Extreme behaviour in Irish schools???

hunnybunny

Hello all,

Been teaching in England for 2 years. My school has definately seen a decline in behaviour even in that short time.
I have seen

children that throw things at people when they are angry .
generally huge amount of back chat in a very rude manner.
a child call the headteacher a "fat b*t"h" and theres worse language than that being used in the classroom on a daily basis (sadly even in Junior infants)
We ve children that physically fight and scar other childrens faces (This is junior and senior infants as well by the way).
a child who tried to strangle another child
a child who threatened a whole class with a scissors
We ve had children attack TAs one 6 year old smacked a TA with a metre stick the other day and left a bruise
Worst of all there are children that simply run out of class when they don t want to do what the teacher is asking them. They often have TAs run after them in order to restrain and bring them back to class.



Many children require constant TA supervision to stop them assaulting other children. Therefore taking away support for the other 29 children as unfair as it.:(



This behaviour is bad enough but there are virtually no exclusions be they permanent or temporary. Why? Because it doesn t look good for Mr Ofsted inspector when he comes round. Also many head teacher who do exclude often have their decisions reversed by the local authorities thus completing undermining the head teachers authority. :rolleyes:

At least our school allows restraint. Others don t and children just run and scream till they get it out of their system but i don t think thats fair on the other 29 kids.




Also parents can be worse than useless at times. They can either get defensive and start shouting and swearing (and we wonder where the kids get it from) or they just shrug and say "what do you expect me to do about it?" Parents are often not held accountable and I think is the root of all the problems.



Also there is still a big thing in England about inclusion. Behaviour units are often a last resort when behaviour is so extreme they can t ever be trusted in a classroom environment. That said there are still risky children in classes but you can t give them all one to one TA support.

I would say what happens in my school is typical of a tough inner city school. Some of the poor children have horrendous backgrounds filled with abuse and fighting. Some come from large families and crave the teachers attention. Some have very under developed social skills.The current junior infants came into us with very limited social skills and find basic concepts like sharing very difficult. Many can t even dress themselves or use a fork properly.

But this is true of every country yes? I am sure there are many areas and families like this in Ireland.

Its been hard but it has given me really good experience of managing challenging behaviour. My behaviour stories often make potential Irish PGCE students faint with shock.

I remember discipline being really good in my school. That said it was a nice school in a leafy Dublin suburb. However when I went back to observe for my PGCE I was so shocked at the decline in behaviour and manners. There was a lot of back chat and children being down right rude to the teacher. My secondary school was even worse. Then again compared to what I ve seen in England it seemed pretty mild.

I would love to know

Generally how would primary teachers describe general behaviour in Irish schools?

Can the principal exclude children easily?

Can teachers physically restrain violent pupils in Ireland?

Are children with major behaviour issues put into mainstream schools or is there an alternative?

Are parents held accountable for childrens behaviour in school?

What I d particularly love to know is how behaviour in poor areas of Ireland compares to my experience? As I have yet to hear stories of extreme behaviour in Irish school.

E.T.

1. Luckily we don't have any major behavioural problems in our school at the moment. There have been serious cases in the past,
but very isolated. I've been teaching nearly ten years and I've definitely seen a slide in general behaviour - lack of respect,
answering back, not listening. All very mild stuff, but it's getting worse every year. What really doesn't help is parents
constantly questioning minor issues, in front of their children, who are most certainly getting the impression that they can
get away with things because Mammy/Daddy will deal with it and sort it out.

2. No, absolutely not..long list of steps to be followed.

3. Not as far as I know.

4. Yes they are put in mainstream schools, and the support is disappearing. SENOs (Special Needs Co-ordinators) can visit a school
which has applied for a Special Needs Assistant, and overrule reports from a variety of professionals who state that the child
NEEDS an SNA.

5. Depends on the principal to an extent. They need to be able to stand up to parents. Very hard to hold parents accountable if
they refuse to accept responsiblity, which is happening more and more. The blame game is happening more and more ie "my child
is being bullied" when everyone in school knows the child in question is bullying others; it's the teacher's fault (when the child has
caused problems throughout the school) etc. As I said earlier, it's often with minor issues, but I really feel this leads to more
serious problems.

hunnybunny

I often wonder is Ireland just at the early stages of these problems,

I think one of the biggest issues in the UK is the family unit has broken down so badly in the past 3 decades.
I really that is only starting in Ireland (seeing as divorce wasn t possible prior to the 90s). Of course there was alot of unhappy marriages and families but I still felt growing up that everyones parents were together and people put up a front (even if it was a false one).

