Behaviour in schools
- pjohn4
- Mar 29, 2024
- 7 min read
As schools across the country go into the Easter holidays, reports have come out in the media highlighting the issue of pupil behaviour, following the publication of a survey conducted by Teacher Tapp, on behalf of the BBC.
It is a shocking statistic that nearly one in five teachers have been hit by a pupil in the past year. What has been interesting is the response to this or how this statistic has been framed. Teachers have offered their own anecdotes, commentators have pointed to changes in society and the two elephants in the room - social media and COVID - have had dishonourable mentions.
I think back at my first teaching post where I had a phrase taken from the song 'The Impossible Dream playing in my head.
Are you willing to walk into hell for a heavenly cause?
It's worth mentioning that this has come at a difficult time in the school calendar. This is the peak time in which schools recruit teachers for the next academic year. This type of report rightfully highlights an issue that needs to be addressed but doesn't frame the profession as a great option. For existing teachers, it reminds us of the struggle that our colleagues face and makes us question what the alternative options might be. The Easter holidays are probably the lesser favourite for a number of reasons. It is likely that secondary school teachers. in particular, will be in school running revision classes for their students or facing a mountain of coursework and NEA marking. The inconsistency of when they fall and the possibility of not matching your own family if their school is in a different county don't help either.
I appreciate that I have been fortunate to work in schools where pupil behaviour has been excellent. Obviously, there are always incidents that happen that are unacceptable need to be dealt with. The mistake we often make is separate schools as those who have a behaviour problem and those who don't and 'never the twain shall meet'. The types of normalised behaviour does differ from school to school and reflect the overall school culture but it's important to have the conversation without judgement. To start this, there are questions that help us understand the issue that we're facing. Most notably, for those teachers who have experienced violence over the part year, was it on one occasion or is it a regular occurrence? Are we dealing with the normalisation of violence against authority in some way? Is this an issue of escalation where individuals are not managing situations they find themselves in?
What is interesting is the demographic of teachers taking part in the survey. When realising that this survey was conducted with 9000 teachers via the Teacher Tapp app, it would be easy to jump to conclusions that those taking part in the survey were younger teachers and less experienced in classroom management. The Teacher Tapp website cites that "among the population of teachers, there are approximately 23% of teachers in their 20s, however among the Teacher Tapp panellists, just 17% say they are in their 20s". It further challenges the notion that this relates to poor classroom management by stating that School Leaders "make up 25% of our panel versus 15% of the teacher population". This paints a different picture of the circumstances of where and when this violence might take place. Senior Leader involvement is much more likely in the corridors or when an incident has been referred to them and emotions become high.
Quite often you hear a call to be tougher on discipline in schools. I hesitate in responding to some of the 'in my day' rhetoric. I look back at my own school experience and my early years as a teacher and remember violence being much more common place than what I've experienced in recent years in the schools I've worked. The notion that this issue can be addressed by the implementation of 'tried and tested' rules or legislation might sound good but doesn't reflect how society changes. We live in a democratised society where people have more ownership over their behaviour and decision-making. We don't live in the three channel TV world, where scheduling tells us what we can watch and when we can watch it. We can personalise our experience. Imposing rules or restrictions generates frustration and something to lash out at.
This is a question of what a school culture is like. This is not something that can be changed through a quick initiative. It takes time and a reframing of what the school experience is. Simply put (and neither the solution or context are simple), if school is something that is done to you, there is a problem. When pupils come in to my lesson, if my focus is on the content that I need to get across to them, I have to be prepared for the resistance. It would be a mistake for me to think that 'this is my lesson', you need to concentrate and learn it and if you don't there will be consequences. This is antagonistic. The values the content of the lesson over the person. Also it sets up a pressured environment, where if you make a mistake, you will be punished. It doesn't accept our imperfections as people. That is not to say that we allow pupils to use their imperfections as a 'get out of jail free card' to legitimise poor behaviour. This is a fixed mindset - "I can't sit still. I can't concentrate. I get anxious when there's silence. I don't like working with other people. I need an outlet for frustration, so I have to lash out." Yet, imposing rules and restrictions that don't reflect a way of working together, don't allow pupils to consider the best way of working together. That is part of their education. When learning content or skills, we accept that they're not going to get 100% all the time but when it comes to behaviour, that's what is expected.
In the National Behaviour Survey carried out by the DfE published in June 2023, they found that 84% of secondary school pupils had said that their school had explained the school rules 'well'. Whilst this can be presented as a positive, that leaves 16% of pupil not understanding the rationale behind some of the school rules and susceptible to breaking those rules. If breaking a rule they don't understand or see the justification for it, they can generate a feeling of injustice which is frustrating. Violence often comes from a point of emotion or frustration that they are being treated unfairly. When asked to respond to the statement "I know how my school expects me to behave", there was a difference between key stages with Key Stage 3 scoring the lowest (90% for years 7-9 compared to 97% in year 12). This may be because there is an assumption that the younger years will behave. Yet in my experience of schools, it is in year 8/9 that we start to identify the individuals who have persistent poor behaviour.
In the Autumn of 2023, the BBC aired a documentary called 'Helping Our Teens'. It focussed on Beacon Hill Academy in Dudley, who has worked with Marie Gentles, a behaviour advisor for the government. The main outcome of the work that they had done together was to dramatically cut the number of exclusions.
In her book, Gentle Guidance, she advocates approaching poor behaviour from a position of understanding and developing relationships. This is what I see in the schools I've been fortunate to work in; regularly discussing the reasons why we expect people to behave in a certain way or what the ramifications are of how we behave. To do this, there needs to be the capacity to listen and allow people to be heard. The school experience is all about relationships.
Violence cannot be accepted. The statistic that shows the prevalence of violence against teachers in schools needs addressing as an example of the extreme behaviour we are seeing, just as the stabbing of the Maths teacher in Tewkesbury Academy in a pre-meditated and unprovoked attack in the school corridor. These instances of violence need to be separated from the day to day behaviours that young people just get wrong. My daughter recently got involved in an incident in the bus stop while leaving college in which she was punched in the face several times. This became a police matter but I was taken aback by the reluctance of the college to be decisive on what cause of action to take, when they told me that they weren't in the habit of criminalising young people. I was not an angry parent hounding for blood but I wouldn't have been afraid to challenge the perpetrator in asking why and then make clear that the excessive use of violence was not the answer, and importantly, this is why it's not the answer.
Using a play on words with her name, Marie Gentles, presents a 'gentle' approach to behaviour which might not sit well with teachers who work in difficult settings. Opponents would say that you punch someone and you get a cup of tea, a biscuit and a chat. However, this is not what is being said. Schools are responsible for establishing and maintaining their own school culture. School Leadership is about recognising how the school culture changes over time and how that culture is communicated to new students, parents and teachers as they join the school community.
Classrooms often have a list of classroom rules. They once contained a list on the wall of instructions all starting with "Don't". These were replaced with lists of 'positive behaviours'. These still drew a line and told pupils that they had to reach it without clarity on how. The list that I prefer (except for the spelling mistake in the fourth line that I've just noticed) is this:
School is where young people learn. They learn content. They learn skills. They learn how to behave in a working environment. Relationships are based on communication and require clarity.
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