Even good schools have behaviour issues

[CindersNeedsHelp]

Just been prompted by fellow MNer to rant about behaviour issues in schools (I was a teacher before becoming a SAHM) and the comment was made that a majority of kids do not listen and talk back at a school that is well respected, has top grades, etc.

Have read the state or private thread with interest and IMHO, inclusion is the main problem in state education and is the biggest education mistake the government has made in recent years.

I don't know if this has been commented on before now, but I wonder why so many parents take the BS line from the government that it is better for children with special needs to go into a mainstream school! It's just a cost cutting measure to close down schools, put all kids together, and save money on utilities, wages etc. OK, so a few specialist assistants are brought in to help, but so few teachers are conversant in sign language, brail etc. yet are expected to teach deaf and blind students in with other children. It just brings down the quality of education for everyone, even though most teachers try their very best!

Bring back all the different types of special schools so everyone can have an equal quality education, rather than lump everyone, regardless of their individual needs, into a room that is not designed to cope with them, with teachers not trained to deal with them, so everyone has the same (equally bad) experience of education!!!

If you take the social argument that kids need to be with their peers surely children who take the pi55 all the time, and those who have no concept of what life is like are hardly going to help them. Surely trained professionals providing tailed support will help children grow into confident adults able to cope with life. The other argument is that inclusion helps bring children together in an environment more representative of the real world, but ask any home educators, school is an artificial environment anyway. But I digress ...

Plus, not all schools are equal anyway, even though there are few special schools now, and league tables are another major mistake, but that is another issue although!!!

This was really just a rant, but any thoughts, anyone?

In my school the most challenging behaviour does not come from the children with the most severe SEN, i.e. the children who in a previous era would have been in a special school.

Inclusion has its pluses and minuses; but I really don't think it's legitimate to lay at the feet of 'inclusion' the blame for severe behavioural problems in classrooms.

I had a top set yr9 this afternoon with no children on the SEN register in there, and their general attitude and lack of basic manners was shocking.

without knowing much about it, i would say that yes, i would imagine schools more tailored to needs would be a better if more expensive idea. i imagine its a hugely complicated area - but if my child were in need of a more forgiving environment than the mainstream secondary school i attended id be unhappy if they were not allowed the opportunity due to cost cutting. not remotely surprised, but certainly not happy.

but i seriously do not believe that behavioural issues in school are due to the inclusion of kids with SENs. it may play a part, as do class sizes and paperwork requirements and poor facilities and anything in fact which diverts teachers time and energy from actually teaching and knowing the kids in their care.

Cinders, I broadly agree with you.

I also think the problem starts much earlier, really in the first few years of a child's life.

Apart from DS at senior school, I also have a DD (8 months) and experience baby and toddler groups (again!). I know these are designed to give us Mums a break, but one group we go to is dominated by four lively boys of around three years who will not sit at all, will not listen to anyone and generally run riot. This is spoiling the session for me and DD (and quite a few other carers) as I have to have her on my lap most of the time rather than let her roll around and "play with other babies". I feel sorely tempted to approach the boys' mothers but do not wish to cause offence (one mother is about 8 months pregnant).

I think a lot comes down to boundaries and this has to be learned early on. Politeness and consideration for others can be taught early on and personally I had a tougher life with DS when he was young than many friends of ours. However over the last few years I have sort of reaped the benefits as most of our friends cannot "control" their kids.

They also expect school to "sort out their kids" whereas I don't. Schools are primarily for teaching rather than teaching basic manners.

Call me oldfashioned....

My son with SN is at a state of the art school with fantastic facilities and teaching all based around his specific needs ( ASD) but we have been told to look at two other schools prior to secondary as his school is the most expensive and if he could manage within a unit in a general learning disability school then that would be cheaper better .
But I agree with others here SN does not equal behavioral issues anymore than NT equals good bahviour.
Two differnt ( although occasionally overlaping) issues

Actually thinking about it I am barely surprised anymore when I am out in public with DS and find that in many situations he is far better behaved than many ordinary peers.
Behaviour is to do with respect, obedience and compliance. Some times SN kids struggle with coping these but many NT kids simply choose not to.

agree that all schools have behavioural issues. I would also agree that most of our worst behavioural issues (in the school I work in) are cause by NT rather than children with specific SEN.

