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.

I think there should be a variety of schools - stricter and less so. So parents have a choice: either you want your kid to learn, or to allowed to "be themselves". I know this goes against all of the "inclusiveness" etc but I honestly think there are children (and parents) who don't really fell the need for an education.

Absolutely spot on.

We also need to stop making pre pubescent girls in size 6 dress,on the same stupid shirts and toes as 16yo girls who can be size 16 (or more). We worry about MH and body image and yet we force girls to feel uncomfortable all in the name of "learning" (same with boys to some extent).

We need to stop assuming kids want to be disruptive, don't want an education. We need to empathise that the child who doesn't understand maths and know and are recited to fail just can't be bothered and should accept that. We need to realise they can and want to do something and facilitate that.

I could go on - but basically schools are out of control. But zero tolerance has not (unsurprisingly) solved that. And never will.

Maybe the rules now would mean your needs being identified and you getting some support. It is awful that you didn't get that support. I don't know if it would lead to your need for support being identified as mine are long grown up and I don't have contact with schools anymore but I do hope there is help for children in this sort of situation.

We will lose more teachers and teaching assistants.

If there are no consequences, and behaviour is already hideous in some classrooms, then it will only get worse and more staff will leave.

We just said goodbye to 8 members of staff, half of them teachers, on Friday, because they've had enough. After losing half a dozen TAs throughout this school year alone because they couldn't handle the behaviour of the students and they had no support and were being assaulted and verbally abused. And no consequences, because of the parents who not only don't back up the school, but reward their children's poor behaviour for an easy life at home.

I agree with this-the approach of forcing the teacher to have the kid that had kicked them hard enough to put them in hospital, back in their room, after a cosy ‘restorative’ chat, is not a solution. Schools need clear rules and sanctions for not following them, but seeing those through need staffing, which needs money.

But we need to look at what’s wrong in the first place. Why are so many children so unhappy in the classroom. The primary curriculum (I’m sure it’s the same in secondary) is a big cause-it’s swollen with pointless facts and doesn’t allow time to explore, consolidate and enjoy. A local school has 1/3 of their children on the SEN register because they need something ‘additional to and different from’ the rest of the class. If that’s the case, we need to look at the provision we are trying to get ‘everyone’ to access and find out what’s not working.

Just scrapping sanctions with nothing to replace them with (especially when you just imply that if teachers are using QFT then behaviour problems shouldn’t happen) won’t work.

Two of DH's grandchildren are teachers , specialising in mathematics. One left to teach in Dubai a decade ago, the other has had a year off with stress, only this half-term having a phased return. Pupil behaviour caused both situations, along with zero support from parents for any sanctions the school tried.

Ending the strict uniform rules has my support. Uniform should be more about certain clothing not being acceptable.

We need to stop assuming kids want to be disruptive, don't want an education.

But the thing is - some kids don't want an education! And want to be disruptive. If you think all kids want to learn and want to achieve something academically - you are totally wrong.

It is a pity that Tony Blair shut down so many special needs schools.

Parents who refuse to accept their child's unacceptable behaviour are a part of the issue I agree.

They need to sort out the reasons first before they remove the only way you've got of teaching some classes. So many staff are already leaving to the stress bought on by poor behaviour

One of the most difficult things to deal with is when you have a child who will not accept being told what to do and responds aggressively to the word 'no'. We have children who have a routine when they don't want to do the learning. They throw things around the classroom while their classmates are hiding. Then they storm out and start throwing chairs and tables around the corridor and rip down anything on the walls. This while shouting 'F off you C'. And this is a child in lower primary who has weekly input from the PRU.

As an adult it is very difficult going into work each day and physically jumping at every loud sound. It must be awful for the children in the classes where this is happening. My pupil management is quite good and I struggle.

Of course but the fact is that the majority of disruptive children DONT have additional needs. Kids with identified SEND tend to have strategies already in place, like timeout cards or stress balls or a doodle book or a TA or whatever it is that will help them. Also, having SEND does not equate to bad behaviour - there are lots of different types of additional needs. Most disruptive children are just plain naughty and know there’s very little a teacher can actually do about it. They play up to the members of the class who are enjoying the disruption to their lesson but won’t actually disrupt themselves and they ignore the kids who are either looking pained and rolling their eyes or are actively telling them to get out and let them learn. If the child can’t behave they need to be provided for somewhere else (whether that’s isolation or the back of someone else’s classroom) but they cannot be kept in the classroom to the detriment of 29 others

The children who disrupt the class and others should still be in school, BUT in a different class, where they are still taught. Perhaps setting by behaviour, in addition to ability would help?
It's very unfair on children who do want to learn to have those that don't taking up all of the teachers time, to the point where there's little learning going on for everyone.

