Are the quiet, bright, studious children destined to sit with the disruptive children as a positive influence on them?

[Thisismynewname123]

I have a very bright, hard working, but quiet daughter in Y5. She has always been happy at school, despite occasional social blips, mostly due to shyness, but she is well liked so nothing too major. Following a class mix, she's now in a class that has a reputation for being loud, and generally "naughty" (although I hate using that word). For the first time she is now dreading going to school on a daily basis. She hates that she has to sit with children who talk constantly (although from the teacher's point of view, I assume she has been put where she is as the good influence). She feels as though she is suffering for it. She can't concentrate. She doesn't get drawn into conversations during lessons when she shouldn't be talking, but that now means she feels as though she isn't making any friends in the new class. I feel like she's generally unhappy at school for the first time but I'm not sure there's anything much I can do. As the "good girl" is she destined to always be put in a small group with the difficult (although bright) children who need the good influence, even though she is suffering for it?

Is it worth raising with the teacher, or is too early in the year and I'll just be told she needs more time to settle? I'm not one to be constantly contacting the teachers about one thing or another. I don't want to be "that parent", so I'm just looking for some guidance on if it's justified or not in this case.

I can't how impacting the children who behave is fair tbh. How can it be if you impact their progress or make them hate or fear school?

ime lots of dc bright or not can be talkative and disruptive. So chances are she'll always be sat near dc like this and will have to start learning strategies to cope. It's possible the teacher in her class is struggling with dealing with general class behaviour and so the effect on your dd is amplified.

If they are all losing house points for someone else's behaviour that is not fair. I'd be pissed off if I was her. I don't think losing a team point is a good way to reprimand as that child might not have earned that point in the first place. Group punishments for one or two people's bad behaviour don't usually work and just alienate the rest of the dc from the teacher.

So to me this sounds like the teacher is having trouble dealing with general disruptive behaviour. If your dd is very upset then next parent eve bring it up because the teacher needs to know. It's worth pointing out her frustration at losing team house points because of other dc's behaviour that she has no control over.

SEN dc are not more likely to be disruptive. Any dc can disrupt a class with chatting at the wrong time or fiddling with pens etc. Big disruptions usually come from anxious dc who are extrovert in nature. But the op was talking about the more regular disruptions like chatting when they should be working or listening.

And....in any given class lots of children may have some level of additional needs but don't require a 1:1 assistant. You may have a few dc with dyspraxia, some with dyslexia, some with attention deficit (which if not hyperactive is usually characterised by zoning out rather than moving about), some with anxiety issues of varying degrees, some with highly functioning autism, some with discalculia or with a processing disorder. It's not a case of having the few SEN children over there and everyone else over here. The class is mixed up due to ability and workability and the fact that we are all human and should have equal access to education.

Toptoe, I agree. The immediate response to move the disruptive child elsewhere doesn't address the issues - and we teach our children that excluding children who don't meet our criteria on good behaviour can be shunted aside with no thought or care. That's a nightmare message for some children e.g. looked after children with low esteem/high shame where so much else in the school system doesn't work with their needs (golden time for example).

It teaches them that not everyone has the same control and behaviours. And no one is saying that it should be ignored, there are other methods of helping a child manage their behaviour surely than isolating them or labelling them as naughty.

Be that parent. My boys are used as good influences, and ds1 became very distressed at one point as he is a rule follower and was becoming anxious because of some of the behaviour of a child he was constantly seated with.

Both my children have become far happier since I became that parent at the start of this year.

"And again, it's not really inclusion if they're separated from the rest of the class, especially long term."

Oh for goodness' sake. Have we really reached the point where even sitting at a separate desk is considered non-inclusion?

The OP's daughter has the right to be able to work as well, you know.

Also, the OP stated several times that the kids in the class who are talking nonstop do not have SEN.

When I started teaching it was a rare class that had a TA so it wasn't always possible to instantly change DCs. Mostly they could sort themselves out if you gave them clean clothes to change into.

You can remind them at play and dinner time to go to the toilet but they don't always listen. One little girl in my class hated losing playtime to go to the toilet but didn't like missing lesson time as well. She used to hold on and hold on and often wet herself just before home time. Or on her way down to the gate. Constant reminding helped.

Before dinner time I used to march my class down to the toilet block but still some wouldn't go, just pretend they had. They would even go into a cubicle to pretend they had been, then wet themselves 10 minutes later while eating dinner.

It's not uncommon, OP, I hope it settles down.

wrong thread, sorry, too many windows open.

Proper response.

