Parents won't discipline children, schools are not allowed to discipline children, so grammar chools are the way forward.

[Longlost10]

The whole comprehensive system is dragged down by the financial, spiritual, moral, educational and professional cost of the huge number of total wasters in the student body. Those who disrupt lessons, ignore teachers, distract students, talk back, waste time, make paper aeroplanes out of worksheets, dawdle in late, don't bother to do their homework, don't come equipped, chat and fidget and generally make no attempt to learn. They are utterly selfish and just tink of nothing but enjoying themselves.They are pandered to and spoilt, offered endless chances, suck the system dry of money, time, energy, and resources. Teachers are held responsible for their imbecilic behaviour, and grind themselves into dust trying to work to change behavior which is under someone elses control entirely.

This is why I support grammar schools. It gives the top 25% the opportunity to get away from these yobs, and and incentive to behave well, and keep behaving well, as a grammar school student needs to maintain certain levels of behavior and achievement to remain a grammar school student.

So overall, the poor behavior goes down. Because a grammar school place is an incentive to behave properly, and so some bad behaviour improves.

In a comp, badly behaved pupils have nothing to lose. That changes in a grammar system.

And a large number of students can get away from the poor behaviour too. Of course there is some bad behaviour in grammar schools, but it isn't comparable.

So less bad behaviour, more learning, and fewer students affected by bad behaviour in others. Whats not to like??

Of course it doesn't solve the problem of having to put up with bad behaviour in secondary modern classrooms, but it doesn't make it any worse either.

[EyeSaidTheFly]

OP, I also taught in E Africa. A lot of the children there are profoundly lost and traumatised. A teacher like you will only have made their lives so much worse. Your views are heartbreakingly cruel and I dread to think of the way you must have spoken to and treated those children. You'd never have got away with it here.

[EyeSaidTheFly]

Something else I feel compelled to add: my job requires me to work with child abusers on a daily basis and the vocabulary and contempt with which they describe children exactly mirrors the way you also talk about them. It's completely repulsive.

[kesstrel]

Noble
And yet when schools like Michaela are discussed on MN, where behaviour is strictly monitored and thus impeccable, there are shouts of horror at kids being turned into robots and not treated with humanity

Exactly what I was thinking when I read your post! But I think there is a big divide between poorer parents, especially black parents, who are desperate to give their children a chance at a good traditional education, and to stop them being lost into the street culture that Birlbalsingh describes in her book about her previous inadequate school - and more advantaged parents who have never had to worry about that, and so have the luxury of being more relaxed about behaviour standards.

[minifingerz]

"and professional cost of the huge number of total wasters in the student body. "

What do you suggest?

Gassing them?



After all - they KNOW better! They could behave better, but they choose not to out of selfishness, stupidity and spite.

Alternatively we could forget educating them and send them all to work in brick factories or something.

[mrz]

No WW I'm saying that engaging pupils in primary doesn't resolve the issue if the secondary school doesn't continue to engage them. You can have the most enthusiastic and committed students but they can soon become switched off.

[WinchesterWoman]

I am suggesting that the drive to engagement and self-improvement will come from the pupils - that more disadvantaged pupils will have achieved well at primary, will not have been set up to fail, will not have been put off the entire learning process.

[minifingerz]

"if the secondary school doesn't continue to engage them. You can have the most enthusiastic and committed students but they can soon become switched off. "

My dd was totally disengaged by the end of year 9. Her teachers were great and other children in her school did very well.

Sometimes it's very hard to get to the bottom of why a child loses the plot with education but it's not fair to always blame schools and teachers.

Apparently there are two children in every classroom now who are experience significant emotional illness. I feel sorry for schools having to deal with this, sorry for children too and for parents.

And there is a culture of disrespect in many classrooms which children - who may otherwise be very nice - get swept up in.

I don't know the answer, except that creating social, financial and educational ghettoes for children is not a humane or sensible way to address it.

[EllyMayClampett]

As this is a thread about behaviour, did anyone listen to You And Yours on Radio 4 today? I was shocked to hear that 6 out of 10 girl guides surveyed, reported being sexually harassed at school. That's a massive behavioural issue that needs to be tackled.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37338712

[corythatwas]

Ok, so children like mine- who have had their good manners and consideration for others praised in every single school report throughout their lives- should have been stuck in schools with no high achieving top set, with no teachers interested in academic achievement, with no message that children from this school are ever going to do well academically.

Simply because they were (for medical reasons in one case, and a combination of medical reasons and late development in the other) unable to pass a test at the age of 11, they did not deserve a calm and positive learning environment as much as other MNers children did. Nice.

[FreshHorizons]

What a peculiar idea that I would have sent my children to a comprehensive school where their lessons were disrupted!
Even odder that my academically able child deserves to have well behaved classes without disruption whereas my one that is not academic is expected to put up with it! WHY?
I wanted them both in well behaved classes.
Luckily good comprehensives don't just wring their hands in horror and do nothing!
If something isn't good enough for your children Longlost10 then it certainly isn't good enough for mine or anyone else's children!
I am appalled that some children can be called failures at 10 years of age and given a second class education.
Basically it means the children born with all advantages get the best education and those without those advantages get a poor education. A system that stinks and is not fit for 21st century!
ALL children deserve an excellent education- and that is what they should be getting.
Had I sent my children to a comprehensive with poor behaviour then the most academically able one was better able to cope with disruption than the one who needed extra help. Luckily the school valued ALL pupils and allowed them all to work without disruption.
Incidentally my son who is not academic is extremely well behaved with a work ethic second to none. I certainly did not want him in a school with the top set removed. However I dare say that OP is one of those people to think that because he was in lower sets he shouldn't have any friends in the higher sets!!