However, I would also agree that some children are being included in MS with SEN so profound that they will never cope, even with 32.5 hours of 1 to 1. And for these children 'inclusion' is nothing of the sort, it is a simple cost cutting exercise where no-one benefits. Not the child with the SEN, as they will not make progress, not the other children in the class, and not the staff who get ever more pissed off with the situation where they are expected to cope, while a system fails their children.

I would also agree that there is now a group of parent who do little or nothing to get their children to behave , and see this as the schools job. Ironically they also often fail to support the school when the school tries!

OK 2 points:

1. parents dont usually CHOOSE where their kids attend with SN- I desperately wanted DS3 to attend a SN school, however here the decision is amde in a closed meeting that we cannot attend and went against our wishes. So I cannot be accused of 'taking a BS line' from anybody, I know my childrens needs thank you, but choice isn't there.

1. Of my 2 SN (and 1 NT) children, 1 is definitely at this stage mroe suited to MS than SN school, and one isn't. Sn kids vary and need a variety of settings to develop them, as much as parents of children with no SN are able to apply to several schools to find the right one for them.

So, Cinders, if we have more segragation how on earth will people with disabilities be accepted as equal?
Just spent a day at an equality forum and the consensus was that inclusion needs to start early and that disabled children need the same opportunities as everyone else. They do not need segregating. If you put 'ethnic minority' where you have put SN it wouldbe racist.

Bad behaviour is seen in many children, not just those with special needs (and I loathe that term). Non-disabled children can be rude, aggressive etc etc

My dd will attend m/s school. She has severe CP and cannot speak. She will benefit from academic expectations, often lacking in SN school where little is expected of disabled kids and they are given low expectations of their future.

Many problems in school lie with crappy schools, undisciplined kids and poor parenting, not inclusion of children with disabilities.

I'd hate to go back to the 50's with disabled poeple stuck in institutions and ghetto's. We're still dealing with the prejudice from those times and the lack of positive role models and images for the disabled community and for the non-disabled, many of whom have not interacted with a disabled person. Inclusion must start early and in schools, toddler groups and playgroups.

and the crying shame is that parents of children with SEN are getting less and less choice as special schools are closing

The last school I taught in had a blind teacher.

Just thought I'd throw it into the mix. Irrelevant I know...

I think there is a danger in this type of discussion that SEN is seen to equal challenging behaviour, when in fact it is an enormously broad description.

My dad has been teaching in the state sector for 30 plus years and he has noticed:

• an increase in "me first" mentality. Children thinking of themselves and their needs over and above everything else.

• Lack of parental support, unquestioning support for own child rather than supporting the school or listening to any other pov than their own child's.

• Kids more likely to lie outright. Even if caught doing something denying and lying about it. The "fair cop guv" mentality is gone.

Sad really.

I've taught with a deaf teacher, and a teacher in a wheelchair, and even teachers with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia! I would agree with Kerala' df, behaviour in many children has got worse. Not all, naturally, but in general things are getting harder.

My children's school has a special unit for children with behavioural problems. It also has a catchment area with the usual mix of disruptive children/families. One big advantage is that the teachers are much more clued up about behavioural problems, which I think helps them with borderline children (like my ds) as they have that expertise in the school. My sister's two children are in a SN school. The elder went to mainstream primary but his disabilities have increased as he has got older, and the SN school has far better facilities, teaching ratio etc. They mainly try and teach life skills, which for my nephew and neice is absolutely appropriate, however for many other children with less profound disabilities would be completely wrong. A range of possibilities is what is required, all suitably equiped and staffed, from support in mainstream, units attaced to mainstream to a variety of special schools (given that kids with SN are not exactly a homogenious group).

The disruptive children thing is completely different, private schools can (and do) expel and exlused whoever they like, but the staet sector obviously cannot. The argument there would be for more special units, and the issue is that they are socially stigmatising.

Kerala, that is because they copy their role models, i.e. their parents.

When adults no long respect authority, is it any wonder that the children follow suit? When I went to school, my parents drummed into me that the teachers were in charge, they were their teach us and we were there to listen and learn.

These days, children are openly disrepectful and defiant towards teachers because they know that their parents will support them.

they were there to teach us

Personally I think that children with physical difficulties and mild learning based SN can often be appropriately placed in mainstream where thier needs make integration broadly more achievable.
But my son needs special school - which i don't regard as an institution but as a home from home where he is safe and comfortable with his peers. And his needs are understood.
The increase in ASD kids in particular being taught at home is because their social difficulty is precisely the thing that can make mainstream school a living hell.

