Staff strike over pupil violence at ‘outstanding’ school with Pivotal behaviour policy

[noblegiraffe]

This story is appalling, pupils running wild, organised fights and knife crime. Teaching staff are now on strike over concerns for their safety.

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/teachers-strike-outside-outstanding-school-16492073

“The school uses a system called Pivotal Education, which was founded in 2001 to improve behaviour training for teachers, but this approach is not favoured by union reps as they do not feel it brings about adequate action.”

There have been lots of threads recently about banning isolation booths and criticism of strict schools. Parents should be aware that the ‘banthebooths’ campaign was set up by Paul Dix who was involved in setting up Pivotal (but isn’t currently involved) and who has a book out, podcasts, speaking tours and makes his money from recommending the sort of behaviour policy Pivotal sells.

The NASUWT are very concerned about the spread of these ‘restorative’ approaches, that they lead to teachers being blamed for poor behaviour and are ineffective.

So when you see threads about strict schools and think ‘how awful’, also think about the school in the above story, and think about whether you would send your kid there, and how you would deal with that behaviour.

The NASUWT are very concerned about the spread of these ‘restorative’ approaches, that they lead to teachers being blamed for poor behaviour and are ineffective.

That is the worrying bit-being blamed for the poor behaviour.

If a nurse or doctor was attacked in in A and E by a patient, I don’t think anyone would blame them. If a police officer were attacked on duty, I don’t think anyone would think it was their fault.

It’s a dangerous path to go down.

Here’s an article where the NASUWT link this behaviour approach to an increase in poor behaviour:

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/03/27/bad-behaviour-classrooms-fuelled-fashionable-restorative-justice/

The recent thread where the teacher was instructed to shake the hand of every pupil as they came into class was an example of Pivotal in action.

I am confused. Was this school inspected 7 years ago or 1 year ago?

If it was 1 year ago how the hell could OFSTED get it so wrong?

If it was 7 years ago, why the hell aren't the schools being inspected more often?

If a school is rated outstanding they are very rarely (if ever!) inspected again!

Haggisfish
Seriously is that right? Who decided that and when?

newstart my school hasn't been inspected since 2012 because we're "outstanding". It's been policy for quite a few years now that outstanding schools only really get inspected when there's something to trigger an inspection, like a serious safeguarding incident or serious decline in results, or sometimes a new head can trigger an inspection.

That story is awful. I hate the thought of this restorative discipline system. Kids who are violent need actual consequences. Kids who are rude, defiant, disruptive, etc need consequences. If we don't give kids boundaries then we are failing them.

MsAwesomeDragon
Thanks, I didn't realise it had changed. Parents I talk to think schools are inspected regularly (3/4 years). Who do I complain to?

My Ds attends a supposedly outstanding school that was last inspected in 2011. It is nowhere near outstanding. There were 13 permanent exclusions before Easter for drug use on site, the kids didn't care and were happy to smoke weed all around the school. It is a state grammar and and can give quite a polished open evening and has a nice flashy website but there are some really serious issues going on that continue to be ignored. I think Ofsted don't care because the school can still produce fairly decent gcse results. There should still be inspections for Outstanding schools because there are children being failed and ignored.

I find it very interesting that a post started my a parent, on Mumsnet, complaining about their school enforcing their normal behaviour policy can garner hundreds of posts. Yet this, a very informative post, attracts so few. Speaks volumes that the current teacher bashing thread about holidays, has posters going to town against teachers there but don’t want to comment on this one...

there is a different between excluding pupils because they wear the wrong shade of grey socks and a pupil who is excluded due to criminal activities.
I'm all for sensible rules, but 'strict' schools often go overboard with nonsense.

I was grimly unsurprised by this story when I saw it last week. I work in an ‘Outstanding’ school last inspected seven or eight years ago. The behaviour policy is drifting to a Dix/Pivotal approach. Behaviour is getting dramatically worse very quickly. I can see this being us soon. The children don’t feel safe and the staff are drained. SLT are desperately trying to stop us from removing disruptive pupils from lessons, wiping behaviour records clean and absolving them from any wrong doing.

I’m not entirely sure why this thread has attracted very few comments. Perhaps MNetters read the title and smugly think ‘no violence at my kids’ school’ then crack on with moaning about how their kid got a detention for not following the school rules while totally failing to see the link between the two.

