'Making an example' of naughty pupils

[leccybill]

I work in a school in Special Measures. It's quite a demoralising place to be at present. We have a large number of pupils who have been given 1 or 2 day exclusions for threatening language towards staff and/or swearing at staff. We are not officially informed who these exact pupils are.

Today, we were discussing how right it would be to share the information with other pupils, for example, in assembly. We have a very large majority of pupils who do behave well and comply, and they should know that verbal abuse is getting punished, and that staff are not there to be abused in this way. In effect though, it looks as though they are seeing unruly pupils 'get away with it', and things are getting worse, not better.

What happens in other similar schools? Are miscreants held up as an example? I'm trying to see it from the side of a parent of an excluded child too.

Internal exclusion ? Somewhere other students can see (but not interact). Or miss out on a trip.
They should be seen to be visible - punishment means their peers knowing it's wrong. And if parents complain - tough. Get the small things right and the big things don't happen. Swear at my school and its a very fast trip to the head & a day in the cooler. Swear at me and its a letter of apology before allowed back after days exclusion.

Yes, I think pandering to parents of pupils who cannot behave is a big problem too. Totally agree that punishment means showing others it's wrong.

Set of stocks in the playground with a basket of rotten fruit for their peers to throw at them?

Haha, hardly, Bilberry but I think the message needs to get out that 'If you do this... this will happen'.

How about playground rubbish collection for a week? So, not the stocks but visible and helpful.

I don't think we make an example of pupils at our school, but pupils are aware that bad behaviour leads to consequences.

So, a couple of weeks ago a pupil swore at me, the whole class heard, they also heard me tell him that his head of year would be involved and they knew that he was excluded (internally for one day, externally for one day). It's not a secret, so when they ask "where's x?" I reply "he's been excluded today because of the abusive language yesterday", but I also don't bring it up without them asking.

As a teacher I tend to hear about kids who have been excluded from their classmates rather than SLT (who are crap at communicating this sort of thing). So I would expect that they do know already without a public spectacle being made.

If you want to tell the kids, can't you do it without naming names? x students have been isolated/excluded this week which is disappointing, but shows we are taking behaviour seriously etc etc.

No punishment will work if the parents over ride it at home. Parents call school demanding little Jonny is right and teacher is stupid. How dare you suggest he is not an angel. Kids then don't care about school punishments because their are no consequences at home. In fact, some parents give rewards because school have been 'mean'. It is hard work (& slightly soul destroying). But.... With strong (v strong) leadership it can work. Heads must back up staff 100% of time, all staff must be consistent and know who had done what (sims recording every time). Good kids can then feel life is fair. And rewards for them are great too (£10 voucher for student of term/most improved/most effort grades etc). Been in your shoes a few times and it needs excellent team work. Good luck

If any school has a constantly disruptive or naughty pupil, then I feel they should do what they feel is necessary in terms of punishment and if this doesn't work, then yes, their peers should know what they've done, it won't be tolerated and there will be a punishment.

I can't speak from the parent of an excluded child, but my DD did have a disruptive child in her tutor group and some lessons. She said every registration and tutor time her tutor had to speak to him because he'd got another detention or a teacher had approached her about him. She said sometimes her teacher would be calm and try and reason with him, other times she was really annoyed. He just didn't care that he was getting detention every day and was being separated from the other pupils some days. After two years, their tutor told them that she felt she couldn't work with him any longer, as she couldn't support him and nothing she did or said seemed to help, also she was aware she had no time for the others in her tutor group, so she had had him transferred to another tutor group in the hope someone else might be able to help/reason with him. So in this instance, they were told as a group what had happened and why.

Thanks for the responses. Our behaviour policy is 'under review' and at the moment, nothing is really in place and every teacher has apply their own sanctions and hopes for the best really.

Our pupils 'refuse' to do litter picking and parents back them up on this, they say it's degrading. SLT bow down to them.
We have many persistently poorly-behaved pupils, who as mumneedswine suggests, have no boundaries or structure at home, and whose own poor experience of school has led to them being suspicious of school and authority. I've sat in plenty of meetings and heard a parent say 'but if I want to ring her in class, it's my right', 'he's only talking, can't the other kids just ignore it', 'no, you see Miss, he doesn't like following rules much so he gets angry' and other such cobblers. It is very demoralising.

