Teachers say 14 year old is too quiet in class

[candlelight22]

Just had son's report and all his teachers say he is far too quiet. One even said he is the quietest he's ever taught!

He says he doesn't see the need to talk in class, but when a teacher asks a question they only ever get a one word answer. He will never ask a question, not even after all the lesson when others have gone.

His grades are good (mostly Bs and As with a smattering of Cs) but they all say his silence is hindering his progress. This makes me sad as he has so much potential, but might under achieve because of his silence/shyness.

I am worried as GCSE year starts soon. He's got no issues in school and was always quiet in primary school. We hoped he would grow out of it but seems not.

What can I do? He's not a great communicator out of school! We talk a lot as a family.

What should the school do? All very well saying he is quiet, but they need to do something to support him I think.

He's choosing science options as he likes these best.
Pleas help. No idea how to approach this. He's not going to change overnight.

This is hard for the school to support really. All teachers will have a variety of techniques to encourage everyone to join in - you want everyone to speak out in lesson at the very least once a week, I'd say, but if a student flat out won't engage, you can't make them speak. The only way to go then is punishment which as a teacher seems harsh. They could maybe give him a positive report, so he gets positive comments when he contributes in class. But a quiet y9 is unlikely to actually care that much about it. Maybe worth a try with reinforcement/rewards at home.

I had to tutor a university arts student who was not able to take part in dscussions about other students work....eith her agreement we worked out one possible question per week...it helped her a lot.

This was my 20something at 14 one teacher actually gave us the wrong child on parents night he had no clue dd was there . You can't make children speak out and you can't force anything on a 14yr old ime, if he is shy the teachers shouldn't be penalising him for it.

My son used to get this but now he won't shut up!

One of the best techniques was used by his English teacher who rather than asking people to put their hands up would randomly chose people to answer questions. She had a list which she checked off to ensure fair distribution of questions and also categorised questions into simple, medium and hard so they were also divided up but ensuring the hardest were never asked of the less able students but were given to the top half of the class.

This was the less able were able to answer the questions put to them and their confidence in speaking out grew.

Oh dear, the extrovert-bias strikes again. I was told this all the time during school and it stressed me out - I was an adult when I heard about introversion / extroversion - it all clicked! Introverts need time to think about their responses and don't just blurt out first thing that comes into their head. Teachers really need to start understanding that & value the strengths of all pupils in a class.

One of my DS teacher has set him a target to ask or respond to a question at least once in any of his lessons

I'd speak to the senco (special education needs coordinator) about if the school have any talk about groups or similar (they probably do). My eldest and youngest DC do these due to Autism and extreme anxiety.

The small groups need a mix of children to work well and get them talking under guidance about a given situation. The groups need pupils who are role models for knowing what is the correct social response so your DS could fill that role and no doubt would get praised for his answers about the situations to help encourage the others to model his responses.

If your DS is quiet, but academically doing well and never trouble, he may have had very very little small group attention in his school life to date. Some small group work may help him to build his confidence talking in a group situation and help him have confidence in his views.

At home do you communicate for him and interpret his gestures and needs? Sometimes we can be so intune with one another verbal communication is almost not needed. Have you tried playing the yes no game. You have to take turns asking questions of one qnother and you're not allowed to use yes or no as an answer. Its a good game for in the car, even on short journeys. It just encourages thought about conversation.

Another game is story telling where you each say a sentence/ paragraph and take it in turns to twist the story in funny dirrections. It encourages listening closly tomwhat the previous person has said and creating a fuller response to twist the story.

Does it really matter? If he is doing well and doesn't feel the need to speak out then leave it! Not everyone needs to talk and just because your family talk a lot doesn't mean he has to! I'm sure he will be just fine- i wouldn't make it an issue.

I agree with Mummatron. Teachers should be better at recognising that not everyone is an extrovert and there's nothing wrong with being a quieter member of the class. I recommend that you and DS both read the book Quiet by Susan Cain.

If his grades are good I wouldn't worry about it at all tbh. Ds was a bit quiet, apparently Ofsted like the children to be ' engaged and chatty' in class.At the end of the day when there's a line up of kids who have all the same gsce grades no one will know who had their hand up in class,will they?

To be totally fair on Dds teachers most of them were understanding and were just concerned that she was ok in class.

I also agree what Mummatron said.

Some people speak and contribute a lot and there is no quality to it.

I agree with Mummatron - some people are just introverts and it's really unfair to force them out of their shells. I was incredibly quiet at school - yes probably too quiet but I was shy and scared of everyone! I'm glad that I'm slightly more confident now but have, in my thirties, accepted that I'm an introvert. I went college, made some friends, then went to uni and had a great time. I'm now a teacher, believe it or not. I'm absolutely fine talking to groups of children but hate talking to groups of adults! I will admit I do struggle sometimes with my confidence and wish I was a bit more outgoing, but on the whole I wish society was more accepting of introverts and not constantly pushing us to change.

I hate this sort of crap. I was very quiet in school, shy was how I was mainly described, so are 2 of my dc. Its not wrong and theyre not being hindered by being quiet theyre probably taking in everything around them better than those noisy kids who dont listen. What does cause issues is staff constantly putting them under pressure to join in and answer questions.

Introverts work in a completely different way to extroverts. You cant force them to speak up and often they dont speak until theres a good reason to and until they feel they can be useful. Punishing them for being quiet is wrong on so many levels. Teachers spend half their lives punishing loud noisy kids wanting them to be quiet TheFifthKey.

Surely teachers understand that every child is individual and completely different, as long as theyre not causing trouble they should be praised for their behaviour. I hate kids being dumped in the same mould together, thats not how people work.

