Is this a thing?

[NatalieH2220]

Question for teachers, is it common to sit the ‘well behaved’ children next to those who are known to be silly/more disruptive in the classroom?

My son keeps being partnered with a particular child who is disruptive, they don’t get on and it causes so much upset at home as the child is distracting and upsetting him which is particularly an issue as he has his own struggles which he masks at school. I will be raising this again with the school but just curious if this is a common approach that is used as cant see why they would keep doing this unless for some benefit to them?

I am not a teacher but I would say it is commonly done. If you speak to the teacher then they will usually move your child but it is frustrating when it happens each year.

Yup, this happens all the time.
We requested the teacher move DS, who is well-behaved, as he was getting so frustrated/distracted by the loud kid next to him

The point is basically to dilute/separate the disruptive kids by seating them with the well-behaved ones

I'm also not a teacher but even I know this is a common thing

yes its a common thing. Speak to the teacher and ask them to move one of them.

Used to happen to me all the time (as the quiet well behaved girl sat next to the pain in the arse boy)

Ok very common it seems then, thanks!

I’ll raise it with them again…

Seems to happen all the time from what I can gather.

It happened to me as a pupil in the 70s and I hated it.I suffered verbal abuse from them and made my school life hell. Of course back then there was no point complaining as nothing would have been done about it.

Because of my own experience, as a teacher I made sure I didn't do this.

I think so yeah. I remember being put in the lowest french class where everyone threw chairs at the teacher who couldn't actually speak French. I was in the top set in my previous school. I think they wanted me to help them. But I ended up just letting them copy my work. You can't force someone to speak another language they don't understand! Well I couldn't anyway.

This seems to be done in my dd1 class o guess they cdd as not put two silly ones together and I think they rely on the sensible kids to calm the silly ones down

In my experience it is not so much to rely on the sensible kids to calm things down as to stop the silly/impulsive/poorly behaved ones from being next to each other and egging each other on. However it does have an impact on the well behaved kids and I don't think it should be the same child each time that has to sit next to a disruptive one. I'd explain to the teacher that your child is repeatedly getting upset about it and ask if they can mix things up so that it isn't always your child.

I understand how frustrating it is, but you wouldn't believe the headache seating plans cause for teachers. You absolutely can't have certain children together, and therefore it's far more practical to seat certain children next to a sensible, calming influence.

That said, no child should have their own education constantly disrupted because they're always seated next to someone who distracts them. Likewise, no child should be forced to sit next to someone who makes them feel uncomfortable, so it's definitely worth raising with the teacher if this current seating plan is causing your child anxiety.

Best practice is to move children around regularly, so nobody is stuck next to the same person all year. Sharing the load, so to speak. It is frustrating, when you have a child who seems to constantly end up sitting next to an unruly peer. However, if there are a few individuals like that in the class, I would expect every child to take their turn at sitting with them at some point in the year. Certainly not all the time, but sometimes. It helps to teach empathy and tolerance. In small doses, I think it's fine (as I said, please consider what a nightmare seating plans are for teachers to organise when you have several such children in a class).

At least the teacher (usually) only has to deal with those specific disruptive kids for one year. DS1 is now in his his fifth year of the same kids disrupting his lessons day in, day out. Luckily some of them are now seated individually so no one individual has to put up with them at close range

No, the teacher won't often have to deal with those 'specific' disruptive kids for more than a year. Those kids are just replaced by disruptive kids by a different name in the next year group, and the headache of where to seat them all starts again!

As I said, I appreciate it's frustrating when it's your child who is having their learning disrupted, but often the teacher's hands are tied. With the best will in the world, most classrooms aren't big enough to have every disruptive child working at an individual work station. Most classrooms will have them for one or two children with more extreme needs, but that doesn't guarantee your child won't ever have to put up with being sat next to someone who is a pain as sadly there will be multiple children of that ilk in every classroom.

Have you raised it with the teachers? As I said, I don't believe any child should constantly be seated next to the same disruptive child, that's not fair at all. It would be unreasonable to expect the teacher to never seat them next to such children though as they're got yo sit somewhere. I would expect seating plans to change regularly, every half term or so, to make it fair.

Yep. In primary it drove me mad on behalf of my dc. Now they are older, I can see the advantage, as they learned to tune out and keep concentrating despite the misbehaving of teenagers.

@NatalieH2220 Yes but only with the dc of parents they don’t think will complain! I would bet you money that dc of the “alpha” parents won’t get this disruption! They should move disruptive dc around so all tables get the child. So absolutely complain. My DD had had enough of being poked, constant distraction and the child sitting under the table so I complained. There was a switch around. So do say something.