Hi leccy. Just shovelling down a sandwich. I've been where you are - it's hard. Unless heads have consistent transparent policy (that parents are told they will adhere too), I doubt it will change. The parents are a huge hurdle, and exhausting ! I had a mum threaten to 'punch my head into my 'unmentionables'' - because I told her son to not call his bookie in class time. He was 12. After 3 years of whole school issuing same punishments and no backing down, he left school with 6 GCSEs. It can be done - but it hurts getting there. X

Consistency, no exceptions and clear rules with sanctions. Points system with clear punishments if get points. Everything recorded on SiMS (or alternative) so all staff can see what student is getting up to. And no warning of punishments - ours don't get told of internal exclusions as some won't come in if they know in advance (and parents won't support).

Clamp down on uniform - sounds daft but it's true. Give them no wiggle room on the small stuff and the big stuff starts to die away. Sanctions for forgetting equipment, books, homework etc.
We knew we had cracked it at my last place when we realised our biggest fight with the girls was how short they rolled up their skirts.

Same as Noble - I find out from the kids rather than anything from those up above. Op, the kids will already know

You should get them to set up staff alert so every member of staff knows who is suspended or excluded every week. Not hard to do and means everyone can keep eye on student. How do you provide work for them ( a legal requirement even if they are excluded) if you don't know they are not there ?!?

My last but one place was a hell hole when I - and the new head who I did happen to know - started. No discipline, less than 15% a-C and a police officer on site. The head sent 92 students home on his first day for incorrect uniform - the fuss made the national press. Carried this on every day - surprisingly within 2 weeks most kids were correctly dressed. Month 2 he clamped down on any bad language - instant dismissal from class. Every time. Was exhausting to carry out but we all stuck to our guns and every teacher did the same procedure. By month 4 there was very little bad language. By now lessons were teachable and we could concentrate on what we all loved - delivering fun lessons. And suddenly we had better behaved kids ! Most found school worth coming to and listening - before, even the good ones joined in cos they couldn't learn anyway. And the majority started to police the remaining naughty ones. They snitched on them and we punished.
We called the drug dogs in monthly and anyone caught (& quite a few were) was sent to a PRU and coumsellig. They were allowed back after 6 weeks. Any second offence resulted in permanent exclusion (of which there were surprisingly few).
So it can be done. It's very hard work, and most of us were in tears regularly, but we supported each other, drank a lot on Fridays, and most importantly were supported (& thanked) by SLT.
Phew. Longest I've ever posted !

We do have an on-site police officer (most schools in our borough do) with a constant caseload and the school is Inadequate in all categories. So you can guess the context.
Lots of interesting reading here, and I just hope our SLT peruse the Mumsnet staffroom from time to time.
I hope things can be turned around. More for the good pupils' sake than for mine. We can leave - they can't. I hate that it looks as though naughty kids get all the attention - it should be totally the other way around.

Interesting - I just asked dd, and they have a very specific list of consequences and in theory at least they should all know what behaviour will result in what consequence. So her example, 'storming out of class would mean a C4' which is afterschool detention + banned from trips for that term.

But she pointed out that there would be cases for specific pupils where that wouldn't be the case, and the rest of the class wouldn't necessarily know. So in her case for a while after transition until settling she had a 'red card' which allowed her to leave class and go to the ALN room for support if she was having an anxiety related meltdown.

I am a teacher. I am also the parent of a child who has been excluded in the past & almost certainly will be again at some point.

I would be horrified and probably complain formally if he were 'named and shamed' in assembly, though I accept many of his peers would know anyway. I think this is wrong, not least because professionally and personally I know of several cases where exclusion has been part of the process of gaining support for SEN/demonstrating that a school cannot meet a child's needs. If even one of those cases ends up 'named and shamed' further, I think that's immoral. And if course there is a right of appeal against exclusion & should it be genuinely overturned, you can't retract naming & shaming & any consequences thereof for the child.

But you can say in assembly that x number of pupils have had FTEs this week for y behaviours. Still makes it public, but isn't naming & shaming. I do agree with the poster above about the focus of the assembly needing to be positive though.

You need your SLT to set a discipline procedure (perhaps even involving the children in the process) and then everyone sticks to it.

Teachers making their own sanctions as they go is a nightmare because what Miss A will accept before she gives more than a stern word could be considerably more than what the 'strict' Mrs B takes, but way less than what Mr C takes.

That's not fair on the children, who don't know exactly where the boundaries are, or the teachers who end up being the bad guy due to the lack of support.

When a clear discipline procedure is in place then you don't need to make an example of anyone because everyone knows that Billy had lunchtime detention last week and he was cheeky to Miss A yesterday so he'll be in isolation/suspended/working at the HT's office for the day etc.

Consistency is the key imo, and teachers can only be consistent if they are working from a set procedure that everyone follows.