Stop / reduce suspensions for disruptive and vulnerable children

[HooverIsAlwaysBroken]

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/20/english-schools-to-phase-out-cruel-behaviour-rules-as-labour-plans-major-education-changes

I would be interested in what people think about this. Being shy and bullied (and very academic) as a child, I would be inclined to feel sorry for the children who just are trying to learn. I would also assume that this will make it much harder for the teachers…

of course the vulnerable and disruptive children need support but is this the right way? My DS is very disruptive and has had numerous detentions but never a suspension. I would assume that the bar for that already is very high? But happy to be told otherwise.

If they do it, they need to invest heavily in specialised schools, not just mainstream and SEN, but the differing SEN, too. SEN doesn't necessarily mean disruptive, nor does it mean low abilities.
My friend had an ASD/ADHD lad, was told if the school could cope with his intelligence, they couldn't cope with behaviour, and if they could cope with behaviour they wouldn't cope with his intelligence. He eventually got into an independent person who met his behaviour and at least attempted to try to meet intelligence with limited achievements, but he was at least happy. This was 25 years ago, god help kids like him now.
Purely badly behaved kids, yes, they exist, should become the responsibility of parents to educate. Financially and / or personally. Might concentrate the mind if they have to pay for a TA or sit with their child.
I feel do much for poor beleaguered teachers and kids who do want to learn.

Absolutely in an ideal world, the disruptive child should be supported so they are no longer disruptive, you get a calm classroom, everyone wins.

When you've found a way to do that, please publish it.

In the meantime, or should I say in the real world, this doesn't happen.

There are some disruptive children who simply can't learn calmly in a mainstream school environment, sitting still at a desk in a dry academic lesson with 30 other kids. I'm not saying it's their fault, it could be for a lot of tragic reasons like home environment, abuse, etc.

But the other children should not be the punching bags (real or metaphorical) while we faff around trying to include everyone in mainstream.

I administer suspensions and PEX for the school I’m in. The vast majority of these children have SEND but not EHCPs. Our school is well resourced and without exception each of these children has had more interventions than those with EHCPs. The school really does reach the end of the road before excluding.
The level of disruption these children has caused is unbelievable and the impact on the education of others real, as well as staff morale. Parents are generally supportive as they too are at their wits end.
The support for the child and family has to start in nursery. By secondary school it is far too late. Some just can’t cope in a big setting so smaller schools are needed.

Even if there were enough specialist provision places so many parents don’t want them.
They want their children to be in mainstream school which is great when it works but so many children who struggle would flourish in the right environment.
I don’t understand why any parent wouldn’t want the best for their child, but there is a subset of parents of children with SEND who don’t want specialist provision for whatever their personal reasons are and schools have to accept that even when we know it is detrimental to the child.

It is not acceptable for one child's behaviour to disrupt other childrens learning. Strange how poor behaviour never used to be an issue and now it's 'normal'

The biggest cause of teachers leaving education is the appalling behaviour of an increasing number of pupils. This includes everything from shouting swearing or totally ignoring any form of instruction to physical threats of violence and rape. Quite how a teacher is expected to conduct a class in that environment is difficult to understand, so they leave. And who would blame them. Isolating and removing the disruptive element is they only way to ensure the majority get a chance at a good education. 6500 new teachers ( assuming you could find that many ) won’t even replace those leaving education. Pandering to the loud mouth yob at the back isn’t a solution. Ask any teacher who is planning to leave this July.

The question I would like an answer to from those firmly in the 'vulnerable and SEND children must be sheltered from PEX and suspensions' is:
When these vulnerable and SEND children become adults, will they be similarly sheltered from losing jobs, relationship breakdowns, criminal convictions?

School is a conduit towards a fully functional adult life, therefore teaching an awareness that actions have consequences must surely be part of that? I've never worked with a ND or vulnerable child whose challenges made them incapable of understanding this principle.

Stop blaming children and vulnerable families. Blame the system; the lack of funding, swelling class sizes, miniscule numbers of support staff stretched over multiple cohorts, ad finitum

Still doesn't mean I want disruptive children in my child's class.

Why do their problems trump other children's right to an education or teacher's right to be safe in their place of employment.

So its always someone else's fault? The violence, aggression and destruction is someone else's fault, not the perpetrators?
When another pupil pushed my child to the floor and sat on him, punched him in the face, it was the systems fault?

As someone who has worked as school support staff I would just like to point out that bad behaviour isn't always as a result of SEN.

This debate is almost impossible to have on a sensible way. Complex issues are not black and white. Exclusions and discipline are a symptom of the problem, not the cause.

Students with SEN need resource, compassion, and early intervention. They need specialist provision. The majority of students need calm, orderly classrooms to learn.

Behaviour is schools can be horrible, and to be fair on the kids, how and why do we expect them to prefer a balanced (and sometimes boring) curriculum over Tik Tok. Teachers need to be able to enforce behaviour expectations so students can learn. And don’t tell me to make it interesting - kids should be exposed to a balanced curriculum even if they find some parts boring (few will love Shakespeare, geology, and differential equations - but many will love one if exposed).

Teachers need leaders who enforce behaviour expectations so they can teach the curriculum. Students in poverty safe classrooms this as much as students from more affluent families.

We need both. We need orderly classrooms AND support for students who don’t thrive in those environments. This is obvious.

