Too Tough To Teach

[mamapain]

Is anyone watching this?

It's very interesting but it's quite difficult to watch as it's clearly chaotic. I imagine on paper it comes across better.

The school is very local to me and I am familiar with it, I'm just concerned as to whether the filming will do it any favours.

It looks awful.
The staff must have unending patience. I wouldn't last a day. Every minute looks stressful and filled with conflict.
I'm yet to see any really positive impact that all their hard work is having.
What's the future for these kids? So depressing.

I'm not sure how long the school has been running although I'd think that to keep going they must have some demonstrative success results?

I might ask my sister as she is a local teacher and maybe would know more.

You would definitely have to be a certain kind of person to handle it. I'd be ok with the noise, and chaos because of my own upbringing and family now but I don't think I could actually teach them at the same time or respond in a way which suits such challenging characters.

I also wonder if there is something similar for girls. Statistically it does always seem to be boys who aren't doing as well at school so perhaps there isn't the need for girls?

'demonstrative success results'

The success seems to be keeping the kids out of other schools IMO. I wouldn't have any hope for my child there and he coukd have well ended up in a placement like that over my dead body

By Demonstrative success results, I meant presumably they must have something they can show which is gaining/keeping funding.

I don't know if they are taking exams so perhaps thats a barometer or if its just keeping them in some kind of education which means success.

I think that head is wonderful.

She believes in them.

Could be doing with more people like that in education.

Head Teacher is absolutely phenomenal.

School is obviously considered an important place as there is a much older former pupil so must have been going for a while. I had only heard of it recently.

For results look no further than the ex pupil who is now a Teaching Assistant at the school. He said that he had been kicked out of many schools, and was going off the rails before he went there. Without the school's input he would no doubt be living a life at best on benefits; at worst in prison. From a purely financial perspective, he's now a net contributor to society rather than a recipient of resources.

Special schools which take a completely different approach also get phenomenal results. The fact that there are tiny classes and very few children in the school makes a big difference. There is not the herd instinct like a mainstream school.

The school made a big thing of the fact that they don't use restraint, yet they call in the police (or at least threaten) in a situation that requires restraint. I felt that it was a bit hypocritical.

I feel that a child on the autistic spectrum would find the Ian Milkardo school a disaster. I can see how a child whose behavioural problems were caused by child abuse might benefit from such a school.

I teach in another ebd school in london (we have a student who was excluded from IM as well as staff who have worked there)

I found their no restraint policy odd too, there didn't seem to be another plan in place, apart from calling the police. There was a lot of "less than best practice"; for example repeating a child's name over and over and over again with no instruction.

IM and the school I teach at are not PRUs. So our aim is definitely not to keep students out of other schools, I would argue quite the opposite- most state schools have done their dammest to get and keep our students out.

I just watched it. I found it really hard to watch, ime the worst thing that you can do with any child is adopt a no consequence approach, it just doesn't work because there are always consequences to your actions. There may need to be a completely different approach to standard teaching but there should be clear boundaries in place. It seemed to go from zero to 'call the police' in seconds

I'm absolutely amazed the staff put the children in a situation where they were allowed to run off, it seemed so unsafe. They needed a mini bus to the door, of course they weren't going to wait quietly at a bus stop!

I think the approach they favour is totally unrealistic for children-it was total chaos and I'm sure they feed off each other's behaviour hence the boy being able to concentrate and get work done when he worked in a one to one situation with an adult.

I know someone who did a stint in a similar unit but the aim was to get them back into main steam school-sorry I don't know what it's called, he lasted 2 weeks and he's a really experienced teacher. He said it was total chaos, I've never seen him so stressed poor bloke. He said if you take away consequences you're just left doing poor crowd control and not even doing that well.

Wrt the beauty salon-waxing and squeezing spots,wtaf?! am I the only person who thought that was inappropriate? She shouldn't have been picking at his face like that she'll scar him or make his spots worse!

I thought giving the boy the school trip money was a great idea

There was a documentary about a residential unit lay year iirc and that seemed more controlled but still building the kids' self esteem up and learning that there are consequences to your actions.

God, my heart broke for the family in that cramped flat, how the hell is that even allowed?

I agree with blueemerald - the business of keep repeating the child's name over and over, just demonstrated that the kids were running rings around the staff. I've never been a teacher but had a 30 year career as a social worker and middle manager (now retired) so have seen some kids and families in dire situations, and know only too well how kids from deprived and disadvantaged backgrounds fail to learn in our education system. However I thought the way this school operates was all wrong and I didn't think the head was phenomenal at all. I thought she was naïve in the extreme.

It was heartening to see the ex pupil come back as a TA and that made me think that maybe there were some success stories, but from what we saw some of the staff seemed a bit afraid of the kid's behaviour and that means trouble..........ok so they probably filmed for weeks on end and then edited it, so they showed us what they thought was good TV and I think we sometimes forget that.

Oh god the beauty salon and squeezing spots - utter crap. To be honest if I was a council tax payer in Tower Hamlets I wouldn't be happy about my money going to this school. And there was hypocrisy because they say there are no punishments, so why call the police - or do they mean they would rather someone else punish the kids. Doesn't make sense. And I agree that the boy's behaviour fed of each other and that's what happens if you put a lot of kids with severe behavioural problems together, but I know the EBD schools and PRUs have to teach in that way.

I thought it was touching how gentle the black boxer kid was with his baby sister. I'm not sure whether you follow the political agenda DameD but there are many thousands of families living in similar (and worse) situations, especially in London because of the way in which this government is intent on stamping on the most disadvantaged section of our society, and are only interested in looking after themselves and others of their ilk.

