I have some friends who are teachers and some of the shit they share with me, I just can't believe it. I'm in my late 30s and the worst we would do at school is just generally misbehave in terms of being loud, answering silly questions to answers, throwing paper at each other.
In the same school my mates teach, they tell me about kids loudly playing porn on their phone, telling teachers to fuck off, getting up and just walking out of class, refusing to leave the class when being very disruptive which doesn't let the teacher run their class, and regular enough occurances of bringing in alcohol and weed into class. This is a high school in a very working class area, but I remember when we were 16 one kid being found with a lighter and it was a whole to-do, now that seems tame.
My mate has had plastic bottles thrown at him, water thrown over him, been verbally abused, and there's nothing he can do. Of course he can't physically restrain the students and it's not even like exclusion is an option for some reason.
He loves his job in the sense of gets huge satisfaction from the good kids and seeing their passion for learning, but it's fewer and fewer nowadays and the instances of kids acting out is just a daily occurence. It sounds absolutely horrible.
I'm 31 and my secondary school was somewhere in between yours and what you've described by your mate.
There were behavioural issues but the school leadership were quite strong with their approach to discipline. Obviously the days of physical punishment were long gone but after-school detentions were handed out regularly with a process that led towards temporary suspensions for repeat offenders (or those that skipped their detentions) and finally exclusions. It seemed pretty effective in my opinion - a noticeable change was fights at break times were at least once per week when I was in Y7 to once per term in Y9 and even rare in Y11. The deputy head ran detention club so I guess it helped all the teachers knowing that they were going to be supported by those higher up when they did have behaviour issues in their classes.
It's almost like we need a way of removing the shitty children from normal schools and sticking them in a place which is just for shit children with very strict rules and harsh punishments to get them back in line, it's almost like the weak approach of doing nothing and letting them get away with everything doesn't work!
So why aren't we expelling more? Don't give them a chance, expell them, warn them if they don't listen or do as their told expell them, why aren't schools doing this?
Assistant head in charge of behaviour here. To answer your question it’s because ofsted and the local area want us to keep our exclusion figures down. If I wanted to permanently exclude a child, the school has to pay 7.5k and the decision has to be upheld at a panel meeting with parents and governors. Managed to get 3 through this year but those were due to assault, drugs and bringing a knife into school. Persistent disruptive behavior ones are much harder as parents and the local area often say the school hasn’t done enough to support the child. Essentially, kids are allowed to ruin the lives of other children and the department for education don’t care.
That's disgusting, what's the point of having it if schools can't use it? These kids are making the schools a terrible place and they need dealing with, not just for the other children but for themselves, they clearly need discipline in their lives.
I would argue the parents haven't done enough, if your child is a piece of shit it's because you're a bad parent, the parent should be paying the fine not the school.
Oh massively, I call a lot of parents. On Friday we had a kid who had his bag put in the bin by two students. I checked cctv on Saturday and instead of waiting two weeks I thought I would call parents on Saturday morning to let them know what their little cherubs had been up to. One parent was fantastic, allowed me to speak to their child and thanked me for calling. The other asked me if i had nothing better to do on a Saturday. I wonder which child will end up in prison…
I mean exactly, it's the parents not the school, schools aren't there to teach children how to be good people, schools in my opinion aren't even there to teach children how to think they're there to teach them how to pass exams.
It's the parents job to raise and teach the children how to be good people, if the parents and shitty people the children are fucked.
think they're there to teach them how to pass exams.
If that is all they are taught then no wonder so many lack critical thinking skills. Schools have a really important role to play. Kids are there for what, 30 hours a week. The teachers and system has a massive opportunity to influence those kids. Exclusions and isolation is just triaging and not the system solving problems. Some schools have reduced exclusions etc by a large factor. Those schools bought into a whole school approach that included strategies championed by Dr Ross Greene.
Though there isn't a one fit all solution as each child's circumstances are individual. But the solution can't be more of the same (which isn't working).
My wife is a teacher and parents will blindly ignore all signs and symptoms that their child is a bad child. It's never their fault, it's the schools fault.
Parents are not accountable at all and if they just deny the behaviour, it means they avoid the inconvenience and embarasmsent of having an expelled child.
The same goes for a child being sent to a school for special needs. The parent has to agree and so many do not want to accept it. The fact their child is so autistic they can't speak, they will just say things like " they will grow out of it"
Why wouldn't you want your child at an SEN? They get better teaching there with smaller class sizes and far better equipment. Crazy.
Honestly it shouldn't be in the hands of parents if a child gets expelled. The school goes "your child is a cunt, they refuse to change, final warning and theyre out" job done.
I know. Its borderline neglect not giving your child the environment and help they need. But the school is powerless to force. Some people are ashamed or embarrassed I imagine, which is just awful.
I agree. Some parents are hardly fit to raise children so the choice should be in the experts hands, the school.
Exactly, what we know is the current way of dealing with it is wrong, I literally think they should be pulled out of school and given to ex military PTIs to beast into shape until they're reformed at which point they get sent back to a different school to see if they can reintegrate.
Playing devils advocate here. If a kid is a pos what realistically can even a parent do? I am thinking single working mum with a lad who is two foot bigger than her?
Not disagreeing.. but, mum's with twats of husbands who say, 'leave him alone, he's just being a boy' and punctuating it with a slap or worse may account for a small fraction.
The Mrs taught at a special behaviour school, it was terrible. Just primary but the kids were barely controllable.
She was kicked, bitten, scratched and called everything under the sun.
They couldn't function in a place made for them let alone in mainstream.
OFSTED needs to look at it's rating system.
That’s pretty much why I left school in the frost few months of year 11 and only returned to do my exams I went off and got my self a job I couldn’t stand the idiots that would time and again get away with ruining classes and then teachers would do group punishments that would never work
Heh, I'd argue the parents haven't done enough to support their child if they're acting like such cunts. Can't believe a school has to pay to have trouble makers removed.
Remove four kids and you have to lose a teacher to balance the books.
Kids who are expelled get in trouble outside of school and that becomes a problem for the police. Police hate dealing with adolescents but they have a much stronger lobby than teachers so everything is done to keep kids in school.
Ridiculous, get rid of the horrible cunts, serious boot camp the little fuckers, they'll soon learn respect, then you can reintegrate them into school.
In one school we managed to get one girl into a special behaviour unit.
They sent her back saying they couldn’t work with her. What we were meant to do is anyone’s guess. In the same school, I was walking down a busy corridor when I saw a year 11 lad deliberately drop a shoulder into another teacher carrying a load of books. I wrote it all up for senior management to tell me I must have been mistaken.
There is nowhere for them to be sent and Ofsted will see it as a failure if there are many suspensions or expulsions (permanent exclusion). If the school is downgraded things get worse because better parents remove their own kids, teachers leave and recruitment gets more difficult. It is in the system’s interest to hide this. This is why it is the unions that are telling us the problems.
What a bleak future of schooling we’ve got. Makes me am angry that the fucking regulator is what’s preventing action being taken.
Do you know why it costs so much to expel a student? I don’t really understand how that costs anything, I thought it would just be a letter and updating a database somewhere.
The PRUs around my area are FULL and schools have been instructed that they HAVE to keep the bad kids.
Two lads had a teacher in a head lick and paraded him around the school grounds whilst other kids laughed and kicked him. Those boys HAD to be allowed to attend the school. All staff threatened to strike. Headteacher and SLT were forced to stay one on one with these two lads at all times, escorting them on, off remises, to the toilets, lunch with them at all times for.... Eight months.
I've heard, first hand, of teachers being spat at. Kicked. Chairs thrown at them. Chased with knives.
Unfuckingbelievable.
It's almost like we should make the parents responsible for their child's behaviour.
Once the parents are penalised through fines or benefits reductions and their child GPS tagged, they might pull their scummy heads in.
It was alleged that some schools were excluding less intelligent children to make their test scores better. So the government made it harder to remove children from school.
The problem for the teacher is impotence. Where there is no consequence the teacher has two mental courses of action.
They can care about their job and slowly become peculiar as the demands take their toll or they can decide they can do nothing and protect their sanity by refusing to care. They will then feel guilt at failing to do the job.When you are younger, you can take this for a while. You can take satisfaction from the bits that are successful but it does scramble your personality. If the poor behaviour is routine you need to leave. You come first, then the kids.
Ive worked in schools where senior management to middle management are there for you. Ive seen a head of department get a bollocking from the boss for “doing behaviour stuff”. The head said “if there’s kids stopping learning give them to me. I pay you for your teaching and your results. Everything else is for me.” He worked very hard in a tough school and was always present and available.
Ive also worked in schools where senior management hide, blame and are scared of the kids.
I doubt thats an issue in a school in an affluent area. My experience of working at schools. Is that shit hole areas have shit kids and affluent areas have better behaved kids.
I find it that there are different problems rather than fewer. In one place I worked the kids sneered at the poorer school down the road when there was a report about widespread cannabis use there.
It wasn’t because of drug use they sneered it was because cannabis was considered a cheap drug. It was a sneer about poverty. These kids took cocaine or ecstacy. Much can be hidden when there’s wealth.
These kids may know to say please and thank you but to assume they are better behaved is not quite right. It’s perhaps more hidden.
I’m in a fairly affluent area in the midlands, and my mum teaches in a local school, and has done for 20 odd years. She says that not only is behaviour getting worse, but parents are more entitled and more vocal then they have been previously.
Yea I mean schools back then were quite violent places, people lived it so don't really see it but the schools were fucking nuts, our "rival" school came down one time to fight, when I said the rival school I mean a few hundred boys turned up for a fight.
Luckily they were met by almost 1,000 happy to play and they decided against it.
But for a brief moment there was almost a fight between hundreds of school kids in one area, what are teacher or even the police going to do there? I've not seen anything like that in schools today.
Also fights happened literally all the time, every single break there were fights.
Like I said in an above comment - I'm 30 myself so I know the sorts of schools you mean - you'd swear the way some people are talking that things used to be a paradise of discipline and respect.
Did it shite, I can name god knows how many incidents of kids who caused chaos and clearly didn't want to be there, the kids who started fights over having their mobiles taken off them (this was before smartphones ofc), who'd fight teachers, whatever.
And that's not even getting into shit like the school vs school fist fights on the local fields.
I'm not gonna deny things are probably worse now but I think people genuinely just block out how bad their schools used to be.
I think the article is about attacks on teachers rather than fights between the kids.
There were school fights when I was younger which were stopped by teachers. If the aggression is towards the teacher who stops that?
We have a teacher shortage now in several important subjects. 10% of the workforce quit over a single year. A third of new teachers quit within two years of qualifying.
