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.

Traditional school learning in groups of 30 with one teacher date from when every child was expected to fear adults who had the power to beat them. Parents and teachers. That ‘worked’ for most students, SEN and NT - although many dropped out of school because it didn’t...

I know it has been a gradual change but it is a massive one and we haven’t adapted the fundamental way in which we educate to allow for the rights of the individual being so destructive to the rights of the group.

We don’t want that again, but we do need to think of a way to educate children which works. It’s not a one size fits all.

We have to decide - do we have the right to make children behave a certain way for their own and the greater good?? If so then let’s get that right.

Or do children have the right to have things the way which suits them as individuals - in which case our current school system isn’t effective.

Children are drilled with the idea that their special and that every thought they have matter and needs to be heard
But with both parents working or just bad parenting, ie staring at their phones, constant tv, they are ignored so a combination of praise without discipline. That way they aren't going to listen. It's harder in today's world - soo many distractions.

I don't buy this bollocks about it being anything to do with gentle parenting. The kids who kick off most in my kids school are the ones with chaotic parents who yell at them constantly - at best. And as for sanctimonious advice, I give none. I merely observe from significant personal and professional experience that there are very shouty teachers, and others who seem to somehow manage without raising their voice except on rare occasions. Unless there's a conspiracy to stick all the difficult kids in one class, there's something else going on. And I mention, again, that it is the quiet well-behaved kids who suffer most from shouty teachers. The disruptive ones likely get yelled at at home too. Useful all round eh.

But with both parents working or just bad parenting, ie staring at their phones, constant tv, they are ignored so a combination of praise without discipline.

I really dislike your implication here that children with two working children are inherently ignored.

Two working parents, even!

Reality tv particularly celebrates and rewards rude, unpleasant and demanding behaviour. Their role models are appalling.

This comment got me thinking g about politics and our PM too - he has been rewarded over & over again for appalling behaviour - so it's at every level.

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.

Your welcome. 😁.

And yes she did scream regularly. It was reported to me by both children and adults. Not my own child. Both she and the deputy head admitted it and apologised - she was inexperienced, told to go in hard and she took it too far. You talk about children not being able to listen properly but it seems you have selective listening (or in this case reading) skills. I didn't approach the school because he was shouted at, I approached the school because he wasn't learning from her. He was too afraid of her. He did not have that issue prior to her and he has not had that issue since. Despite having strict teachers who do not shout. And if you weren't being willfully obtuse, you might also have read the part where I do indeed support teachers who punish him. You also did not read any excuses. Only facts. He gets into trouble because he has issues with transitions between activities. There is no excuse there.. It is a factual statement.

@Frida I think your analysis is pretty spot on. The class room model you describe worked well when children were belted or strapped. Some schools close to me are adopting a more scandi approach to their early years education. So 60 kids in an open space with three teachers and a teaching assistant. All of the research the schools are showing parents are about improvements in learning but it would be really interesting to hear if this approach improves behaviour too.

And @OntheMat

I posted in good faith that you were looking for positive discussion around how to improve behaviour in schools and not just to moan about kids and their parents. I'm sorry that was my mistake. Moan away.

Sometimes I wonder if being a prison guard would be more rewarding than teaching.

I know hunners of teachers who LOVE their jobs and find it rewarding and stimulating and fun. I know I couldn't do it. I seriously considered it but I don't have the patience and I would be horrible to everyone... And I don't think the other teachers would like me very much 🤣🤣🤣.

Id be a rubbish prison guard too mind you.

Unless there's a conspiracy to stick all the difficult kids in one class, there's something else going on.

While there's no conspiracy some cohorts are more difficult or are more SEN heavy than others.

You might think a class of 21 is a dream , but in that class you have 4 children with a diagnosis, 1 that no one quite knows what's going on , and one being assessed.

Or a class if 32 , with just 2 children with SEN but the sheer number of children(that are quite young as well) in a small space makes it very challenging to teach/get them to follow instructions.

It’s deeply patronising to assume that teachers don’t know/care if the children have come to school without breakfast or have been up all night playing GTA. That child still needs to come and sit on the carpet when asked.

And round here, children are spoon fed ( sometimes literally) the finest breakfast Waitrose has to offer, before being wafted to school on the magic carpet that is a 4x4 when they live less than a mile away. Parental neglect is not the problem in an increasing number of cases - quite the opposite.

@ MoltoAgitato I think we work at the same school based on that comment!

In the main, to me, it seems that parents are so busy trying to be their child's 'friend' that they forget to be (or more often abdicate responsibility for being) their parent. School is being expected to teach even basic personal and social skills that were previously learnt at home.

My friend used to work at a primary PRU (I, in my naivety, didn't even realise they had primary PRU's until she started working there). Not many kids who got driven around in 4 by 4s or whose parents shopped at Waitrose there.

Parents who can afford to drive a 4x4 and shop at Waitrose will mostly be able to afford to put in place other options (like home schooling), and will use these instead of sending their child to a PRU, I suspect.

