Ofsted approves of silent corridors

[noblegiraffe]

Just seen tweeted this extract from an Ofsted report praising silent corridors.

Now that it’s had that stamp of approval, expect to see more schools jumping on the bandwagon. (Assuming the tweet is genuine!)

But some parents won’t be happy - this mum is now home-educating because of this policy. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6586437/Mother-removes-son-school-academy-banned-children-taking-corridors.html

A school that did this was in the local news
www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/news/croydon-news/croydon-school-bans-pupils-talking-2045915
The facebook comments about it were quite supportive if I remember. Someone said that their child was happier there now as there was less bullying and a couple of people said they'd had this at their secondary modern decades ago and it had done them no harm.
Id prefer my kids could chat to friends in the corridor, but if the teachers at their school felt silent corridors would improve behaviour, I probably would be ok with it, as long as they had opportunities to chat to friends at break time.

Looking at the rest of the Croydon article, I'm guessing that the problem with the blazer was not that it was the wrong shade of black, but that it was from Top Man, as pretty much all schools round here require you to get the blazer from a uniform shop in Croydon with the badge already embroidered on it.

I think there may be a school in our MAT that does this.

My son spent a day as part of MFL immersion where they could only speak German and they were put in different role plays. It took place at one of the schools within the academy.

He said that students were impeccably behaved, silent in corridors and even silent when they came in from break time after being normal noisy children outside.

The schools are all outstanding and pastoral care is high on the agenda. Student well being is a top priority. They don't have silent corridors it in my son's school but they do have a one way system which prevents children just walking by and hitting someone as the culprit is often just lost in the sea of children.

What are your thoughts @noblegiraffe? Do you like the idea or think it's generally unenforceable?

I have to say that I really like the idea of kids walking quickly and efficiently from lesson to lesson because so much time is wasted at my school with dawdlers, kids congregating at the bottom of staircases for a chat and so on.

Unfortunately it would be totally unenforceable in my school, it’s really old with several different buildings and lots of places to hide. In the shiny new academy buildings I’ve been in, where there are clear lines of sight between classrooms, open walkways etc it would be much easier.

It's a daft rule. I absolutly hate the idea. There is a difference between children running, yelling, shoving each other, being horrible to each other in the corridors and normal everyday conversations like

Child A "Do you still want me to help you with the maths after school"
Child B "Ooh yes please. Meet you in the library "

A "Are you going to Guides after school, do you still want to my mum to pick you up?

B "Oh yes, thanks for reminding me"

A" Hey B, did you realise you left your PE bag in the canteen. Miss X has it for you "
" Oh thanks for telling me A. I wondered where it was"

And 1001 other perfectly normal everyday conversations that people should be able to have with one other when they are inbetween and enroute to another lesson.

We had this is my school, back in the early 90s. No one saw it as a problem then so don’t understand the fuss.

bookmum I would hazard a guess that those types of conversations actually form a tiny percentage of the chat going on between lessons.

It’s more likely ‘Did you see Alice’s story on Snapchat?’ ‘OMG’ etc etc.

I work in primary schools so it might be slightly different but I do think that quiet, orderly corridors are better and safer. Some schools I have been in have tape on the floor and doors that only open one way so that children must keep to the left when walking along the corridors. They certainly feel calmer than the school I worked in last week where it's kind of like a free-for-all. As long as children are allowed to talk freely and run around and play when they're outside, I have no problem with silent/quiet corridors.

I said "corridors" too many times in my last post, sorry

That is a statement of what Ofsted found in this school. It is not a ringing endorsement of this policy and their Framework will tell schools how they inspect behaviour. There is going to be more emphasis on behaviour but I do not believe Ofsted endorse a single way to achieve it. What works in some schools might be a disaster in others. Ofsted mostly want to see children moving around in an orderly fashion and be ready to learn. How this is achieved is down to each school.

Bubbles the triple marking fad came about because Ofsted praised it in individual school reports, don’t underestimate the ability of heads to immediately leap on a bandwagon.

Completely agree with BubblesBuddy. Ofsted have repeatedly said they don’t demand/support particular approaches, but they want to see things that work within each school’s environment. If this works for that school, then it’s a win. Personally I can’t see a problem with it.

Bookmum, I’m assuming you don’t work in a school? Even in the unlikely event that all the children are having enlightening conversations about helping with Maths homework, when you have hundreds of children all doing it at once, it’s a noisy nightmare.

I reckon my DD would get on well with silent corridors. I know she finds change over quite stressful. I think though it would only help if there isn't lots of silent barging going on. (She's not very good with stairs and complains about getting crushed.)

noblegiraffe true. Teens do talk and gossip about a load of nonsense - but how on earth can we teach teens what is a perfectly normal and sensible and respectful conversation if they can't talk in anyway to each other at times when they are not in a lesson (so not interupting teaching time). It's not normal life behaviour. Are people silent on work commutes? No. It is mostly polite small talk with people you see everyday "glad it's finally stopped raining" "yes nice to see a bit of sunshine". Normal everyday life. It's bad enough these poor kids are dressed in outfits that are often badly fitting and not actually practical for their day but they can't even talk polite small talk.

Kids are children. They're not robots. This is absurd

jaffacake I volunteer in a Primary school so I have a bit of experience of noisy kids and I was a teen once who went to a very very large secondary school.
My daughter suffers with sensory issues and loud noisy crowded places she struggles with - but a silent corridor is not natural for the rest of her life. She needs to learn to deal with life noises and learn to block out what isn't important or relevent to her or she won't be cope at all with adult life. All teens need to learn this - but being silent won't teach them this.

Sounds crazy and hard to enforce. Schools would be better off going hardline about behaviour in the classroom.

I see no problem with it. When I was at school we had a one-way system and silent corridors during exam time. I think the people who think it is having a detrimental effect by stopping pupils communicating with each other are daft.

What Lovethetimeyouhave said. Such ridiculousness.

eddie We used to have 'Exam Silence' too, I#d forgotten about that. This wasn't limited to corridors, but also outside near classroom buildings.

It is reasonable to expect all Heads to have common sense and not read every Ofsted comment as a way forward for their school. Clearly some children can have sensible conversations with each other and not be silent robots. I think conversation is a life skill and knowing when to have one, and when not, is also a life skill! Robotic children who are being silenced will not work in every school and Heads ought to know by now that they should not follow what one set of Inspectors finds in one school. Other inspectors will find calm schools where pupils do chat!

But Bubbles, we know that doesn’t happen with regards to Ofsted! They’ve had to spend so much time putting out mythbuster documents because these things do get leapt on and adopted willy nilly.

They could have praised behaviour between lessons without making it about silent corridors.

I think the people who think it is having a detrimental effect by stopping pupils communicating with each other are daft.

I think schools should focus on clamping down on behaviour that is actually detrimental to learning, rather than wasting staff time on enforcing draconian and pointless measures which will achieve little but to further confirm to students that schools are rigid institutions which see students as numbers, not human beings.

Obviously genuinely bad behaviour between lessons should be dealt with, but that doesn't mean there needs to be silence.

Oh I’ve found the Ofsted report it’s from - the controversial Magna Academy in Poole.
www.magna-aspirations.org/uploads/asset_file/Ofsted_Report_to_Parents_14_01_19.pdf

Given that they’ve gone from good to outstanding by implementing a really strict behaviour policy, I expect heads will take notice.

I don’t think the majority will! No school will get outstanding just on a no talking policy! Other elements of the school also have to be outstanding. If heads are so easily rolled over into accepting a policy, based on one school, they are not suitable to be Heads!