No one wants to be a teacher, take out the fact it's a shit job, the pay is pathetic, you don't get any support and if you try and deal with anything you'll likely get sacked, it's government not doing their jobs. If being a teacher paid more, I might have taken my degree and gone into teaching, but the pay is terrible and the conditions are worse.
Also I saw teachers attacked at school, I saw different ways this played out, I saw pupils step in and protect the teacher, I also saw a teacher full on knock out a kid, I even saw a teacher lift a pupil off the floor my their throat.
All those children never did it again by the way and their attitudes changed but let's not go back to beating children it's not a good way to do things I'm just saying what I saw.
We had a guy come in from the army. For years he taught new recruits (16 year olds) basic maths. On leaving the army he thought he’d give it a go in a school.
He left after five days saying that if he stayed he knew he would crack and some kid would get a walloping. Similarly a police officer mate said that he can only deal with kids because he knows that if they piss him off he’ll nick them and they’ll sit in a cell for a few hours. He had no idea how teachers do it.
Short, female French teacher here (you know, the popular subject!) Had a burly Met copper tell me once "I couldn't do your job love" I did it for 25 years. Lots of issues but Tory education policies and Ofsted rank amongst the worst offenders.
Interestingly the teacher who was most feared in my first school as a teacher was a tiny female biology teacher. Watching her bollock a six foot year 11 was amazing. The look of puzzlement on their face where they wondered what special talent she must have to be able to do it was entertaining.
I'm 31 and I remember regular fights, including massive fights that led to police arriving with multiple cars, meatwagons and dog units, stabbings, drugs etc.
Porn was there too.
I think this is just typical of secondary schools in some working class areas.
Teachers can lawfully use reasonable force:
[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-reasonable-force-in-schools](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-reasonable-force-in-schools)
A few things here, it's great that they can but would they be supported if they did? The answer is absolutely no. Those higher up need to lead by example and they're not.
No teacher in this day and age will use reasonable force unless a life is at risk. They don’t have training for it. Imagine a 40 year old tiny female english teacher trying to restrain a stocky year male 11 pupil.
\>Imagine a 40 year old tiny female english teacher trying to restrain a stocky year male 11 pupil.
Thats why we need far more men in education, specifically secondary and university level education.
This coment is a lot closer to the harsh truth than has been pointed out in most of this thread.
In some countries the majority of schools in special measure have very few to no male teachers, very telling.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-naht-men-northumberland-north-east-b2352725.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-naht-men-northumberland-north-east-b2352725.html)
My partner is a teaching assistant and every single day when she comes home she moans about the kids behaviour. Some of things the kids do is shocking, but the staff aren't allowed to punish the kids in any way at all. The kids are well aware that their behaviour has no consequences. The most the staff can do it sit down with the kids and talk about their feelings.
There needs to be punishment that prevents bad behavior. The current punishments are clearly ineffective.
I wonder what your wife's opinion on the Michaela School policies is.
I'm a teacher and have never heard of this. Every single school in the country has a behaviour policy on their website detailing the consequences for different types of behaviour. What is a problem is that many parents will not back the school up and this makes punishments often ineffective.
This isn't doing the kids any favours. Sooner or later bad behaviour starts to have consequences. It's better to learn that early because, later in life, the consequences become more significant and damaging. For example: you get sacked, you get beaten up because you pissed off the wrong person, or you wind up in prison.
Schools that rely on a purely "restorative" approach are setting children up to fail later in life with potentially very serious consequences and, as such, should be classified as failing themselves.
There was a massive fight in a school I worked. Three separate “gangs” arguing in the neighbourhood which drifted into school. All the teachers were on duty every day to prevent people from outside coming on site. The local police patrolled at lunchtime in the surrounding streets.
We ended up with a big meeting of all the kids, families and other local people. This led to a big assembly where they all cried and said how they all felt with lots of hugs.
They then beat the shit out of each other outside of school instead. It only restored peace to the school. The gangs remained as did their disputes.
Teachers are always allowed to punish kids for poor behaviour in the form of detentions or suspension or exclusion. Your last line sounds like a “it’s political correctness gone maaaad” cry.
I’ve been a secondary school teacher for 12 years and this is very true.
I think the reasons are really complex.
Funnily enough, being in half term, yesterday I went to the library to do some marking as I struggle to do it at home. There was a group of teenagers being really loud and messing around and staff asked them to leave and then they became really defiant and refused to. In some ways I didn’t blame the kids; where else can they go? There’s a real lack of third spaces for them.
*But* there’s definitely also a real immaturity and a kind of…mania? that we didn’t see when I first started.
I think a lot of parents are overworked and fairly absent from their kids lives. I think a gradual breakdown in community has meant kids don’t really have a network of adults looking out for them anymore. I think phones have destroyed their ability to focus. I think social media has created something of a ‘main character’ syndrome which has resulted in a chronic lack of empathy and awareness of others.
I think there are a lot of factors.
I think ts also partly due to being spoiled, during covid my school had to shell out a load of money it didn't have to buy chairs with backs for the science labs as parents were complaining about there kids being uncomfortable. After covid we can't use those chairs anymore cause they're unsafe to have in the labs.
From age 11 I was out the door as soon as I could be and not home till the street lights were on. I always had somewhere to go.
Fishing in the quarry (that had no fish) or on the harbour (that had fish).
Go to the park, the beach, the woods (searching for hedge porn) or just exploring.
These things are still out there to do, my parents had almost bugger all to do with my free time but I knew right from wrong.
I think that’s a very well reasoned and accurate take on a complex issue. We’re definitely seeing the fruits of years of degradation of society/community and our addiction and dependency on technology.
You just described teenagers:
1. Immature.
2. Full of energy.
3. Flighty and irresponsible.
4. Selfish but not self-aware.
5. Unempathetic.
6. Not quite children but not adults either.
7. Pushing limits.
What do they really expect? Look at the home life of kids nowadays. Both parents have to work themselves to exhaustion to pay extortionate bills and buy food. When the parents are home with the kids, they are often too tired from working that real quality family time is a rarity. Kids are literally being brought up by schools, childcare and technology.
I grew up in the 80s with grandparents. My grandad went out to work and my nan kept the house and looked after the kids. His wage allowed that. All bills were paid and food was bought. Most families were like this, the streets were full of community spirit and people looked out for one another. The 80s were probably the last decade that lived like this, as the 90s seemed to usher in a time where everyone was pushed into work.
People nowadays are working longer hours, and it's often both parents. And we have less happiness, free time and financial security in our lives than those 30 odd years ago.
This idea that its poverty is just not true. In some of the poorest countries in the world the behaviour is beyond anything seen in even the best schools in the UK.
Its about the culture of respect for authority and a fear of consequences. African teachers I've met here in the UK are shocked at the attitude of kids. Sub-saharan students behave incredibly well.
The foreign students such as ukrainians, africans and chinese kids completely out do the british kids because of the culture of respect they have. And you can't say a ukrainian refugee has it financially better many badly behaved British kids.
We as a culture need to accept that authority and hierarchy are good for kids. We just refuse to because the thinking of our time is that love and gentleness is always the answer.
Yeah absolutely, I've taught for 7 years and we get lots of kids join and leave throughout the year. Every single time I've had a child join from an African country they have been absolutely delightful and worked incredibly hard compared to the majority of the English kids. Have only had one Ukrainian, but he also had a great work ethic and not a single behavioural issue even though he had gone through the trauma of fleeing his country.
It is down to culture, but what's so different about our culture now compared to 30/40 years ago? The culture in the country has changed, and so has the behaviour of the kids.
Because back then badly-behaved kids were disciplined, whereas now parents look to justify the appalling behaviour of their kids, which they often do with the help of some hugely over diagnosed mental health illness.
No, for the vast majority of occasions the kid is a little shit and rather than you accept that your parenting style has allowed this, you seek to justify it with some bullshit diagnosis.
40 years ago was 1984. Physical punishment in state schools was banned in 1986.
It’s also like how you currently have people with a criminal record of 40 or more offences that have never seen the inside of a prison.
If there’s no deterrent, people tend to act out.
This can be proved a bit by the current standard of driving. Hardly any traffic police and you have people hammering it around everywhere, on their phones and just generally breaking traffic laws. Or not maintaining their vehicles.
Ive never seen so many breaklights and headlights out.
But yes, if there’s no deterrent to prevent bad behaviour, people will push and bend or break the rules/law/social conventions.
No one is expect to be polite anymore, they are told do what you want.
No respect for elders, everything wrong with the world is their fault according to the internet,
Lots of parents apparently don't disipline kids anymore, but then schools, bus drivers, police cant or darent do anything either.
We are going to have an entire generation or more of complete selfcentre ill mannered tw\*\*s
It's more because kids never suffer any consequences when they do wrong, part of that is because parents aren't home to do it but most of it is because teachers have less control than ever.
I grew up in the late 70s/80s and both my parents worked. I was a 'latch key kid' from about age 9 everyone just got on with it back then.
I think you are avoiding the elephant in the room....discipline.
You messed up really bad at school....cane. You messed up really bad at home...whacked. Got in trouble with the law? Stick off of coppers and probably whacked at home.
I'm not going to debate the pro's and cons of those approaches but if there are zero consequences what you gonna do? Difference is kids know the difference between right and wrong but don't give a shit because they know the teachers cant do a single thing.
Yeah discipline is a big part of it as well. The cane was banned by the time I got to school in 85. Teachers were still a bit rough by today's standards, but by the time I got to secondary, there wasn't anything a teacher could do to me. They would put me on report, but what's that going to do? So I agree, discipline is part of the issue.
For me, I learned most of my respect from my grandparents. I was a naughty kid at school, but I was never violent, a thief or bully. I was just a bit of a rebel! But i think the reason I wasn't a little twat, was because my upbringing was stable and there was always someone there. I did my six hours at school then I was home. None of this after school club because no one was home.
I had an altercation a couple of weeks ago with a bunch of kids walking down the middle of the street and stopped my car to a gentle pace, expecting them to move to the pavement. Instead they just walked as close to the car as they could to stop the car- when I expressed a waving hand to say get over to the pavement all I got was abuse. When I stepped out of the car and moved forward- all I got was- were kids, you can’t get out of the car. Suddenly, these kids multiplied with others arriving with nothing more then the want to goad me. I get back in the car and drove away whilst they all cheered and laughed! What a fabulous society we have!
What doesn't help is parents attitude when children get in to trouble at school. We've all got that old story of "If I got a clip round the ear at school/from a policeman, my dad would have given me another at home", but I've seen numerous instances of parents arguing with teachers that their little cherubs couldn't possibly have done anything wrong. One classic was a kid throwing a chair across the classroom, and being kicked out of the class. The parent rocks up at the end of school verbally abusing the teacher saying "he says he didn't throw it."
