Behaviour in sixth form lessons

[Piggywaspushed]

Just a generic one really before I expose my parenting and ask for help with DS on another thread! Have teachers noticed in general that behaviour has declined amongst sixth form recently?

The last time I remember noticing this was 20 years ago when I started where I am now and was appalled by the behaviour of some boys in form time - but then , for a while students seem to become more earnest and focused.

I am long used to the age old issues of low attendance and poor punctuality and students missing deadlines and not submitting work - but definitely behaviour has declined. And I am talking real year 8 / 9 type behaviours- actual disruption! Talking over the teacher and to each other, laughing at private jokes, phone use , farting (yes really!!) , packing away early,arguing and so on. I despair.

I hear about this in both my own school and DSs, so I wondered if other had a) similar feelings about decline and b) any thoughts on why.

I shouldn't gender behaviour but it does seem largely confined to boys and , in my area at least, this was the year (year 12) of a demographic blip where there were more boys born that girls. I could blame class size , too, I suppose , but my son's class is a reasonable size. I could also blame poor teaching but - to be honest - at 16 and 17 years old one should be able to show basic respect and make life easier not harder for teachers.

Thoughts?

Piggy I'm with you on this one. The school I (until Christmas) teach at has always had a high rate (90%) of kids staying on.

I think part of the problem is the national publishing of statistics on a level grades. I don't know when that started? There was also a time (and I don't know if it's still the case) when sixth form funding was removed for students who failed a course or dropped out after six weeks. I don't know if that ever happened, but it was about the time when Gordon Brown was PM.

Sixth formers nowadays are simply not allowed to fail. There's too much interfering, intervening, managing and monitoring to give them the opportunity to work out their own self-motivation strategies. Consequently, many choose to stay as children and allow someone else to do the worrying and motivating for them.

My father was put into the YMCA when he was 16 as his parents went to live in Tanzania. He spent his sixth form living there whilst attending school. I can't imagine that situation being allowed today!

I use my phone in class I'm not going to stop doing so as I can't understand the topic if I can't look words up as I go, and I'd need a paper dictionary weighing several kilogrammes to access the mix of technical and academic vocabulary used. I'm studying in a language I only started learning as a not particularly young adult, and have largely picked up rather than studied, alongside native speakers though.
I have explained why I use my phone but without it I'd be swimming through fog in lessons and have to borrow other people's notes to ensure I've written down real words not nonsense when key words are ones I've never heard. Currently I look them up, and predictive text combined with whether the definition makes sense in context means I can almost always work out what the word was.

Classmates have taken photos and sent them to the class WhatsApp group during particularly uninspiring lessons though

I don't suppose there are many sixth formats needing to use their phones as bilingual dictionaries though...

I agree with WTAF about it spilling over into university. I've just finished my post graduate degree (went as a mature student) and was... Well, appalled at some of the behaviour in lectures/seminars in my first and second year (by the third year most of these fools had either dropped out or had to repeat second year).

I'm not kidding though, talking in groups over the lecturer/tutor, tutor repeatedly asking class/lecture hall to quiet down, on phones, shopping on laptop's, I even saw one guy playing a game on his laptop! Getting up to leave the lecture hall, disrupting teaching, then returning with coffee/food... I mean wtf?

You’re not imagining things, OP. Our lovely, very experienced head of 6th has gone grey since September. All she is doing is dealing with Y9 style behaviour issues. Some boys in my form are so incredibly rude that I am actually left speechless sometimes.

Actually could it be to do with the new phenomenon (new to the UK) of education post 18 being a paid for commodity. Even pre 18 funding is openly discussed - my state sixth form gave the impression they didn't need bums on seats and if we dropped out or failed we only failed ourselves. It probably wasn't true even back in the late 80s, but nobody really speculated on the teachers being in any way negatively impacted if droves of sixth formerly dropped out/ failed to get our predicted grades.

Now that university is so very openly a pay at point of use service, has that seeped down to parents and young adult children believing they are customers buying an education - the experience, and the qualifications? That would account for the lack of personal responsibility.

University has become a fee paying six form, sixth form has become an extension of KS4...

yes to all of the above, sadly

My school has expanded 6th form entry and we have to take students who got 4s/Cs whereas in thr past we would say you really need a B to do traditional subjects.

Behaviour and attitude in y12 has shifted in line with that as we have students who were intervened with within an inch of their life to get them a C/4 and think the sane applies to 6th form.

My 6th form class this year is almost as big as my gcse class (but with more attitude and the illusion that wearing their own clothes means they can turn up 2/3 mins late getting a coffee, have phones out on the table etc)

I teach 6th form. I have a cohort of about 4 boys who are incredibly juvenile. I'm talking throwing pieces of paper at each other, forgetting pens/books/paper every lesson. Three of them I know we're cajouled/bribes into doing A levels by their parents when they wanted to do apprenticeships or go to fe college. The 2 year courses mean that they will have wasted everyones time and wont even get an AS level when they could have been doing something they wanted to do. Most of the others though are hard working and doing ok.

I should add that the students who were always secure 6th form students are great (jist like they always have been).

It's just there is a new dynamic with weaker students/lazy students who wouldn't have cut it at our 6th form in years gone by are now there and it changes the feel in thr class.

For a start 25 is not an acceptable size for a 6th form class

Totally agree about one problem being the infantilising of sixth formers. When I was at 6th form (2000-2002), our teachers said that if we missed a deadline, they would not mark our work, and they meant it! Plus the marking was not especially frequent. At the school where I teach, any threat to not mark their work is utterly meaningless as the department marking policy requires us to mark at least one piece of work per week. I have to admit to being totally complicit in the infantilising though Once it is part of the school's culture, I think it's easy to fall into. The amount that have babied and hand held my English lit students would have been unbelievable to pre-teacher-training me. Fact of the matter is, if results in a higher pass rate, which of course for teachers is the bottom line. Sorry for lack of paragraphs- my phone seemingly won't let me use the return key (am on the MN app).