It needs money. The nurture/discipline dichotomy is false.

No-one is suggesting consequences be removed, as I understand it. But this will require that there will no longer be a knee-jerk strategy of removing pupils into isolation for days on end. As the article says, there are far too many documented cases of children with SEN being put into isolation for what adds up to several weeks rather than getting to the bottom of their difficulties and supporting them.

One of the big problems in education currently is that some schools, particularly academy chains, fixate on rigid discipline policies rather than improving teaching and learning, because that's the easy option. If they are forced to do their jobs properly it might drive some of the charlatans out of the market, which can only be beneficial.

It is complex, but the bottom line for me is-
Do you believe school staff and other pupils should be collateral damage and physically and verbally abused and assaulted to keep other pupils in the classroom?

It very clearly is intended to be punitive. How can it not be, when it involves removing a child from the classroom and sticking them in an isolation room, generally in an individual cubicle, for hours at a time, at best giving them tedious worksheets to do, and not allowing them to go out for breaks with their peers etc? How can it improve the child's behaviour if it means they just get behind educationally and no-one is trying to understand whether anything underlies the behaviour?

You're absolutely right about the need for more support services, which unfortunately will mean major investment. However, in the long term that really would pay off as fewer children would need to go to special schools and more would emerge with useful qualifications and skills for later life.

No, I'm not suggesting that personal accountability and consequences should be removed. Perhaps I should have been more clear. The system is what needs looking at to remove these issues (violence, disruption, marginalisation) at the root. It's easy to blame the child for problems in the system when you don't know or perhaps not even care about their background and the challenges they face daily, over the child who ticks all the boxes.

if it means they just get behind educationally and what about the education of the rest of the class who are having it constantly disrupted?
Sorry kids, you getting behind educationally doesn't matter?

Some children in school need SEND support and social work. Other children want to learn and need to be able to have access to a rigorous and challenging curriculum. Just to be clear there are a lot of children with SEND who fit into the second group as well. The problem is that virtually nothing can be taught when lessons are disrupted. I left one of my previous schools because I could not actually teach the lessons that I had planned and it was utterly frustrating and depressing.

I have worked in schools where there is a vast amount of of SEN training and specialist support including onsite SALT but it doesn’t create a classroom environment that is suitable for children who want more than a fairly basic education. It is still a disrupted and difficult environment to work in.

These are all consequences of bad behaviour that I have seen happen in an outstanding state school with excellent SEND provision:

• trips cancelled for the class because fears over safety
• no practical lessons because too risky
• pace of curriculum slowed down to such an extent that large parts cannot be covered
• no lesson content covered at all because of disruption
• level of the work so low compared to their peers in better school that they are years behind
• because of disruption large amounts of bullying happening unchecked because the teacher is constantly dealing with the rest of the class.
• No netball game played because too many children refused to get off the bench. The ones who wanted to take part had to practise shots because they didn’t have a team.
• No science videos shown because class get to excited when lights are dimmed.
• during a lesson observation 15/21 children in the class couldn’t sit and listen to an interesting 5min demo so the teacher had to give up and they had to do a very low level task from a worksheet.

Regardless of the reason, bad behaviour stops everyone from accessing education and that is a disaster.

My kids were fully aware that actions had consequences. This does not mean that when they were in the midst of an instinctive "fight or flee" stress response they had any control of their actions. The key to improving behaviour is to take a proactive rather than a reactive approach.

That's actually not the case. Schools are a lot better equipped to deal with these situations, they sort uniform and give breakfasts etc. They have learning mentors and pastoral staff who are trained in counseling etc

I know it's intensely disliked and unpopular to say on here, but stuff like this is the number one reason I would never enroll my children in public school. It's just untenable for teachers do address all these issues and still be able to teach to the class to a high standard, and I am not willing to sacrifice my children's education at the alter of inclusion.

But what is that @OneInEight not saying this is your child, but when there is a child sitting on another punching their face, and all that's happening is 'Timmy that's not a good decision, gentle hands to ourself please' and Timmy doesn't stop punching so is lifted off, and then starts throwing chairs, upturning tables, ripping off wall displays while shouting 'fuck off fuck off!' The class is then evacuated. And the main take is that the teacher is wrong, what can be done?

In one way, I completely agree that Bennett schools are insanely draconian, but, what's the alternative? If there is no discipline, there will be no education - there kids who literally can not be taught, they are unmanageable - usually a combination of SEN and bad parenting. I feel schools need more staff, more time, more ways to deal with these children that does not jeopardise the education for the rest.

In my DC's primary, in the final year there were a couple of boys that never listened, they created a rowdy, shouty atmosphere. The class sometimes was so noisy my DS was asking to do his work in the corridor. Teachers literally could not do anything. And what can you do with an 11 year old determined to disrupt everything, who is as tall as an adult and has no fear or respect for anyone? I would imagine secondaries deal with this shit in their way - detentions, exclusions, etc. I just cant see ow this can be addressed in any other way, sadly.

I disagree with detentions being given out for looking out of the window or dropping a pen, but, looking at the results - stricter schools always better academically. Its always the case.

Absolutely, with a child being present the police would they not put in a child protection referral and this would be flagged to school?

Purpose built classrooms with trained SEN staff in every school required for children who don’t respond to mainstream teaching methods. Small classes and different methods. It works in other parts of UK so why can’t England benefit too.