Of course being a majority Catholic country made separation taboo and being promiscious or an unmarried mother or having children by several different fathers would have been an outrage (up until recently anyway)

Its funny most of the children with extreme come from broken homes and have their parents at loggerheads. They are also more likely to be deprived though that is not always the case. They often are one of a big gang of kids sometimes with different men as the fathers.

But of course there the housing and benefits for having a big gang of kids and of course the single mothers allowance. I see some women punching out children as they see it as a way for the government to support them. Yet when they get to school "They are not my responsibility" :rolleyes:



Attention is a big issue. Some of them just get none at home and then demand it in school. I often feel more of a mother and a social worker than a teacher at times.

Dionysus

I was speaking to a guy who's teaching in my school for over 30 years. What he didn't say about Ireland following Britain and the US in this "mixed-ability classes nonsense" isn't worth mentioning. I've never seen him so animated about a topic as he was about Ireland following those countries in a teaching policy which puts exceptionally academically weak students in the same classroom as academically bright kids. All the teachers in the staffroom were in agreement with him.

I have to say that now, despite all the stuff I wrote in the PGDE about mixed ability teaching, I'm inclined to go along with much of his views - particularly since the huge cutbacks in SNAs in our school mean I have to deal with all 30 students in my class at the one time, some six of whom have ADHD or something equally serious, and another @10 who haven't been diagnosed because the school is only entitled to 2 educational psychologist reports (i.e. 2 students) per year. Just this week we finally had an educational psychologist assess a 16-year-old (paid directly out of the ever-depleting school funds). He reported that he had the vocabulary of a 6-year-old, the ability of a 9-year-old but was actually operating at the level of a 10-year-old. All the years and all the classes this kid went undiagnosed.... Words fail me about the current situation.

clartharlear

Dionysus wrote: »

I have to deal with all 30 students in my class at the one time, some six of whom have ADHD or something equally serious, and another @10 who haven't been diagnosed .....

That isn't a mixed ability class. The prevalence of ADHD is about 3-5%. Including all the other 'equally serious' issues, and taking into account co-morbidity, about 10-15% of a mixed class should have SEN. That's 3 or 4 out of 30, not 6-10.

If you actually meant 6+10 = 16 students with SEN, you've said that over 50% of your class are significantly below average learning ability. Statistically speaking, that's not a fair mix.

I just don't want you to be turned against mixed-ability when you haven't really experienced it. And mixed-abilty teaching IS tough! But it's worth it not have the horror (for teacher and student!) of a 'bottom' class.

spurious

As I keep saying in our place, mixed ability is grand when the 'range' is not too big. Putting children with reading ages of 10-14 in a classroom on their own is hard work but worth it, putting the same children with others who do not even register on the scale is just unfair and asking for trouble.

Asking me on top of it all to fill out forms and reports on each child ad nauseum (which no one will ever read), taking learning supports away, cutting my pay, eroding my working conditions, obsessing on examination results, while the hoi polloi armchair experts talk of public servants as the harbingers of all that is evil - it's a recipe for disaster.

gaeilgebeo

Dionysus wrote: »

I was speaking to a guy who's teaching in my school for over 30 years. What he didn't say about Ireland following Britain and the US in this "mixed-ability classes nonsense" isn't worth mentioning. I've never seen him so animated about a topic as he was about Ireland following those countries in a teaching policy which puts exceptionally academically weak students in the same classroom as academically bright kids. All the teachers in the staffroom were in agreement with him.

I have to say that now, despite all the stuff I wrote in the PGDE about mixed ability teaching, I'm inclined to go along with much of his views - particularly since the huge cutbacks in SNAs in our school mean I have to deal with all 30 students in my class at the one time, some six of whom have ADHD or something equally serious, and another @10 who haven't been diagnosed because the school is only entitled to 2 educational psychologist reports (i.e. 2 students) per year. Just this week we finally had an educational psychologist assess a 16-year-old (paid directly out of the ever-depleting school funds). He reported that he had the vocabulary of a 6-year-old, the ability of a 9-year-old but was actually operating at the level of a 10-year-old. All the years and all the classes this kid went undiagnosed.... Words fail me about the current situation.

