The Headmaster from Hell

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Excellent post Luckygirl3

I couldn’t agree more - you’ve summed up the essence of the problem so well. I could have written a very similar post but you beat me to it!

I’m a retired secondary headteacher and am really disappointed that so many here seem to admire this draconian and macho style of leadership.

I spent most of my career in schools serving the more disadvantaged communities in relatively affluent areas. It’s fairly easy - and often necessary- to get a few quick wins in the first months of headship by tightening up on enforcing the basic rules.

Genuine, lasting improvement is much harder to achieve and embed in the school culture for all the reasons outlined in your very thoughtful post.

I hope everyone on here takes the time to read what you’ve written .

Well said Luckygirl3

There are a tranche of parents who openly or quietly enable their children to not go to school, be disruptive and treat education with contempt.

Until we start asking ourselves why that is, then the problem will continue. Blame and denigration achieve nothing.

I would start with social/cultural deprivation and poor experiences with their own education. Until we have a government that will invest in young children and families right from the start, and not expect an immediate return on their outlay we will get nowhere with this. You need to speculate to accumulate; to invest to profit. Short term thinking gets us nowhere.

All the services targeted at young families that I was involved with as a social worker have been wiped out, in spite of evidence that the investment was beginning to pay off. Money to put children into child care is not what is needed - money to support and educate deprived parents is.

I definitely think schools need more head teachers to adopt the same approach. We had some unruly pupils during my school days but nothing like the stories I hear from my grandchildren. During my school years students who broke certain rules were sent to the PE teacher. He had a large black plimsole which he would chalk on the number of times he had used it during the day! He would then tell the unfortunate recipient (a wallop on their backside) that if he saw them again that day and the number had been rubbed off they would be walloped again !!! Aahh the good old days!!! Now I am not suggesting that we return to corporal punishment but teachers need to be able to restore order to their schools. There are so many parents who just don’t seem to be able to discipline their children I feel very sorry for the teachers who reap the rewards of this lack of discipline and accountability. Children will not break by being told off and made to see they were wrong will do them and everyone else a favour in the long run. They need to be prepared for the real world. Sorry for the rambling post but I get so frustrated and worried about our future generations in what is already a very difficult and challenging world.

Lesley60

So does this teacher expect parents to take time off work if I had to sit on one of those little chairs I’d never get up again

But presumably you are not of an age when you would have secondary aged children, only secondary aged grandchildren in class

There are a tranche of parents who openly or quietly enable their children to not go to school, be disruptive and treat education with contempt. Not many, but enough for their children to be disruptive and ruin other children's education.

Making them come into school and sit with their children is an excellent idea.

Im sure there are many serving in the armed forces that would like to wear their hair a little longer, position their cap at a jaunty angle and replace their boots with something a little less heavy.

However they learn to wear their uniforms with pride, are accustomed to inspections and criticism and understand what their uniform represents.

I think school uniform is so important, it is a lot cheaper than all the branded goods the young people would like to wear.

So does this teacher expect parents to take time off work if I had to sit on one of those little chairs I’d never get up again

I speak as a retired secondary teacher... I would work in his school! Good for him...

I agree welbeck.

We have a school near where I live and the girls have to wear long pleated skirts that reach right down to mid-calf or below and stupid peaked caps. The uniform looks awful on girls of every shape and size. It is a girls' state school.

I think we do need to be very careful of the "if it was good enough for me it is good enough for them" mindset. Of harking back to some golden age when men were men and schoolchildren knew their place. We are living in different times.

There are, it seems to me, 3 basic problems:

Size - as I said upthread - if you herd children together en masse, discipline becomes the prime focus and education inevitably takes a back seat.

Relevance - our school system is based on the old public school model and politicians judge the work of schools on how they match up to that "ideal." Just look at Gove with his back-of-the-envelope national curriculum obsession. The question that needs asking is - how relevant is that curriculum now with its emphasis on academic skills? Just take a look at the maths curriculum now - my children could not see the relevance of the abstruse concepts that they knew would play no part at all in their futures, and it is even worse now. A lot of the concepts are only of use to maths teachers. I did Latin and found it fascinating, but that is because I am the sort of person who was interested in that sort of logical thinking and I had an academic brain. In the same way the maths curriculum appeals to those who have that sort of academic brain and are happy to delve into that - but for the vast majority of students, they know that what they are learning is irrelevant. And beyond their abilities - and puts them off learning - and leads to them messing about. If you know you don't stand a cat in hell's chance of understanding it, and know that you will never use it, then why not mess about? Why not take your revenge on a system that makes you look a fool?

