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Discipline within primary schools

30 replies

Courtelle · 18/03/2011 11:11

Hello, I am currently studying on an access to Teacher Training course. I intend to research discipline within Primary schools, any information given is completely confidential, if you require to see a copy of any work I have used I will be more than happy to supply you with a copy.

What are your opinions on discipline within primary schools.

Are you aware of the discipline/reward systems in place in schools today?

Are the discipline and reward systems in place today effective?

What discipline or reward systmes would you put in place if it were possible?

Thanks for you help.

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heliumballoons · 20/03/2011 10:49

DS school has the sun, cloud, smilies/sad faces. Changes per class and year.

I HATE it. I have done ever since YR when DS 4.2 at the time was put on it for pretend stinging another child with the puppet bees they had made. OK the other child didn't like it and threw a hissy but surely talking to DS about understanding others tolerences and the other child about explaining is far more productive.

Y1 - they could go down 3 and up 1 Hmm Whats positive about that?

Y2 - they have 2 up and 4 down. The first down is the warning. They do not get verbal warnings but are moved down. For example talking when adult does is an automatic warning and gets moved down. Far from improving behaviour DS has simply given up. Sad He says short of not speaking ever in school or moving anywhere without permission you just can't aviod the warning face.

ragged · 20/03/2011 11:03

I don't think Clam's points are fair. I am only a parent of 4 kids biologically programmed to please me, and who I want to chill out, not especially "learning" much on my time. I don't have Ofsted inspectors or the HT breathing down my neck to achieve "results" with a motley crew of 30 children who may not even like my company.

And anyway, plenty of MNers do espouse things like the "pasta jar" technique.

I liked the things that Missmehalia said. DS was excluded for bad behaviour, taking the most confrontational zero-tolerance approach with him is very counter-productive.

mullymummy · 20/03/2011 11:16

Restorative Justice is excellent stuff and I would definitely recommend you look into this during your research....

benito · 20/03/2011 12:41

This is an interesting topic as I have a son who has Asperger's and 'discipline' seems to be a problematic issue for the school which has a very structured scheme of red/yellow cards and team points.

Our school have golden time and red/card yellow card and team points. You can collect team points to get a certificate at different colour levels which is awarded in a special assembly.

It is all rather formulaic and sometimes inconsistent.Parents always complain that the discipline and reward system is rather erratic (some children can languish on the same team point level for months despite not doing anything wrong others seem to be receiving certificates in assembly every other week.

DS1 is on a low level of certificate despite never really getting in to trouble. He forgets to put his team points on and gets left to it.

Some children steal extra team points too!

DS is generally wonderfully well behaved unless he is very stressed and unsupported.School don't use the red card for DS at my request because he is very badly affected by it. The things he does wrong are usually because he hasn't understood the social rules e.g. taking the football in the middle of a game because he thought people would find it funny. Consequently, he finds it very stressful to be reprimanded as he blames himself for not getting things right and is very hard on himself. This can lead to him hitting himself or refusing school.

Last week, there was an incident in the playground when he snatched something from another boy. At present, he has a statement but has not yet had the support he's entitled to under it and is only just returning to school full-time after three months of part-time schooling.

School's first concern? What sanctions can we use? We can't have our discipline system undermined irrepsective of whether a sanction will have any effect and irrespective of the impact.

So the point I'm trying to make is that these 'systems' shouldn't be an end in themselves e.g. we can show Ofsted, prospective parents etc that we have a documented reward/punishment systems. They should be processes which work and which include and don't label.

I posted elsewhere here about my younger son getting a red card for hitting someone who had hit him first but wasn't red carded. The teacher clearly forgot to do the 'time out' bit at golden time last week, so imposed it this week out of the blue. For what purpose? To ensure the system must be obeyed. He was upset enough last week at the thought of losing golden time for the sanction to have had its effect.

If I parented like this, people would think I was madConfused

Courtelle · 20/03/2011 17:31

Thank you all for your participation, all your comments are extremely valuable and will help a great deal in my research. It seems most have a similar point of view as the comments received are similar to comments I have received on questionnaires I have distributed.

Many thanks again for your time and help.

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