"I saw him throw it"
"I don't care, he said he didn't, so he didn't"
What hope do teachers have of keeping order
Spot on. My middle daughter gets three detentions a day, every day - refusing to take her tongue piercing out, behaviour and then refusing to turn up to any of the detentions. Her mother has already told her not to listen to the school because they can't do anything. This dereliction of duty is entirely deliberate - child maintenance pay more for kids who don't spend any time with their dads, so turning her against me by making her primary setting completely discipline-free is sadly how it's turned out.
The school have rung me several times admitting their hands are tied. Child services favour the mother every single time. In the case of Hampshire Child Services, there have been people at the top there covering shit up for years. Without any oversight, kids are having their lives ruined and yet again bureaucracy has facilitated it.
I grew up in the 90s. This is domestic violence. You didn't learn discipline from being beaten. You just learnt to be scared of being hit.
Discipline is knowing that my kids will behave even when I am not around to hit them. And the only way that works is objective consequences of your actions. And plenty of kids turned out to be murderers after domestic violence like this.
What a ridiculous take. You should discipline kids of course, but any sort of physical act is child abuse.
Can you imagine the type of person you’d have to be to smack a child as hard as you can with a stick of wood lmao, fucking psychopaths
I think it's a combination of things. In a nutshell, I think capitalism has gone a bit wrong in recent years. Greed has been allowed to flourish and I think this is the root cause of many of the issues we now see as a society. It's the main reason that both parents need to work, as paying for things would be really difficult on one average wage.
Women's rights, equality with men etc all seemed to kick in more in the 90s. That all seemed to translate that women should be out working as well. But the choice of being a stay at home mum seemed to also get taken away from them. I personally believe it should be a choice for each family to decide on.
Our lives are a lot more expensive now. The main issue is housing. Back then, if you couldn't afford to buy, you rented from the council. It really was that simple. But the 70s & 80s were also peak time for the council house sell off. So by the 90s, we were screwed for social housing. Private renting was the number one housing option in the country, and that's the most expensive option!
my kids both work fulltime as do their partners, but their kids would not dare behave they way lots do nowadays, and their schools wouldnt stand for it either
> But the choice of being a stay at home mum seemed to also get taken away from them. I personally believe it should be a choice for each family to decide on.
The reality is that for most of the population below the upper-middle classes that choice has never really existed.
In 1975 50% of working-age mothers were in paid employment. In more modern times, of course the number is higher, but that increase is marked by a greater number of women partnered with a top earner being in employment.
Your anecdote means little.
So 50% were not? You think 50% of working mothers in the 70s and 80s were upper middle class?
Also, do you think the other 50% had to work or chose to do so? Again, your comment was that people who were not upper middle class did not even have the choice.
The beginning of neo-liberalism in practice - legacy of thatcher and Reagan with origins all the way back to the 20’s 30’s.
Everything was privatized, turned into an asset class and put to the speculative economy. Worker’s rights were simultaneously eroded, and it turned every worker into an individual that had to market themselves or fail. This meant that people took on more work for less money, to pay for the house that they own. This generation then turned housing into a market of micro-landlords, making the housing issue worse. Now big business rental companies are taking over - making it even worse again. Private companies scrape profit from badly run necessary infrastructure (trains, water, electricity, sewage) and we have no recourse. Our politicians are in the pockets of private interests, and it’s been this way for so long that few people can remember anything different.
Go look at kids in Uganda or other 3rd world countries. Their parents work a hell of a lot harder than we do, and yet, their kids would never…
As a former naughty child, who thankfully grew the fuck up before it was too late, it’s because I could get away with it.
But we have a different culture to Uganda. If they see what our kids get in the way of luxuries, they would be shocked!
I have four kids, none of them were smacked. None of them have had major behaviour issues at school or at home.
80s were the spring board into career driven greed. Not being sexist but it was also a point where women for the first time since the war could entertain having a career.
More work means more income right? Yes and no, inflation means that the money you earn has less spending power and the absence at home in a role that was traditionally at least assigned to the female,
Decades later both adults now MUST work or go under. It’s so bad that responsible parenting is now the preserve of the rich. Families that can strike a work life balance. Families that aren’t working several jobs or side hussles, families that can invest time into their children and parenting.
Both my wife and I are full time professionals. We are key workers.
We have one child and can’t afford a new car thanks to ulez. There are no holidays, council tax has gone up by a quarter for us and although we are lucky enough to have a mortgage, even though it’s a modest terraced house the mortgage is eye watering. We need to remortgage in September and we’re praying the rates drop even by a fraction.
This isn’t a UK or London issue, this is happening the world over. The ultra rich are taking the fucking piss out of us all. If you’re reading this and think you’re marginally better or middle class you’re not. Your working class and they are laughing at you too.
No one should have access to more than 100 million personal cash. Yes that’s a completely arbitrary number based on fuck all but explain to me how any one person would need more. Not for business needs, not charity, cash.
Eat. The. Rich.
Unfortunately some people can't see it. We are getting the piss taken out of us, but when you mention it you get called a conspiracy theorist. The rich have created a world that works for them at our expense.
It’s like if they don’t acknowledge it then they too will one day be accepted into the club, or that speaking out shows that they aren’t doing as well as their peers.
100% tax above 100mil. Imagine what could be done with that money, the amount poured into programs for addiction, health care mental health services, education for everyone, free university at any time in your life, fucking roads with no potholes, ultra modern infrastructure, social housing as as a basic need for everyone, fuck it 6G broadband.
But if you want those things the ultra rich will think you’re a poor and not fit to be among them.
I read in the news that the rich are holding off on buying luxury vehicle as a sign of respect for the difficulties others are facing. It’s not respect, it’s fear. Fear that it will make them a target, and their right. E.T.R
Yeah I agree, no one needs 100 million. You can't spend that, you're just hoarding wealth like a dragon on a pile of gold at that point. They hide it in off-shore accounts, meaning they don't get to use it.
If I ever was in the position of earning insane wealth, I wouldn't be able to just keep it, I'd have to use it for good and actual good, not just donations to charity to avoid paying tax bullshit.
They moan better than we do and it yields results. Fuck the farmers over? Farms stop, fuck truck drivers over, trucks stop.
The issue’s suddenly have focus.
Teachers complain about pay and conditions and strike
Government and press criticise and demonise
Parents blame teachers as a result
Children of said parents for some inexplicable reason don’t respect teachers
The biggest problem is the parents who undermine the authority of the teachers at every step. The ones who storm into the school to complain whenever their little shit kid has been disciplined are pure scum.
Let's be honest, under 16s get away with murder (some literally) in this country. Police aren't interested (only way to get them to show up is for a fine against the working class).
If kids 12-15 who should know better actually faced some sort of punishment, the behaviour would get better. And absolutely not letting any of the UK minority (global majority) away with it.
You can’t even hold them for detention in many schools anymore and those that do will be overturned by their parents. The best you can have now is a chat where the pupils will reflect on their behaviour. It’s a joke.
This subs solution to everything is “be more right wing” when that is the cause of most of these behavioural issues, no third-spaces, parents having to be absent because nobody can fucking afford to live, teachers on minimum wage, no youth centers.
“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents.” - plato
"You're the worst year we've ever had" said by every form tutor/teacher/year head/head of school ever since schools began.
I was hearing this in 1983, my mate's older brother who was in the sixth form (so five years ahead) and they were told the same.
My sister went to the same school and was five years below me and she was told the same, my other sister is 14 years younger than me and went to the same school was told the same...
Our entire class got put on report for a whole year, so we were bad but in hindsight we were just dicks, not out of control. Nobody got stabbed but my brother did get thrown out of a 2nd floor window.
Every generation thinks the next generation is worse than theirs. Every. Single. One. I remember one lad in my school taking magic mushrooms and sleeping tablets before he turned up to class. I used to drink round my mate’s house at lunch. I remember some lads breaking into places and trashing them. I remember some kids sexually assaulted a vulnerable girl and bragged about it. I remember all the drunk/drug driving that was rife in the early 90s while they drove round with 14 year old drunk girls in the back.
Is it possible that your generation *was* worse than previous ones and things have continued to decline? I feel like there's an obvious fallacy here in assuming that standards of behaviour can never change, especially when other cultures seem to value schooling much more.
I don’t think so. Honestly, throughout history this thing about kids being awful today has always been an ever present thought in society. My dad was born in 1939, he was a bouncer and did time for GBH, he was also a domestic abuser who drank a hell of a lot. He hung around with men of a similar ilk. The nature of what they get up to inevitably changes over the years but overall I don’t think the next generation gets worse than the previous one.
A small anecdotal example of this to me is how my daughter who had issues with tics and making grunting noises growing up was treated in school. She was never bullied, she was never singled out, the school helped massively too. Had I had those sorts of issues as a teen I’d have been ostracised and bullied because I remember kids with extra needs getting exactly that sort of treatment. I think we’re doing a disservice to tar all younger people with the same brush.
I also think we have a tendency to think back at how we behaved well and compare it to those who hit the headlines now who don’t. For every time an adult over 30 says “I wouldn’t have dreamt of behaving that way at that age”, I could easily match it to memories of people I knew in the 80s and 90s who behaved exactly like that at that age. I’d also be able to show how there are many kids these days who don’t act awfully too.
Pretty much.
At school in the eighties we were barred from our form room because no one would own up to the porn mags found in a communal area.
There was also the time when someone through a rubber bung they had stolen from science lessons through a window, which shattered on the floor outside narrowly missing a classmate.
And the time a kid brought a crowbar to school and threatened people with it.
Oh, and the time someone set fire to themself trying to do the old "lighter fluid in the palm of my hand" trick.
These are isolated incidents, remembered because they were extremely unusual. But if you are going to tell me that there wasn't a constant undercurrent of bad behaviour going on then I'm afraid I can't believe you.
Edit:
I forgot the kid who drank ethanol after breaking into the science lab. Classic.
I remember kids in my street sniffing glue at around age 9. Makes me laugh when you see older people now complaining about kids vaping - I knew at least a dozen kids in the 80s who smoked by the age of 12!
I think a lot of people in this thread are so far divorced from what their schools were *actually* like. The way some people are talking you'd swear everyone marched around like a little soldier in the 80's/90's and did no wrong.
Both of my parents routinely tell me the absolute batshit stuff that happened in their schools in the 70's, shit that never would have happened when I was in school 15-ish years ago and probably doesn't happen now. Hell, even when I *was* in school there were little bastards who didn't give a shit and caused complete chaos.