The content of school curricula needs re-examining. The priorities need re-examining. The way in which subjects are taught needs re-examining.

Teachers are tearing their hair out trying to do the best for their pupils, whilst being forced to pump them full of stuff that both parties know is not relevant to their lives, rather than being free to use their own professional judgement and humanity about what each of their pupils need. And in the meantime they are expected to police uniform policies, collect endless stats for OfSted, prepare pupils for the ridiculous SATs and look over their shoulder at every moment for whether they are deviating from the curriculum. Good teachers are being lost, not because of the pupils and their needs, but because of the system that devalues their professional skills and leaves them picking up the pieces for a a system not of their making and for failures in social policy outside the school.

Home - many youngsters come from homes where poverty and generations of unemployment are the norm. It was indeed so for previous generations, but the presence of the media and its instant quality make these young people aware of what they are missing in a way that is new. Their own parents are the product of an education system in which they did not feel valued or included and this, along with their practical problems of being unable to make ends meet, mean that they are not always supportive to the schools. They do not engage as they have bad memories themselves of their schooldays. The very pupils with whom the school needs most to engage are the ones who are least likely to do so.

The answer to all this is not to institute draconian measures (as this head has done) which will further alienate pupils - it is to take a long hard look at the system itself and its social context and ask where it is going wrong and how it is failing our children.

Tanjamaltija

How does he know parents are free to be in detention with the children - this is a punishment for them, like when the child is kept after school, misses the bus, and the parent has to leave work to go and pick them up. Also, when I suggested the child misses break instead, and writes an essay, I was told that a break is a right - well, so is catching the paid transport home without the hassle and danger of having to walk to the nearest bus stop, and sometimes having to take two buses.

The expectation of a child's behaviour normally starts in the home. Similarly, resilience needs to start at the home too. If there are no special needs then a parent should be supportive of the school's need to teach all children in a calmer, less troubled environment and where there is regular attendance. If your child won't follow the rules then you need to do whatever they need or move them to another school where they can behave as they like if you can't do what you are asked. I think most parents would find they'd only have to take a day's paid leave and would never need to do it again!

I don't like the sound of such regimentation.
I see children around here in the heat of summer plodding up hill with blazer buttoned up.
Because of some ridiculous rule.
Imagine if workers were treated like that.

Crossstitchfan

Allira

Schools are simply too big, so that crowd control becomes the priority over education
Yes, I agree 100%

I think, too, from children coming from small primary schools, particularly friendly little village schools, going to a comprehensive with over 1,000 pupils is just overwhelming.

I went from a Convent school to a Grammar school and have never been so traumatised in my life! The difference was unbelievable. The Convent cared about me but in the Grammar, I was just a number. I had been in the top section of the class at the Convent but my unhappiness at the Grammar soon knocked that out of me, so much so that my marks were appalling and I ended up repeating the first year. I eventually accepted my fate and did well, but I hated every second at that school.

There were only about 450 pupils at my High School.

There are over 1,300 pupils at the school in the OP and that is relatively small by today's standards. .

We had our skirts measured when I was at school! It was the days of the mini-skirt. I do think that teenage girls wear very short shorts and skirts. It's just daft to allow that in school. And Ive seen school girls with false eyelashes.

How does he know parents are free to be in detention with the children - this is a punishment for them, like when the child is kept after school, misses the bus, and the parent has to leave work to go and pick them up. Also, when I suggested the child misses break instead, and writes an essay, I was told that a break is a right - well, so is catching the paid transport home without the hassle and danger of having to walk to the nearest bus stop, and sometimes having to take two buses.

Indigo8

Not all children benefit and thrive in a strict, regimented school. Not all children are disruptive hard-nuts. Some more sensitive children are traumatised and put off education forever.

