The Student Room Group

Poll: Has "bad behaviour" affected your studies?

Poll

Has "bad behaviour" affected your studies?

There has been lots of discussion in the media today about bad behaviour in schools affecting millions of students and their studies because lessons are being severely disrupted.

This has been named a "culture of casual acceptance" by the chief inspector of schools (reported by the Sunday Times) and is being attributed to school standards dropping. Teachers have also been criticised for accepting that poor discipline is now inevitable.

Are you lessons affected by bad behaviour?

Is this dependant on specific subject areas or level of class set?

What can teachers do about it?


Edit 25.09.2014

Ofsted has reported that students are losing one hour a day or up to 38 days of learning a year due to disruptive peers.

YouGov survey of 1,024 parents and 1,048 teachers:

DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOUR CITED BY TEACHERS

Disturbing other children (38%)

Calling out (35%)

Not getting on with work (31%)

Fidgeting or fiddling with equipment (23%)

Not having the correct equipment (19%)

Purposely making noise to gain attention (19%)

Answering back or questioning instructions (14%)

Using mobile devices (11%)

Swinging on chairs (11%).


Did this kind of behaviour disrupt your learning?

How do you think teachers and school leaders can deal with this type of behaviour more effectively?


(edited 9 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

In some classes, yes they were.

In year 8, our science teacher struggled to control the class and we hardly got any work done. The head of science actually had to come into lessons when they realised that something was going on. Every few minutes the teacher would have to stop, sometimes more often than that.

During year 7 and 8, teachers would often respond to bad behaviour by simply holding the entire class back, even those like me who didn't disrupt the lesson at all. That didn't solve the problem at all and the well behaved kids started to resent it. I wanted to stand up and say something about it, but that ended up just being fantasy. I came close to doing something a few times, but I was always too scared to.

Year 9 and GCSEs weren't anywhere near as bad. After that bad behaviour wasn't much of a problem anymore.

I think age might affect it - once people start growing up disruptive behaviour isn't as much of an issue. Poor discipline at home will also contribute to the problem - don't forget the parents here.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by She-Ra
There has been lots of discussion in the media today about bad behaviour in schools affecting millions of students and their studies because lessons are being severely disrupted.

This has been named a "culture of casual acceptance" by the chief inspector of schools (reported by the Sunday Times) and is being attributed to school standards dropping. Teachers have also been criticised for accepting that poor discipline is now inevitable.

Are you lessons affected by bad behaviour?

Is this dependant on specific subject areas or level of class set?

What can teachers do about it?


Definitely. Most teachers in my school were very good at maintaining discipline but one or two (and it really was only one or two since the majority were absolutely great) simply couldn't and obviously, the rest of the class took full advantage of this. Result: a horrible working environment and not very much productivity. This was mainly a problem at GCSE, although it actually persisted until near the end of my AS year, shockingly enough. If people are just constantly chatting, the teacher can't get through the lesson and it's just a generally unpleasant environment to set. In our school at least, the problem was worst in physics since they seem to the the teachers worst at maintaining discipline. This might be because there's a lack of physics teachers and hence schools aren't allowed to be as choosy (although that's just speculation and obviously there are plenty of great physics teachers).

What to do about it? Control and engage the class, simple as! Obviously, that's a lot easier said than done, but that's really the only way to control behaviour (unless you're teaching in some private school where everyone is perfectly behaved my default).
Reply 3
Yes. I was top set for everything except English. The students in my English class were disruptive so we didn't cover as much as we could have which leads to one thing.. and so on.
Reply 4
It definitely did between years 7 and 9 where we were only put in sets for certain subjects and I often ended up in the classes with badly behaved people just out of bad luck, but when we were put in sets for everything in year 10 and 11 things definitely improved as most people in my classes wanted to do well. What really annoyed me was that a lot of times teachers would put the badly behaved ones next to me because they thought I'd be a 'good influence' but in the end, the badly behaved ones would just end up distracting me and their behaviour didn't change at all. If only there were more pupil referral units and schools not made to feel scared to expel pupils who've had chance after chance.
There's a boy in my class that I just want to kill. He disrupts the whole class and everyone just laughs with him. I am highly motivated to do well after receiving average grades in my AS. He is doing it now in A2 and did it in AS too!!! :unimpressed:




That boy is a friend of mine and cannot stop himself as it is just his personality. :sigh:

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 6
It varied. I was meant to be in top set for every subject back in secondary school, but due to some being full, I was placed temporarily to middle sets. All of the top sets consisted of the smart and quiet peeps, while the lower sets were filled with immature kids who do not care for themselves, the teachers or other students. And the disruptive ones always distracted me, and they always did the worst.
Original post by Toriar
It definitely did between years 7 and 9 where we were only put in sets for certain subjects and I often ended up in the classes with badly behaved people just out of bad luck, but when we were put in sets for everything in year 10 and 11 things definitely improved as most people in my classes wanted to do well. What really annoyed me was that a lot of times teachers would put the badly behaved ones next to me because they thought I'd be a 'good influence' but in the end, the badly behaved ones would just end up distracting me and their behaviour didn't change at all. If only there were more pupil referral units and schools not made to feel scared to expel pupils who've had chance after chance.


