Am I the only one who thinks behaviour has improved?

[Artfullydead]

Of course, it could be that part of it is just my journey from NQT to experienced teacher (I started teaching in 2002) but I do think behaviour now is better than it has ever been (and I don't work at a school in a particularly salubrious area.)

Most schools seem to have a behaviour policy that works to a point and shitty behaviour isn't tolerated as much as it was.

Only talking as a parent, so don't see it first hand, but i think there is much less of a bullying culture now because in the past in my experience there was no anti bullying work done by schools and if bullying occurred there was little involvement by teachers. This has changed for the better and I feel that kids think more about what they are doing now. It probably doesn't stop hard-core, troubled bullies, but i feel that the casual stuff is less. I have a feeling both mine would have been bullied at high school in the past. One for being mildly eccentric and one for having red hair. Neither of them are though and they are both happy.
I think there is more answering back and questioning teachers' decisions now than in the past though

I find teenagers I come across very sensible, polite, mature and well-behaved. Problems haven't gone away, but Gen Z take fewer drugs and drink a lots less alcohol than my generation (X), and have fewer teenage pregnancies. I think they are a fantastic generation.

What you mustn't do is expect them to be the same as X or Ys. It's a different world they will inherit and the kids will be alright. That's if the human race survives the next 50 years, given the failure to act of my generation and previous ones.

I think teachers and schools are a lot better as well than when I was a kid. School was really such a harsh environment in the 80s, it was like being thrown to the wolves. Most teachers are very good and dedicated, and there are a lot fewer of the examples I came across at school who were just serving out their time and really actually hated children, and however hard you tried they didn't care.

I would say that extreme behaviour is dealt with better but constant answering back is now endemic and teachers have started accepting it.

I haven't and that does cause me inordinate stress. I have seen lots os teachers and admin/ support staff putting up with it. I have also seen SLT let it go.

Worse, a lot worse.
Partly for me it's that children who would previously have met the threshold for support now do not, so they are in class with just me and 30 others. Plus children who would have been in special schools ten years ago are now also with me, since places are low and thresholds high. Then the amount of EBD has increased massively. I have more children under social care than ever before.

I have taught both secondary and primary. I used to stop the odd fight at secondary and so on. When I changed to primary, upper ks2 was a joy. Now there are fights, kick offs, entitled attitudes, social media and phone problems, and so little cash to deal with it all that no glue sticks is the least of my worries.

Is that myth still going? Trust me, teachers were saying that back in 2002. There aren't notably any more or less special schools in 2019 than there were in 2009.

Kids are hitting puberty earlier so I suppose a lot of problems that used to be limited to Year 8 and 9 have drifted down to Year 6 and 7, but Year 7s are still fairly malleable.

It is not a myth. The thereshold for an echp is significantly raised now. We have 3 children currently still in mainstream waiting on places in special schools. Maybe it is dependent on where you are, maybe it's a case of rising demand.

I honestly think secondaries don't see the change because places usually come up for year 7, after they finally meet threshold by dint of a big enough gap in learning.

Possibly but I still don't think there have been any significant closures of special schools. Don't forget we can adapt buildings and the like so much easier for children with physical disabilities. Remember when they had to be educated in special schools?

I honestly think teachers have always despaired of children in mainstream who would once have been in special schools but a lot of them should never have been in special schools in the first place.

It's an elephant in the room topic though. In my class of 32 I have 3 who are on p scales or just above in year 6. I still have to plan and teach them and manage their complex needs while getting the rest through sats. I do my very best and have TA help for some of the time. But I am not a specialist, and 6 years of interventions have had some but not enough impact. Specialist teacher teams are great and make suggestions but it is accepted that they need more. What else can I do?
Physical disabities are different. Our school is wheelchair adapted and I don't ever notice problems there. Nor with the children who arrive with specific statemented difficulties such as Downs. They are well supported and staffed.

Its the battle to get help and a diagnosis that wears me and the parents down. Years of waiting and fighting and all the while the feeling that you cannot do enough, for them or the other children.
I am only being honest when I say that I find it very difficult to evacuate a room daily because of a childs behaviour and issues and teach to SATS standard. It's difficult for them too. I can have a chill out zone, preventative measures, visual aids, and all the stuff the specialist team suggested, but ultimately they are just waiting for that year 7 place.
I don't know what the solution is. Certainly things cannot carry on as they are. It's at breaking point where I am and teaching positions remain unfilled since September in both secondary and primary. My ds has had supply for maths since September.

I love teaching and the children but i'm ready to go. I'm just stuck finding equivalent money, being very rural.

Nope as a head of Year I am finding it is worse! I have been in this role since 2013 and it is far worse now. Defiance and insolence is beyond!

Ds is and is in the top band for all subjects. He’s not a nerd/swot type of kid, far from it. But he complains about low level disruption, and how some kids are constantly being told off for talking. If the teacher asks them to work an equation out, one lad in particular will start throwing bits of rubber at everyone on the table. Just to annoy them, which it does. So no shouting, swearing etc. Just annoying things all the time. They have 6 bands, so this is coming from the brightest kids in the year, and it’s a high achieving school.

I'm currently a PGCE student, so can't give a long term perspective, but I moved between placement schools recently and based on a very small sample of schools I've been in over the last two years I do think it depends a lot on the school.

The school I'm in now is by far the best on paper but the behaviour is by far the worst. The school doesn't have a coherent behaviour policy, or a visible SLT presence, and some students take advantage of this to really push boundaries. I'm told (e.g. by my uni tutor) that it's not a "bad" school because kids throw things around the classroom, but not at me. However, in some classes there are 4-5 individuals who systematically try to prevent any learning from happening and are outright defiant when challenged.

In my last placement, expectations were much clearer. If I asked a child to move due to poor behaviour, they might argue a bit but they moved. I never had a student refuse to leave the room when asked, or fail to show up for a detention, because they knew the consequences of this and were afraid of them. The school had apparently been transformed in the last 5 years by a determined head with a decent behaviour policy (not RTL).

The students in my current placement school have a sense of entitlement and no real fear of anything- which makes some of them almost impossible to manage. And some members of SLT seem to think "it's like this everywhere".

So in my inexperienced opinion, I think a lot is down to the school, and if the school have got it right then it's entirely possible behaviour is better!