Deteriorating behaviour and lack of support bringing the profession to its knees

[noblegiraffe]

“The proportion of teachers reporting difficulty in managing pupil behaviour has increased “significantly” since last year, according to new research.

More than four in 10 teachers now say they are struggling to cope with poor behaviour.

Many teachers say they are not being adequately supported by their senior leadership teams with behaviour management, according to the research by the Education Support Partnership – a charity that supports teachers with poor mental health.”

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-four-10-teachers-struggle-behaviour

I would call this the ‘Paul Dix effect’.

The backlash in the press and from parents about exclusions, isolation and any attempts to discipline that are more than a ‘restorative conversation’ is damaging.

But Dix’s assertion that asking for support with behaviour management diminishes your authority in the classroom has enabled swathes of lazy-arsed SLT to simply throw back any complaints about poor behaviour to the teacher, without any effective tools to deal with it.

They don't need to try, firstly. But also, teachers who are a bit timid congregate in these schools (an in independent schools where DH reliably tells me behaviour management is often shit). But, also, those schools tend to be Michaela type schools with lesson scripts, very didactic methods, and silence and SLANT. It may be my bias that I think that is shit teaching...

We had training from Paul dix and what a load of crap. I asked both himself and one of his cult members what to do after you've exhausted the script and the behaviour was still ongoing. Both of them repeated 'stick to the script.' I asked again but if it doesn't work, they said it will always work. I laughed in their faces. Our lea bought into Paul dix for god only knows how much so we all had to go on training and listen to restorative strategies when we all know it doesn't always work. He said nothing new, he was a sales person. When I was on his course if I heard fruit of the loom or black school shoes again I was going to puke

The good thing about our school is SLT read one chapter of Dix, did half an hour 'training' and seem to have forgotten abut him again.

Dix is a nasty man on the make.

I moved from a loved school with a decent behaviour management system, to a school local to me running this Pivotal shit this Easter.

It took me 3 weeks before I handed my notice in.

Pivotaleducation.com
I’m not on twitter so that was a good insight into why so many schools are getting it wrong and losing good teachers left, right and centre.

@piggywaspushed I’m laughing at the idea of timid teachers congregating and all reciting from a script like edu-bots in funeral parlour schools

Yup, that's more or less it! Then they get institutionalised!

Centralised detentions need to happen. Reduce teacher load. Staff work on rota. SLT and middle leaders do more often.

It ALL comes from SLT. From the culture, from the willingness to accept behaviour or condone it. To make it very clear they will not be backed into corners by parents.

I well remember a previous head who used to wrong foot arsy parents by getting paperwork out, and telling them it could be signed there and then to remove their child from the school and go elsewhere if the situation was really that bad. They almost always floundered, and backed down. Or they removed their kid and it was good riddance.

That head was great. It was their way or the highway with behaviour. Always, always backed the staff (so long as they'd not done something bad).

Paul Dix is a twat, I agree.

Paul Dix is all about sodding scripts.
”I remember a time when you weren’t a complete twat in maths, you managed to write the title and date after only 12 times of asking, can we go back to that version of Damian?”

BelindaGlee, Thankfully, I still work for a Head like that. Relishes a confrontation "challenge" and often asks parents if they would like her to make a phone call to another school they might prefer. She does, however, spend many, many hours working tirelessly for families in need/crisis. But she doesn't suffer fools gladly and won't tolerate people taking the piss.

You have to be tough these days. Parents/LEAs/The System will sniff out weakness from 20 paces.

A restorative conversation might work. Might. With some kids, and in some situations. The problem is the kids who know before you have that conversation - for whatever reason - that they are not going to comply. The same is true of detention. I can issue detentions all day long to some students and they will calmly inform me that they have no intention of attending. The question is what happens next? If the answer is, parent calls SLT to complain about my teaching - which is good - SLT come to my HoD asking whether I am having issues teaching X (rather than child having issues behaving in lessons) and child swerves the detention, the issue will repeat itself. It’s all about the SLT attitude.

