Do you think you would be apalled at the way your DCs act in school?

[mumof4sons]

I work at a secondary school in quite a well balance area of socio-economic backgrounds. We have students that get free meals as well as kids with mums and dads driving Range Rovers and Jaguars.

That being said, the kids I work with have no respect for themselves, their peers or their teachers. They are rude, lazy and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. They cannot think for themselves and all expect to be rich someday without actually working hard for it.

If you could observe your little angel in a classroom, would you be disgusted or proud?

Who is responsible for your child's behaviour in the classroom? You or the Teacher.

Unless my childrens teachers are lying my children are very well behaved in school. They always comment on it. So I suppose I would be proud. However, I think that all children make mistakes (including my own ) that is part of growing up surely. Teachers and parents are all there to guide them in the right way to behave.

Are all of them vile or are you having a bad day ?

Ummm, how would we know how out children behaved in the classroom?

My Dad always used to say we had 2 languages as kids, one we used at home and one we used at school....

If I was disappointed with my childrens behaviour I would also be disappointed with the teachers. Their reports have a behaviour grade (1-4) and they always get 1 or, in a few cases, 2. I cannot support the school, if they do not support me.

So, I suspect all is well and they are well behaved at school. In fact, probably better behaved than they are at home, where they do try and push boundries at times.

The picture given by mumof4sons sounds a bit extreme- maybe it's something to do with the culture of the school. However having said that, I work in a secondary school and although I think most of the kids are absolutely great I would also say that many of them do sometimes behave in such a way that their parents would be shocked.

I believe there's a national cover up regarding behaviour in secondary schools. The schools themselves will always cover it up; anyone who tries an expose is immediately discredited and any talk about discipline in the media focuses on the extremes of stabbing etc which are rare and involve very low numbers.

If you were to walk around the 'outstanding' school I work in you would see excellent behaviour to be proud of alongside and sometimes right next door to appalling behaviour. The same children will behave well in one lesson and badly in the next. In my view approximately 10% of children struggle to behave well whatever the circumstances and about 20% behave well most of the time. 70% go either way depending.....

Expecting things to be handed on a platter comes a bit from the society we have built ourselves. Whilst their impressions of becoming rich easily are going to be quoshed very soon after leaving education as for things being handed on a platter - well, to some extent they are (or have been).

While our welfare state looks after the needy it also - currently - looks after the not so needy and that has filtered through into lack of aspirations for many children.

Getting good grades is very hard for most children. Hard works needs self motivation which in turn has to come from somewhere. Mine came from seeing my father come home every Friday and make piles with his pay for the week. My Mums housekeeping pile, she put in her purse. She bought food daily and often, come Friday, we had to look in te store cupboard to see if there was anything we could eat as the money had run out. I felt very guilty when I was advised to double enter English and French because it would cost them £10. They paid the school £1 a week. I worked so hard for those exams, I can't tell you.

A lot of us will have experienced something similar and I think few children nowadays do, so they do not realise. I don't think we can expect children just to 'know' these things.

MY SEN Child's behaviour is outstanding, i know it is the teachers say it is and honestly i think the onlt part of his disability i like is the fact that he doens't seem to know how to misbehave.

My NT child however i know is a handful in school... he has good days and bad days but sometimes i do worry the school don't keep my informed of his bad days and he get's away with more than i realise.

Mine are very well behaved in school.....they know what would happen if they didn't!!!! Probably better behaved at school than at home.
I regularly talk to them about the importance of good behaviour, how it reflects on themselves, us, the school..... Some of the behaviour of the girls in dd's school is appalling.

Dd struggled through juniors with a chronic disorder and virtually no support from her school: she has basically had to provide her own education and is still getting As in her GCSE modules, despite spending most of her time at home in bed. But can look forward to a life of pain and disability however well she does in the exams. So I'd hardly say she considers herself entitled. But if there was a problem with her behaviour I would want to know why I haven't been told.

I think most parents would be shocked at their kids' behaviour - not because they're bad, but because they're so good!

I've lost track of the number of times I've commented at parents' evening on how well behaved and quiet a pupil is to hear their parents guffaw or gape wide-eyed and say 'really?!' or 'not at home she's not!'

One girl I work with is very mild and quiet and sweet, but apparently her mum has been dealing with major temper tantrums.

They almost always behave better in school than they do at home. If they're bad in school, chances are they're horrendous with their parents. Or so it seems anyway :)

If my DD behaved in the way some of the chldren I have taught (secondary) or been a TA for (Y1) I would be very upset and cros with her.

However, by all accounts DD is very well behaved at school and tries hard. Her teachershave always been very complementary. I assume they are not lying

When I taught and did parents evenings and reports I always told the truth about pupils' attitudes, efforts ad behaviours.

I would not blame the teachers unless they had not warned me about it or talked to my child about it

Ofsted said that behaviour at my school was outstanding, however in my classroom today you'd have been appalled at the behaviour of some of my kids. Wandering around the room, throwing things, not doing any of the work set, insulting other students. A mix of ADHD, ODD and a couple are just plain pains in the arse.

The rest of the students were beautifully trying to get on with their GCSE work and I was helping them, and in the main, ignoring the idiots, occasionally telling them to sit down, do some work, put their phone away, turn their music off. Over the year I've discovered that nothing works with them, not detentions, not sanctions, not reasoning. I've tried to have them removed from my class, but there's no where for them to go for longer than the odd lesson. I need a TA in the class, with help, we can just about manage them, but there's no money to fund this.

So I don't know about people being shocked by their children's behaviour in school, but I bet some would be shocked if they know what their children have to put up with while trying to learn.

Sitting reading this thread with my mum, who is also a teacher (runs in the family. Meh). We both think that actually, children tend to behave better at school than they do at home. Yes, ok, occasionally there is an instance in which a nice well-brought up child will, maybe, swear or pretend to be hard infront of their friends and their parents would be shocked, but in general kids are MUCH better for us than they are for their parents. I still remember my first parents' evening in which I had asked to see the mother of a child who I could barely make sit down in class, never mind write anything. I quaked and expected the mother to shout at me, telling me how I was failing her child. Instead, she sat down, burst into tears and said, 'I hear #### is very good for you. Have you got any advice for me on how to control her at home?'

This is a trend that has continued. I've lost count of the amount of times I've phoned home to say a child has behaved badly in one of my lessons and the mother has cried saying that they don't know what to do (mind you, I tend to save my phonecalls until either the beginning or the end of a holiday- parents of unpleasant kids are always really depressed at actually having to spend time with them).

However, have to also agree with other posts in which people have suggested that behaviour is hidden in schools. I think that parents would be shocked at the poor behaviour from a minority of students that prevents others from learning.

DD always tells me all the stupid things she gets up to
and then comes home with star pupil award
confuddled