I'd never heard of pupil referral units until now so thank you for mentioning it. I can understand why that could be a good option in terms of students wanting to focus on their studies not being distracted any longer. Ultimately though, to know how to behave in public and a group situation is a vital social skill - how do people learn that if they are ultimately isolated.

I think you're right, a lot of schools find it incredibly tough to expel students, there is always an argument/ loop hole to be had.

There needs to be more of an investment in teacher - parent relationships, home life definitely impacts on behaviour. But teachers don't have enough time or capacity to manage difficult students and engage with them.

Did you ever report to the teachers that they were distracting you and that it was affecting your concentration?
Reply 8
Original post by She-Ra
I'd never heard of pupil referral units until now so thank you for mentioning it. I can understand why that could be a good option in terms of students wanting to focus on their studies not being distracted any longer. Ultimately though, to know how to behave in public and a group situation is a vital social skill - how do people learn that if they are ultimately isolated.

I think you're right, a lot of schools find it incredibly tough to expel students, there is always an argument/ loop hole to be had.

There needs to be more of an investment in teacher - parent relationships, home life definitely impacts on behaviour. But teachers don't have enough time or capacity to manage difficult students and engage with them.

Did you ever report to the teachers that they were distracting you and that it was affecting your concentration?


Oh yes I agree that every effort should be made to help the child fit in with mainstream schools, but when one child's misbehaviour is affecting the learning of 30+ other children, it becomes unfair on the other children for the school to keep the child if their behaviour is not improving at all. Some of the students from my old school did get put into PRUs and they seem to be much happier people now, and they all have at least a part-time job.

I did mention it a few times and a couple of times the teacher moved them away from me but most of the time they didn't want to know as they knew I was a quiet pushover lol.
Behaviour was a huge problem at my school all the way through to Year 11. I was in all the top sets, but in my year group the most disruptive people were also some of the most intelligent (despite the fact they never did any work) so I arguably had a worse time than those in the lower sets. It wasn't just constant, never-ending chatter, either - I had classes where people would throw things at the teachers, scream at them and throw huge toddler tantrums when they were told to be quiet, swear in their faces and call them disgusting names etc. These were never just one off incidents either, they happened consistently every lesson for years. I remember Year 9 & 10 Maths being particularly awful, as we had a very sweet, shy, female Indian teacher who was an excellent teacher when allowed to teach, but she was viciously bullied by the people in my class for two years and it was just horrendous to watch. Asides from the fact that I learnt very little, what horrified me the most was that these girls could be so incredibly cruel to somebody and not bat an eyelid, and they weren't even the thugs that every school has - they were intelligent, high-achieving pupils. Nothing was ever done about any of it; occasionally the senior teachers would make a big show of removing the odd disruptive student from a lesson, but they'd always be back the next day and the cycle continued. I think the reason they never took it seriously was because nobody would ever really believe the select few of us who actually wanted to work when we told them what was going on - it was the sort of behaviour you might expect in a bottom set full of people who didn't want to be there, but it wasn't something they wanted to accept was going on amongst the highest achieving students in the school.
In my experience bad behaviour always stems from bad teaching
Original post by Toriar
It definitely did between years 7 and 9 where we were only put in sets for certain subjects and I often ended up in the classes with badly behaved people just out of bad luck, but when we were put in sets for everything in year 10 and 11 things definitely improved as most people in my classes wanted to do well. What really annoyed me was that a lot of times teachers would put the badly behaved ones next to me because they thought I'd be a 'good influence' but in the end, the badly behaved ones would just end up distracting me and their behaviour didn't change at all. If only there were more pupil referral units and schools not made to feel scared to expel pupils who've had chance after chance.


That's something I didn't think of. Once classes start to be streamed according to performance and ability, some people end up in different classes to the disruptive pupils (though some well behaved but poorly performing pupils will still get stuck with them). Now that I think about it, that's when behaviour started to get better in my school.
I'm mimicking generally what others are saying. In years 7-9 behaviour really did become a concern- a certain English class in year 8 and 9 was uncontrollable and we ended up having to move teachers as the teacher left the school out of despair and moved to another school in Dubai. That particular class was the strongest I have ever been exposed to bad behaviour- and the effect on productivity and classroom engagement etc. Other than that severe incident, I would say it's very fair to say that a lot of my learning has been disrupted of general nuisances- people getting out of seats, talking over those teaching, not bringing basic equipment to lessons etc.