What I really don’t understand is why so many SLT apparently buy into this restorative approach when your average chalkface teacher can instantly spot the flaws.

I wonder how many ‘knife crime teacher strikes’ will be needed before they start to cotton on.

I think SLT buy into it because in MATs, a lot of senior staff are young and fast tracked out of the classroom after very little teaching experience. They see the disruptive and defiant students in one to one situations and are able to develop relationships with them. Then that child saunters back into our lessons feeling untouchable; they behave how they like with all sorts of special exceptions, they get massively praised and rewarded by their SLT ‘mentor’ for not telling anyone to fuck off that day and the SLT person feels like they are amazing because they have a bond with this misunderstood child that ordinary teachers are so quick to judge. They aren’t on the corridors or in lessons. They take the child’s word for it - ‘that teacher hates me, I didn’t do anything, everyone else was talking but only I got told off’ and blame the teacher.

It creates no hard work for SLT, whereas implementing an effective behaviour policy requires massive effort and consistency from them. It gives them a boost. Is the easy way out and they can blame expensive teachers and replace them with cheap enthusiasts. Until the day they look around and realise they are working in a zoo (or when the favoured child tells THEM to fuck off for once!)

They see the disruptive and defiant students in one to one situations and are able to develop relationships with them

You might be onto something here. They have the time to spend chatting to the worst behaved kids. They understand that the behaviour exhibited is an ‘unmet need’ and that the kid has a bad home life. They want classroom teachers to be understanding of the situation and build a relationship, coax the kid into education.

BUT teachers simply don’t have time for that. We have hundreds of students to teach, not a handful. And we also know that when we are being lenient and understanding of the disadvantaged kid who is kicking off again, there are hundreds of less disadvantaged eyes on them thinking ‘I’m going to have me a bit of slacking off time too’.

And the descent into chaos begins.

So when you see threads about strict schools and think ‘how awful’, also think about the school in the above story, and think about whether you would send your kid there, and how you would deal with that behaviour.

But you can't talk as if there's no middle ground, surely? My DC's school has isolation and whatnot for consistently disruptive and difficult pupils. They're not afraid of exclusion/isolation if it's warranted, but they don't use it for the ones who've forgotten their ruler or for uniform infractions.

Seems common sense to me, and while the story linked is awful (and descriptions of pivot I've seen here sound insane) I also wouldn't be happy with the super-strict stuff I sometimes read about here.

I work in a school in NZ that has a restorative approach - I think it works really well as long as it is followed through correctly. There should be consequences for actions (the mini chats/circles/conferences). Some of the consequences for the more serious events are quite tough on the kids. It is not a behaviour strategy that has no consequences- it’s just a less confrontational and gives the kids a chance to recognise what they did wrong and take ownership. However it only works if implemented correctly- too many schools fail to follow through on the consequences properly and if not all the staff are on board it often fails.

I am a parent and specifically chose a school with a strict behavioural and uniform policy. It is over the top but I like it.

I attended a Catholic secondary, all uniform except shirts came from the school outfitters and was strict. Every morning we lined up in silence and proceeded in single file past 4 teachers, 2 on either side who visually checked your uniform, hair style and hopefully make up free face. If you were found wanting you were pulled out of line immediately and taken to the head's office.

I liked the strictness, it meant no-one was punching a teacher in the face, just a few girls rolling their knee length skirts when they thought no-one was looking.

My sons' school is featured at least once a year in the local paper with some sad faced child complete with supportive parent, usually the Mother, complaining that her child couldn't wear a low cut boot shoe.

Our school literally gives us colour photos of what you can and cannot wear, a teacher demonstrates what a number 2 hair cut looks like, this isn't ignorance of the uniform policy it is defiance.

I am grateful for this strictness because my son has just completed year 11 (I have another in year 8) and they are actually learning, if not excelling because the teachers can actually teach rather than behaviour manage. There is a rapid escalation process for defiance which sees a child removed by SLT from the classroom and 99% of them go quietly, no table flipping.

We have 2 pastoral care per year group plus HOY plus a deputy head. They follow the year group from 7 - 11 so there is continuity of care. Love it.