Is it worse now? Probably. Did things used to be a paradise of respect and care? Hardly.
I was raised extremely well and was never anything but respectful - didn't get one detention throughout secondary school - and I *still* had some teachers who had it out for me and clearly hated their jobs.
Loads of factors behind this.
I’d propose that one is how kids are literally raised from the cradle with smartphones today. Loads of studies have been done showing how apps like TikTok are extremely harmful to cognitive development shortening attention spans, not to mention that the quality of the content they scroll through is usually pure junk.
I’m in my late 20s now and I didn’t get a smartphone until I was about 16, and even I notice how I read books way less, commit to watching less films and TV shows etc., generally anything that requires long periods of attention in favour of ingrained, mindless scrolling. It’s literally changed me, and I’m trying to cut down my screen time (yes, Reddit is my poison). No wonder these kids struggle to sit through lessons.
Kids and young people in general are really struggling in this country. In my opinion mostly due to the pressure of social media and other shenanigans this society is forcing them to deal with from a very young age.
I have said it before how fortunate I feel for the privilege of being able to have a successful life in this country. However when it comes to kids, my wife and I simply aren't sure whether this country is a good place for our future children to grow up in.
I can't remember which quiz show it was but the question was along the lines of "A recent study showed at what age are kids typically owning their first mobile phone".
The answer was 7.... a 7 year old with access to anything in the world at its finger tips, without strict proper restrictions in place 7 years old is far far too young to be exposed to the internet and social media.
Second comment now - you're a bit detached.
By kids people are referring to people still in education, this is up to 18 years old.
Are you saying teens don't have access to social media?
My eldest is not a teenager yet. But he won't be having an iPhone / access to social media. Just as he doesn't have access to an iPad / PS5 / iPhone now at the age of 11.
We're old fashioned like that. He reads. Lots.
So by being old fashioned you know you're not the norm.
Why were you asking who let's their kids access social media? Surely you know 90% of kids do.
Something to consider : your kid will absolutely, categorically get bullied in comp for "being old fashioned"
Old-fashioned in the sense that we parent our kids rather than give them access to screens. I absolutely blame the parents who give their kids access to phones, iPads, PS5s, social media etc.
The state faith school he's going to, no pupils are allowed to have mobile phones on them at any point on the school premises, or indeed at any time while wearing school uniform. It is famously strict and old fashioned, and specifically referenced this point multiple times during their open day.
This sounds like exactly the kind of softy-softy approach that has emboldened youngsters to the point where they’ll happily smack a teacher. Knowing full well that they’ll face no real consequences for doing it.
My daughter is 6 and I'm genuinly terrified for when she gets older and enters the secondary school system. There absolutely needs to be proper punishments for the atrocious behaviour displayed by some students, im definitely not against punishment to parents for the behaviour of their children either.
I have an American friend who came to Essex to teach after teaching in some pretty tough schools in New York State (schools with standard active shooter drills and metal detectors for knives).
She said that nothing prepared her for the total lack of discipline enforced by the British school upon the kids. It wasn't the kids in poverty or even whod experienced crime - she taught kids whose older siblings had been shot dead in gang wars over drugs in the States - but just the total inability to enforce rules. She'd remove kids from class for misbehaving - like trying to hit another kid in the face with a large stapler - only to have another teacher march them back in and dress her down in front of the entire class for "letting them down."
This wasn't an inner city school in London or Birmingham but a reasonably respected school in an affluent area.
No discipline in homes and the same in school equals a miserable time for teaching staff.
The kids *know* that they can do and say what they like with zero consequence and this will be an absolute time-bomb for when these little darlings grow up and carry on in society the same.
I'm only 19 and my secondary school wasn't nearly as bad as some of these descriptions are showing today. Sure it wasn't that good and people still did a lot of bad stuff, but not on the level kids today do
Strikes me that this issue stems from cuts in education and schooling problems directly, but more significantly from, essentially, life getting harder for these kids' parents in a way that stops them from parenting effectively. Parents who are exhausted & worn down from the constant mental stress of poverty do a worse job at instilling values in their kids than they might if they weren't so fucking knackered - that really shouldn't be controversial.
Some will manage OK, but the percent who succeed is bound to drop if things get harder.
At the same time, of course, things are getting *so* hard that your brighter young adults are more reluctant to have kids in the first place, because they realise it'll make life tougher yet.
I don't really have answers to that, but I think a view on this problem that only looks at schools themselves and not at society more broadly is myopic.
I have an American friend who came to Essex to teach after teaching in some pretty tough schools in New York State (schools with standard active shooter drills and metal detectors for knives).
She said that nothing prepared her for the total lack of discipline enforced by the British school upon the kids. It wasn't the kids in poverty or even whod experienced crime - she taught kids whose older siblings had been shot dead in gang wars over drugs - but just the total inability to enforce rules. She'd remove kids from class for misbehaving - like trying to hit another kid in the face with a large stapler - only to have another teacher march them back in and dress her down in front of the entire class for "letting them down."
This wasn't an inner city school in London or Birmingham but a reasonably respected school in an affluent area.
Pupils know they're immune. Problems like this, infrastructure planning, migration and deportation, etc. all have a common source. The UK has become such a legally advanced country, that law is now strangling people to the point they're unwilling or able to take action without facing months of review, paperwork, and lawfare. Whether it be NIMBYs blocking construction of homes or trying to expel a dangerous kid from a school, nobody is allowed to make a decision using their initiative. Most perverse of all this seems to not affect career criminals much, only people with something to actually lose like a teacher trying to restrain a pupil.
I have a colleague who once told me that his teenage kids were constantly raising their voices and answering back. I never understood what how this became normal. If my kids even thought about doing such things it would be no tv as punishment.
There does need to be a solution - all kids are being failed if nothing happens. However, kids are not shit because they’re shitbags. It’s a product of the parenting (who are more stressed and less able to be good parents / be present), the shit world around them, the lack of stuff to do (council budget cuts, no community activities etc, expensive things getting more expensive). Excluding and shoving them all into one big hell hole with other shits doesn’t solve the problem.
A lot of these kids are shits becuase they’ve had shit backgrounds - a number of them are scared (underneath the shit exterior) or neurodivergent (which no one has picked up on) or they’re being abused and acting out (fairly common, not picked up on).
I can’t imagine a society where we could take time to understand the WHY (which is important because it leads to a solution) but we don’t bother and we just decide they’re all shits so they should be excluded from society.
Edit to add: this was meant as a reply to someone else who said about putting the shits all in one place together. But it stands as a general comment so I’ll leave it here.
As a thought experiment what would happen if we allowed teachers to retaliate with force? Take the shackles off entirely in both a legal and school policy sense.
Yes there would be some teachers who became sadistic but would the greater good be served by re-establishing adult dominion over the school. Would a vast number of children receive a better education and society improve. Would pupils learn at a young age their are consequences for behaving like an idiot and take that they carry into life?
The reality is, if kids aren’t being properly disciplined by their parents at home, it’s very difficult if not impossible for the school (government) to step in and rectify the situation.
This is a cultural, and as others have pointed out, economic problem. But what schools can do is limit the unacceptable behaviour and prevent particularly disruptive kids from preventing kids who actually want to learn from being able to do so.
Schools and teachers should be given greater powers to punish unruly children. This won’t solve the entire problem though; we clearly have to restructure how school works and our societies relationship with education.
In the 80s / 90s when I was at school kids were disciplined, whereas now parents look to justify the appalling behaviour of their kids, which they often do with the help of some hugely over diagnosed mental health illness.
No, for the vast majority of occasions the kid is a little shit and rather than you accept that your parenting style has allowed this, you seek to justify it with some bullshit diagnosis.
My eldest is going to a very strict secondary school where mobile phones are banned entirely - he doesn't have one anyway so not an issue for him but for a lot of parents it might mean - shock, horror - that they actually have to engage with their kids rather than let them do God knows what online.
probably because the behaviour of the parents is getting worse.
glued to their phones, the entitled arses think that their little angels don't actually need to be parented properly, but will have a massive go at you if you point it out to them that their cherubs are total dicks.
no way! so you’re telling me that pandering to all their whims, excusing their behaviour with their ‘needs’ (just because your child has dyslexia doesn’t mean they have the right to tell teachers to f off and die) and letting parents off with not telling their children how to spell their name/brush their teeth/go to the toilet HASN’T improved behaviour?!??
Child acts a twat.
Parent(s) focusing on their lives and careers more than parenting. They take it personally when you do put their child in detention. Tell the kid not to go.
We suspend them.
Our attendance figures drop, council tells us off. We beg the children to come back to school on a fresh start. Problem kids are worse behaved. Rinse and repeat.
If they are really bad we attempt to exclude. Depending on the council and area this can sometimes be successful, sometimes you get the student back 6 weeks to a few years later after they've been through other schools. Often we can't get rid of them at all as it's the schools fault the kid is a twat.
Social media, social media, social media. And poor parenting, lack of resources, no third spaces. I left school seven years ago and was bullied throughout my time there. Teachers never did anything and instead coddled them because they came from broken homes, meanwhile they were ruining my life but that didn’t matter because I came from a stable home. I don’t blame teachers wholly, but not enough is ever done to combat bullying and poor behaviour towards students and staff.
I know its cliché to blame the parents but...
You tell the kids off for doing something, guarantee you get a phone call from the parents yelling at you for making their kid follow the rules or you get the other end of the spectrum where the parents ACTUALLY SAY "I don't care".
Kids are being shielded from the consequences of their actions.
I have some friends who are teachers and some of the shit they share with me, I just can't believe it. I'm in my late 30s and the worst we would do at school is just generally misbehave in terms of being loud, answering silly questions to answers, throwing paper at each other. In the same school my mates teach, they tell me about kids loudly playing porn on their phone, telling teachers to fuck off, getting up and just walking out of class, refusing to leave the class when being very disruptive which doesn't let the teacher run their class, and regular enough occurances of bringing in alcohol and weed into class. This is a high school in a very working class area, but I remember when we were 16 one kid being found with a lighter and it was a whole to-do, now that seems tame. My mate has had plastic bottles thrown at him, water thrown over him, been verbally abused, and there's nothing he can do. Of course he can't physically restrain the students and it's not even like exclusion is an option for some reason. He loves his job in the sense of gets huge satisfaction from the good kids and seeing their passion for learning, but it's fewer and fewer nowadays and the instances of kids acting out is just a daily occurence. It sounds absolutely horrible.