What I am trying very clumsily to say is that yes, there absolutely still are the expected chaotic, sweary families producing children with serious behaviour issues due to poor parenting. But we now have crap behaviour from children with no excuse - good, solid parental incomes, happy family homes, parents are graduates, extracurricular activities etc. They just honestly can’t comprehend having to do as they are told when they are told to do so, and their parents can’t get their heads round that either. And I’m fed up of watching good teachers get ground down or fed up. Parents supposedly want the best for their children, but don’t understand that if they and their kids behave as they do, we can’t keep good staff.

The critical mass in the classroom has tipped. You can cope with one or two kids like that, but not five or six (or nine or ten...)

absopugginglutely I hope it’s still unusual enough to be a rarity!

Parents supposedly want the best for their children, but don’t understand that if they and their kids behave as they do, we can’t keep good staff.

Witness the irony of a poster above asking "then why is there still so much bad practice?". And talking about a probationary teacher - yet clearly unable to see that the answer is in part that such a large proportion of teachers are relatively new/unsupported due to the huge turnover of teachers leaving the profession after only a few years.

I was a TA and gave it up because of this. Working with Y1, group of children most of whom hd SN. Most of them wouldn't listen, were rude and wouldn't sit in their seat long enough to finish anything. I felt I was fighting a losing battle every day. Apparently it was my fault that the children weren't getting on with what they were asked to do, even though the teacher had exactly the same problem.

And round here, children are spoon fed ( sometimes literally) the finest breakfast Waitrose has to offer, before being wafted to school on the magic carpet that is a 4x4 when they live less than a mile away. Parental neglect is not the problem in an increasing number of cases - quite the opposite. its really pretty shitty to assume that only poor people neglect their children.

Jesus OP, I hear you so much. I used to work with under 5s (NHS clinician) but got out a couple of years ago. A huge part of the reason I couldn't do it anymore was the lazy / indulgent/ unskilled parenting that I was constantly dealing with, which resulted in little kids being brought up to be utter brats with no social skills and no awareness of anyone else. Loads of what some on here might call 'benign neglect ' - children who get handed food or a screen every time they express an inconvenient need or feeling, who get offered bribes for doing the simplest of things like brushing teeth or picking up their toys. I found it endlessly depressing. Just adding my support- I hear your frustration

From my experience, the main issue is parents not backing schools up. Kids then learn that they can get away with stuff and their parents will blame the school, slag it off on social media, a few more parents are drawn in and then all of a sudden there’s 10 kids in a year group with the impression of they can get away with whatever they want.

We’ve got kids wearing jeans and trainers to school, when we pull them up on it and give a consequence parents are slating us saying my kids there to learn so what does it matter what they are wearing. We’ve also got a parent in the office complaining because their kids new £90 trainers have gone missing during PE, the kid will have missed their next lesson to try find them, the class teacher will have missed one of their 3 hours they get a week to do their planning and marking dealing with it. So we’ve got that rule because it makes life easier in school. As soon as a parent undermines the school by letting the kid wear the wrong thing that kid learns that they don’t have to follow all of the rules and their parents will back them up, so then in school when simple rules are put in place they think they can ignore them. As soon as a few kids think the rules don’t apply to them it turns to chaos!

We have an issue with kids being very entitled and thinking teachers are beneath them, I have a trainee teacher in at the moment who has begun teaching a class and I couldn’t believe the way they were speaking to him. One student sat with his phone out texting (banned in school) and when the trainee asked them to hand it over they said “you’ve got no right to take my phone” this escalated to our head teacher removing the student, when the head rang home the parents response was “you’ve got no right to take his phone” how are we supposed to manage his behaviour and teach him content for his exams if everything we do is undermined by home?

In my experience the children with chaotic home lives appreciate the positive attention they get in school and the boundaries and predictability of the classroom. That’s not to say their behaviour is all you might want it to be, but I find it’s the ones whose every whim and want is pandered to at home who make life difficult in lessons. Once in school they don’t like the fact that they have to rub along with 29 other children, be quiet when they’re asked to and get on with tasks they wouldn’t choose to do at home. When they’re challenged, their parents back them to the hilt. ‘It must be you’... ‘he’s not like this at home’... ‘he wasn’t like this last year’ (when the kid has been like this since Reception)... ‘another child must have annoyed him’...

I’m not a shouty teacher, and neither are my current colleagues. The last thing I want is a sea of scared little faces in front of me. It’s not pleasant and it stops them learning, but so does the behaviour of a significant number of children.

Someone upthread mentioned the rights of the individual versus the rights of the group, and the balance of those is what’s changed in recent years, not the removal of corporal punishment.

Imagine this scenario

Christmas concert in a church in front of parents and the whole congregation,maybe a councillor or two.

Kid with some behavioural issues quite at the front but doing well and staying focused. The. Their bloody parent starts pulling faces at them, sticking tongue out, big grins,waving etc. Kid joins in doing it back to the parent,starts bouncing of the chair etc obviously loving the attention.

The real shame is that they were doing so well up to that point and were singing so beautifully but no one remembers that.

I hear you op
All this ‘behaviour is communication’ is all very well but my year 11s won’t do anything unless I’m horrible to them. They know how to behave - they just can’t be bothered. They’re all fantastic individuals but I need all 30 to stfu at the same time. If I’m nice about it they ignore me so I’m mean to them, have a rant, then they sit in stunned silence —for about 30 seconds—