Meet Chantelle......sigh

[Sureitwillbegrand]

Don't post very often but this arrived in my inbox today and just had to share. No tips about what to do when she tells you to F off. SLT reply would probably be - ah but did she swear AT you. 🙄😂

Chantelle throws the classroom door open at the end of break, dramatically collapses, head on her desk, coat on and hood over her head. Before you are tempted to open 'Pandora's box' it is worth reminding yourself that:
• The rules are a long way down on her list of priorities
• Chantelle is unlikely to be thinking rationally
• You are unlikely to be able to solve the situation in an instant
• A calm and caring enquiry. 'Are you ok?' is your best chance of opening a dialogue
• You may need to leave her and return periodically, breaking down your requests, providing clear choices and easing her into the lesson.
• The ability to control emotions is a skill that develops with age; teenagers' brains are not fully developed.
• Children's emotions are fragile. Problems can seem insurmountable, all consuming, life and death and switch in an instant - remember being a teenager?
• You are an adult helping a child to manage their own behaviour
• If Chantelle blows, what comes out is raw emotion, not necessarily directed at you even if you take most of the initial blast.

So how would you deal with Chantelle?

Oh dear god I swear Pivotal are destroying education in this country.

Ha we had an inset from Pivotal not too long ago & my HT (& several others) were sucked right into all the gimmicks. I tried to point out the issues with it but, no we’re all over it next term 🙄

Suggest that they channel their energies into something useful like drama or music and keep on doing what you need to do?

If only one Chantelle character per class was all we were allowed...

Wtf is a behavioural company?

A company who make money off the backs of our misery!

This normalises abuse of teachers in their workplaces. It is an out and out disgrace. You can show compassion and forgiveness and understanding whilst holding the line of no, actually, it is not okay to walk into a room and tell another person to fuck off.

What Giraffe said x 20. Plus you will get Chantell's acolytes doing the "you ok Hun? Omg miss, she's really upset" any humour will be you being "mean". Our school, a discreet email or message to slt or senco gets them out so teaching happens.
The upside of being in our MAT, and always told that we are skint, is there isn't any cash to throw at bollox training companies.

I remember one bit of behaviour management training where the main idea was basically that if you get hit by a child it's your own fault for being too close .

Ignore her during the lesson and then take her aside at the appropriate time for a conversation about how she will end up working at Tesco’s for the rest of her life if she doesn’t bother taking advantage of the opportunities provided to her. Then rinse and repeat. If she has any sense she will come around eventually. If she doesn’t well then at least she wasn’t a disruption to the other children.

If she doesn’t well then at least she wasn’t a disruption to the other children.

Most of the time that won’t be the outcome. You will either give her the attention she is seeking, or she will disrupt until you do. Sometimes not, but most of the time yes.

While Chantelle’s blasting you there are 29 other kids in the room.
Calmly and quietly she needs removing and safe room or any other place. I can’t clone myself into 2 people and teach the lesson and coax her simultaneously.

What's Pivotal's world changing solution to this then?

Oh yes. Then you’re observed with Chantelle in the class. Or her book gets called for scrutiny. What happens then?

They’re ‘pivoting’ us all towards grabbing our P45s with both hands and fleeing a profession we loved.

I love teaching but this shit is at best unrealistic and at worst ends careers.

Unions should be challenging adoption of Pivotal in any school where the SLT are so blasé about the mental health of their staff as to think it is a good idea. Strike action until a sensible behaviour policy is implemented.

One last thing.
I’m not a counsellor. Chantelle’s not getting the proper help she needs from me either.

My old school has adopted the Pivotal approach. Isolation room, supervised detentions and staff on call system removed. Behaviour now considered to be down to individual class teachers who have to have restorative conversations with the students that wrecked their lessons earlier in the day and then ring their parents. Apart from taking up a lot of time for staff, some parents are getting multiple communications from the school every day. Behaviour has got much worse and things that happened rarely are an everyday occurrence to the point that the schools reputation is being trashed by parents on public fb pages, governors have resigned and the older, more experienced teachers have left. This within less than two years in a previously decent small town comprehensive.

Chantelle does this several times a week. You can’t get on with your lesson because Chantelle’s friends want to fuss round her and won’t sit down and be quiet. Other kids watch this happening every single day, draining away the first fifteen minutes of every lesson. If they are in a lower ability set or have SEN, they need that time more than anyone else but because they’re quiet, their needs go unmet because there is only one adult in the room since all the TAs got cut and Chantelle takes all the attention all the time. So the other kids gradually disengage - why should I get my book out when Chantelle can sit with her coat over her head every day? She doesn’t have to do any writing and she never gets any punishment. I’m not doing it either.

Nobody learns. Everyone’s time is wasted. Repeat every fucking week until results come out and it’s all the teacher’s fault...

SarahMused

Insanity.

Honestly, the unions need to get together and produce a list of schools refusing to support their teachers and have a policy of not representing new staff joining.

What hercule says. Someone’s making ££££s out of this too.

Isolation room, supervised detentions and staff on call system removed. Behaviour now considered to be down to individual class teachers...

It’s literally leaving you hanging like a pissy sheet in the wind, isn’t it? Unacceptable.

@OneOfTheGrundys too right!! We aren't trained in dealing with sometimes complex non-normative mental health. 'Care' seeking behaviour often belies very complex situations involving multiple factors that are impossible to unravel in an hour or two a week, nevermind while teaching the rest of the class the intricacies of electromagnetism or somesuch.

I know I've been in situations with pupils where I've made it worse because I see only a small snippet of their lives and have said 'the wrong' thing because I had no training in counselling and/or didn't have the whole story.

I understand that learning can't take place if you're inconsolable about an (other) issue, but if I didn't cause the issue, how on earth can I solve it??

Is she familiar with Zones of Regulation?

Ignore her during the lesson and then take her aside at the appropriate time for a conversation about how she will end up working at Tesco’s for the rest of her life if she doesn’t bother taking advantage of the opportunities provided to her. Then rinse and repeat. If she has any sense she will come around eventually. If she doesn’t well then at least she wasn’t a disruption to the other children.

100% will not work. Chantelle is desperate for attention and cannot operate in a way that isn't a distraction to others. Plus doesn't give a shit what you think about her future because you're only saying it because you hate her.

All the positive relationships and calm interventions in the world mean nothing when you have 4/5 of them in a class and someone comes to observe you, at which point you're whisked into "support" before you can blink because "you didn't seem to notice that Chantelle was still wearing her hoodie".

You will be offered advice along the lines of "have you tried calling home?" and told to make wordsearches to put on the table when they come in, because the Chantelles of this world are, obviously, hugely into wordsearches. It will be your fault that she doesn't engage, because you haven't differentiated enough, and you haven't worked hard enough to form a relationship, although the observer did notice you were too nice toy our class because you smiled at a joke one told. you should be stricter, but you do talk too loudly. You should also, while dealing with Chantelle, make sure you deal firmly and appropriately with any latecomers, while following the school behaviour policy, while also not letting this affect the pace of the lesson and making sure you can show all students, including Chantelle, have made progress.

Trust me, this is not an exaggeration.