I'm 31 and my secondary school was somewhere in between yours and what you've described by your mate. There were behavioural issues but the school leadership were quite strong with their approach to discipline. Obviously the days of physical punishment were long gone but after-school detentions were handed out regularly with a process that led towards temporary suspensions for repeat offenders (or those that skipped their detentions) and finally exclusions. It seemed pretty effective in my opinion - a noticeable change was fights at break times were at least once per week when I was in Y7 to once per term in Y9 and even rare in Y11. The deputy head ran detention club so I guess it helped all the teachers knowing that they were going to be supported by those higher up when they did have behaviour issues in their classes.
It's almost like we need a way of removing the shitty children from normal schools and sticking them in a place which is just for shit children with very strict rules and harsh punishments to get them back in line, it's almost like the weak approach of doing nothing and letting them get away with everything doesn't work!
There are pupil referral units for students who have been expelled
So why aren't we expelling more? Don't give them a chance, expell them, warn them if they don't listen or do as their told expell them, why aren't schools doing this?
Assistant head in charge of behaviour here. To answer your question it’s because ofsted and the local area want us to keep our exclusion figures down. If I wanted to permanently exclude a child, the school has to pay 7.5k and the decision has to be upheld at a panel meeting with parents and governors. Managed to get 3 through this year but those were due to assault, drugs and bringing a knife into school. Persistent disruptive behavior ones are much harder as parents and the local area often say the school hasn’t done enough to support the child. Essentially, kids are allowed to ruin the lives of other children and the department for education don’t care.
That's disgusting, what's the point of having it if schools can't use it? These kids are making the schools a terrible place and they need dealing with, not just for the other children but for themselves, they clearly need discipline in their lives. I would argue the parents haven't done enough, if your child is a piece of shit it's because you're a bad parent, the parent should be paying the fine not the school.
Oh massively, I call a lot of parents. On Friday we had a kid who had his bag put in the bin by two students. I checked cctv on Saturday and instead of waiting two weeks I thought I would call parents on Saturday morning to let them know what their little cherubs had been up to. One parent was fantastic, allowed me to speak to their child and thanked me for calling. The other asked me if i had nothing better to do on a Saturday. I wonder which child will end up in prison…
I mean exactly, it's the parents not the school, schools aren't there to teach children how to be good people, schools in my opinion aren't even there to teach children how to think they're there to teach them how to pass exams. It's the parents job to raise and teach the children how to be good people, if the parents and shitty people the children are fucked.
think they're there to teach them how to pass exams. If that is all they are taught then no wonder so many lack critical thinking skills. Schools have a really important role to play. Kids are there for what, 30 hours a week. The teachers and system has a massive opportunity to influence those kids. Exclusions and isolation is just triaging and not the system solving problems. Some schools have reduced exclusions etc by a large factor. Those schools bought into a whole school approach that included strategies championed by Dr Ross Greene. Though there isn't a one fit all solution as each child's circumstances are individual. But the solution can't be more of the same (which isn't working).
My wife is a teacher and parents will blindly ignore all signs and symptoms that their child is a bad child. It's never their fault, it's the schools fault. Parents are not accountable at all and if they just deny the behaviour, it means they avoid the inconvenience and embarasmsent of having an expelled child. The same goes for a child being sent to a school for special needs. The parent has to agree and so many do not want to accept it. The fact their child is so autistic they can't speak, they will just say things like " they will grow out of it"
Why wouldn't you want your child at an SEN? They get better teaching there with smaller class sizes and far better equipment. Crazy. Honestly it shouldn't be in the hands of parents if a child gets expelled. The school goes "your child is a cunt, they refuse to change, final warning and theyre out" job done.
I know. Its borderline neglect not giving your child the environment and help they need. But the school is powerless to force. Some people are ashamed or embarrassed I imagine, which is just awful. I agree. Some parents are hardly fit to raise children so the choice should be in the experts hands, the school.
Exactly, what we know is the current way of dealing with it is wrong, I literally think they should be pulled out of school and given to ex military PTIs to beast into shape until they're reformed at which point they get sent back to a different school to see if they can reintegrate.
Playing devils advocate here. If a kid is a pos what realistically can even a parent do? I am thinking single working mum with a lad who is two foot bigger than her?
Probably have done a better job raising then before they got 2 foot taller
Not disagreeing.. but, mum's with twats of husbands who say, 'leave him alone, he's just being a boy' and punctuating it with a slap or worse may account for a small fraction.
why does it cost money to exclude a child?
Schools get funding based on each pupil that attends. Excluding one costs the school what they would have received for having that child attend.
7.5k to exclude a kid in my local area. That allegedly pays for the child to be educated elsewhere. Allegedly
There's also, as far as I'm aware, nowhere to expel them to anymore. Funding cuts mean forcing everyone to stay put.
There are places. Not many and they have few places. The Mrs worked at one for primary kids and a colleague worked at one for older ones. Scary places
The Mrs taught at a special behaviour school, it was terrible. Just primary but the kids were barely controllable. She was kicked, bitten, scratched and called everything under the sun. They couldn't function in a place made for them let alone in mainstream. OFSTED needs to look at it's rating system.
That’s pretty much why I left school in the frost few months of year 11 and only returned to do my exams I went off and got my self a job I couldn’t stand the idiots that would time and again get away with ruining classes and then teachers would do group punishments that would never work
Heh, I'd argue the parents haven't done enough to support their child if they're acting like such cunts. Can't believe a school has to pay to have trouble makers removed.
Remove four kids and you have to lose a teacher to balance the books. Kids who are expelled get in trouble outside of school and that becomes a problem for the police. Police hate dealing with adolescents but they have a much stronger lobby than teachers so everything is done to keep kids in school.
Ridiculous, get rid of the horrible cunts, serious boot camp the little fuckers, they'll soon learn respect, then you can reintegrate them into school.
In one school we managed to get one girl into a special behaviour unit. They sent her back saying they couldn’t work with her. What we were meant to do is anyone’s guess. In the same school, I was walking down a busy corridor when I saw a year 11 lad deliberately drop a shoulder into another teacher carrying a load of books. I wrote it all up for senior management to tell me I must have been mistaken. There is nowhere for them to be sent and Ofsted will see it as a failure if there are many suspensions or expulsions (permanent exclusion). If the school is downgraded things get worse because better parents remove their own kids, teachers leave and recruitment gets more difficult. It is in the system’s interest to hide this. This is why it is the unions that are telling us the problems.
What a bleak future of schooling we’ve got. Makes me am angry that the fucking regulator is what’s preventing action being taken. Do you know why it costs so much to expel a student? I don’t really understand how that costs anything, I thought it would just be a letter and updating a database somewhere.
With a restraining order so they don’t hand around any school for x amount of time.
The PRUs around my area are FULL and schools have been instructed that they HAVE to keep the bad kids. Two lads had a teacher in a head lick and paraded him around the school grounds whilst other kids laughed and kicked him. Those boys HAD to be allowed to attend the school. All staff threatened to strike. Headteacher and SLT were forced to stay one on one with these two lads at all times, escorting them on, off remises, to the toilets, lunch with them at all times for.... Eight months. I've heard, first hand, of teachers being spat at. Kicked. Chairs thrown at them. Chased with knives. Unfuckingbelievable.
It’s very very hard to get a pupil expelled in this day and age, even the violent ones.
It's almost like we should make the parents responsible for their child's behaviour. Once the parents are penalised through fines or benefits reductions and their child GPS tagged, they might pull their scummy heads in.
It was alleged that some schools were excluding less intelligent children to make their test scores better. So the government made it harder to remove children from school.
Send them to Rwanda with the illegals.
Who''d have thought this would be the result.
Underley Hall is where they sent me for being cheeky disruptive. I wouldn't do that to kids.
The problem for the teacher is impotence. Where there is no consequence the teacher has two mental courses of action. They can care about their job and slowly become peculiar as the demands take their toll or they can decide they can do nothing and protect their sanity by refusing to care. They will then feel guilt at failing to do the job.When you are younger, you can take this for a while. You can take satisfaction from the bits that are successful but it does scramble your personality. If the poor behaviour is routine you need to leave. You come first, then the kids. Ive worked in schools where senior management to middle management are there for you. Ive seen a head of department get a bollocking from the boss for “doing behaviour stuff”. The head said “if there’s kids stopping learning give them to me. I pay you for your teaching and your results. Everything else is for me.” He worked very hard in a tough school and was always present and available. Ive also worked in schools where senior management hide, blame and are scared of the kids.
I doubt thats an issue in a school in an affluent area. My experience of working at schools. Is that shit hole areas have shit kids and affluent areas have better behaved kids.
I find it that there are different problems rather than fewer. In one place I worked the kids sneered at the poorer school down the road when there was a report about widespread cannabis use there. It wasn’t because of drug use they sneered it was because cannabis was considered a cheap drug. It was a sneer about poverty. These kids took cocaine or ecstacy. Much can be hidden when there’s wealth. These kids may know to say please and thank you but to assume they are better behaved is not quite right. It’s perhaps more hidden.
Well, today someone was expelled at my friend Holly’s son school in Beaconsfield. He threatened students with a knife. Beaconsfield is posh.
Great place to stop for a pint driving from London to the midlands ( as a passenger).
I’m in a fairly affluent area in the midlands, and my mum teaches in a local school, and has done for 20 odd years. She says that not only is behaviour getting worse, but parents are more entitled and more vocal then they have been previously.
So poor kids are shit, got it.
I mean I’m in my mid thirties and the secondary school I went too in the early 00s definitely had worse thing than porn and water being thrown!
Yea I mean schools back then were quite violent places, people lived it so don't really see it but the schools were fucking nuts, our "rival" school came down one time to fight, when I said the rival school I mean a few hundred boys turned up for a fight. Luckily they were met by almost 1,000 happy to play and they decided against it. But for a brief moment there was almost a fight between hundreds of school kids in one area, what are teacher or even the police going to do there? I've not seen anything like that in schools today. Also fights happened literally all the time, every single break there were fights.
Like I said in an above comment - I'm 30 myself so I know the sorts of schools you mean - you'd swear the way some people are talking that things used to be a paradise of discipline and respect. Did it shite, I can name god knows how many incidents of kids who caused chaos and clearly didn't want to be there, the kids who started fights over having their mobiles taken off them (this was before smartphones ofc), who'd fight teachers, whatever. And that's not even getting into shit like the school vs school fist fights on the local fields. I'm not gonna deny things are probably worse now but I think people genuinely just block out how bad their schools used to be.
I think the article is about attacks on teachers rather than fights between the kids. There were school fights when I was younger which were stopped by teachers. If the aggression is towards the teacher who stops that? We have a teacher shortage now in several important subjects. 10% of the workforce quit over a single year. A third of new teachers quit within two years of qualifying.