I have been asked to justify to governors why our predictions are low. I am not allowed to cure poor behaviour and attitude as a reason. I have highlighted the paragraph from the Ofsted myth buster doc about not being able to make predictions about attainment and progress and pasted it in. 21 years of teaching... So ready for shelf stacking in M and S.

That should be cite not cure. Though if I could I'd be giving it away for free!

Our MAT just had a summary evaluation from Ofsted and all I know is that Ofsted have highlighted as a concern the way we manage behaviours leading to exclusion. Already, our behaviour policy is crap and SLT are ineffectual and unsupportive. Everything comes back to ‘have a conversation’ - I’m sick of the fucking word ‘conversation’!

Traumatised and troubled and unbelievably challenging kids are just thrown back into our classes with conversation after conversation after conversation. Sanctions reduced or not applied. Not a boundary to be seen anywhere. They can’t cope in a classroom and they don’t want to try because they don’t have to.

But inevitably we are driven by this need to reduce isolations and exclusions. So we are replacing them with ‘conversations’. And say after day, the behaviour becomes worse and worse.

My resolution this year is to get out of teaching. I will never come back. I’m a really good teacher. I’m sick of behaviour and I will not deal with it anymore (eleven years). Some of these kids don’t need any more conversations, they need a boundary they cannot cross. They haven’t come up against one yet. God knows what will have to happen before they do.

By way of contrast , my SLT managed to convince Ofsted that our behaviour is exemplary! No one is sure how they managed to hide the massive playground brawl from them.

I’m fairly sure that what Ofsted mean is that they want us to reduce exclusions by working on behaviour - not unreasonable, but I know it will be interpreted as ‘don’t exclude’. Nothing will go into supporting us with behaviour; kids will just be allowed to get away with even more than they already are.

This sounds really dreadful. Can I assume that my kids' schools will tell me if they're disruptive? I have 2 teenager boys.

No, don't assume.

I think you'd know, though. Involved parents generally do. Your instincts would tingle!

@piggywaspushed there are ways and means of disguising behaviour problems. The appalling school I worked at briefly demanded that behaviour referrals (ie the SOS calls for help when fights break out during lesson time etc) were sent as emails only to admin staff in the head’s office. This seemed really odd to me until a colleague pointed out that by sending the email to the PA of the Head, we were keeping the referrals under the radar of Ofsted. Officially, these incidents didn’t exist. I think it only takes a good inside knowledge of Ofsted’s inspection process to completely rig the system.

Paul Dix is a total fraud who is flogging a load of crap that people seem to lap. Long term the strategies go no where, he's a con man basically. Kids are left worst off after their hot chocolate.

yes, we have started hiding things about sanctions which used to be sent to much larger groups of people. I thought that was so we couldn't say that behaviour was getting worse but now I am wondering.

That said, we don't even have an SOS system!!

Our place got sucked into the Pivotal crap as well with a new AHT leading it, behaviour very, very quickly seriously deteriorated.

AHT has since left and and our new HT is having to start again with policies to try to turn it around.

Also agree though that there is now a lot more unsupportive parents which really doesn't help

Lots of reports of behaviour getting worse with the introduction of this crap - how is he still flogging it?

I think it appeals to a lot of SLT because it puts the blame for behaviour on teachers, not management and it generates workload for teachers, not management.

I also think it makes sense if you are SLT with a very light teaching load and plenty of time for these ‘conversations’. The kids will be reasonable in those conversations with them and then walk straight back into class bolstered by the feeling that they have a member of SLT on their side ready to wipe out all the consequences of their behaviour.

I don’t know what to do as a teacher or parent - look for a job in a super strict zero tolerance school and send my kids there when they get to high school? That doesn’t sit very comfortably with me, but I can’t bear to carry on working in a place which feels unsafe due to the total erosion of boundaries and I don’t want to send my children somewhere that has bought into this dangerous nonsense either. Are there schools running with an effective happy medium and how can I find them?