Advice on how to raise issues of disruptive class, and what to expect

[Lovehappychildren]

Hi, looking for a bit of advice on this. My DS started secondary in Sept. Well regarded school, great ofsted and results. He has however struggled with the transition, making friends. He is terrified of getting detention. He has finally made a few friends in his class, and things are looking up. He is a very conscientious student, and genuinely wants to learn, especially in his favourite subjects as he does want a career in that field somehow though this may change.
He is upset tonight as he said that the class is very disruptive. I was aware of this as the pastoral lead if have spoken to also said the same. He said he feels that his learning is being impacted by this, and won't be as successful in his chosen subjects.
The disruptive kids have been warned, had detention and taken out of class but it keeps happening. I am going to request a meeting with the year head next week to discuss this but what can I reasonably expect? He wants to move forms but he will be back to square one friendship wise. They may not have space to move him.
Any advice appreciated.

We had this with dd. She was in a particularly badly behaved and disruptive cohort. The head was weak and did nothing, except to practically destroy the ethos of the school. It took the governors 7 years to sit up and replace her. The school, under a far better head has now turned round and returned to its superb results and reputation.

There isn't much you can do @Lovehappychildren. It's the wrong school for your ds. Move him sooner rather than later. We hung on until the end of Year 8 in the hope it would improve. It didn't. It helped that we could pay. Might another school with plenty of tutoring added in if you can't afford fees be a help?

Would changing forms actually make any difference? Are you sure other forms don’t have the same behaviour issues?

I think there’s something to be said for reassuring your child that it’s not forever and to find ways around it. So actively teach themselves not to get worked up about it, to zone it out… and to go back over the topic at home. BBC Bitesize is free and good, CGP books are cheap and good.

My Y10 is supposedly in a less disruptive top set for maths. Yesterday her teacher left 3x in an hour to go to the Y9 class next door (set unknown) who was giving the cover teacher the run around. Three times the disruption was enough to hear through the wall and drag my Y10’s teacher out.

My child is learning to work within the environment she has - and through gritted teeth, I do tell her that it’s excellent preparation for life!

I’m sorry if this sounds defeatist. Mine have found it gets better, but even if this form has a particularly challenging small group, don’t push for a form change unless you really know it’s going to improve the situation.

This is really depressing to read. We are experiencing the same, child in year 7. Between the disruptive behaviour and endless supply teachers who apparently have no control.....we just don't know what to do. Good school on paper, good area. Moving schools seems pointless given that there is a national shortage of teachers and no guarantee behaviour would be better anywhere else. We can't afford private (and teacher shortage must impact private schools also). A move overseas might end up being our only option and I don't even know where we would go. It really gets me down. Eldest is bright and motivated so might be OK but second child less so, I can see them getting lost in the system.

@padsi1975 teacher shortage hasn't yet reached DDs private school. Fully staffed at present.
What you are describing seems to be more and more the status quo in state schools. I think a lot of parents are very naive about it because kids generally don't go home talking about it.

I am so sorry that so many of your DC are going through this. I agree with @onlyconnect - poor behaviour is a massive issue in many schools, especially secondary schools, and it seems to be getting worse. I say "seems" bc my DC have left school and I no longer teach in one.

The poor behaviour and lack of support from SLT (which I realise will vary from school to school) was one of the main reasons I left classroom teaching tbh. It was just so wearing and dispiriting.

So many ex-teachers say they left for xyz reasons "but oh, never the kids" well I'm not gonna lie, the disruptive kids I do not miss.

The trouble is I suspect it is endemic and will only get worse. The workload on these "useless teachers" is getting bigger; if teachers had a lower teaching load and thus less planning and marking, they would be able to give more effort to strategies to manage behaviour and there would be more colleagues available to help as well. No use being aware that your department colleague has the year 8 group from hell when you are also busy teaching such a full timetable (in my last year I had 2.5 frees a week).

