take an active and leading role in a catch up session this break time.

1. If he continues to refuse to work, give him written work which you insist is done, if it isn't finised, catch up at break time.

Eventualy most of them learn.