I lived in London for 20 years, the living conditions are appalling I know My friend lived in a one bed flat with her Dh and 5 kids, they were offered a bigger place but they turned it down as the area was dire, they felt they had no choice.

I also thought it was lovely how gentle the boy was with his family

I found it pretty at first but it did seem to me that among the chaos difficult situations really were being handled successfully- like the kid wandering into the art room, that could so easily have turned into a huge disruption but they kept it calm; and the kids did come back after the skating trip (at least I think it said they didn't have to call in the police to stop them wandering!) I think the school have things fairly well risk assessed and know how far they're willing to let things go.

The police didn't punish the children, at least not that I saw. They were only called in for two purposes - to maintain safety and to explain the real-world consequences of a child's behaviour. The school are being honest not hypocritical - the school can't protect children from the real-world consequences of their behaviour, but they don't impose punishments of their own.

And I thought the beauty salon showed a huge level of trust and it helped to build up trust among children who have very little faith in adults. Great idea!

Before passing judgment it’s also worth having a look at the schools’ 2014 OFSTED report according to which, along with enormous progress in basic maths and English, “incidents of poor behaviour reduce drastically the longer students spend in the school”. Unless OFSTED are very mistaken the school do seem to be getting something right!

WOW kleinziet thank you for the OFSTED post. I take back every word of my previous post - there is no reason to believe that the OFSTED report is anything other than accurate. I can't help but wonder why the programme chose to just show us the bits where the kids were running amok - good tele I suppose. Such a shame. I wonder what the staff and students thought of the programme. Seems producers think we are all hungry for drama - even in factual programmes like this one, and maybe that shows in the ratings I don't know. If I was a teacher at this school I would be immensely aggrieved that the focus of the programme in the main was showing the kids out of control and the staff ineffective, and does in no way square with the OFSTED report.

That's so interesting re: ofsted.
The only bit im a bit about is the teacher saying that he wouldn't intervene if perry was attacked by the other child.
I'm assuming the young people have all been assessed for sen and are receiving support - that bit never seems clear.

Outstanding Ofsted reports are few and far between these days, they must be doing something right. It's a shame the producers chose to focus on the sensationalist angle.
Touching seeing the kids at parents evening.

The staff there really earn their money.

My son goes to this school it's a brilliant school,teachers are amazing and great support. These boys just need adults to believe in them and in time they build up a trust with the teachers.

In my opening post I did say that I think the school probably comes across better on paper and it seems from the Ofsted report proves that.

I imagine that because of the editing, the filming, the noise etc it can be quite hard for someone who isn't familiar with the characters and the environment, such as the viewer to see any benefit being done but having re-watched the first episode and then tonights programme there is an evident change in the boys from when they started. Also the parents seem to have endless praise for the school which really says something, as I expect many feel their kids have often been failed by the education system.

I cried tonight when Perry managed to cycle alone, admittedly I am an emotional wreck but it seemed so nice how they were really boosting his confidence and working with him to achieve.

I have had problems with my DS3 because he is just such a handful and a real simmering volcano ready to erupt when we least expect it. There has been in the past talk of PRUs and whilst I've been lucky in that he has calmed down and charmed his way through the system, if he had needed more help I wold have found this programme inspiring. Although I suppose thats easily said with it being down the road from me! I can imagine its really frustrating if your child needs this and it isn't available.

Hi, our son went to this school with epilepsy, speech and language difficulties and emotional behaviour difficulties, this school was recommended by tower hamlets sen department.
On the second day the school rang me up and said that they were going to get him charged with criminal damage after he cut part of a chair, on the second week an older boy attacked him in his classroom and linda the home school worker rang us up and said we could get him charged with assault but we said no as these boys are here for a reason, the few months that my son attended this school was mental torture for him and ourselves, we took our son out of the school for his own wellbeing, the case went to tower hamlets sen department and they said that the school said that they could cater for his needs, we obviously didn't agree with this and spoke to various agencies to fight our case, on appeal we lost the case but we arranged a meeting with the head of the sen department and we expressed our concerns and said that we was not happy, the head of the sen department overturned the decision, my son now attends a school outside the borough and is doing very well, what the sen department don't tell people is that
these schools are there, my son as done a lot more things there like race for life and the London youth games football tournament and is doing very well.
I would never recommend this school to anybody as the time that he spent there was the worst few months of his life, my son comes from a two parent working family living in a three bedroom house with four children, the school my son goes to do not restrain when incidents happen they intervene.

I'm watching now on catch up. It's exhausting watching the teachers KEEP repeating the boys' names.

Tb-I'm so sorry your son went through that,I can well believe it though and am very suspicious of ofsted reports.

What really stood out was that James looked SO tired, he looked like he needed a week of sleep!

Over crowding issue again-fucking appalling

Regardless of how beautiful the art work was Calvin produced and it was stunning, imo you cannot have a situation where kids are weilding glue guns and threatening other pupils.

I would last 5 mins there as the first thing is do is ban hoodies and phones I imagine the school's idea is that they voluntarily remove their hoods as they feel less defensive.

I'd also ban the teachers finishing each sentence with 'yeah?'

Your son, imo, shouldn't be put in a situation where your only choice is to remove your son or prosecute the child who hurt him. That's ridiculous. No good harping on about running the school using no punishments then phoning the police.

Yay Perry on his bike!

Thank you for the other perspective Tb1973. I'm so sorry your son went through all that trauma and I'm glad you've found somewhere that's good for him. It's so hard to get a complete picture - my DS's (mainstream) school was brilliant for him but much less good with some of the other kids.

I am not sure how well the "fly on the wall" documentary approach suits a special school because most people can relate to what goes on in a mainstream school but it's a lot harder to understand SN or challenging behaviour if you've never had to deal with them.

I haven't seen the 2nd episode yet, hope to catch up later in the week.