Fights in school, how often?

[Helenj1977]

My dd has just started secondary school. There has been a fight every other day if not more.

It's a great school academically and looks great from the outside.

Is this normal these days?? I send my children to school thinking their safe. I knew the occasional fight will happen but this is ridiculous. The same children are put in isolation for the day then they're doing it again.

@Theresnobslikeshowbs I've laughed about this for years. The woman is a legend.

About twice a month in Dc’s Outstanding Comp in a v mixed area. It is a successful happy school, fights are skilfully dealt with very fast by staff.

It doesn’t affect anyone not involved. Pupils can either ignore and walk away, or cluster round rubbernecking and getting in the way of staff dealing with it.

I am sure your Dd will be in the ‘walk away’ category.

Dd isn't bothered at all. I am though. I want to think my children are safe at school.
You keep saying about wanting your children to be safe, but there's zero evidence they're not safe.
Your DD isn't bothered. She's not concerned.
Most people on here have said that proper fights are rare and when they happen they tend to be between specific students with their own issues, not random attacks.
Many people have also said that occasional scuffles are just that, scuffles often to do with reasonable boys (typically) trying to seem the man but not really being that committed to the cause.

That's not to say proper fights don't happen. They do. But they're not the norm in most schools and most students aren't involved.

You tend to have additional staff on call for breaks and lunch when fights are more likely. Hence it depends on the cover for the day, the design of the school, the cohorts and if new children have affected dynamics and how the school deals with it. Fights do happen but it depends on the severity. If you asked the Governors about fights they would say there are none because they haven't been told about them. But on viewing PEX data you see children with several previous fights and tiffs and yet looking like angels before you.

“Dd isn't bothered at all. I am though. I want to think my children are safe at school.”

She is not bothered
She is not unsafe.

If she is happy and doing well at the school stop fussing!

@Billsbill my DD is also at an outstanding high school with exactly the same problem. Nothing has happened to DD but I'm not happy she's being educated in that environment.
It's a rural high school (though we're not far from a city) & yet my friend's children go to an inner city high school & in a larger city where a fight is an extremely rare occurrence. Friends school is rated Good, but the school is very strict even down to what you have in your pencil case! Once children are on the school premises mobiles have to be put away & not used & if they are seen then the phones are confiscated until the end of the day. Generally pupils behaviour is excellent.
I'm wondering if it's a rural high school thing as other friends of mine (in another part of the country) have children at a rural high schools & fights are almost a daily occurrence......once again a so called outstanding school!
We are moving to another part of the country due to work so at least DD will going to a different school, one with better behaviour standards this time.

Laughing so hard at the wheelchair comment. Ex first aid lead here at an inner city comp and I would say a fight broke out at least once a week. Ranging from a scuffle to a full blown.

Never did run out with a wheelchair though 😂😂! But did have my radio and first aid box with me of course.

God I miss that job!

Both my kids had never seen a fight at school they are 15 and 16 and at seperate schools. Last week the 16 yr old witnessed two fights and my 15 yr old one. One fight was two yr 11 boys fighting over a girl, another was 2 girls ripping each others hair out over a boy and another one was when a child from a different school managed to gain access at the the end of the day by borrowing a friends uniform and stealing a bike. Up until last week they had never seen a fight. Last week was 3 fights in 4 days!!! Both schools are outstanding but my DD said teachers were really scared because they have never had to deal with a fight before and it took them a while to break it up.

I'm a secondary teacher - not at all normal!! We'd have parents up in arms about this. Have you contacted the school about it? It would be perfectly reasonable for you to do so.

Just counting my own boys --
and what you call a "fight" --

or maybe not. That any single DC is aware of, that staff would consider serious, I'd say 1-2 fights/fortnight. 220 pupils / year group, rural secondary.

My DD has mentioned fights a few times - they are big news at her big mixed rural comp. I don’t feel that they make her unsafe at all though, it’s particular kids who fight with each other, not random attacks on kids quietly going about their business. Obviously it’s less than ideal but doesn’t feel like a big deal for her school experience.

It's newsworthy in our house with 3 in high school. So must be quite rare. One of them is in quite a rough school too.

DH has taught in the same school in a relatively affluent London borough for the past 15 years. There have always been occasional fights but in the last couple of years these have increased massively in both scale and aggression. There are sometimes girls fighting as well as boys. There has also been a large rise in the number of pupils who are known to be affiliated to gangs.

Depends what you mean by "fight" - low scale violence [one-sided bullying and/or part joking around] where one child slaps another around a bit - very common, a more or less daily?/weekly? occurence.

Something serious where one or more partipants gets hurt - hard to say... depends obviously on many things, including but not limited to: the size of the school [more pupils means, other things being equal, more fights]; the type of school [e.g. I'd other things being equal expect an all-boys inner city comp to have more fights per head than a co-ed grammar or private school in a leafy provincial setting]; how good a handle the school has on discipline; etc etc etc. I'm not sure that we as parents would always have a really good handle on how much of this sort of thing there really is.