I was lucky in that my classroom was quite large. Rotating the seating is the best way to manage disruptive behaviour and allowing them to choose where they sit for a lot of the time.

I had two "single" tables set up and any child could go and sit on their own if they wanted to. I never directed a child there. These were quite popular and I had to emphasise they were to be shared and were not to be the first choice. A couple of DCs would have sat on their own all day if I let them. :)

My ds(and his friend) was made to sit on his own because of too much chatting and it was good lesson for him.
I think some children, especially the bright ones, don't get that just chatting when they are meant to be learning, is a bad thing. They don't realise they are preventing others from learning because the lesson is easy for them to understand without proper concentration.
When teacher told me she was placing my ds(and other) on isolation, I was totally supporting the teacher. He also learned concentrating was actually for his benefit as well, since teacher made sure she praised him for it and his work.
It transformed my ds from chatty disruptive child to well behaved child in short period of time.

Only skim read op but my dd has been starting to hate school and confided in me she too is being sat next to the brother of the biggest trouble maker in the whole school. My dd is not a trouble maker and no teacher has ever alluded to her being so and I do ask!

When I became difficult about this set-up, they added me to the list of parents who did not want their child the be in this position (there was a list!) and they replaced DS with another child to help this boy.

It taught me a lesson to always voice my concerns. I was taken aback by the class teacher coolly adding him to a list. He had been child number 5 in this role, and they just replaced him

i find this chilling, utterly cold and chilling.

why the fuck isnt another strategy being used here?

Op I got burned badly by being a passive - lets wait and see - I dont want to be that parent last year.

This year I am straight in with any issues. I raised my DD plight and she was moved in two days.

Both my children have become far happier since I became that parent at the start of this year

same here! and as for the comment I highlighted in my post - here we are worrying and stressing about making a fuss whilst are small young children are miserable and yet the teachers just Cooley move another poor sod in their place!

Propertyquandry Wed 19-Oct-16 15:25:06

^ oh god I dont know if I should read this thread. I feel blood vessels bursting.

Property has now had to waste time countering your misrepresentation, (in case you hadn't noticed), when she could have been engaging in more interesting discussion. That's just one reason why such tactics are problematic. The other is that they tend to make people feel defensive and under attack. Something which you appear to dislike yourself....

Thanks Kestral Jesus Ginger what the actual Fuck ????

I've taught in a school that adopted a zero tolerance policy in Y4-6. Parents were being called daily and asked to collect their child for continued low level disruption and I can tell you categorically that it absolutely did make a tangible difference in many cases. Parents tend to stop viewing it as harmless high spirits when they are being forced to leave work early every day

Wow!!

I personally know one of the biggest trouble makers in DD class and I have seen the laid back casual attitude to parenting his parents - both educated professionals have consciously chosen to take with his discipline.

Its madly infuriating that they allow such behavior whereas I never would and yet their parenting style is impacting on my own DD

I have often wondered why on earth the parents are not called in more.

I would whole heardtley back this move across all schools in the UK.
I have two dc and one is excellent the other is too young to tell. I can honeslty say if she is a turns out to be a trouble maker I would be happy to be called in for as long as it takes to work together to make her toe the line.

We could not adopt the 'zero tolerance' approach in our school. Calling parents and asking them to take their child home is an exclusion, no matter how short a time for, and needs authority-level clearance. It also involves a shed-load of paperwork and minuted re-entry meetings every time. This is why exclusions rarely happen.

Schools are also under pressure to keep exclusion figures low, so nothing's going to change. A child has to be causing themselves/others real danger before parents are called in and asked to remove.

A 'courting exclusion' letter has to be in place (so there has to have been previous 'extreme' behaviour) before a proper exclusion happens. This would never happen for chatty/noisy/general disruptive behaviour. Our hands are tied.

Ofsted estimates that 38 days worth of learning per year for every child are lost to this kind of low level disruption. It also has a big impact on primary teachers, many of whom find the constant struggle to quieten children down and get them working an exhausting burden. The children the OP was writing about are only 2 years off going into secondary; they will simply carry the problem with them into secondary schools.

The failure of governments to give schools the ability to deal with this (as Keeptrudging highlights, is a huge issue. However, there are also seem to be a number of of schools where the head-teacher and other senior leaders are so against any form of exclusion or discipline, that they simply blame teachers for any disruption, telling them that if their lessons were more fun and engaging, the children would behave. You can imagine the effect that has on the teachers in question....

Yes, it is far more difficult now. But schools could adopt a similar but perhaps less effective strategy of calling parents up each time to tell them their child is being disruptive. They could also be far more candid about this sort of disruption during parents consultations.