Also, just to add to the depressing tales of adults behaving badly in training, I actually witnessed this during my teacher training! We had to sit in tables by subject, and one table (whose subject shall remain nameless ) persistently talked, joked, used phones etc during throughout the day. It was so embarrassing. Me and my colleagues at the English table were very put out about it. The annoying thing was The our lecturer, a very mild mannered man, did nothing whatsoever about it! So he wasn't exactly modelling good behaviour management himself

Please excuse typos Clearly, I should not be teaching English.

I didn't mean for this thread to be so dispiriting...

What were you hoping to happen?!

I think the loss of external exams to give kids a reality check and a kick up the backside in January has had a big impact. It really focused the mind to be sitting actual modules just after Christmas. With those gone, it's now possible to slack all the way through Y12 (creating work for teachers) with the excuse 'I didn't try because it didn't count'.

Because they're now only starting 3, the ones who would have been natural wastage at the end of Y12 leaving a far easier Y13 are now still there. And you have to pick up the pieces of Y12 while also trying to prepare them for Y13!

Was it PE esker ??;)

I agree Maisy. I used to teach in FE. The underfunding and the desperation for bums on seats at all costs has now transferred to schools. FE started to go that way after academisation, and it looks like school sixth forms are now under the same pressure. Some students should just not be doing A levels. If people said no, they could be doing something more useful.

Have 30 years experience teaching A’Level to kids in an inner city comp. I’ve never had disrespect from 6th formers or KS4. They are lazy and expect to be spoon fed but that’s not why I’m there so I don’t bother.

Piggy (love your username btw) I couldn't possibly comment ...

Neither have I massively BBCK. My question was whether others had heard poor behaviour was on the rise and this thread does rather suggest it is and that your experiences run counter to a general trend... possibly because your experience is a valuable asset!

sorry this is a bit late but I have just come across this thread when I was looking for help surrounding a class I have.
I teach a year 13 group of 15 and there is a group of 4 girls within this who just constantly disrupt the learning of everybody else. By this I mean constantly talking messing about such as throwing things at each other, answering back just all round taking the mick.There is a "ring leader" as such and I have emailed on several occasions to heads of year and sixth form all that's happened is she got banned for a few weeks and got given a piece of card so the head of year can monitor her behaviour as speaking to other departments with this group of girls it is happening across the board.
They are 17/18 years old and I'm having to treat them like 12/13 year olds which I can tell frustrates them more than it does me as when I sanction them as I would younger years they kick off saying I'm treating them like babies but how am I meant to treat them maturely when they don't act it but I have never ever in my whole years of teaching come across this. They were all trouble throughout high school but chose to carry on in education here but have done the same into year 12 and 13. I've taught sixth form classes before and never had anything like its the first time but I have noticed behaviour isn't great in my year 12 class as there is a few in there who disrupt but not as bad as these but I do think it is starting to become an issue and action does need to start to be taken on the matter because if it was up to me the ring leader especially wouldn't still be there let alone almost at the end of year 13 like for example she's had an SLT (senior leadership team) call out because she wouldn't leave the lesson and she's sworn at a member of staff despite the fact she gets sent out of lessons almost daily at some of her worst points let alone the complete lack of work she has to show. She spends half her life with the head of year and head of sixth form in their offices but I don't think them too know how to deal with it as none of us have ever come across it so I think their just also slightly concerned and alarmed at the stuff they are hearing.
from what I've gathered this is universal issue but id love to hear if its anybody else is having this.

Yes behaviour is certainly much worse than when I started teaching sixth form 12 years ago. It’s not just me that’s noticed it in our school either

As a parent, I think it's definite infantilising of older teenagers by the government and it's very frustrating. By age 16/17 they are old enough to be working and using their initiative or studying and being responsible for their own note-taking/homework/outcomes etc. Personally, I don't think it's just education - this generation are simply not allowed to grow up. They can't seem to earn decent money, they can't move into affordable housing, they can't afford to raise their own families until well into their late 20s at the very least.

I'm sure all this will be having an effect on behaviour in the classroom and behaviour in general. I have a friend who is an office supervisor for an insurance company. A new young employee was chatting too much and not getting on with things so my friend moved her to a different desk where there would be less opportunity to chat. The new employee was outraged and thought this was unfair. On her second day in the job she asked if there was a higher manager she could see so that she could get the decision overturned!!

I teach a full time 6th form course. My students are a wonderful bunch and I have never had any problems with them. All but 1 (and she has specific reasons) have 95%+ attendance and I’ve honestly never had such a hardworking bunch.

However...

I am not in a school or a college. I didn’t see them grow up and have no prior knowledge on which to, inadvertently or not, base my opinions of them.
More than half started A Levels elsewhere then dropped out to take this course so they already know what doesn’t work for them.
It’s the kind of course you only take if you’re really into the subject.
Since we’re not in a school/college, the accountability issues for me are different - they’re still there but there’s no one in the building who would want to do a learning walk/book look/compliance check.

1. Infantilising
2. Increased school leaving age which feeds into #1
3. Too many people going to university even when they get shoddy grades

Post 16 education is no longer special or particularly earned. Teenagers increasingly treated like children. Decline in teen mental health.

Oh yes and phones - a constant source of interest at your fingertips.

Maybe the education system needs to evolve and work out how we can give teens more responsibility and challenge and keep them engaged

The expected level of spoon feeding does my head in. The concept of research and wider reading seems beyond most of them. And there are NO consequences for them, they are not expected to take any responsibility, they are not allowed to fail.