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.

@sadabouti

Okay, fantastic, but unfortunately we don't live in the land of delusion. We live in the real world. So what can you suggest that can realistically be implimented right now?

My son is at a special school (he has never hit someone btw) so this doesn't apply to me.

But, I think there are quite a few reasons sime parents don't want special schools.

One is there isn't always actually a school that is the right type. The special schools in your county might be for severe learning disabilities and only offer life skills. If your child is able to do gcses, it's quite hard to send them somewhere where they are teaching teens to button shirts. Special schools availability just isn't even across the country.

The other fear is if your child is prone to impulsive behaviour or copy-cat behaviour, the last thing you feel you want is to send them to an semh school where they can pick up all sorts of new ideas of how to misbehave, and you know that county lines recruit at the school gate. You feel hopeful being around better behaved chikdren will rub off.

The other is special schools are boy heavy. If you have a daughter it's quite daunting sending them to be one if 3 girls in a class of 15 and you know all the boys have no boundaries and some were excluded from their last school for sexualised behaviour.

I'm not saying it's ok To impact a mainstream class. But it's not just parents being awkward either. In every case.

When you talk about consequences, the assumptions is that a negative consequence makes a child think oh I won’t do that again. Some of these children don’t have the ability to regulate their emotions or control their behaviour, either because they gave SEN like ADHD, because they have experienced abuse or because their own parents can’t regulate so are not modelling self control at home and instead are lashing out, yelling at their kids. Giving these children consequences won’t actually help. They need to learn to manage their behaviour or they will end up in the criminal justice system quite quickly.

There are four key areas if the government want to make a difference to exclusions.

1. More specialist schools.
2. Offer different qualifications for those who are not academic earlier.16 is too late.
3. More funding for teaching assistants and 1.1 support.
4. Support and accountability for parents. Parenting is an issue. It is however naturally a low priority as social care are stretched dealing with outright abuse. Some families are also too difficult for people to deal with.

@sadabouti who's going to want to do these TA roles? Poor pay, stressful job, and now the added caveat of if (as happens to many) you are physically assaulted in work, it's going to be your fault for not doing enough, and you're going to have to keep going in to that threat of assault, as there's no consequences for the assault, and if you raise any concerns, you just don't care about the children.

No, people don't think consequences is going to magically change a child. But it is important for the sanctitude of the social contract that the other children see that bad behaviour has consequences. That somebody can't just hit them in the face one minute and be rewarded the next.

Let’s change the emphasis. The education system needs to ensure the needs of all children must be met, not individual schools. One size does not fit all.

My dd was “lucky” enough to get a place at a formerly elite cofe girls’ school in London. It traded on its reputation and the entrance criteria had been watered down. There was a significant minority of disruptive pupils, about six to eight, who made the year group experience a misery for staff and pupils. There was a huge detriment to learning and school experience for many and impacted academic performance for all.

Excuses were made for the minority and their disruption prevailed. They’d have been better off and better catered for in a different school. Had they been expelled the cost of educating them elsewhere would have had to be met by the school. They were not expelled even after the rump of them beat up another child around the corner to the school.

Our dd was lucky because we had the £14k Pa to transfer her to the private sector. Others continued to suffer.

We need more types of school and more specialist schools and to realise not every child is academic and not all children/young people bloom at the same time.

The only way this could work is by massively increasing the number of support staff in schools so that some children can be dealing with whatever they are going through somewhere other than in a classroom, with someone who has the time and training to be able to support them.

FumingTrex
What will work then? Consequences can work for many. Don't pay your rent - evicted. Speed- fined. Behavioural psychology shows consequences impact our behaviour.
What would replace consequence in school then? I cannot think what the alternatives would be.

Better pay answers that. The point is that if you have two TAs in every class. They manage behaviour in small sub groups while the teacher teaches. Kids with additional needs should have EHCPs (are something simpler replacing these), which mean a one-2-one TA for those with more need for more assistance with emotional regulation, and capable of taking them for movement breaks etc out of the class room before meltdowns happen.

This would provide an actual solution to the crisis in schools. Not separating the wheat for the chaff and abandoning the minority.

You can have discipline and order for all.

And this shakes out into better long term employment, social (and criminal justice) outcomes for people in disadvantaged backgrounds too. It's a win win, but requires commitment and an end to blame culture, finger pointing and the lure of quick fix exclusion.

You just have to be willing to fund it, but it saves money in the end. You spend less on social services, health inequality and criminal justice when people become adults.

@cansu seems to be platitudes of 'its not your fault' and treats? I'm now beyond the stage of caring if consequences make some kids think, the only consequence needed is other kids stop being assaulted, which is a horrifying and 'uncaring' to some apparently!

I agree. It will end in failure if the new government refuse to fund change.

You are talking nonsense.

of course the children who are suspended are going to have SEN. they have the SEN of behaving in a way that gets them suspended.

