'Well-behaved' girls 'socialising' 'challenging' boys at primary school

[Polynerd]

I just saw a casual mention on Twitter of the phenomenon of well-behaved girls being sat next to challenging boys to 'socialise' them. I was totally shocked because I suddenly realised that my youngest (going into Y2) has mentioned to me that this had happened to her. Is this something that happens regularly? Should I be talking to next year's teacher about this? I don't want my six-year-old daughter thinking it is her responsibility to make a load of six-year-old boys conform to classroom behavioural standards.

And soap if I'd have read any of these stories 12 years ago I'd have been sceptical tbh. It all reads like an exaggerated daily mail story.bit then you have kids go through primary and realise when yiu r friends talk about lock downs and classroom evacuations you are amongst the lucky ones. But even so the things that the kids cone home and tell you happen, the stuff that's said, from chucking stuff around to standing on tables to having stuff nicked and chairs pulled out deliberately on you, never would I have thought it would actually be true...

Assuming children can and will advocate for themselves, even following a script, assumes that the child is able to do this.

In my experience with three children so far, school's idea of encouraging resilience and self advocation is leaving them in a situation to get on with it. Most often being left to it makes their ability to look out for themselves decline, rather than magically toughen them up.
This is over three different primary schools with a caring Christian ethos, when it comes to challenging children or quiet children, it would appear they didn't give a stuff.

Giles I'm the one who used to evacuate the classroom or had to decide whether to chase one unpredictable child around the school who had absconded or stay with my class who had more than a handful of 'lively' characters with no support what so ever or catch the missile mid-air to stop a child being seriously injured.

Children end up being the serial disruptors because there is no support to put something more robust in place. So staff just 'manage' as best they can. The situation carries on year after year until the child leaves. No member of staff wants that. They're are just few other options.

Children are very rarely added to a school role when there is physically no space for them. When they are is when you end up with desks in corridors.

Joy considering what the Resilience programme was meant to be about initially and what most schools now seem to be using it as instead, I wish the word was banned from school premises.

Me too, it was one of those buzz words repeated over and over when we couldn't get autistic ds2 into school. Instead of recognising how distressed he was and dealing with it, they expected him to get on with it with no support and develop resilience .

But these stories date back for decades. Well befire the publicised funding cuts. It cabt all just he a lack of resources. Inwaa in a class of 36 at school no tas nothing. And of course there were incidents but not to the extent there are now.

This thread is upsetting for me.

-I was on of those girls sat next to the boys, have felt those cosequences keenly, and:

• yes, I have 3 DCS and all of them at one time or another have been 'that' 'disruptive' child. One has a diagnosis of ADHD.

I have felt guilty and a pariah parent because I really want my sons to be able to find nice friends that don't just echo back silly or just unfocussed behaviour. I've also felt totally powerless to stop my DS being bullied by the only 'friends' that he had because they found it so incredibly easy to 'push his buttons' and send him out of control and upset. I've also had to try and keep on good terms with those parents and not say anything when those 'sensible' children have upset my DS greatly. I've stood in playgrounds in tears when one of mine has had a meltdown and won't come down/out of a climbing frame, and not been able to leave his side when he is playing, while the other parents stand around and chat.

I really don't have a solution, and I don't think girls should be made to do the 'calming' at all - but do you people really have no compassion or tolerance - don't you want your children (boy and girl) to tolerate or learn some mediation skills and that not everyone is the same as them.? Do you want to consign all the 'disruptive boys' to a separate table, classroom, school...? What about the slightly 'disruptive' boys? what about the disruptive girls?

For the record I've felt guilty and agonised about how glad I was when DS2 was sat next to a lovely sensible boy and not the (even more so than he) 'disruptive' (divisive, manipulating) boy he usually had to sit next to.

Do you all really have lovely, intelligent, well behaved children who can't learn anything from another child?

I have to smile at Cherry's idea!istic notion that this makes the quiet child more tolerant. Not in my experience!

It's often polarising.

Joy it does seem to be code now for 'I can't be arsed to deal with this child, those bullies, this unacceptable situation'. It's such a shame because it really could have been a good programme particularly for girls.

