I'm so fed up with having to be so unkind to children to get them to learn

[OntheMat]

It's so bloody wearying. They have never heard the words no or wait. I cannot gently redirect because they do not listen until I'm speaking in such a strict, stern tone of voice I don't like myself.

Thank you for all that you do teachers.

I work in schools as support staff (both primary and secondary) and I feel the issue a lot of the time is parents taking their child’s side against the school and not backing up the teachers.

Children do misbehave, because they are children, they are learning how to behave. What I see is a lot of parents criticising schools and teachers, always believing their child instead of the school. So the child learns to disrespect the teachers and won’t do as they are told because they know if they are sanctioned their parent will take their side. I see it at work, I see it on here. Children saying things like ‘I’ll get you sacked’ and ‘what are you going to do about it’; and parents threatening to go to school Governors or the press because a school has dared to sanction a child for appalling behaviour.
Parents are so critical of schools, it’s very depressing. Teachers and school staff work hard, the pay isn’t great, we are often understaffed. Every mistake is jumped on. The way some parents speak to teachers and staff is so rude - the tone is some messages is so rude and aggressive.

Just to be clear this isn’t all parents, we have some really lovely parents and families who work with the school rather than against it (and usually polite parent = polite child....)

Try again....

I get that there are some parents like this. And I can see that it must be really difficult for teachers and school staff... But....

I think that some school rules and sanctions are arbitrary and foster resentment. My example above... A child is screamed at in front of his peers because he struggles to transition from one activity to another. Another child is persistently called names and excluded by classmates, but they are told that they should deal with it alone and there are no punishments or sanctions for those children. A parent forgets to sign a form and return it, the child has house points removed, another child lifts up a girls skirt to look at her pants and he is told to stop being silly and sat back down next to humiliated girl.

My point is that in my experience, (I do work in and out of schools), it is when arbitrary rules are applied and then administered in a sporadic or unpredictable way that pupils and parents begin to feel victimised and a power struggle ensues.

Yes... Parents should support a teacher's authority. I recently made encouraged my son to write an apology letter to his teacher after he got 0 marks for a test because he asked a question during it when he had been specifically asked not to. This is a fair rule. He has fair warning. In the future talking during a test could have more serious repercussions. However, this support should not be at the expense of a child's mental health and learning. I did speak to the school about Miss. Scream because I believed that her constant screaming highlighted a training issue at the very least and a temperament unsuited to teaching at worst. My child was quite simply not learning.

I also know that one of key ways or children learn how to behave is through modelling the behaviour of the adults around them. Teachers are not exempt from this. If a small child has a teacher/parent who shouts and punishes when someone does not do what they want them to, how are they going to behave in that situation. What are they learning about dealing with conflict? How do they respond to it as a child, but also then as an adult?

I know I'm waffling on but also..

Behaviour is communication. In ops example above the child who is hovering over at the house corner and not immediately coming to the carpet - what else is going on for that wee one. Did he have breakfast? Did he get much sleep? Was he watching dvds or playing GTA until midnight? Are his mum and dad fighting all the time? Is he coming down with a bug or an ear infection? There could be a million and one reasons that he didn't automatically do as he was told the first time around and I can't think of one that would be helped by shouting at him.

I know this is easy said as someone who doesn't need to control a class of 20, but I'm just putting it out there as food for thought.

AmericanAdventure - lifting up of skirts is definitely not acceptable, and is specifically mentioned in the DoE guide ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ so you are right a teacher should not be ignoring this. If this happened to my DD then yes I would be emailing school about it.

Good points American

@american, I'm sure every single person who works with children knows this. 🙄

American The teachers and TAs I know do care massively about their pupils and will be on sharp lookout for the types of issues you mention. But what we are talking about here is low level classroom disruption by NT children who simply don't think school rules apply to them.
(Also in most schools it is a class of 30 not 20... )

@ballsdeep which part?

And if "everyone" knows it why is there still so much bad practice? Teachers, like all other professionals need reminders of good practice and need to be reflective practitioners.

The behaviour part, your last post. There are many, many reasons why children don't listen. We know this.

I hate the rhetoric that there are these amazing To Sir With Love type teachers who can rock in and change a class from crazed beasts to beatific angels by the force of their charisma.

Basic training on obeying those instructions set so we can work effectively together has to start in the family. Children must be taught to be part of a whole group and not only individuals.

@Squidsister

The op said she worked with year 1. I'm in Scotland where most classes at this stage have around 20 (we have a statuary limit of 25). And I absolutely agree that most teachers care deeply about the children. However, like all other professions, some are not particularly good.

@ballsdeep

My point stands. If teachers know that even NT children have myriad issues that can be affecting their behaviour and learning, why do they make an automatic assumption that the child is simply being defiant. This thread, as far as I can gather, is not just for teachers to have a whinge about these bloody defiant 5 years old with no respect for authority, but a discussion about what op might change to make her situation better because she (like all good teachers) doesn't enjoy being unkind and shout. I stand by my position that shouting and unkindness helps no one. What are your positive suggestions?

@FredaFrogspawn

Basic training on obeying those instructions set so we can work effectively together has to start in the family.