Saying o dear, poor children, they have the SEN of bad behaviour, so we can't discipline them for that

is on a par with saying

o dear, poor murderers. Research has shown they are all suffering from murderousness. It isn't their fault, we can't discipline them for that

There's always been kids with learning problems, poverty, abuse but this level of disruptive behaviour is a new thing. Many of them behave like this because they can and there are no real consequences.

@combinationpadlock you have no understanding of ADHD or ASD disability. You display prejudice. Lashing out is a feature of the disability in children when their environment isn't adequately controlled and their needs are not met. It's a perfect storm in schools as the moment as the majority of teachers and TAs are inadequately trained and not supported at all properly to head it off at the pass. There is also a culture of denial, because teachers are afraid to be seen not to be coping. Even though they have being set up to fail by the last government.

And?

Under what other circumstances would you expect a small child to put up with being hit at, screamed at, have things thrown at them every day? If that was anybody else in the other children's life, they'd be removed from the household. You wouldn't tolerate it. If a co-worker with ADHD or ASD was 'lashing out' at you and you reported it to HR and all they could say was 'oh well. Cope.' you'd have a lawsuit on your hands. So why should small children be expected to tolerate traumatic circumstances that you yourself would never?

sadabouti
there are approximately 9 million kids. I haven't done the maths but paying for two TAs per 30 kids is going to be beyond the budget available. It seems to me that we are indulging in pie in the sky thinking. I agree that TAs in every class would help massively but we all know this won't happen. It is difficult enough to get a TA to help a child with significant send even with an ehcp. Let's also consider recruitment. People do not want to work as TAs for 16000 a year. The job is hard. They work with challenging kids. They can get better money doing easier jobs elsewhere. Schools can't afford to employ two TAs per class. They can't afford one. They are already funding pastoral and mental health support. When people talk about exclusions, they often talk about these kinds of measures and they are right that these would help keep some kids in mainstream school. BUT it is still pie in the sky as there is no money for this kind of system.

@Meowzabubz you are being be dim. Of course you have to prevent lashing out. You have two ways to do that, reversion to the 1950s with borstals and exclusions. Or Funding and real change in schools. I prefer the progressive option of funding and real change.

@sadabouti If it was the child's father hitting them, screaming at them, throwing things at them daily would you say I was being dim for saying it shouldn't be tolerated?

The trauma impact is no less severe just because the other child has ADHD.

One of the largely unacknowledged issues around the rise of poor behaviour in secondary schools is the lack of teachers. Lots of discussion of the lack of TAs, or pastoral staff, or mental health support, but not much about the day-to-day experience of kids who are being taught, for not an insignificant amount of time, by cover teachers. Teachers who don't know the subject and are just babysitting the class, or teachers who don't know the subject and regardless are expected to attempt to teach it. Teachers who don't know the kids and who change on a daily or weekly basis.

People who want to get rid of isolations or whatever always focus on building relationships with the kids. Supply teachers don't even know their names.

Behaviour in my school is noticeably affected by kids having cover lessons. Kids come to my class saying 'you can't expect me to behave, I've just had a morning of cover'. Kids generally like, and respond well to order and routine, but order and routines take time to establish, and are more difficult to establish if kids bounce into your lesson high as kites because they've been pissing around for the last hour.

Bennett is one of the behaviour experts who recognises that while good relationships with the kids are something that teachers should be aiming for, behaviour management systems should be usable by a supply teacher meeting the class for the first and only time. And that is increasingly important.

If you want to improve behaviour in schools, massive investment in a stable teaching workforce should be as much of a priority as improving SEN and mental health provision.

Rome wasn't built in a day. It will take time.

So in the meantime, fuck the other children who are being traumatised daily?

We need:-

more funding, for more staff in mainstream schools. For example the pupil we have in Y1 who is non-verbal, has no awareness of safety, in nappies and developmentally working at 6-12m. The LA say he doesn’t need 1:1 at all times (?!) and have funded him for 1:1 support for only 3 hours a day. No spaces in specialist, long waiting list for EP to do the Statutory Assessment, but in the meantime, school should be having him in full time. With no support for half the day, and no class TA anyway due to budget cuts. So, this is apparently a child that is suitable for mainstream, and is fine to be there unsupported for most of the week?’

more specialist schools for children where mainstream is not appropriate (see above!).

about a quarter of the content cut out of the primary curriculum so that it’s actually enjoyable and engaging to be there, has a focus on ‘doing’, not just regurgitating facts to pass tests.

They can’t be worse than the last 14 years, but I do hope Labour’s plans for schools reach beyond

1. free breakfast club. If this isn’t funded properly-rather like the situation with childcare-it will fail. This is more about getting more parents back to work than education
2. removing sanctions from schools for poor pupil behaviour (what are teachers supposed to do?)
3. 6500 new teachers. This is like pouring a cupful of water in a bucket with no bottom. Nobody wants to train, nobody wants to stay. How do we fix that? The situation in the classroom is dire-why would teachers want to put themselves through that?

sadabouti What does this mean? Practically? Schools use the systems they have to cope in the absence of something better that would cost a lot more than they have. You have proposed a solution that isn't a solution as there is no money to fund it.

This.