I cannot walk down the street with my son without him being peered at and muttered over. No amount of integration is going to stop the class twat picking on him for a cheap laugh or bullying him for a cheap thrill. So not over my dead body.
integration is a great idea as long as it is accompanied by education and good discipline carried out in an atmosphere of respect and compassion.
How many schools near to you are like that?

My DS will go to a special school that meets his needs - and that includes his happiness and his safety - or he will stay at home with me.
I am looking at secondry as we speak and the pressure on numbers as this crappy government wraps up miserly disregard for parents wishes as PCness makes me spit.

pagwatch, it sounds as if you son is very like some of the children we have tried to 'include' who have severe ASD. They do go through hell, and become switched off from the whole thing. It is horrible to watch. And these childen often have 32.5 hours of 1 to 1 and still cannot cope

MB . I have friends whose kids have been through that.Makes me want to weep.
I will teach him at home if I have to. He is such a lovely boy but he would shut down if stressed. And he has a history of self harm if pushed far enough.

I've seen it all too often.

I have seen children with 'lesser' levels of asd do well, and thrive, with the right amount of support.

But for some, even with the maximum amount of support that we can give them, we fail them. and it is horrific. Awful for them, and while it is happeneing also dreadfulfor the rest of the class (not that this should be the concern of the parent with the child with SEN , they have enough to deal with, but as the class teacher it has to be my cencern)

No-one benefits from these sorts of inclusions

My ds has ASD and 32.5 hrs 1-1 support in a mainstream school, he is making excellent progress both socially and academically and I do not believe, right now, that he could have a better placement.

My ds is accepted by his peers, has party invitations and has bonded with some of the children. He is seen in a way as the "toddler" in the class and the children (both his peers and the older children) are very protective of him.

DS started within the nursery unit and has grown up with his classmates. His behaviour in many ways is far less challenging than his classmates. The other pupils also benifit from having the extra adult support in the class as ds does a lot of small group work.

I am in agreement that there is a shortage of good SEN provision and that there should be choice. That MS is not right for all SEN children.

I am saddened that SEN children are an easy target - to blame inclusion for the problems in mainstream schools I believe masks the real issues.

Cinders Some of the points you make I totally agree with, Poor decision making by Government closing some fantastic schools has removed the essential facilities & diluted the expertise that were available to educate our children.

However just as a one size fits all mentality by Government is unhealthy I also believe that saying that the cause of the lack of discipline in schools is because of SN & inclusion is far more damaging & further breeds a lack of tolerance within society.

IME the schools where sn/inclusion does not work is far more about poor attitude than about finance.
You can build a ramp at any door but if your not willing to welcome that child its never going to work.

Both my children (1nt&1sn) go to the same ms primary. I do worry that as my sn son gets older there is less choice should he not cope at MS, But at his inclusive school the worst offenders for poor behaviour are not those with disabilities.

I for one would be horrified if my ds's school was allowing him to behave badly just because he is disabled.

special needs inclusion doesn't cause a school to have bad behaviour

Lack of respect and disipline in children is what does.

It's a sad time to have a (ex) teacher who believes that

Yes, more special schools are needed but if we were to get more, they should have strong links with mainstream.

Where would you put my daughter, she has very mild learning difficulties (1-2 years behind in some things, above average in others) a physical disability that means she can't handwrite and |NO behavioural problems.....should she be taken out of mainstream? Would her being in the school disrupt the others? She will be in employment in a mainstream environment but shouldn't be educate in one?

I am so sad and angry to read this post, some people have no idea

and also, in my daughters intregated school, the kids are so used to many different types of disability/learning difficulties, they don't bat an eyelid and we have NEVER witnessed any pisstaking or meanness, the 'special' kids are just kids

These 'normal' kids will grow up with an understanding and acceptance of diversity

Totally agree minority rules!

As others have said, SN does not necessarily mean bad behaviour. My 7yr-old is autistic and in a mainstream primary with no 1:1 support. He is very much rule-bound and just doesn't 'do' bad behaviour. The only problems in his class have been caused by NT children.

It's too easy to blame it all on SN and inclusion.