Controversial Behaviour Policy changes

[Chattonnoire]

I am looking to get some insight into the changes taking places at a number of Free Schools, especially London, that have been making dramatic changes to Behaviour Policy since Michaela Community School made headlines as being the strictest school in Britain:

time.com/5232857/michaela-britains-strictest-school/

metro.co.uk/2017/09/11/britains-strictest-school-bans-pupils-from-looking-out-the-window-and-smirking-6917747/

www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/13422769.The_secrets_of_Magna_Academy_s_transformation__Students_who_walk_silently_between_lessons/

I noticed, that the comments at the end of these articles were mostly negative from parents and students in these schools, and don't appear to be in line with the "hard sell" the schools are making it out to be.

The impression is that teachers are asserting control over the difficult and disruptive students at the expense of the rest; the average student is muted in these "silent transitions" to and from classes and expressed feeling unhappy and the environment oppressive and weird.

None of the students have the authority to question the new policy, too afraid of being given 90 minutes detentions on the same day regardless of any commitments they may have (Medical or Sporting...at the expense of either their health missing long awaited NHS appointments or financial loss for missed activities to lower income families, as many students on free school meals) for often arbitrary and minor and low level disruptions such as is listed on many of these schools behaviour policies.

So they are being taught not to learn any assertiveness, question authority at any point, to conform, never to speak out, contest or oppose injustice, and may in fact have long lasting emotional and psychological negative impact on these teen developing minds in the real world, where they may not be able to defend themselves from unfair treatment from employers, or even personal relationships.

I am concerned about how fitting and convenient it is for the staff of schools in managing the delinquents, but how damaging this can potential be for bright and able children to be treated with less freedom than correctional facilities. Mental health and self harm and teen suicides statistics are already depressingly high, and with high pressured expectations and penalised for low level infractions can sabotage a once engaged teen's self esteem. A friend's 14 year old son recently committed suicide. So this really touches a raw nerve.

I've seen how a hostile school environment can crush a student with so much potential too many times.

I can't help but thinK of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" with faceless children put through the grinder...sorry for the grim comparison....but I can't shake it.

Is this radical new Behaviour Control in developing adolescent minds a good thing, or setting them up to fail in the real world in order that the schools get "Outstanding" Ofsted reports as inspectors come and see automatons walking silently through schools for fear of punishment and exclusion?

Are any of you in these super strict schools and finding it great or awful?

*If you are a teacher or part of school staff, please indicate in your response, so an understanding of your perspective is made clear.

Thank you

I was asking my dd last night about her school to gauge how strict it was compared with this school- no sitting at lunch but otherwise quite strict. She said that you are not allowed to say anything bad in class about another teacher and it's immediate behavioural exclusion for a period of time if you do, so one of her classmates said 'Mrs X is such a cow' and immediately got excluded. They are also not allowed to say bad things about other schools on their school premises.

Apparently they are allowed to think what they like in their heads! Thank god for that, huh!

It is a formerly difficult school and obviously this is the 'in' way to respond to the low level (not that low level actually) disruption and bad behaviour. I am torn as I hate the ethos but my dd is confident and feels well supported by the teachers, bullying is stamped on very quickly and it's a good learning environment in many ways.

I would not spend time taking this to the newspapers myself, as I'd rather get my child through the difficult exam year with little fuss. But others might feel taking a stand is an important life lesson.

Either way- laugh at these people! And perhaps discuss why this is their way of managing discipline. I went to a school that felt almost lawless at times and I think as a hard worker I would have preferred more staff control.

I'm struggling to think of a situation where it would be appropriate to say something bad in class about another teacher. I mean, a situation where that wouldn't be dragging the lesson off topic and interfering with the learning of the 29 other children in a class.

I honestly don't think this should be seen as a free speech issue - after all, children only spend round 25% of their waking hours at school, and they have plenty of access to other people, and to phones, computers etc during the other 75% of their time, when they can express themselves freely.

Learning the self-control required not to slag off co-workers or bosses publicly in inappropriate situations in the workplace is probably also a good thing, IMO.

kesstrel I agree the behaviour is undesirable, the question is whether that would have been dealt with in the past by a teacher calling the student on it and perhaps having a private word, or by the new discipline regime in which the student is immediately removed etc. Even if they are normally quite a nicely behaved child who might have just spoken out of turn.

My other child who goes to a different school has nothing like this in place, and it is all much more civilized but sadly this is not the case in my dd's school. It's done in a very heavy handed way for really quite minor infractions. It does 'work' after a fashion in that it does encourage compliance, but obviously most workplaces won't immediately sanction you and march you to isolation if you happen to utter to a colleague that Mrs Brown is a bit of an old boot.

OP, I have just found out that my niece's school has adopted this approach. I will come back to this thread and let you know how it's panning out.

EarlyModernParent thank you. My DS has now started low level migraines and nausea in the morning and it’s been only 1 week of school so far this term. If stress of environment going to lead to physical breakdowns (as full migraines are completely paralysing sometime with trip to A&E), it’s not a good omen for the academic year.

I just bought as per a suggestion posted on the thread, the book When Adults Changes Everything Changes, Seismic Shifts in School Behaviour by Paul Dix, and it looks very interesting so far.

