Girls being used to manage the behaviour of boys in DD's secondary school

[pastaandpesto]

DD(12) has just started Y8. She's told me that in all-but-two of her classes, the seating plan alternates boys and girls i.e. every girl is sitting between two boys.

DD is very quiet and compliant in class, and she laughingly said that all the teachers seem to have put the known troublemakers either side of her to keep them quiet.

Outwardly I laughed along with her, but inside I am bloody furious. DD had a truly shit time with MH this time last year and spending time in the company of her friends is one of the biggest positives about going to to school. She and her friends could be trusted to work alongside each other in class, but they are being denied the opportunity because they have been unwittingly assigned as support humans for male children.

And before anyone says it, I am almost certain that this arrangement is due to the perceived need to sperate the boys from other boys, not to separate the girls from other girls. I have other children (boys) at the school and they all confirm that the vast majority of disruptive behaviour is from boys.

I'm not sure whether to challenge the school on this. I do sympathise with the teachers, classroom management must be a fucking nightmare frankly. But I'm really unhappy about the message this is sending to our girls.

Duct tape and a remote control facility to deliver an electric shock through the chairs? (don't pretend you don't like the idea 🤣)

I'm not creating a narrative. I am recounting experience.

@nocoolnamesleft You've created a narrative that the behaviour towards you was OK as long as the seating plan worked. Obviously that isn't true and shouldn't have happened. The seating plan didn't work in your case and you should have been moved.

As a dm to a ds I can assure you the boys don't want to sit next to girls but it's been done for years like this.

Because it could never have occurred to anyone in advance that seating a known bully next to one of his known victims might cause problems? And as for telling the teacher, the teacher was in the room for the cigarette lighter incident, and just feebly tutted. And did not move either of us.

Ironically we are having this problem with DS as he is one of the few boys who behaves.

At the end of last year he was paired with a boy who is a nightmare. The school were saying they had a lovely friendship and it was really good for the disruptive child.

My son, meanwhile, was coming home in tears and being told by this kid that he wasn't allowed to play with his best friend.

Want to know how it got resolved? Eventually DS snapped and had a big fight with this kid. He said he didn't want to do what he was told. I was called into school.

Oddly they haven't been paired together this term.

The moral of this story is that teachers use good kids to do their job for them over discipline. To the detriment of the good kids. A boy in this situation is more likely to be socialised and encouraged to not put up with it. A girl is socialised and encouraged to be nice and not rock the boat.

So its not just the lazy pairing of good with naughty its how the good child (and their parents) respond to it.

In my sons class, I think there are two boys who are relatively well behaved. Which in itself is about how much the boys are allowed to get away with in the first place. I've also lost count of the number of times I've heard variations on 'don't be such a girl'. Often from the parents. We will not tolerate it at all.

I'm not convinced it makes it easier for the better behaved kids in terms of disruption. They don't get more learning done. They spend more time dealing with another child's issues and learn they are less important than the disruptive kids.

The moral of this story is that teachers use good kids to do their job for them over discipline

It's not true but I understand why it looks like that. Mostly, we're engaging in damage limitation. Disrupted learning is preferable to physical assault and destroyed classrooms - which will disrupt learning more severely and for a lot longer.

Teaching children is our job but our priority is keeping them safe.

If you've got any suggestions on how discipline should look or what you think would work, I'd love to hear them. And that's really not an arsey comment! But I doubt there's anything you can think of that hasn't been tried already.

Some children don't respond but they still have a right to an education. We just have to do our best. And it's shit, tbh with you

Ds’ teacher put him next to a girl in the class, both are clever but DS has problems with concentration. The teacher said they both were so competitive they were getting the best of each other out trying to outsmart the other one.

They both got 9s, they are now best friends.

My secondary school intercalated boys and girls, I think if they hadn’t I would probably would have found it more difficult to come out of my shell and talk to other people than my closest friend.

Some of my classes the seating arrangements were decided by name alphabetical order for some randomity.

IMO I don't think it's just about being separated from your friends so work can get done, also to help prepare for the work environment where you aren't able to choose your colleagues.