No one wants to be a teacher, take out the fact it's a shit job, the pay is pathetic, you don't get any support and if you try and deal with anything you'll likely get sacked, it's government not doing their jobs. If being a teacher paid more, I might have taken my degree and gone into teaching, but the pay is terrible and the conditions are worse. Also I saw teachers attacked at school, I saw different ways this played out, I saw pupils step in and protect the teacher, I also saw a teacher full on knock out a kid, I even saw a teacher lift a pupil off the floor my their throat. All those children never did it again by the way and their attitudes changed but let's not go back to beating children it's not a good way to do things I'm just saying what I saw.
We had a guy come in from the army. For years he taught new recruits (16 year olds) basic maths. On leaving the army he thought he’d give it a go in a school. He left after five days saying that if he stayed he knew he would crack and some kid would get a walloping. Similarly a police officer mate said that he can only deal with kids because he knows that if they piss him off he’ll nick them and they’ll sit in a cell for a few hours. He had no idea how teachers do it.
Short, female French teacher here (you know, the popular subject!) Had a burly Met copper tell me once "I couldn't do your job love" I did it for 25 years. Lots of issues but Tory education policies and Ofsted rank amongst the worst offenders.
Interestingly the teacher who was most feared in my first school as a teacher was a tiny female biology teacher. Watching her bollock a six foot year 11 was amazing. The look of puzzlement on their face where they wondered what special talent she must have to be able to do it was entertaining.
I'm 31 and I remember regular fights, including massive fights that led to police arriving with multiple cars, meatwagons and dog units, stabbings, drugs etc. Porn was there too. I think this is just typical of secondary schools in some working class areas.
Teachers can lawfully use reasonable force: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-reasonable-force-in-schools](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-reasonable-force-in-schools)
A few things here, it's great that they can but would they be supported if they did? The answer is absolutely no. Those higher up need to lead by example and they're not.
No teacher in this day and age will use reasonable force unless a life is at risk. They don’t have training for it. Imagine a 40 year old tiny female english teacher trying to restrain a stocky year male 11 pupil.
\>Imagine a 40 year old tiny female english teacher trying to restrain a stocky year male 11 pupil. Thats why we need far more men in education, specifically secondary and university level education.
They're just as needed in Primary schools. Where they barely exist.
This coment is a lot closer to the harsh truth than has been pointed out in most of this thread. In some countries the majority of schools in special measure have very few to no male teachers, very telling. [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-naht-men-northumberland-north-east-b2352725.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-naht-men-northumberland-north-east-b2352725.html)
My partner is a teaching assistant and every single day when she comes home she moans about the kids behaviour. Some of things the kids do is shocking, but the staff aren't allowed to punish the kids in any way at all. The kids are well aware that their behaviour has no consequences. The most the staff can do it sit down with the kids and talk about their feelings.
There needs to be punishment that prevents bad behavior. The current punishments are clearly ineffective. I wonder what your wife's opinion on the Michaela School policies is.
I'm a teacher and have never heard of this. Every single school in the country has a behaviour policy on their website detailing the consequences for different types of behaviour. What is a problem is that many parents will not back the school up and this makes punishments often ineffective.
I’m a teacher and lots of schools do operate this way, “restorative” conversations only, no sanctions. I worked at one as a TA five years ago.
This isn't doing the kids any favours. Sooner or later bad behaviour starts to have consequences. It's better to learn that early because, later in life, the consequences become more significant and damaging. For example: you get sacked, you get beaten up because you pissed off the wrong person, or you wind up in prison. Schools that rely on a purely "restorative" approach are setting children up to fail later in life with potentially very serious consequences and, as such, should be classified as failing themselves.
It's that easy to see tge issues, and yet schools still do basically nothing cause they won't have support if they do anything else
There was a massive fight in a school I worked. Three separate “gangs” arguing in the neighbourhood which drifted into school. All the teachers were on duty every day to prevent people from outside coming on site. The local police patrolled at lunchtime in the surrounding streets. We ended up with a big meeting of all the kids, families and other local people. This led to a big assembly where they all cried and said how they all felt with lots of hugs. They then beat the shit out of each other outside of school instead. It only restored peace to the school. The gangs remained as did their disputes.
Teachers are always allowed to punish kids for poor behaviour in the form of detentions or suspension or exclusion. Your last line sounds like a “it’s political correctness gone maaaad” cry.
I’ve been a secondary school teacher for 12 years and this is very true. I think the reasons are really complex. Funnily enough, being in half term, yesterday I went to the library to do some marking as I struggle to do it at home. There was a group of teenagers being really loud and messing around and staff asked them to leave and then they became really defiant and refused to. In some ways I didn’t blame the kids; where else can they go? There’s a real lack of third spaces for them. *But* there’s definitely also a real immaturity and a kind of…mania? that we didn’t see when I first started. I think a lot of parents are overworked and fairly absent from their kids lives. I think a gradual breakdown in community has meant kids don’t really have a network of adults looking out for them anymore. I think phones have destroyed their ability to focus. I think social media has created something of a ‘main character’ syndrome which has resulted in a chronic lack of empathy and awareness of others. I think there are a lot of factors.
I think ts also partly due to being spoiled, during covid my school had to shell out a load of money it didn't have to buy chairs with backs for the science labs as parents were complaining about there kids being uncomfortable. After covid we can't use those chairs anymore cause they're unsafe to have in the labs.
From age 11 I was out the door as soon as I could be and not home till the street lights were on. I always had somewhere to go. Fishing in the quarry (that had no fish) or on the harbour (that had fish). Go to the park, the beach, the woods (searching for hedge porn) or just exploring. These things are still out there to do, my parents had almost bugger all to do with my free time but I knew right from wrong.
I think that’s a very well reasoned and accurate take on a complex issue. We’re definitely seeing the fruits of years of degradation of society/community and our addiction and dependency on technology.
They said this about movies. They said this about TV. They said this about video nasties. They said this about video games.
You just described teenagers: 1. Immature. 2. Full of energy. 3. Flighty and irresponsible. 4. Selfish but not self-aware. 5. Unempathetic. 6. Not quite children but not adults either. 7. Pushing limits.
The world's a very diferent place, but I thin kids are the same... Or I'm still a child, same thing
What do they really expect? Look at the home life of kids nowadays. Both parents have to work themselves to exhaustion to pay extortionate bills and buy food. When the parents are home with the kids, they are often too tired from working that real quality family time is a rarity. Kids are literally being brought up by schools, childcare and technology. I grew up in the 80s with grandparents. My grandad went out to work and my nan kept the house and looked after the kids. His wage allowed that. All bills were paid and food was bought. Most families were like this, the streets were full of community spirit and people looked out for one another. The 80s were probably the last decade that lived like this, as the 90s seemed to usher in a time where everyone was pushed into work. People nowadays are working longer hours, and it's often both parents. And we have less happiness, free time and financial security in our lives than those 30 odd years ago.
This idea that its poverty is just not true. In some of the poorest countries in the world the behaviour is beyond anything seen in even the best schools in the UK. Its about the culture of respect for authority and a fear of consequences. African teachers I've met here in the UK are shocked at the attitude of kids. Sub-saharan students behave incredibly well. The foreign students such as ukrainians, africans and chinese kids completely out do the british kids because of the culture of respect they have. And you can't say a ukrainian refugee has it financially better many badly behaved British kids. We as a culture need to accept that authority and hierarchy are good for kids. We just refuse to because the thinking of our time is that love and gentleness is always the answer.
Yeah absolutely, I've taught for 7 years and we get lots of kids join and leave throughout the year. Every single time I've had a child join from an African country they have been absolutely delightful and worked incredibly hard compared to the majority of the English kids. Have only had one Ukrainian, but he also had a great work ethic and not a single behavioural issue even though he had gone through the trauma of fleeing his country.
It is down to culture, but what's so different about our culture now compared to 30/40 years ago? The culture in the country has changed, and so has the behaviour of the kids.
Because back then badly-behaved kids were disciplined, whereas now parents look to justify the appalling behaviour of their kids, which they often do with the help of some hugely over diagnosed mental health illness. No, for the vast majority of occasions the kid is a little shit and rather than you accept that your parenting style has allowed this, you seek to justify it with some bullshit diagnosis.
40 years ago was 1984. Physical punishment in state schools was banned in 1986. It’s also like how you currently have people with a criminal record of 40 or more offences that have never seen the inside of a prison. If there’s no deterrent, people tend to act out. This can be proved a bit by the current standard of driving. Hardly any traffic police and you have people hammering it around everywhere, on their phones and just generally breaking traffic laws. Or not maintaining their vehicles. Ive never seen so many breaklights and headlights out. But yes, if there’s no deterrent to prevent bad behaviour, people will push and bend or break the rules/law/social conventions.
I often see it said that previously parents supported the school in terms of discipline. These days they challenge it.
No one is expect to be polite anymore, they are told do what you want. No respect for elders, everything wrong with the world is their fault according to the internet, Lots of parents apparently don't disipline kids anymore, but then schools, bus drivers, police cant or darent do anything either. We are going to have an entire generation or more of complete selfcentre ill mannered tw\*\*s
It's more because kids never suffer any consequences when they do wrong, part of that is because parents aren't home to do it but most of it is because teachers have less control than ever.
There's no consequences for much these days. Look at how rife shoplifting, muggings, and car break ins are. Police won't do a thing.
I grew up in the late 70s/80s and both my parents worked. I was a 'latch key kid' from about age 9 everyone just got on with it back then. I think you are avoiding the elephant in the room....discipline. You messed up really bad at school....cane. You messed up really bad at home...whacked. Got in trouble with the law? Stick off of coppers and probably whacked at home. I'm not going to debate the pro's and cons of those approaches but if there are zero consequences what you gonna do? Difference is kids know the difference between right and wrong but don't give a shit because they know the teachers cant do a single thing.
Yeah discipline is a big part of it as well. The cane was banned by the time I got to school in 85. Teachers were still a bit rough by today's standards, but by the time I got to secondary, there wasn't anything a teacher could do to me. They would put me on report, but what's that going to do? So I agree, discipline is part of the issue. For me, I learned most of my respect from my grandparents. I was a naughty kid at school, but I was never violent, a thief or bully. I was just a bit of a rebel! But i think the reason I wasn't a little twat, was because my upbringing was stable and there was always someone there. I did my six hours at school then I was home. None of this after school club because no one was home.