Anyway @Lovehappychildren I am not sure that moving schools or even moving forms will help. It might be worth enquiring of the school about setting, as there is no doubt behaviour is often better in higher sets - or just in setted classes in general - we set one year for my subject (MFL) and I had the bottom set in year 7 - in fact it was great as I was able to target the work at their ability level and so no one was sitting completely lost and struggling (which can often be the cause of disruption). So that's one thing to chase. And just reinforce to your DC that the teachers see him, they know he is working hard, they know he wants to learn and they will do their best to help.

Try to go over concepts and topics with him at home; and yes, there is a learning point here that sometimes people are difficult and sometimes you can't resolve it, but just have to get on.

They might suggest changing the seating plan, and moving to a group with a different teacher might be better, and they will hopefully put them into sets soon, which could also help. But, honestly, nothing will make a huge difference. Can you look at other schools?

Teacher for 20 years.

Secondaries try their best with mixed ability groups but with unknown kids it does happen reasonable frequently that there is a year 7 group which is much worse behaviour wise than the others.

If the disruption is upsetting him then yes absolutely ask for him to be moved.

Every year in my school a few kids changed form group (and hence which class they were with first everything), and one year it was so bad they moved loads.

He will still be able to speak to his existing friends at lunch and break, and he may find more congenial friends in the new group.

Once they hit year 8 most secondaries start to set in some subjects which tends to mean the more disruptive ones are in lower sets and the less disruptive in higher. We usually put more kids in higher sets (fewer behaviour issues so more kids could access the teaching) with a lot of smaller lower sets so the difficult and lower ability kids got more personal attention which stopped the disruption to some extent.

However, sometimes this situation is school wide (new behaviour policy etc) in which case I would advise that behaviour can be starkly different between different state schools so moving him is worth trying.

This is why my daughters made the effort to revise for their 11 plus and managed to get into an academically selective grammar school, so they didn’t have to go into the shitty feeder school with useless teachers like these. In our school when a pupil is disruptive in class they get sent to isolation to do their work.

What a misguided post, on many counts. Most people don't live in grammar school areas. Many children would not be capable of passing the 11 plus, however hard they revised. Behaviour problems in schools are rife, and are not caused by 'useless teachers'.

The reason that behaviour in grammar schools is usually much better is mainly because of the intake, not because of better teachers. I am well aware of this, having taught in state comps and private schools, and now at a grammar school.

My school sends kids into isolation too. The difference is, I've only known it to happen twice in the two years I've been there. In the average comprehensive there are far too many disruptive pupils to be able to isolate them all, particularly as the worst-behaved of them don't really care, so it's not much of a deterrent.

Having a similar dilemma here OP. Our year 7 DS is very bright but he's got into what I consider to be a bad school. It has a Good OFSTED, but not worth paper it's written on going off their results and what he tells me.

They've not set the children and he's bored senseless cos they're going over all the primary stuff that he already knows.

If I don't feel there's been any improvements by Feb half term I'm going to be complaining about all of it.

The issue is that overall one size does not fit all and the current system does not recognise that different children need different types of school. The comprehensive system with huge schools has provided the perfect breeding ground for the race to the bottom. Far more specialist schools are needed to recognise differences. Smaller environments that recognise some children are very bright, others average and who need a more technical education rather than a strictly academic one and more tailored to the needs of the neuro divergent.

As a nation there needs to be far more emphasis on vocational and technical qualifications rather than an academic degree obttained at a post 92 institution. The old polytechnic system served vocational strands very well.

That's why Ofsted is meaningless. A "good" doesn't mean that it is actually a good school, it means it is good at hitting the requirements of an Ofsted inspection

@twistyizzy on the contrary though, my DDs school was rated outstanding by OFSTED (as was the primary both my kids attended) and those schools truly were absolutely top notch. DD got absolutely stellar results (by anyone's standards)

DS school has recently had a new head and has gone downhill. I am prepared to believe the school was Good the last time it was OFSTEDed under the previous head.