They often use boy / girl / boy / girl seating plans at my DC's school too. I think it's to separate close friends who would be more likely to chat. I have 3 DC, 2 boys and a girl - the least likely to be disruptive would be DC1 (a boy).

In primary school I could always tell you the most disruptive, badly behaved child in the class. I just had to ask my DC who they were sat next to. One year I questioned DD’s teacher about it and got some guff about how it was random and they were all rotated regularly. Over a term later DD was still sat next to the boy who made it his life’s mission to distract and upset her - whispering the most horrible things. DD didn’t want to be seated next to a close friend or even a girl, just someone who wouldn’t taunt her and who’d let her get on with her work. I asked the teacher when is she going to matter in this arrangement? When will her needs be considered? She’s not a behavioural tool-she’s a child. She was moved next to a girl and all of a sudden she was skipping off to school happy again instead of stressed.

We chose an all girl’s secondary school and they definitely move them around to minimise chatter and disruption, which I have no issue with. DD knows if she wants to sit with her friends she needs to behave and concentrate. That is not what was happening in primary - it was matching up really naughty kids with good ones so they could be role models - at age 5,6 & 7. Talk about being punished for doing the right thing!

This is why kids go to single sex selective schools. My children also had this socialization at primary and it annoyed me. I didn't realise it carried on at secondary!

I have an opposite situation perhaps, DD's class teacher puts children who need more 'help' together - be it additional help for academic work, disorganised, anxious etc. I am not happy to see this because it feels like she's labelling children and grouping them together to her convenience, but then these children are also old enough to understand that context. It could undermine their confidence. Am I being unreasonable?

How does going to a single sex school help? Do you really think there are no struggling or disruptive girls in a girls school? That wasn't my experience.

It always amazes me how so many mothers of girls are against single sex girls schools. Especially when I read threads such as yours. "Boys will be boys" eh? 🙄

Please keep in mind that there is probably a very good reason why the teacher puts the children who need more help together. I do that, simply because if I had the children who I know I will need to give individual attention spread out around the classroom, it would be impossible to me to get to them all in one lesson whereas while they're grouped together, I can work with them as a group. It's far more than 'for her convenience', it's probably because it's the only conceivable way she can actually give them the attention they need.

This is why co-ed is good for boys and bad for girls.

Get angry. Make a fuss.

Your DD gets one shot at for secondary education - why should hers be sacrificed ?

Unfortunately it's true. I think girls are used in this way to control boys in secondary.
In primary ds2 was used re being made to sit next to a known boy troublemaker. I was told it was to control and help the other boy. In the end I complained.
Now in secondary he is sat by girls, not because he is any trouble, teachers report he's very well behaved and never a problem, but because it seems standard now.

Sitting boy girl boy girl is sexist as it makes assumptions about personality based on gender. Seating children with someone who is of different academic ability or has different behavioural needs is completely normal practice as the alternative causes it’s own difficulties.

(And as a teacher it’s killing me that its was autocorrected and I didn’t notice!)

I'm in two minds.

When it is a new to me class with equal numbers of boys and girls then it can work until you get to know who the characters are.

But one of my subjects is Computer Science, often it is 20 boys and 5 girls.

I always sit those girls together or let them choose their own seat.

And yes some girls are as bad as boys.

I had one Health and Social care class with one boy, he was the quietest boy I have ever met, but I let him sit on a table on his own rather than put him between two of the characters.

It isn't a case of girls being used to manage boys

seating plans are often used to rearrange children so no one is sitting next to people they socialise with

because lesson time is not social time

and this is likely to only be one of very many considerations put into a seating plan, SENDs, ability, teacher's view, student's view, access to tables, subject matter, height and blocking view of board, sharing books, equipment, and many other considerations

So were you told that was the reason?

Or is because girls are so sweet and innocent and boys are always up to no good it can't possibly any other reason?

Exactly. Both my (male) children were used for that purpose. Mainly at junior school though.

Because I actually went to an all girls school and wouldn't put any daughter of mine through that hell. Everyone on here has different experiences.

Also my son went to a co-ed school and the girls seemed just as happy as the boys and did very well academically. They have lots of male friends and there seem to be fewer cases of eating disorders and other severe anxiety disorders than at local all girls schools, although that is anecdotal obviously.