Exactly, noble. We are being asked to evidence all of our de-escalation strategies and ‘reasonable adjustments’ that we make when applying the behaviour system for these particular students. But at the same time, we have to deliver challenging, personalised, differentiated lessons for thirty-four students in one classroom and they must all make the required progress and all of our intervention must be minutely documented. It’s fine for an SLT member to have a lengthy chat with a troubled child in a calm, quiet office. It’s quite another to teach that child - for whom, yes of course I feel compassion! - in a crowded class, to a rigourous exam specification when they are shouting about paedophiles (teaching Romeo and Juliet - when they find out she is thirteen, for example) or making abusive comments to other students or carrying out their own loud conversations across the room. With all of the pressures we face, building a relationship with that child is impossible in the time that we have. And whilst they are allowed to run riot across the school, the knock-on demotivating effect ripples throughout the students in the middle. Those students who can go either way depending on the ethos that the schools creates.

And making special cases of those extreme kids often doesn’t help them. They are crying out for boundaries and stability. Cosy chats with SLT but no real preparation for how to cope in a classroom just destabilises them further. Stripping back learning support crushes or chances of getting anywhere.

Ten years ago when I had LSAs in most of my lessons - often more than one - we could work together and support these kids. We worked quiet little miracles. Now they are just flung into massive groups with ‘aspirational’ targets and no real help for any of us.

Pivotal sounds lovely - it appeals to all of us educators; we all want to help and inspire kids to do better and to open up opportunities for them. It sounds so great, that through relationships we could guide these children successfully. But in practise, it is causing utter chaos and havoc in schools up and down the country.

They see the disruptive and defiant students in one to one situations and are able to develop relationships with them

All this whilst the consistently well behaved students are effectively ignored. A school I worked at once had a garden for students to work in if they had been removed from a subject permanently. A "good" kid once asked me "how naughty do I have to be to get to go to the garden?"

They wanted the same privilege and knew that being naughty was the only way there. Let's stop rewarding bad behaviour with attention.

Just off to bed, but popping in quickly to say that I agree with everything that Captain has said!

Bobbiepin our league tables of merit points are laughable - the worst behaved students at the top every week whilst the students who are doing everything right all the time are never rewarded.

I just don’t understand this dichotomy of exclusion for the wrong style of black shoes vs. Knife fights in the playground.

How do schools all over the rest of Europe manage to have no uniforms at all and not descend into a teenage amped up version of the lord of the flies?

In the early 2000s, I was in a school that worshipped the Bill Rogers behaviour ideology. Behaviour was far from good in that school but SLT just couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. All it did was end up criticising teachers for ‘doing it wrong’ and let the pupils carry on ‘ruling the school’.

I totally agree with your statement noblegiraffe about classroom teachers always seeing through the bull.

My sister worked in a school like that, HT would pay the knife carriers on the head and go 'there, there' Teachers left on masse and as far as I know the school has never recovered.

There are big problems with how discipline is viewed in a number of schools and there are various reasons for this.

I was a governor in a secondary modern and I was one person in 15 who was concerned about the quality of SLT. I had worked in the LA Education Service and had worked with some outstanding Heads. None of these would exclude for trivial reasons but teachers, pupils and everyone at their schools knew action would be taken for misdemeanours and it would be appropriate. Parents supported the school and knew they were firm but fair. The truth of the matter is, that’s the only way to enforce reasonable discipline in school that works for everyone.

We can be way too obsessed with uniform. It takes up an inordinate amount of time and who benefits? DC push boundaries and it’s a never ending cycle of cat and mouse. The strict schools seem to attract parents that love it but lining up and being inspected in military style seems very old fashioned now and what does it teach? Not sure it has huge value . You want parents and DC to dress appropriately without daily inspection.

Yes, many SLT are too young and too suggestible to new fads. They don’t have much classroom experience and don’t listen to experienced people and some I found to be very arrogant. They want to reduce exclusions but I’ve found HTs who don’t even follow the basic rules about excluding pupils and that isn’t fair either. SLT have to set the working ethos of a school and Governors have to challenge if if there are problems. I challenged and that was the end of me! I was effectively isolated. One Governor cannot change anything on their own but Governors are part of the problem too. They appoint the staff and give them a lot of rope to change things and then don’t evaluate and challenge to make sure any new policies are working.

Ofsted will be visiting this school I’m sure. Outstanding schools are to be inspected more frequently and not being inspected goes back years and years. A school near me hadn’t been inspected since 2009. Most of the behaviour issues are down to poor SLT and strategies that are consistent and fair.