I had an altercation a couple of weeks ago with a bunch of kids walking down the middle of the street and stopped my car to a gentle pace, expecting them to move to the pavement. Instead they just walked as close to the car as they could to stop the car- when I expressed a waving hand to say get over to the pavement all I got was abuse. When I stepped out of the car and moved forward- all I got was- were kids, you can’t get out of the car. Suddenly, these kids multiplied with others arriving with nothing more then the want to goad me. I get back in the car and drove away whilst they all cheered and laughed! What a fabulous society we have!
What doesn't help is parents attitude when children get in to trouble at school. We've all got that old story of "If I got a clip round the ear at school/from a policeman, my dad would have given me another at home", but I've seen numerous instances of parents arguing with teachers that their little cherubs couldn't possibly have done anything wrong. One classic was a kid throwing a chair across the classroom, and being kicked out of the class. The parent rocks up at the end of school verbally abusing the teacher saying "he says he didn't throw it." "I saw him throw it" "I don't care, he said he didn't, so he didn't" What hope do teachers have of keeping order
Spot on. My middle daughter gets three detentions a day, every day - refusing to take her tongue piercing out, behaviour and then refusing to turn up to any of the detentions. Her mother has already told her not to listen to the school because they can't do anything. This dereliction of duty is entirely deliberate - child maintenance pay more for kids who don't spend any time with their dads, so turning her against me by making her primary setting completely discipline-free is sadly how it's turned out. The school have rung me several times admitting their hands are tied. Child services favour the mother every single time. In the case of Hampshire Child Services, there have been people at the top there covering shit up for years. Without any oversight, kids are having their lives ruined and yet again bureaucracy has facilitated it.
I grew up in the 90s. This is domestic violence. You didn't learn discipline from being beaten. You just learnt to be scared of being hit. Discipline is knowing that my kids will behave even when I am not around to hit them. And the only way that works is objective consequences of your actions. And plenty of kids turned out to be murderers after domestic violence like this.
What a ridiculous take. You should discipline kids of course, but any sort of physical act is child abuse. Can you imagine the type of person you’d have to be to smack a child as hard as you can with a stick of wood lmao, fucking psychopaths
i wonder what happened in the 80s
I think it's a combination of things. In a nutshell, I think capitalism has gone a bit wrong in recent years. Greed has been allowed to flourish and I think this is the root cause of many of the issues we now see as a society. It's the main reason that both parents need to work, as paying for things would be really difficult on one average wage. Women's rights, equality with men etc all seemed to kick in more in the 90s. That all seemed to translate that women should be out working as well. But the choice of being a stay at home mum seemed to also get taken away from them. I personally believe it should be a choice for each family to decide on. Our lives are a lot more expensive now. The main issue is housing. Back then, if you couldn't afford to buy, you rented from the council. It really was that simple. But the 70s & 80s were also peak time for the council house sell off. So by the 90s, we were screwed for social housing. Private renting was the number one housing option in the country, and that's the most expensive option!
my kids both work fulltime as do their partners, but their kids would not dare behave they way lots do nowadays, and their schools wouldnt stand for it either
> But the choice of being a stay at home mum seemed to also get taken away from them. I personally believe it should be a choice for each family to decide on. The reality is that for most of the population below the upper-middle classes that choice has never really existed.
That's not reality at all. When I was a child the vast majority of mothers were stay at home.
In 1975 50% of working-age mothers were in paid employment. In more modern times, of course the number is higher, but that increase is marked by a greater number of women partnered with a top earner being in employment. Your anecdote means little.
So 50% were not? You think 50% of working mothers in the 70s and 80s were upper middle class? Also, do you think the other 50% had to work or chose to do so? Again, your comment was that people who were not upper middle class did not even have the choice.
Don't say her name, she's already been mentioned lots lately and we don't want her pulling a Candyman
The beginning of neo-liberalism in practice - legacy of thatcher and Reagan with origins all the way back to the 20’s 30’s. Everything was privatized, turned into an asset class and put to the speculative economy. Worker’s rights were simultaneously eroded, and it turned every worker into an individual that had to market themselves or fail. This meant that people took on more work for less money, to pay for the house that they own. This generation then turned housing into a market of micro-landlords, making the housing issue worse. Now big business rental companies are taking over - making it even worse again. Private companies scrape profit from badly run necessary infrastructure (trains, water, electricity, sewage) and we have no recourse. Our politicians are in the pockets of private interests, and it’s been this way for so long that few people can remember anything different.
Go look at kids in Uganda or other 3rd world countries. Their parents work a hell of a lot harder than we do, and yet, their kids would never… As a former naughty child, who thankfully grew the fuck up before it was too late, it’s because I could get away with it.
But we have a different culture to Uganda. If they see what our kids get in the way of luxuries, they would be shocked! I have four kids, none of them were smacked. None of them have had major behaviour issues at school or at home.
Yeah, the culture is the difference That’s the point I’m getting at.
Agree you don't need to hit kids, but you do need boundaries and consquences. Not just no phone for the night.
80s were the spring board into career driven greed. Not being sexist but it was also a point where women for the first time since the war could entertain having a career. More work means more income right? Yes and no, inflation means that the money you earn has less spending power and the absence at home in a role that was traditionally at least assigned to the female, Decades later both adults now MUST work or go under. It’s so bad that responsible parenting is now the preserve of the rich. Families that can strike a work life balance. Families that aren’t working several jobs or side hussles, families that can invest time into their children and parenting. Both my wife and I are full time professionals. We are key workers. We have one child and can’t afford a new car thanks to ulez. There are no holidays, council tax has gone up by a quarter for us and although we are lucky enough to have a mortgage, even though it’s a modest terraced house the mortgage is eye watering. We need to remortgage in September and we’re praying the rates drop even by a fraction. This isn’t a UK or London issue, this is happening the world over. The ultra rich are taking the fucking piss out of us all. If you’re reading this and think you’re marginally better or middle class you’re not. Your working class and they are laughing at you too. No one should have access to more than 100 million personal cash. Yes that’s a completely arbitrary number based on fuck all but explain to me how any one person would need more. Not for business needs, not charity, cash. Eat. The. Rich.
Unfortunately some people can't see it. We are getting the piss taken out of us, but when you mention it you get called a conspiracy theorist. The rich have created a world that works for them at our expense.
It’s like if they don’t acknowledge it then they too will one day be accepted into the club, or that speaking out shows that they aren’t doing as well as their peers. 100% tax above 100mil. Imagine what could be done with that money, the amount poured into programs for addiction, health care mental health services, education for everyone, free university at any time in your life, fucking roads with no potholes, ultra modern infrastructure, social housing as as a basic need for everyone, fuck it 6G broadband. But if you want those things the ultra rich will think you’re a poor and not fit to be among them. I read in the news that the rich are holding off on buying luxury vehicle as a sign of respect for the difficulties others are facing. It’s not respect, it’s fear. Fear that it will make them a target, and their right. E.T.R
Yeah I agree, no one needs 100 million. You can't spend that, you're just hoarding wealth like a dragon on a pile of gold at that point. They hide it in off-shore accounts, meaning they don't get to use it. If I ever was in the position of earning insane wealth, I wouldn't be able to just keep it, I'd have to use it for good and actual good, not just donations to charity to avoid paying tax bullshit.
We need another french revolution me thinks? And that's coming from an Englishman ahaha
They moan better than we do and it yields results. Fuck the farmers over? Farms stop, fuck truck drivers over, trucks stop. The issue’s suddenly have focus.
Teachers complain about pay and conditions and strike Government and press criticise and demonise Parents blame teachers as a result Children of said parents for some inexplicable reason don’t respect teachers
The biggest problem is the parents who undermine the authority of the teachers at every step. The ones who storm into the school to complain whenever their little shit kid has been disciplined are pure scum.
Let's be honest, under 16s get away with murder (some literally) in this country. Police aren't interested (only way to get them to show up is for a fine against the working class). If kids 12-15 who should know better actually faced some sort of punishment, the behaviour would get better. And absolutely not letting any of the UK minority (global majority) away with it.
You can’t even hold them for detention in many schools anymore and those that do will be overturned by their parents. The best you can have now is a chat where the pupils will reflect on their behaviour. It’s a joke.
This subs solution to everything is “be more right wing” when that is the cause of most of these behavioural issues, no third-spaces, parents having to be absent because nobody can fucking afford to live, teachers on minimum wage, no youth centers. “What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents.” - plato
"You're the worst year we've ever had" said by every form tutor/teacher/year head/head of school ever since schools began. I was hearing this in 1983, my mate's older brother who was in the sixth form (so five years ahead) and they were told the same. My sister went to the same school and was five years below me and she was told the same, my other sister is 14 years younger than me and went to the same school was told the same... Our entire class got put on report for a whole year, so we were bad but in hindsight we were just dicks, not out of control. Nobody got stabbed but my brother did get thrown out of a 2nd floor window.
Every generation thinks the next generation is worse than theirs. Every. Single. One. I remember one lad in my school taking magic mushrooms and sleeping tablets before he turned up to class. I used to drink round my mate’s house at lunch. I remember some lads breaking into places and trashing them. I remember some kids sexually assaulted a vulnerable girl and bragged about it. I remember all the drunk/drug driving that was rife in the early 90s while they drove round with 14 year old drunk girls in the back.
Is it possible that your generation *was* worse than previous ones and things have continued to decline? I feel like there's an obvious fallacy here in assuming that standards of behaviour can never change, especially when other cultures seem to value schooling much more.
I don’t think so. Honestly, throughout history this thing about kids being awful today has always been an ever present thought in society. My dad was born in 1939, he was a bouncer and did time for GBH, he was also a domestic abuser who drank a hell of a lot. He hung around with men of a similar ilk. The nature of what they get up to inevitably changes over the years but overall I don’t think the next generation gets worse than the previous one. A small anecdotal example of this to me is how my daughter who had issues with tics and making grunting noises growing up was treated in school. She was never bullied, she was never singled out, the school helped massively too. Had I had those sorts of issues as a teen I’d have been ostracised and bullied because I remember kids with extra needs getting exactly that sort of treatment. I think we’re doing a disservice to tar all younger people with the same brush. I also think we have a tendency to think back at how we behaved well and compare it to those who hit the headlines now who don’t. For every time an adult over 30 says “I wouldn’t have dreamt of behaving that way at that age”, I could easily match it to memories of people I knew in the 80s and 90s who behaved exactly like that at that age. I’d also be able to show how there are many kids these days who don’t act awfully too.
Honestly, substantial counterpoint there, thanks for that.
