Tough talking, standing up for ourselves, decisive action... what's going on? Don't the teachers at Movilla School know that they're supposed to just lie down and take whatever's doled out to them?
As far as I can make out, the boy was late; the teacher told him he was in detention and stood by the door at the end of the lesson to try and stop him leaving. The boy pushed the teacher's arm away and walked out. The School didn't do much about it, so the teachers refused to teach the brat. (Who is now going to be charged with assault, but still not kicked out of school)
This will happen 200 times today in Comprehensive schools up and down our country. Why? Because the pupil knows that they can.
The pupil's actions are inevitably blamed on some external circumstances. In this case the recent death of a relative, which is obviously very sad, but ignores the fact that there are plenty of other pupils in the same boat who behave perfectly well. (This 'external circumstances' excuse always makes the assumption that the boy was perfectly well behaved before the event)
There's four points here:
1) Well done to the NASUWT and its staff at that school.
2) Why aren't all the other staff supporting them?
3) Why isn't this happening at the other 199 schools today?
4) How did it all come to this? Would you have dared push your teacher's arm away and walk out of their classroom? Actually, if you are under 30, then you probably would.
17 comments:
The poor, poor child probably suffers from ADHD, ODD, low self esteem and has massive ISUES...and these hard-hearted teachers won't understand that he needs to express himself a bit in school? tut, tut!!!
Nothing is done if a teacher says a pupil has assaulted them, but if a kid accuses a teacher , it's all sirens blazing.....even if there are witnesses to state the opposite. What do management do? They just want peace and quiet and for evrything to "go away"...the "reoutation of the school" is more important than the protection of their staff.
Fantastic! It's about time teachers started standing up for themselves. I'm an ex teacher, I left at the age of 27 because the behaviour of the students in my classes was awful and I had no power. Worse still my SMT were f**king useless. I'm disabled and the final straw came when one of my year 11 pupils pushed me over, when I asked him to leave my class. I reported the assult, which injured my back, but the head refuse to have him removed from my class. At that stage I decided bugger this, I'm the adult they are the children and whether they like it or not they should do as instructed without question. Alas, after another 6 months I'd had enough and quit.
Teaching was once a proud profession, it isn't anymore and it wont be until young people are put back in their place. I'm nearly 30 now and we would never have behaved this badly at school.
Say what you like the fear of getting cained was a mighty powerful deterant and certainly kept us in check when we were in primary school.....at least until 1988 when it was banned in schools. Funny that, look at how behaviour has increasingly got worse since then.
My daughter does have ADHD and would never behave like that! Also, you both claim to be teachers, but neither of you can spell - no wonder kids come out of school ignorant with you two as an example!
well good on them for standing up for themselves.
I left teaching in the UK due to piss poor behaviour ruining the education of the small majority who were trying to learn; also no back up from SMT during the assaults I was victim to.
Now I teach in the middle east where behaviour is perfect and I can spend the majority of my time teaching!
Haha, SMT's never back teachers up, they're only ever interested in covering up any incidents so that the precious image of their sink estate schools remains untarnished. Regards for staff = zero.
They don't want the hassle of really thoroughly investigating and (God beware) Punishing a child who made false allegations or hurt a teacher. It might harm the image of the school. Sod the teacher who loses sleep over such incidents.
The NASUWT is asking for triple jeopardy for the pupil.
They don't have a problem working with drug addicts, sex offenders and NASUWT members convicted of assault.
They also want to legalize teacher/pupil sex. Most of the List 99 referrals in 2005 ( over 2,000) were the NASUWT.
Which probably explains their schoolgirl fetishing.
"Teaching was once a proud profession, it isn't anymore and it wont be until young people are put back in their place."
Which in the case of the NASUWT is probably in a hotel bedroom
Hotel bedroom on a teacher's salary? You've got to be joking. What's wrong with the school's broom cupboards? Enough room for a quick romp there.
Lecherous levity aside, I just wish that someone scary - not the HT because the kids don't know who he is or what he does and he looks scared of the kids most of the time - would do a whole school assembly based on the hard line about shoving and barging teachers and TAs, and throwing objects at them. "If you are accused of this you will be sent home and your parents asked to come to the school with you where you will speak to the Police regarding assaulting a member of staff" - that sort of thing.
And then follow through, regardless of how rough it makes the school look, and in spite of its risible "no exclusions" policy.
I'd like to win Euromillions too.
Shoving and barging? My wife would have been happy with that.
For some years, she taught at an inner London school where she was often threatened with knives, where a colleague was attacked by a machete armed gang, and where she was threatened with being raped several times. Several of her students were murdered, another committed a notorious and well-publicised murder himself, and quite a few went down for rape, robbery, ABH etc. Quite a few of her female students were victims of sexual abuse, while a male student was tortured and forced to drink petrol by other students.
So what sort of support did the teaching staff get from the SMT? None. The head's role appeared to revolve around sexually harassing or shagging younger members of staff, getting drunk and stoned, and flashing his willy at staff functions. Not surprisingly, he's now a government education advisor.
anonymous 8:24
Oh PLEASE name him. Was it Chris Woodhead?
We have had a number of serious assaults (not as many as your partner!) but in fairness they were dealt with appropriately. I think what drags morale down more at our school is the hourly occurrence of lower-level "barging and shoving", deliberate arsy defiance and verbal abuse, the sort of thing that says "You are shit, I can do what I like and what you gonna do? Nothing."
And they're right. The school lacks either the will or the ability to take on this constant attack on self-esteem unless it looks serious to involve the Police.
I'm not under 30, closer to 60 - & I wouldn't have dreamed of even making eye contact unless it was unavoidable. An act such as this would have been dealt with by application of the cane, on the stage at assembly, before the whole school. We didn't even do that to the Prefects.
Anon 12:41, I was tempted to name this particular weasel, but we may return to England some day and She of the Gimlet Eye may wish to resume her teaching career in that parlous land. Unlikely events, but one never knows.
Instead, I shall say beware school improvement gurus peddling vision development and innovative recruitment practice...
We *will* see a return to sensible times.
We *will* stop hearing people say, "Kids have changed. We need to treat them like adults now and accept that their lives are more difficult than ours were."
We *will* see a return to punishment for failure to follow rules. Not corporal punishment, thank goodness.
We *will* see kids being kids again and a corresponding drop in violent crime, reclaiming the streets for those currently too afraid to walk to the shops.
We *will* see a return to violent kids being expelled from school, along with persistently disruptive kids who stop the rest from learning.
I don't know when. I don't know how. I don't know how much pain has to be suffered along the way. Clearly radical action is required, something the current government doesn't seem willing to do. It will probably even continue to get worse before it gets better. I just know that eventually it will all change again.
I'd like to see it happen during my own kids' school years, but that's probably too hopeful.
As I always said when confronted with some excuse for a pupil's crappy behaviour, 'An explanation is not an excuse'. It's time we made our children accountable for their actions instead of excusing them - they will become insufferable adults if we don't.
Puss
I'm under 30 and I certainly wouldn't have pushed any of my teachers.
Then again, discipline can go a little too far: when I was in the first year of secondary, my class was lined up against the wall by our French teacher (who amusingly never actually spoke French to us ever), he then proceeded to scream at us and threaten to execute us with his old service revolver and a machine gun that he claimed to have captured from somebody during a war he fought in. On other occasions, he took to throwing things through (closed) windows and actually tried to scrub one boys mouth out with soap!
He was terrifying.
Despite him being reported by the mother of the boy whose mouth was washed with soap, he some how still didn't get the sack!
I left shortly after so I have no idea if he changed his ways, but I am told he didn't.
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