Giles That's partly due to exclusions were more common, more children fell off the radar, more children were moved into special or other types of school and less pressure on staff to perform like trained seals on a caffeine bender.

Not all young children have those mediation skill or are anywhere near them.

To be frank my child could get very anxious and have really out of control behaviours but it only came out at home. The teachers just don't get it: lierally could not believe it when I explained this. I wonder if it's perhaps a "rules based" personality as described earlier.

It's an unseen cruelty.

No I just believe teachers are people and as such some are fab. Some go above and beyond. Some get to know their class and help every single one of them. And some will be rude or lazy or shouty or knowingly turn a blind eye to things that would make their life difficult. And everything in between
On this giles is spot on.
Some staff do lack behaviour management and do rely far too much on seating for behaviour rather than learning and take advantage of quiet students who will put up and shut up. Some staff do negotiate with students and turn a blind eye to small things repeatedly (I'm not talking about deliberate tactical ignore as a strategy here) because they'd rather have the easier life and insisting Timmy shuts up when his peers are talking would be deemed too much of an inconvenience so Timmy learns he doesn't have to behave.

Other staff are firm, fair, warm and apply sanctions when appropriate. They realise that the standard they walk past repeatedly is the standard they accept. They know they don't always see everything because none of us have eyes in the back of our heads, but they have a sense of 'withitness' that students know they read the room and control the room. Do things sometimes get past staff? Of course. But they are aware where their blind spots are in the room and aware where they tend not to get to as much when circulating and seat accordingly.

I've seen staff accept scruffy work, no date or title, no underlining, no challenge on uniform, where they talk over the students etc, students talk over each other and then they wonder why they aren't getting the quantity and quality of work out students. The answer is clear, students know the expectation and so meet the (low) expectation.

cat kids are for the most part pretty tolerant. My kids both understand different kids have different needs and they don't domain it's unfair if they get to go out and kick a ball for ten minutes mid lesson. They don't laugh or point when a kid cries etc if they did they'd not see the outsode of their room.fir weeks.

But how you can read about kids being kicked punched and sexually assaulted and then say we should want our kids to be tolerant I dont know. Being touched. At all..is step to far

Maybe its simply well behaved 'person' put next to a more challenging pupil. It just happens that most with behavioural issues are boys for some inexplicable reason not purposely making distinctions between the sexes.

Whatever the logic its vital the needs of ALL pupils are accommodated.

I agree giles.
I also think we have to be clear that 'disruptive' means different things to different people.

I would start considering a student's behaviour to be disruptive at the point of 'whispering when I am talking, not following instructions at the correct time' (E.g. I say write the date and title and student doesn't only to ask 2 minutes later what the date and title is). More often than not they are very nice children who quickly realise what my expectations are.

That sort of child would require different seating considerations to a child who has a tendency to poke and prod other students (for example). When I've had students prone to that, it's one strike and you're out, but then I'm fortunate to work in a school where I can say to senior leadership 'right now this child's actions are severly affecting learning. Their peers have the right to feel safe to learn. I'm not happy having them in the class'. Not all school leaders would back a member of staff doing that.

Not all disruption is physically targeting other students but any parent who thinks their child should be exempt from sitting near a child who happens to need a redirect is being unreasonable.

I've been teaching for 20+ years - IME what the op describes is not common.

It did happen to my well behaved ds2 in a minority of his lessons in Secondary school and he was very aware of it happening. He was usually seated next to the 'challenging' teen girls.

teachers can't exactly put all the disruptive kids together. That would definitely be much worst. They need to work on seating plans where there will be a good balance between better behaved children (boys or girls) and children who struggle to control their behaviour (boys or girls).

Personally, I think that its OK as long as the seating plans change regularly and not the same kids have to sit next to each other all the time.

I have two very well behaved boys and this thread enrages me to be honest. So many assumptions that girls are the well behaved ones, and it's the boys who need 'socialising'. THis is so much not reality...