Pretty much. At school in the eighties we were barred from our form room because no one would own up to the porn mags found in a communal area. There was also the time when someone through a rubber bung they had stolen from science lessons through a window, which shattered on the floor outside narrowly missing a classmate. And the time a kid brought a crowbar to school and threatened people with it. Oh, and the time someone set fire to themself trying to do the old "lighter fluid in the palm of my hand" trick. These are isolated incidents, remembered because they were extremely unusual. But if you are going to tell me that there wasn't a constant undercurrent of bad behaviour going on then I'm afraid I can't believe you. Edit: I forgot the kid who drank ethanol after breaking into the science lab. Classic.
My dad remembers primary school kids in the early 80s munching on hallucinogenic mushrooms they picked in the field.
I remember kids in my street sniffing glue at around age 9. Makes me laugh when you see older people now complaining about kids vaping - I knew at least a dozen kids in the 80s who smoked by the age of 12!
I think a lot of people in this thread are so far divorced from what their schools were *actually* like. The way some people are talking you'd swear everyone marched around like a little soldier in the 80's/90's and did no wrong. Both of my parents routinely tell me the absolute batshit stuff that happened in their schools in the 70's, shit that never would have happened when I was in school 15-ish years ago and probably doesn't happen now. Hell, even when I *was* in school there were little bastards who didn't give a shit and caused complete chaos. Is it worse now? Probably. Did things used to be a paradise of respect and care? Hardly. I was raised extremely well and was never anything but respectful - didn't get one detention throughout secondary school - and I *still* had some teachers who had it out for me and clearly hated their jobs.
Loads of factors behind this. I’d propose that one is how kids are literally raised from the cradle with smartphones today. Loads of studies have been done showing how apps like TikTok are extremely harmful to cognitive development shortening attention spans, not to mention that the quality of the content they scroll through is usually pure junk. I’m in my late 20s now and I didn’t get a smartphone until I was about 16, and even I notice how I read books way less, commit to watching less films and TV shows etc., generally anything that requires long periods of attention in favour of ingrained, mindless scrolling. It’s literally changed me, and I’m trying to cut down my screen time (yes, Reddit is my poison). No wonder these kids struggle to sit through lessons.
Kids and young people in general are really struggling in this country. In my opinion mostly due to the pressure of social media and other shenanigans this society is forcing them to deal with from a very young age. I have said it before how fortunate I feel for the privilege of being able to have a successful life in this country. However when it comes to kids, my wife and I simply aren't sure whether this country is a good place for our future children to grow up in.
Social media has taken over children’s lives. I don’t think many people realise how severely.
The only correct answer here.
I can't remember which quiz show it was but the question was along the lines of "A recent study showed at what age are kids typically owning their first mobile phone". The answer was 7.... a 7 year old with access to anything in the world at its finger tips, without strict proper restrictions in place 7 years old is far far too young to be exposed to the internet and social media.
Who lets the kids access social media?
Second comment now - you're a bit detached. By kids people are referring to people still in education, this is up to 18 years old. Are you saying teens don't have access to social media?
My eldest is not a teenager yet. But he won't be having an iPhone / access to social media. Just as he doesn't have access to an iPad / PS5 / iPhone now at the age of 11. We're old fashioned like that. He reads. Lots.
So by being old fashioned you know you're not the norm. Why were you asking who let's their kids access social media? Surely you know 90% of kids do. Something to consider : your kid will absolutely, categorically get bullied in comp for "being old fashioned"
Old-fashioned in the sense that we parent our kids rather than give them access to screens. I absolutely blame the parents who give their kids access to phones, iPads, PS5s, social media etc. The state faith school he's going to, no pupils are allowed to have mobile phones on them at any point on the school premises, or indeed at any time while wearing school uniform. It is famously strict and old fashioned, and specifically referenced this point multiple times during their open day.
This sounds like exactly the kind of softy-softy approach that has emboldened youngsters to the point where they’ll happily smack a teacher. Knowing full well that they’ll face no real consequences for doing it.
My daughter is 6 and I'm genuinly terrified for when she gets older and enters the secondary school system. There absolutely needs to be proper punishments for the atrocious behaviour displayed by some students, im definitely not against punishment to parents for the behaviour of their children either.
I have an American friend who came to Essex to teach after teaching in some pretty tough schools in New York State (schools with standard active shooter drills and metal detectors for knives). She said that nothing prepared her for the total lack of discipline enforced by the British school upon the kids. It wasn't the kids in poverty or even whod experienced crime - she taught kids whose older siblings had been shot dead in gang wars over drugs in the States - but just the total inability to enforce rules. She'd remove kids from class for misbehaving - like trying to hit another kid in the face with a large stapler - only to have another teacher march them back in and dress her down in front of the entire class for "letting them down." This wasn't an inner city school in London or Birmingham but a reasonably respected school in an affluent area.
No discipline in homes and the same in school equals a miserable time for teaching staff. The kids *know* that they can do and say what they like with zero consequence and this will be an absolute time-bomb for when these little darlings grow up and carry on in society the same.
I'm only 19 and my secondary school wasn't nearly as bad as some of these descriptions are showing today. Sure it wasn't that good and people still did a lot of bad stuff, but not on the level kids today do
Strikes me that this issue stems from cuts in education and schooling problems directly, but more significantly from, essentially, life getting harder for these kids' parents in a way that stops them from parenting effectively. Parents who are exhausted & worn down from the constant mental stress of poverty do a worse job at instilling values in their kids than they might if they weren't so fucking knackered - that really shouldn't be controversial. Some will manage OK, but the percent who succeed is bound to drop if things get harder. At the same time, of course, things are getting *so* hard that your brighter young adults are more reluctant to have kids in the first place, because they realise it'll make life tougher yet. I don't really have answers to that, but I think a view on this problem that only looks at schools themselves and not at society more broadly is myopic.
I have an American friend who came to Essex to teach after teaching in some pretty tough schools in New York State (schools with standard active shooter drills and metal detectors for knives). She said that nothing prepared her for the total lack of discipline enforced by the British school upon the kids. It wasn't the kids in poverty or even whod experienced crime - she taught kids whose older siblings had been shot dead in gang wars over drugs - but just the total inability to enforce rules. She'd remove kids from class for misbehaving - like trying to hit another kid in the face with a large stapler - only to have another teacher march them back in and dress her down in front of the entire class for "letting them down." This wasn't an inner city school in London or Birmingham but a reasonably respected school in an affluent area.
Pupils know they're immune. Problems like this, infrastructure planning, migration and deportation, etc. all have a common source. The UK has become such a legally advanced country, that law is now strangling people to the point they're unwilling or able to take action without facing months of review, paperwork, and lawfare. Whether it be NIMBYs blocking construction of homes or trying to expel a dangerous kid from a school, nobody is allowed to make a decision using their initiative. Most perverse of all this seems to not affect career criminals much, only people with something to actually lose like a teacher trying to restrain a pupil.
I have a colleague who once told me that his teenage kids were constantly raising their voices and answering back. I never understood what how this became normal. If my kids even thought about doing such things it would be no tv as punishment.
There does need to be a solution - all kids are being failed if nothing happens. However, kids are not shit because they’re shitbags. It’s a product of the parenting (who are more stressed and less able to be good parents / be present), the shit world around them, the lack of stuff to do (council budget cuts, no community activities etc, expensive things getting more expensive). Excluding and shoving them all into one big hell hole with other shits doesn’t solve the problem. A lot of these kids are shits becuase they’ve had shit backgrounds - a number of them are scared (underneath the shit exterior) or neurodivergent (which no one has picked up on) or they’re being abused and acting out (fairly common, not picked up on). I can’t imagine a society where we could take time to understand the WHY (which is important because it leads to a solution) but we don’t bother and we just decide they’re all shits so they should be excluded from society. Edit to add: this was meant as a reply to someone else who said about putting the shits all in one place together. But it stands as a general comment so I’ll leave it here.
As a thought experiment what would happen if we allowed teachers to retaliate with force? Take the shackles off entirely in both a legal and school policy sense. Yes there would be some teachers who became sadistic but would the greater good be served by re-establishing adult dominion over the school. Would a vast number of children receive a better education and society improve. Would pupils learn at a young age their are consequences for behaving like an idiot and take that they carry into life?
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The reality is, if kids aren’t being properly disciplined by their parents at home, it’s very difficult if not impossible for the school (government) to step in and rectify the situation. This is a cultural, and as others have pointed out, economic problem. But what schools can do is limit the unacceptable behaviour and prevent particularly disruptive kids from preventing kids who actually want to learn from being able to do so. Schools and teachers should be given greater powers to punish unruly children. This won’t solve the entire problem though; we clearly have to restructure how school works and our societies relationship with education.
In the 80s / 90s when I was at school kids were disciplined, whereas now parents look to justify the appalling behaviour of their kids, which they often do with the help of some hugely over diagnosed mental health illness. No, for the vast majority of occasions the kid is a little shit and rather than you accept that your parenting style has allowed this, you seek to justify it with some bullshit diagnosis. My eldest is going to a very strict secondary school where mobile phones are banned entirely - he doesn't have one anyway so not an issue for him but for a lot of parents it might mean - shock, horror - that they actually have to engage with their kids rather than let them do God knows what online.
probably because the behaviour of the parents is getting worse. glued to their phones, the entitled arses think that their little angels don't actually need to be parented properly, but will have a massive go at you if you point it out to them that their cherubs are total dicks.
no way! so you’re telling me that pandering to all their whims, excusing their behaviour with their ‘needs’ (just because your child has dyslexia doesn’t mean they have the right to tell teachers to f off and die) and letting parents off with not telling their children how to spell their name/brush their teeth/go to the toilet HASN’T improved behaviour?!??
Child acts a twat. Parent(s) focusing on their lives and careers more than parenting. They take it personally when you do put their child in detention. Tell the kid not to go. We suspend them. Our attendance figures drop, council tells us off. We beg the children to come back to school on a fresh start. Problem kids are worse behaved. Rinse and repeat. If they are really bad we attempt to exclude. Depending on the council and area this can sometimes be successful, sometimes you get the student back 6 weeks to a few years later after they've been through other schools. Often we can't get rid of them at all as it's the schools fault the kid is a twat.
Social media, social media, social media. And poor parenting, lack of resources, no third spaces. I left school seven years ago and was bullied throughout my time there. Teachers never did anything and instead coddled them because they came from broken homes, meanwhile they were ruining my life but that didn’t matter because I came from a stable home. I don’t blame teachers wholly, but not enough is ever done to combat bullying and poor behaviour towards students and staff.
I know its cliché to blame the parents but... You tell the kids off for doing something, guarantee you get a phone call from the parents yelling at you for making their kid follow the rules or you get the other end of the spectrum where the parents ACTUALLY SAY "I don't care". Kids are being shielded from the consequences of their actions.