You should congratulate your ds on his exemplary behaviour and his ability to keep out of all the drama that lots of teenagers seem to get involved in. He is perfect as he is, don't try to change him, he will probably change as he gets older and you will be wondering why you were worried.

This is my 14 year old. He got all A in report but effort grades not good as too quiet and doesn't join in. He's just quiet and shy. They can't give him good effort grades apparently as you have to ask questions in class etc.

As a secondary school teacher of a talk-heavy subject I usually say that I totally accept that some people would rather not say anything, but I need one "sign of life" per week. Would that be a possibility?
In hands down questioning I always make sure my really shy students get a safe / one word answer question.
There definitely is a bias towards the more extroverted pupils and I am conscious of not always banging on about saying more in lessons when you are an introvert.
My ds suffers from the same comments in his reports btw...

They are making it into a problem when it's not! I would be interested in what your DS has to say about his experience of this.

DD often has this comment on her school report or said at parents evening. I always counter with asking why they see it as a problem and in what way it is affecting her education. They say it is an important skill to always participate and I disagree. I think this is an out of date approach.

I know I exasperate the teachers, but I'm sure they wouldn't like it if I told them to change some aspect of their personality.

It's different if it is having an impact on the child's mental health. However, being quiet is no more a definite sign of anxiety than being loud is one for ADHD or whatever.

As an introverted adult, I often receive feedback in my work (with people incidentally!) that my cool, calm approach is very valuable.

At the end of the day, how much of his assessment is based on what he says? Almost nothing, so I can't see why it would hinder his progress, except possibly in MFL. His GCSEs will be based on written work

A lot of asking questions is to check understanding. The teacher wants to know that the class have understood the concepts discussed and have the necessary tools to do their homework.
OFSTED will raise the fact that pupils are too passive in their learning if they are not engaged in classroom discussion! Modern education is not about flow of information from teacher to pupils- it's meant to be multi-dimensional.

Could he perhaps practise with you asking a question about his understanding but about a concept he absolutely does get, so that he's talking, but secure about what he's talking about? So, for example, "Miss, could I just check, the ulna and radius are the bones in the forearm?"
He won't need to feel embarrassed because he's going to be correct, but he will have engaged in the classroom discussion, but safely.
My DD also gets stressed by classroom questions, she is able, but hates being put on the spot.

It is quite hard to teach and assess a child who won't speak at all... Is there still a verbal elements to the GCSE English mark? Would he be open to working with his English teacher on asking or answering prepared questions and doing presentations just in front of his teacher and a couple of his friends or nice classmates chosen by the teacher?

I don't necessarily agree with all those people saying 'he's just an introvert'. There is nothing wrong with being quiet, and needing time to contribute, but if he is only ever giving one word answers when spoken to directly, and not initiating communication in school, then he could have tipped from "introvert" into "selectively mute". There is a less well known form of selective mutism called "low profile" where kids can answer very briefly if they are asked a direct question, but they can't give opinions, defend themselves, report illness, ask for help etc all of which you would expect a child who is just introverted to be able to do. Given that all of his teachers are raising this as an issue I would investigate selective mutism as a possibility. The UK charity is called SMIRA and there is a very active Facebook group. If you join it you can browse the files etc and see if you think he might have selective mutism, in which case he will need SEN support. Could he attend a job interview? If not, he needs help.

Sorry- my phone changed multi-directional!

oldbirdy 's point is very good! can he speak up if he actually needs to? For his own needs - if he suddenly feels sick, or if he doesn't understand something fundamental to the topic and needs help to avoid being totally lost for the next few weeks in that subject?

I am massively introverted and spent my whole school life "needing to come out of my shell". I also have a degree from Cambridge, so it doesn't necessarily hold you back! I do agree that reading the "Quiet" book would give a good perspective on the bias towards extroversion in education and the workplace.

BUT I think it is also something that is worth working on. Although I did well academically, I did struggle in my first few years in the workplace, where I really did need to be able to speak up in meetings and contribute to the work that was going on round the table. I just hadn't learned those skills and had to overcome a massive mental block about speaking up.

I have now learned how to contribute and am now perfectly comfortable in that sort of situation. I also get comments about my calm, thoughtful approach being beneficial to the team. But it took a while to shake off the persona of "the one that never speaks in meetings" and I wish I'd been taught some strategies earlier on.

My other perspective on this is that I have a child in my church youth group who never makes any contribution to discussions. Just shrugs her shoulders and gives me a little smile. I KNOW that she has opinions (because in other situations you can't shut her up) and it's immensely frustrating that she essentially refuses to participate. It feels, if I'm honest, like a weird form of attention-seeking from her and I'd love to know what's going through her mind.

I was exactly like this as a teenager and it used to annoy me that come teachers made such a big deal of it on report cards. They used to say 'Enid is a straight A student, we just wish she would contribute in class etc etc.'
Unfortunately, this approach didnt work at all. It made me more self conscious. It was the teachers who were gently encouraging and who I felt a better 'connection' with who I was able to speak to.
Ultimately I wouldn't worry at all. As soon as I grew up a bit/moved to a brilliant sixth form college/new teachers who didn't know me - I became a lot more confident. People who know me know wouldn't imagine I was a quiet shy teenager. Unless you are worried your DS has a deeper issue, he will probably be just the same.
Out of interest, is he a 'late developer'? I was young for my year and it wasn't until about 17/18 years old that I really felt on the same level as a lot of my classmates. At 14 I was happier playing football with the local 10 year olds than wearing makeup/chasing boys/partying. Some people just develop later - and I think confidence can be linked to this.
Good luck - don't make an issue out of this with your DS. Tell teachers to focus on all his positive attributes and not to keep going on about talking more. This will not help him at all.