I completely agree with your colleagues views on mixed ability.
I can now see the effects of it on the current Leaving Certs who were the first "mixed ability" year group.
Both the student at the bottom off the scale in the class suffers, as does the top end student. As for the students in the middle.........
The effects were so bad that we reverted back to streaming 2 years ago.

byhookorbycrook

1)We don't have any major problems. Our discipline policy is framed in the positive, we have student of the week awards, follow restoritative justice and use "golden time." I would agree that since I began teaching over 20 yrs ago that small things have changed, a child corrected 20 yrs ago would have accepted it and moved on, now there might be an arguement from the child and a parent saying you are bullying their child.

2)Almost impossible to exclude a child, even if the steps are all taken correctly . I know of a child who broke a teacher's nose who was back in the school a week later.

3) In primary you can physically restrain a child, but it needs to be as a last resort and to prevent the child injuring themselves/other.

4) Most children with behavioral issue are in mainstream. SNAs are being cut back and it is now almost impossible to get one. Resource hours are being "paused" for new entrants.

5) Many parents of children with behavioural issues will not support the school in any shape or form,so it's impossible to make them "accountable".

boogle

I think the last ten to fifteen years has produced a generation of teenagers that have a massive sense of entitlement, and absolutely no consideration of consequences.

Example:
The last couple of year I've been given (landed with) 6th Foundation Maths. These classes were put together at beginning of 6th Year based of students who failed 5th year maths abysmally (say below 20% on in-house exams) Every year, a large group of these students throw a wobbler when told they will be following Foundation Level. These would be students who did NOTHING for all of 5th year, poor attenders, no homework etc etc. They do not make the link that performing badly for one half of their LC cycle results in not being able to take OL maths.

Maybe it's a Celtic Tiger hangover...

spurious

boogle wrote: »

I think the last ten to fifteen years has produced a generation of teenagers that have a massive sense of entitlement, and absolutely no consideration of consequences.

Example:
The last couple of year I've been given (landed with) 6th Foundation Maths. These classes were put together at beginning of 6th Year based of students who failed 5th year maths abysmally (say below 20% on in-house exams) Every year, a large group of these students throw a wobbler when told they will be following Foundation Level. These would be students who did NOTHING for all of 5th year, poor attenders, no homework etc etc. They do not make the link that performing badly for one half of their LC cycle results in not being able to take OL maths.

Maybe it's a Celtic Tiger hangover...

You must be a crap teacher - or a 'foreign'.:D

Send them to the Institute and they'll all get As...um, apparently.
<shakes head>

boogle

spurious wrote: »

You must be a crap teacher


<shakes head>

That's entirely possible!

LilMsss

I realise I'm not a primary school teacher, but here are my experiences of teaching in inner city Dublin.

I taught in an inner city boy's secondary school in a very tough area, but the code of discipline was so tight, and actively enforced that there weren't too many major problems. The students knew there were consequences and most importantly consistency when they misbehaved. That's not to say they were all little angels, but generally discipline issues were minor, and the school had a good reputation based on this.

I now teach in an inner city Youthreach centre (15-20 year olds) --- extreme and challenging behaviour is the norm - nothing shocks me anymore --- just about all of the examples of extreme behaviour mentioned by the OP (and more) happen regularly.

But that is the nature of the job I am in, and most of the students I teach were either expelled from school, or simply stopped attending for whatever reason, and some were even in juvenile detention centres before being referred to us. Even by YR standards, the centre I work in is a tough one.

Despite all of those things, it is still a relatively enjoyable place to work --- most of the time students are amiable, in good form and working. One of the key things in YR is to build relationships with the students - very different to primary school, I know. We reason with students, use gentle persuasion, i.e. if we get through this section, we can have music for the last few minutes of class etc. and financial penalties - (they get a training allowance) when they misbehave, send them out of class, give warnings, suspend, and in extreme cases expel. Most of the incidents we would have are minor.

Our discipline code is good, but to be honest, not good enough, and not consistently enforced, but that is a management issue that I won't go into here. From my experience, it very much depends on the centre, students, and how discipline, and the centre itself is managed.

YR often get students with extremes of behaviour, who either have difficulty, or else cannot be in a traditional classroom setting, and it's our job to find a non-traditional method of teaching that works for them, and doesn't negatively impact the education of the other students in that class.

I realise that you would expect most of the above issues, given the profile and backgrounds of our students, but I am shocked that the OP is experiencing disruptive behaviour to the extent mentioned at primary level!!!!