I think it is very tough in working out how to approach poor behaviour. You can either go two ways: Be stern and take no nonsense, or try and engage the poor behaved students in extracurricular and having a lenient, fair, insightful and inclusive teaching style. Both of which don't always work. I'm not sure how educators and schools would tackle this problem- it's very ongoing and exhausting for all those involved.
When I was in school bad behaviour often affected my learning. It's hard staying focused when bad behaviour disrupts your learning.

I am not sure of the best way to handle it but I often found that teachers who were really strict were really good at handling disruptive kids.
Not particularly. Sure, there were people that messed around, but never to the point that my grades were jeopardised...except in my Italian GCSE class in years 10 and 11 (and the other GCSE Italian class for that matter, though I wasn't there to experience it). Some of them were disgustingly noisy/disruptive/troublesome and our teacher spent so much time stopping to shout at them that we didn't get much done. The results for my year in Italian ended up being pretty bad (6A*s, 6As, 12Bs, 6Cs and 1D...that may not sound that bad, but for my school it was (most of the other languages were A*s and As only) and the school consequently has now dropped the Italian GCSE because of those idiots in my class). Still got an A* in Italian, but i was just lucky.
Teachers need to learn to control difficult pupils. I think many British pupuls lack respect, though.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Ofsted has reported that students are losing one hour a day or up to 38 days of learning a year due to disruptive peers.

YouGov survey of 1,024 parents and 1,048 teachers:

DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOUR CITED BY TEACHERS

Disturbing other children (38%)

Calling out (35%)

Not getting on with work (31%)

Fidgeting or fiddling with equipment (23%)

Not having the correct equipment (19%)

Purposely making noise to gain attention (19%)

Answering back or questioning instructions (14%)

Using mobile devices (11%)

Swinging on chairs (11%).


Did this kind of behaviour disrupt your learning?

How do you think teachers and school leaders can deal with this type of behaviour more effectively?
Behavioural problems and disruptions in class were a MASSIVE problem in my school, it definitely messed somewhat with my education and ability to learn. And the problem isn't just going to go away with a detention and isolation of the bad pupils, class sizes are too large, teachers are unable to discipline students as they have a lack of options of how to discipline them, most of the students couldn't have cared less if they got a detention or a phone call home and I think in most of the cases (though I acknowledge not all) many of these pupils were poorly parented and their parents didn't do follow up discipline after they were contacted about the issues their children were causing.
Maths all the way up to the end of GCSE was horrendous - a lot of kids simply don't try because they've struggled with it in the past, and so laze about and disrupt everyone else. In doing so, very little is taught each lesson causing the rest of us to struggle more.
A-level Maths has since become so much better.
Original post by She-Ra
I'd never heard of pupil referral units until now so thank you for mentioning it. I can understand why that could be a good option in terms of students wanting to focus on their studies not being distracted any longer. Ultimately though, to know how to behave in public and a group situation is a vital social skill - how do people learn that if they are ultimately isolated.


I work in a pupil referral unit (PRU for short). Most of the children we get are the sorts who are the root of classroom conflict. Most of them come from very difficult home situations, so it is very likely they're not being taught proper social skills at home. But we aim to teach them these things, and very often, after a few weeks, months (sometimes years!) with us they get sent back to school or college with a better attitude. :smile:

I think more and more schools are starting to become aware of PRUs as we seem to be getting loads more students sent to us! I think they're a really interesting idea because you can try to engage children in all sorts of different ways. There are PRUs that engage via music, martial arts, motorbike mechanics...and where I work we do it through animal care.

Original post by LeJennifleur
I remember Year 9 & 10 Maths being particularly awful, as we had a very sweet, shy, female Indian teacher who was an excellent teacher when allowed to teach, but she was viciously bullied by the people in my class for two years and it was just horrendous to watch. Asides from the fact that I learnt very little, what horrified me the most was that these girls could be so incredibly cruel to somebody and not bat an eyelid, and they weren't even the thugs that every school has - they were intelligent, high-achieving pupils. Nothing was ever done about any of it; occasionally the senior teachers would make a big show of removing the odd disruptive student from a lesson, but they'd always be back the next day and the cycle continued. I think the reason they never took it seriously was because nobody would ever really believe the select few of us who actually wanted to work when we told them what was going on - it was the sort of behaviour you might expect in a bottom set full of people who didn't want to be there, but it wasn't something they wanted to accept was going on amongst the highest achieving students in the school.


Who knows, maybe these "high achievers" had problems at home/in their past and so assumed that being cruel wasn't such a big deal, or wanted to pass on their suffering. Horrible.
(edited 9 years ago)

Quick Reply

Latest