Ugh I hope this doesn't become a common thing in schools. Admissions is enough of a minefield without having to worry about being assigned a school like that.

If you choose it, then you need to believe in the ethos.

The choice argument here is a red herring. You've chosen the school for year 7, plodded along OK for a few years and all of a sudden an academy trust takes over, changes all the uniform to some utterly obscure shade of colour and starts announcing rules like "if you feel sick we'll give you a bucket to puke in then get on with your work" (paraphrased from the Great Yarmouth story last year). Your kid's now up to year 9/10, got their school friends - but the school they're attending bears no resemblance at all to the one you picked back when they were 11 and you were doing school applications - the only thing it's still got in common is that dodgy bit of peeling paintwork round the back of the science block.

You didn't choose to send them to the boot camp with the ethos of "sit there, shut up, don't move, don't look away"... the choice was taken from you and now you're kind of stuck with your child often halfway through exam syllabuses, and having to either shut up and suffer with it, or massive massive disruption (assuming you can get them into another school at all).

So yeah, throwing in the "you chose it" issue with a new intake who've joined the school since it went all disciplinarily bonkers is valid... for
those kids who've been there and had this dropped on them it's really not a valid point to be making.

Perfectly stated GrimSqueaker

I'm just glad my teens are at the end of their school careers and that the school they are in hasn't (yet) fallen victim to this fad. I really feel for parents of good, well-behaved children whose only choice is between one draconian boot camp and another.

And on the sitting in place quietly thing, my children's primary uses short (e.g. 2 minute) bursts of activity, usually to music as a way to 're-set' the classroom, perhaps between topics or if attention is fading and the kids are beginning to chat. It is a lot gentler than telling a whole class off and avoids shouting which is a big aim there. Majority of children on pupil premium, high percentage of ESL pupils and racially mixed school.

EarlyModernParent for my DS the biggest casualty is the change in breaks. He used to have 30 mins in playground during morning break, now reduced to 15 minutes with 4 year group crammed in canteen (no sports equipment like basketball or football as was available previously in playground to keep them busy), and 1 hour lunch break,previously, again with playground access after eating, reduced to 30 minutes of mandatory seating entire lunch break. DS finds the lack of movement on a daily basis with all DfE recommended exercise condensed into one PE lesson once a week the hardest to cope with. It cuts him off from real meaningful socialising with friends during break and he comes home feeling stiff and exhausted from full day on seated lessons. Apparently student desks have a sandpaper like finish edge that DS cannot figure out if intentional to prevent leaning on, as they would shred uniforms if rubbed up against too much. He was perplexed and somewhat vexed by it as his arm kept catching on it.

@Chattonnoire

It sounds like your DS will benefit from this dose of discipline and doing as he's good for once.

Children shouldn't be leaning on desks during lessons- they should be concentrating on the teacher or their work.

Milky how can a child not lean on a desk during lesson if they are, for instance, writing? How is making a desk so uncomfortable that it damages clothes (and possibly skin) achieve anything beneficial? Clearly you are one of those people who assume that all children are by default inclined to behave badly and that therefore the starting point of a regime must be punitive. Many of us on this thread prefer to go with 'innocent until proven guilty'.

So many people in this country who seem to hate the young.

It's like someone's taken the Monty Python three Yorkshiremen sketch where they're all trying to outdo each other with how hard they had it as a kid and they're now in some kind of competition to try to replicate it with how tough they can be on discipline in schools. Except it's not funny when it's our generation of kids being put through it and I think the mental and physical health costs will prove to be horrific and continue for decades.

Maybe they should have electrified desks.

In the real world I've never heard of a workplace with a no leaning on desk policy. Wouldn't recommend it for an interview but in our day you just had specific lessons on interviews.

Maybe they should have electrified desks.

When I was at school we had barbed wire desks - and we were thankful!

The policies workplaces have are irrelevant. The people in those environments are adults. School pupils are children and need to be treated as such. They lack the maturity to be treated like adults, which is why schools need to have to have strict rules and policies.

I disagree, I think kids need more supervision than adults but ultimately they should be being prepared to enter the adult world. All these rules teach them is that some adults are twats.

Milky so all children should be treated as if they are misbehaving in order to prevent misbehaviour? Did you ever see a film called Minority Report?

Schools need an appropriate regime of sanctions for students who misbehave. Not a regime that is punitive from the off because 1) it will not equip them for adulthood in any way and 2) if you are punitive with the good kids, they have no incentive to continue behaving well and working hard.

It's kind of like a school wide equivalent of putting the class in detention because one person misbehaved.

It's all very 'the beatings will continue until morale improves', isn't it?

I disagree, I think kids need more supervision than adults but ultimately they should be being prepared to enter the adult world. All these rules teach them is that some adults are twats.

SnuggyBuggy your posts always put a smile on my face. I just don’t fall in with some of the hardcore Strict Policies advocates on the thread.

Well put pointythings

School pupils are children and need to be treated as such.

Aren't we talking about secondary school here? In some parts of the UK 16 year olds can vote.

It's all very 'the beatings will continue until morale improves', isn't it?

Indeed. It does make me wonder also how many adherents of these draconium approaches would like to bring back corporal punishment in the UK. Sadly there are more than a few of those in the US who I think it should be part of the "disciplinary toolbox."