The vast majority of suspensions are students with send whose needs are not being met.

In practice this means they are severely disruptive - so for example from my school a student who had very little understanding and was scared of most adults so ran out of classrooms frequently and played hide and seek with SLT around the site.

His cognitive ability was about that of a five year old (we got him assessed by the educational psychologist).

He used to hit other students if they scared him so was frequently suspended for violence.

(This was a secondary).

For those who say that shouldn't they learn that actions have consequences - most of the kids being regularly suspended for behaviour were either so cognitively disabled they were unlikely to ever get a job and would probably spend their lives in supported living because they would be unable to understand even the simplest things or were severely autistic and honestly the same applied.

I don't work in education so don't really feel qualified to comment, but if as is expected vat on private school fees is scrapped next year, won't state schools see a large increase in pupils?

How will teachers cope with these new changes plus the increase in pupils if there is currently little training, funding or support in place?

So what do we say to the kid's who are getting hit every day? Here is a tampon for your bloody nose. Off you go? This has wider impacts on society because we are teaching children, especially girls, that it's okay for people to be violent towards them and there is no use reaching out for help because nobody cares.

Well, the solution doesn't sound that complicated from the article just, like everything, costly. It sounds like everyone agrees teachers need to be able to ask disruptive children to leave the classroom.

The only gripe seems to be the pupils that leave are then sat not learning anythings and it tends to be the more vulnerable people that are repeatedly in isolation.

So it sounds to me like after a certain number of isolations (eg 10) that they need to be educated in a different way. Whether thats mini in school behaviour units or send units or something else.

I assume that the odd person goes for a one off isolation day and it acts as a deterrent.

@Galoop
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'

I’m late 40s. I still remember a 6 year old classmate coming back with welts on the back of his legs from a canning. Funny how there wasn’t poor behaviour in my class.

for the record I don’t support corporal punishment in schools, but teachers do need to be able to sanction pupils who disrupt the learning of others.

'Anne Longfield, the former children’s commissioner whose Centre for Young Lives has been working with the Labour education team, said: “Looking at the data and talking to young people it is clear that a large group of kids have been made to feel school isn’t for them and that has to change.'

This is where they're already going completely wrong IMO. School absolutely isn't for some kids. Sitting at a desk for hours each day listening to stuff that holds no interest or relevance as they see it to their lives.

Colleges need to start offering functional maths and English to those kids that schools recognise just aren't going to pass their GCSE's - everyone knows who they are and yet they're still sat there through papers on Shakespeare doing little more than write their name on the front of the paper. These kids need identifying by 14 and to be offered other more practical options with functional maths and English running alongside.

If colleges can offer a more suitable option to these kids it takes the pressure off schools to be everything to everyone. The kids no longer feel like they're failing and that education is pointless and can hopefully succeed at something which is great for self esteem and MH. They are not distracting those that do want to be at school and it's a win all round IMO.

And schools are going to be even more fucked because the parents of those children coming from private schools are going to have substantially less tolerance towards it. If they think you can just palm them off with platitudes when little Timmy punches Jemima in the face, they got another thing coming.

@Meowzabubz

He needed to be in a special school.

Kids who get repeated suspensions usually need to be in a different school.

And the solution to that, and for students to not see violence is for those kids to be in the school that's right for them.

Kids who are "just" naughty tend to get one suspension and then rein it in. If you are giving someone repeated suspensions and it's not changing behaviour then they need to be elsewhere.

He went elsewhere but we needed about two terms worth of evidence that he was failing in mainstream to get him that place.

So from my perspective the best way to reduce violence in classrooms is to have the kids who are violent in the schools that are right for them which is not normally mainstream,

This. I also agree we need an overhaul of the education system. Plus better funding.

Of course there was bad behaviour in your class - unless you're suggesting he was caned for nothing?

this-the approach of forcing the teacher to have the kid that had kicked them hard enough to put them in hospital, back in their room, after a cosy ‘restorative’ chat, is not a solution.
Agree and its no wonder figures for DV ar le rocketing, when school authorities are telling these violent pupils 'its not your fault you're violent, you're being let down, in fact that teacher you're punching and kicking? It's HER fault!'.