State schools around me are locking toilets for students

[MyopicBunny]

Has anyone else heard of this happening? The students are told that they may only use the bathrooms at set times. The rest of the time they lock them. Apparently, this is Rishi Sunak's idea to help improve attendance to lessons. I think it's an abuse of human rights. Nobody should be stopped from going to the loo. Imagine a girl who needed to go urgently because her period started or a student with IBS?

I think it's completely batshit. It doesn't affect my children because one is at nursery and the other HE.

Your post implies you know which pupils are causing the damage. Why aren’t they being dealt with? Surely anyone vandalising the school to the extent you describe should be expelled?

I missed this upthread! It is very, very difficult to expel students. They often get back in on appeal, plus schools are judged on how many permanent exclusions they carry out. Besides, the expelled child just gets sent to another school where they cause the same problems.

I doubt that teaches woke up one day and thought “I’ve got an idea we can replicate across loads of schools, lets treat the kids like they are sub-human”.

These actions are a direct response to badly behaved kids who have been brought up badly by terrible parents. Sorry but it’s true, it would never have occurred to me to vandalise anything, wouldn’t even cross my mind, probably because it was embedded from an early age that you don’t do that. I do know if I had been stupid enough to do something like that my parents would have lost their shit and 100% backed my teachers.

I dont think this is entirely new?. Pretty sure this happened when I was at school due to people starting fires.

I don’t understand why in this country we can’t adopt a system like Finland, or why we seem too blind to see that treating children with respect - even the difficult ones - can have incredible results.

A relative was a highly qualified teacher, did her PhD on Finnish schooling, and stopped teaching as she was so disillusioned at the poor quality schooling in the UK, and the way children were treated, and they way they consequently behaved. She has children and home educated them as mainstream schooling is so poor right now. Many other teachers are doing the same. It’s a shame as there are enough experienced and passionate teachers who could lead some really positive changes if they were allowed to. Instead it’s all policies and guidelines, many of which go against basic knowledge of child development.

Same, my parents would’ve been literally shaking with rage if I had done something like that.

Because this isn’t Finland. We don’t have the same society, social complexities, traditions, quality of life and all the rest of it. I bet a smaller proportion of Finnish children start school with delays having been inadequately parented for 4 years so it’s incomparable really.

These actions are a direct response to badly behaved kids who have been brought up badly by terrible parents

So once again, the many are punished for the actions of a few.

As for bad parenting, do you know where your teens are at any given time?
Do you know what they are doing at any given time?
Because teenage behaviour isn't always down to bad parenting at this point, most parenting is done and all you really can do is guide them .

No but an awful lot of it is. I can think of many young people I’ve known over the years who are/were ‘off the rails’ and the overwhelming majority of them had dysfunctional families and parents who were frankly bored of parenting, or never did it to start with.

I have no idea how any child is even able to learn in these schools if they are in such a state. But I definitely agree it must be the final straw of a funding issue.

I doubt that teaches woke up one day and thought “I’ve got an idea we can replicate across loads of schools, lets treat the kids like they are sub-human”.

In my area there was an incredible PRU which turned many pupils lives around, by using non-mainstream methods (I knew one of the teachers, I have a dc with PDA, we regularly swapped notes). Many pupils were successfully moved back to mainstream school, some went to special school, some remained on a flexible basis. Most improved and had a better outlook on their future.
The PRU is now an academy. It’s had a facelift and looks incredible, but it’s sadly now a shitty place for the students as they’re all treated like juvenile delinquents, and many end up completely off the rails.

Treat people as sub-human and they will behave that way.

Change is not going to come from the disadvantaged children, it must come from the adults in charge. Bizarre that so many don’t understand that.

Bloody Finland again!

They have a well funded compassionate education policy and no private schools.

Britain has fuck all funding. Thats the difference between Finland and UK. How sick are teachers of hearing about Finland?

Invest in British education like the Finnish do and I’m sure we’d have amazing schools.

I disagree.

I was a secondary teacher for 26 years. It was incredibly common to see a family of siblings go through a school. All well behaved except one rogue one who’d be completely off the wall. And yet all siblings had the same parents.

There have been schools and PRUs (sadly the ones I knew had to change to be more in line with an Academy approach) in this country that have used an approach using methods similar to Finnish schools, usually populated by the very children who are seen as the problem in current schooling issues - the sub-human ones who ruin things for staff and pupils alike.
If they can get better results out of the children, in terms of behaviour and qualifications, that other schools would rather demonise I’d suggest that was a very good indication that a different approach could be successful.

We’re not Finland, obviously, but we have a problem that’s getting worse and worse, with more and more children having to be on the SN register, more children behaving badly, more children with low attendance, more children having to be home educated etc.
The route currently being taken is making things worse. It’s laughable to think that considering trialing a different approach that works better for all children should be shunned because “we’re not Finland”.
What’s the alternative? “Kids, behave yourselves or we’ll lock the loos, put you in isolation” and so on - it’s not working is it! The problem is getting bigger and bigger.

At DDs private school 2 x Yr 9 girls were found vaping. They were immediately expelled. State schools don't have that option and it is actually extremely hard for stare schools to expel pupils.
The 2nd Master (Depity Head) is in charge of discipline. He is ex-army rugby player, 6 and a half foot tall and about the same in width. The kids are scared stiff of being sent to him. If they get 2 x behaviour logs for any reason then they are sent to him. Funnily enough behaviour is generally excellent and very few kids end up at his door. He is actually a very nice bloke but definitely has an air of authority about him.

So in light of lack of funding and reliance on ever more authoritarian schools where are we headed?

Because treating children like animals is making this particular problem worse, not better. What will we do in two, five, ten years time, when it’s even worse, we have badly treated children becoming parents and not having any incentive to back up the schools (who treated them as children with a lack of respect) when it comes to how their own children are being treated?

Lack of funding is not good enough, but IMO accepting poor treatment because of it is slippery slope.

This!

accepting poor treatment because of it is slippery slope.

Poor behaviour is a real worry, I agree. I wonder what suggestions people on here have that they think would be effective?

My suggestion is that parents support schools ie stop arguing when their child gets a detention or their phone confiscated, don't take DC out of school for family holidays, model respectful behaviour towards teachers. Children disrespecting teachers and their own education doesn't magically happen, it comes from the home/parents and the messages they are conveying.

But it is.

When l first started teaching, there was money everywhere. Funds for IT, equipment, support staff everywhere. Schools were great.

Now they’re awful. And saying it’s not good enough makes no difference.

You are comparing high funded Finland with zero funding Britain. Kids are treated like shit in the U.K. Better funding would change all of that.

Poor behaviour is a symptom of the problem.
Having a child with SN and poor behaviour as a result of lack of support really opens your eyes to how much better schools could do for all pupils, not just the ones seen as causing the problem (along with their shit parents 🙄).

At the local high school all the loos are single cubicles off a central corridor. They are covered by cctv and detentions are given if there is more than one student in a cubicle, they are checked regularly for any vandalism.

I think there are better ways than just locking the loos till breaks.

Hahaha. Some of the parents on this thread are the problem. And they can't even see it. Laughable.

Yes but the same dysfunctional parents. One or two of their kids might’ve coped okay and one or two didn’t.

No, 2 or 3 would be absolutely lovely. With lovely parents.

Then there was always the child that broke the mould. The parents were not dysfunctional. This was a school with very supportive parents. But sometimes one kid is like the rogue in a family.

I agree - this is what happens when people vote in a Tory government which is Thatcherism on steroids for 14 years.