Thoughts on this behaviour system?

[Snowflakewater]

I visited my new school today. I had a look around and stayed in to look at some work students produced and get some general advice for the next year, and ofc get to know the team.

They started talking about behaviour and this is where I became nervous. I was told “I don’t want to worry you but yeah it’s not great. There’s no system for students being relocated if they’re misbehaving in here ” which sounds like there’s not much in the way of sanctions

im not used to this because as soon as a child misbehaves to the point they’re being rude or aggressive I’ve gone though the system and they’re taken out my room. But then the support after is not there where I am and the aggression from students is forgiven and let off and we’re seen as the bad guy as teachers so I just got a thicker skin towards it.

Any tips on how to deal with the new policy? It says that the students will be taken but by the sounds of it, it’s not implemented too well. Any thoughts? Just wondering if anyone has experience of policies such as this and can offer some advice for me.

Teaching in a school with poor behaviour and no removal policy is almost always a completely miserable experience unless you have an exceptionally strong classroom presence and are able to very quickly build positive relationships with tricky students.

I recommend being honest about your concerns and your previous difficulties managing behaviour, and ask your new HoD for their support and advice. They will be aware of strategies that work well for students in the school, and they’ll also be able to tell you how to make the best possible start with specific students that are known to be challenging.

Yeah, I’m scared to say the least. There’s 2 other new people in my dept so I think it’ll be good to share our experiences.

It does scare me if I’m honest, the whole “not to make you stress but…” I just felt my stomach drop and thought what have I gotten myself into. As bad as things are at my current school at least we have a process of removal. At the new place I assume it’s just “leave the room”? But then that leads to a whole new set of issues.

They just said no matter how much you request for removal it won’t be done so you’ll come up with ways to deal with it.

When they say “no matter how much you request for removal it won’t be done so you’ll come up with ways to deal with it” it suggests that they have an on-call system whereby you cannot send a student out and if a student needs to be removed from a lesson, you have to make the call for someone to collect them.

Once you’ve called for a student to be removed, they will not sit and wait politely for someone to collect them. If on-call take a long time to show up, or do not show up at all, you will find yourself dealing with a very difficult situation in the classroom.

You will just need to use all of the strategies you have to avoid behaviour escalating to the point of removal.

You say there's not much in the way of sanctions. Have you been given the behaviour policy?

Nope they said they have no on call, you have to use the message service and it delivers a message and they said often no one comes to collect

Yeah and I talked it through with the department and they said it rarely is put in place and sanctions usually only go up to a detention.

A system where you request removal and then wait for the student to be collected by another member of staff is commonly refered to as an “on call” system.

I know, we have an oncall system so I said that and that’s what I said but the three of them looked at me and said, “they’re trying to implement it here but it doesn’t work because no one ever collects any students you just have to tell them to sit at the back of figure out another way of doing things”

I would argue that a messaging system only counts as an on-call system if it’s accompanied by an on-call rota where there is a designated member of staff, available at any given time, to collect students when removal has been requested. If it isn’t a specific person’s responsibility to come and collect them at that time then the system totally breaks down. We have a very strict on-call rota and on-call duties are covered just like lessons if a person is off or otherwise unavailable.

I’m not keen on “on call” systems in general. The problem is that even with a solid and reliable rota, if you’re the on call and you’re hit with three calls at the same time in different ends of the school, it can take a while to get around to those classrooms. If students are refusing to leave, that adds extra delay.

We have two members of staff on-call at any one time. One on our lower school and one on our upper school. If it’s the sort of school where you might get three on-calls all at once (except for on really rare occasions) then you need more than one person on-call, likewise if you’ve got a huge site and multiple buildings there might need to be someone on call in each part of the school.
I think some schools have poorly implemented on call systems, but when they are done properly I think they work.

We don’t have the staffing to make something like that work. We just send students out. Happily, they do almost always report straight to the pastoral office as they are supposed to, and we contact the pastoral office so that they are expecting the arrival and can track them down if they don’t turn up.

On call at our school used to work well, but now slt never come, and the kids know this so behaviour is going down the tubes. It's so easy for a school with good behaviour to downhill once systems aren't followed properly and kids realise there's no meaningful escalation of consequences.

Yeah that’s pretty much what’s stressing me out

I've taught where there hasn't been that option. You need to use all your tricks to keep lessons running smoothly, lots of layers of intervention, praise to motivate, sending out and maybe have a plan within your department to send difficult students to another teacher. Y11's hate to have to sit in the back of a y7 lesson. If it's really awful I would leave quickly and don't get stuck there.

I don’t wanna be the person that keeps moving jobs though as I know how hard it is to find another

You're borrowing trouble, assuming it's going to be problematic. I think you need to wait until you're there before you make assumptions and start getting anxious about it.