I understand it's awful for your ds

Things improve sometimes in Y9 with options so the disrupters may not do the more academic subjects (I could be wrong, it may have changed) or there may be streaming

I'm pleased the results were meaningful in your experience however as someone who works in the sector Ofsted are really only judging how a school/setting meets their criteria of what is good. Just because a school is judged to be good doesn't mean that there won't be disruptive behaviour etc.
It is still a one size fits all, blunt tool.

@twistyizzy on the contrary though, my DDs school was rated outstanding by OFSTED (as was the primary both my kids attended) and those schools truly were absolutely top notch. DD got absolutely stellar results (by anyone's standards)

Yes, but that's precisely the point - the ratings are useless, because some 'Outstanding' schools actually are outstanding. Some are mediocre or awful. And some schools that are genuinely outstanding do not get rated as outstanding. How are parents supposed to be able to know which is which?

@twistyizzy I understand what you're saying but OFSTED haven't been wrong in my experience. I suspect the sorts of things I personally think are important are what OFSTED are judging schools on.

I would honestly have trusted any member of DDs school with her life, no questions asked and every time. The culture and ethos mirrored our home to a tee.

Edited to add: I would say if the results are still high and if the head is the same with minimal staff leaving, this is how parents can tell the school is still at the same rating.

Honestly hasn’t it always been like this? I was in a school which had a 9 form intake 1500 kids in total. The disruptive kids were an absolute pain in the arse. It was my local school I had no other school to move to. I put my head down, worked hard and focused on getting out of there. Being surrounded by idiots can be quite motivating in its own way.

It has had a life long impact on me however, very few friends from that period. once I went to university I then moved to London and never moved back. I vowed I would only send my child/ren to a private secondary and I have very low regard for “state education” my daughter is already in private as the disruption is in primary school too.

My state school experience was sink or swim and my parents channeled me into swimming, do the same I came out with As at A level and a first at university but the experience wasn’t pleasant.

You need to approach the school and tell them straight how your son feels and ask them to start dealing with this behaviour. Your child's education is a priority and the school need to take a zero tolerance line on this behaviour.

Also as a mum of a dual diagnosed child i absolutely despise the comments I frequently see such as "the child might have SEN". The children with SEN including my child are the best behaved in there year group largely because they have all had a huge amount of parental support and been taught from a young age what is and isn't acceptable behaviour. There are a couple of kids in dc1 year group who have no needs but are terribly behaved because they have been allowed to be. They constantly disrupt the class, are nasty to other kids and one physically attacks other kids including much younger ones on a near daily basis. Kids don't have to have SEN needs to be badly behaved some just are.

But results aren't always down to the school. Many parents employ tutors which then artificially skew the results but the school gets the glory. Not every school obviously but a proportion.

My sons form class is the same. He is in year 7 and the disruption in his class is awful- kids fighting, shouting out, swearing at teachers. They go to isolation and they walk out. He’s in the worst form for behaviour. He’s got lots of friends and he’s happy there and they’re mixing up the classes soon and I’m really hoping that makes a difference

@twistyizzy DDs school was in a deprived area and I'd be very surprised if anyone was tutored.

It's the best school in the Borough by a country mile and ALL students, whatever their circumstances, performed well in exams.

It's the culture and it comes from the top down. The head and governors are absolutely integral to the school's performance.

I really sympathise with you.
unfortunately the current year 7 seem to be one of the worst year groups ever seen.
I have been teaching for nearly 20 years and they are by far the worst year 7 I’ve ever had. (Across 3 comps)
until this year I have never had year 7s regularly openly defy basic instructions,
swear at TAS and teachers with impunity and wander in and out of lessons constantly.
the children are utterly feral and unfortunately in many cases their parents have made them that way.

my advice to you would be to be the squeaky wheel and focus on specifics such as - they only actually did 10 minutes of work. Additionally I would email his teacher directly and be sympathetic about their attempts to control the class but say the disruption is upsetting your son. Hopefully this will mean she gives him special attention to ensure he can get some work done and make progress.

How does this help the OP or anyone else not in a grammar area?

They will be well aware of this.