I agree, but more and more families just don't have the capacity to do this. I work with families in crisis and support them to do this. The fact that my job exists is indicative of the problem - there is a vicious cycle of children growing up in households with parents who can't regulate themselves or their emotions, the children don't learn to this, they have children who can't. It make life harder for teachers and it makes life so much harder for them. I suppose what I'd ask you is what role schools have to support those children whose families simply can't or won't delivery the "basic training" that you talk about?

We do listening interventions. By the time they reach secondary, unless you are going to use ridiculously fierce punishments which of course we don’t these days, it can only be about rationalising and reasoning with students so they can see why it’s important and what everyone loses when listening is poor. Most students are nice, as are most people - it’s just so much harder to do the basic training after a certain point, and very hard if respectful listening and working for the best of the team isn’t the same principle at home.

And I don’t blame children or parents as such - things have changed and we haven’t yet found a working alternative to the harsh discipline of the past - who wants to go back to scaring children into submission? We need to find a new way forward.

Respectful listening is something most of the adults I work with can't do. I have been trying to persuade my employer to let me roll out a communication and conflict resolution programme for primary schools, but as primary focus is adults he's not yet convinced. I just feel like we are getting them too late too.

AmericanAdventure nice to have you on board the thread, with your advice for teachers and excuse for your son at the ready. Unless your child has significant additional needs, he should be able to follow simple instructions by this age. I doubt that he was ‘screamed’ at. I’m sure you told him that if he did as he was told, his teacher wouldn’t need to tell him off.

It's not bad practices of teachers. It's poor parenting.

I think you make great points American. It's so easy to shout but it achieves nothing. I have two very well behaved kids and one more, er, spirited one. Shouting was my default parenting method for a good while with him because I was at the end of my tether at his inability to listen. It doesn't work though, it makes it worse. Ditto in the classroom - and like I said (to tumbleweed response) above, it alienates the well-behaved kids and makes the classroom a place of fear.
If you just want to moan about declining levels of respect in the new generation, knock yourself out - if you have the slightest bit of historical knowledge you'll know that adults have been doing this for millenniae. But if you find yourself regularly losing it in the classroom, then seek out either different strategies or a new profession. A lot of teachers do manage to teach without regular shouting, they aren't some mythical 'to sir with love' creatures, I have encountered dozens both in my own school career, my professional work and seeing my kids go through school.

American - I think the problem is that schools are expected to deal with a lot of society's problems (like the ones you list) without being given the staff to manage them, and yet at the same time being judged on exam results .
So in your example of not having had breakfast - the schools I have worked in have run a breakfast club because they know that children who come to school hungry don't behave or learn well. Providing breakfast is a parent's responsibility, but schools are having to step in.
So if schools are having to provide 'basic training' to children because their parents are unable to do this, then they need to be given the resources to do this which they simply don't have at the moment.

Also - I wish schools in England had only 20 children per class in Reception/Year 1! That would make a big difference I think.

HopeClearwater it depends what you count as "significant additional needs"*?

Neurodiverse children can struggle with transitions, which is what AmericanAdventure is describing in her DS. My DD still does and she's 12.

There is likely to be a significant minority of neurodiverse children (ASD, ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia) in any class. Some won't be diagnosed until they're much older than primary school age. Some may not get diagnosed at all.

I honestly believe all teacher training should contain modules on child development, psychology and special education needs and disabilities as standard.

Look, I know you're all trying to be helpful, but did you bother reading the first line of my post?

I cannot gently redirect because they do not listen until I'm speaking in such a strict, stern tone of voice I don't like myself.

Look at the actual teachers who have came on and said the same thing. It is becoming more and more impossible to give some consideration and maintain a positive, effective classroom environment.

So please, take your sanctimonious advice about 'shouting' elsewhere.

I get you OP. I think this gentle parenting movement has a lot to answer for.
Children are drilled with the idea that their special and that every thought they have matter and needs to be heard. Children are unique but they are no more important than any other child in the class. And they are beneath the teacher and need to conform.

I read this thread before lunch and discussed it over lunch with DH (a secondary school teacher). DH's last school had real discipline issues, he now works in a leafy grammar which decidedly does not.

We were talking about the fact there's so much talk about 'parents who never say no, parents who think their children's spirit will be crushed', but he doesn't feel that matched the really badly behaved kids he saw - to put it bluntly, and in a way that might get me flamed, that's quite a different socioeconomic group to those kids.

It's also not the parenting I see around me - and I know my local primary school has really bad behaviour (it's one reason we're moving before DS is school age), so it's presumably those parents I see. I see lots of shouting, but it's normally in a sort of unfocused way ('you're doing my head in') or with totally unrealistic threats ('right, I'll throw your Xbox in the bin bags when we get home'). I don't think the issue there is that the kids never hear no, but I do think it might be unsystematic and also that the modelling of behaviour isn't great ('do as I say, not as I do')

Children are drilled with the idea that their special and that every thought they have matter and needs to be heard.

Yep. And this idea that someone who isn't following an instruction may or may not be feeling slightly poorly... they aren't being taught any resilience. Every little whim has to be analysed and catered to, and it leaves no room for the genuinely upset little child to be noticed.