It is lazy on the teachers part and unfair to the girl. Am an ex teacher and have recently told off an aspiring teacher for planning to do this. There are things a teacher can do. But it dies take effort and patience and a good grasp of classroom management. Something a lot of teachers lack. No need for threat of ruler or cane. I never bothered about detentions, only ever giving them as part of the steps we had to go through before requesting a pupil removal. I found better ways to get kids to behave. Sitting them next to well behaved and quiet ones is wrong and I would urge parents to complain. It is not yiur child's job to improve behaviour it is the teachers. Yes, it's a tough job but that is the job. Ask to go on courses, read books and shadow successful teachers. If that doesn't work, find another job.

Girls do better in single sex schools; boys do better in mixed schools

're boys and girls, like it or not majority of well behaved are the girls. That said the worst can be girls. No boy has beat the worst behaved girl for title of worst behaved! But numbers wise, while good, quiet boys exist, sadly it is the boys who take the lead in disruptiveness. Well done to your boys for doing so well.

No boy has beat the worst behaved girl for title of worst behaved!
Nonsense.
Some cohorts I've known the most notorious student was a girl.

Not all disruption is physically targeting other students but any parent who thinks their child should be exempt from sitting near a child who happens to need a redirect is being unreasonable

I don't really know anyone. Myself included who would really be worried about a bit of back ground noise. That's life we have to learn to block that out teachers have to talk to kids. Kids sometimes need to quickly speak to eachother. Unless they are having a full on shouting match I certainly wouldn't be worried.

It's the constant deliberate prevention of doing work that I have had a problem with in the past. Obstructing the board on purpose manspreading everywhere so we had no space to put her stuff and no where under the table to even put her feet.

I wish the word tolerance wouldn't he bandied about so much tbh. No one's really complained about bog standard classroom noise.

A child for instance who couldn't be trusted not to talk to their best friend and be distracted the whole lesson would obviously need an alternate seat perhaps next to someone who they don't not get on with but who they wouldn't talk to would make sense. It would be problem however if that child then just yelled across the room at the friend our lean across the desk partners space all the time trying to get their attention and preventing that child amd more from working at all.

How can one child be expected to ignore it no matter what, yet the other child cant be expected to ignore their friend....

I think kids actually put up with a hell of alot. Much more than adults ever would. Adults would never put up with someone swearing at them, laughing at them, invading their space or threatening you or poming you all day Yet we call kids who don't put up with it intolerant. Just no.

Yes in a normal situation you'd say the child who has self control and shows kindness in public is doing well. Sadly this teacher practice shows it up as a weakness. That's the lesson my son has taken from it.

My son has now taken to verbally teasing this girl. In primary she frequently physically poked him, went through the entire pencil case by the sounds of it, knocked his elbow, then blamed him for upsetting her. Now as he's "matured" it seems they are in a he teases she hits cycle. He's ok with it because hes not just a victim. Go figure, he's not cut out to be a diplomat.

I was one of the well behaved and clever girls made to sit with disruptive boys. It made my school days miserable and I resent it to this day. If the teacher couldn’t manage their behaviour, how the hell was I supposed to?

giles
I agree. There is a time and a place for tolerant. I've taught classes where (due to SEND) a child has had meltdowns or thrown a stimming toy in exasperation or made noises and the students are so genuinely tolerant, ignore and remain focused. (Child is removed if it's a big issue by the way).
I tend to find students are very empathetic and understanding in those situations.

They shouldn't be expected to tolerate nastiness, people getting in their space, being unkind, being loud, messing around etc.

No one's really complained about bog standard classroom noise.
Oh you'd be surprised. In schools we get complaints about anything and everything. (Jokes on here by teachers aren't exaggerating. Some of them are hilarious. My personal favourite was a parent complaining at, and then about, me because I had failed to prevent a child annoying their child in art. I am the other side of site from our art rooms. I am not an art teacher. Apparently the child is annoying and it's ruining their child's enjoyment of art and killing their creativity which home have worked hard to nurture. As form tutor it is apparently my job to have words with a colleague and ensure that their child is sat next to other nice girls who enjoy art).