What does a bad pupil do during lessons ?

[XmasReindeer12345]

What activities and misdemeanours do ba dpupils participate in during lessons ? What makes a bad pupil?

It’s all relative.

If you’ve told a student not to roll up their skirt and they unroll it then roll it up again 2 minutes later it’s as defiant as asking a student not to call out to a friend across the classroom and then they do it again 5 minutes later. It might not directly disrupt teaching but it directly disrupts the ethos the school is trying to create.

A student who “does their work but is chatty” is not doing it to the best of their ability or allowing others in the classroom to, so if you tolerate this as a teacher then you are tolerating students not doing their best work. Saying it’s being “patient” might be true, but if your job is to try and get students to do their best work and be as successful as they can, are you being truly kind by being patient and ignoring or tolerating substandard work and poor levels of attention, or are you being kinder by insisting on students doing their best work?

Students arguing back - that’s just a demonstration of a lack of respect. The more that is tolerated the more they will do it. Eventually the authority of the teacher becomes totally eroded.

Not from a teacher's point of view, from my dd's points of view they're a pain because they disrupt the lessons
That's the attitude of most of my students.

It always reminds me how great the majority are when the same old loudmouths start again. They're nice students, but nice students who seem to think that because they are nice they can get away with being a bit disruptive, chatty, loud and generally not showing consideration for others.
I do come down on that sort of thing hard because I have a policy of respect in my classroom and as far as I'm concerned anything preventing peers from learning shows a lack of respect to othet learners.

One of my bugbears was always describing the purpose of a practical, talking it through step by step, handing out instructions and asking the pupils to read through it, asking if there were questions about what I wanted them to do and then allowing them to start the practical, only for them to start wandering around the room, making no attempt to get their data/ perform the required tasks, playing with the equipment inappropriately and then at the end of the lesson say, 'I didn't get it.' They just didn't care... they weren't 'bad' just didn't care. It's hard for me to continue to put in countless hours, blood sweat and tears and they don't care...

And chattiness. I can't hear questions, let alone think when it's all a-hum. Not bad, just tedious and annoying.

Any student who disrupts a class and distracts others is behaving selfishly and needs to stop. End of story.

Everyone deserves an education, not just the loud ones.

Great post from wilting flower

I met a teacher who said that she once had to lock herself and her class in the chemistry prep room as a student was trying to get in with a knife.

Not London. Not a big city. A naice country market town.

Xmas as a parent I get annoyed with other pupils talking through lessons. They might be able to do the work and talk, but my DD gets really thrown off by low level disruptions such as this. She needs all her focus on lessons to get through them and learn. It is inconsiderate and rude.

Talking means not listening and disrupting other people working so not ok at all. Just because your child is chatty and always finishes work doesn't mean that the person who they are talking to is finishing theirs.

Other people in the class will also be distracted by the chatting. It's very disrespectful to the teacher and rest of the class.

Sometimes, the teacher wants to know what each individual pupil has grasped from the lesson or knows already on a topic- so if one student is talking, even about the work, this isn't helping the teacher or their classmates.

Sometimes, talking about the activity is ok.

Sometimes, off topic talking will distract others, and it means the pupil isn't working to the best of their ability. In many lessons, a few minutes is lost at every "transition" due to pupils talking. If you say 5 minutes is lost per lesson, then that's maybe 30 minutes per day, or two and a half hours a week of lesson time which students are missing out on.

Shouting out is never ok- it doesn't matter if it's correct or relevant. Teachers often want to give every pupil a chance to answer, not to allow your child to dominate the lesson. It can be intimidating for shy pupils and put them off answering.

When you talk about being hyper, this sounds like low level disruption and isn't fair on others.

It doesn't matter if all their work is being done if they are negatively impacting the class around them.

At some point, your child will have to learn to sit quietly and concentrate- either at university or in the world of work. Why not start now?

Some kids can work with chatter in the background but most need quiet

Yep I would still say that a child who chatters a lot is being selfish and rude. Just because they may be able to chat and get the work done does not mean others will be able to with their chatter going on. But hey entitled parents usually produce entitled children IMO

That nice child who disrupts dilutes learning for up to 29 others and it is completely unacceptable.