Some may be, but the vast majority of children thrive on rules and boundaries as long as the teachers are fair. One of my jobs was in a special school for children with moderate learning difficulties. There was a lovely, caring atmosphere where every child’s achievements were celebrated, but the teachers were generally firm. They had to be in order for the children to learn anything. There were a high number of autistic pupils, who needed this in particular.

Allira

^Schools are simply too big, so that crowd control becomes the priority over education^
Yes, I agree 100%

I think, too, from children coming from small primary schools, particularly friendly little village schools, going to a comprehensive with over 1,000 pupils is just overwhelming.

I went from a Convent school to a Grammar school and have never been so traumatised in my life! The difference was unbelievable. The Convent cared about me but in the Grammar, I was just a number. I had been in the top section of the class at the Convent but my unhappiness at the Grammar soon knocked that out of me, so much so that my marks were appalling and I ended up repeating the first year. I eventually accepted my fate and did well, but I hated every second at that school.

I think we need more teachers and headteachers like Mr. Ebenezer. Children actually like rules because they know where they stand. I am have taught as a peripatetic teacher in schools and remember an older English teacher at one of the schools l worked in towards the end of my career. He had the old fashioned technique of being super strict with the year seven pupils in the first half term and gradually relaxing when they had received the message that he was not to be messed with. He could then have a laugh from time to time with them, because they knew exactly where they stood with him. He was the most popular teacher in the school. Good teachers seek respect first and are firm but fair. It is then that xthey are able to inspire their pupils because the pupils are in a position to learn.

How wonderful. Someone who really wants his children to leave school with a responsible attitude to life. Someone who will teach children that they matter enough to be told off when they go wrong.

The problems we see in teens and young adults come because no one has taught them self worth, that they mean something and if they behave towards people in communities they will always be respected later in life and will be able to work in company with other people.

When it comes to children enjoying school and learning, they have to be taught social graces too if they want to succeed in adult life. They do not have to be particularly bright and clever to do that, but those graces have to be taught, and the best place is school as well as home, because the children respond if home and school agree.

I once saw children playing instead of going to school. I asked the older one on a bike why he wasn't at school. He said he wanted to be a car mechanic when he left and the school isn't teaching that.

I told him that ANY employer, whatever his work was, would want to know to see exam results, because that will tell him if his brain was capable of absorbing knowledge and retaining it. If he doesn't go to school, learn, take exams, how is a future employer - especially in car maintenance - to know whether his was capable of learning anything and remembering that?

It was while I was visiting someone, so I don't know if the lad went back to school. I like to think he did.

Sago

Great stuff!

Punishments need to be well thought out and executed…..never empty threats.

Our son was very badly behaved once at school, he and his friends were really rowdy at 3.00am in the dormitory, their housemaster whose quarters were next door got up and read them the riot act, he thought they had got away pretty lightly.

A week to the day their housemaster entered the dormitory at 3.00am, calmly woke them all up and took them in their pyjamas to the library where they had to write lines for an hour.

A lesson learnt and never repeated.

Absolutely brilliant!

Our headmistress used to measure our skirts back in the early 70s.
Our grammar school was just as strict but fair too.
We all behaved, grew up unscathed and most went into work or professions... many teaching.
Our parents hardly ever went near the school. They trusted our teachers to do right by us and they did.
No one I knew struggled with anxiety or needed days off or mollycoddling .
I think we all grew up to be rounded adults .

I forgot to stress - I loved my pupils and found them a joy to teach, always treating them with respect - plus I know I was one of the popular teachers in the school and had no problem with a number of pupils who some colleagues couldn’t teacher

As an ex teacher the only way to implement any discipline within schools is to ensure ALL staff follow ALL the discipline guidelines - many do not as it takes hard work! One small example, on numerous occasions during lesson change over I would see female students walk down the very long corridor towards me - passing a number of other staff - as the girls got nearer to me I could see them trying to surreptitiously remove earrings. The girls hadn’t bothered to do that passing the other members of staff because they knew they weren’t going to be challenged. They knew if I’d seen them, I must stress I often ignored them discreetly removing their jewellery, I would have confiscated the items, the. they would have to return at the end of the day to me to collect whatever had been confiscated. This meant I had to hang rounding before getting on with my paperwork etc having a chat about why jewellery wasn’t allowed - but clearly the other staff members couldn’t be arsed!
At the beginning of a new school year some classes’ first lesson simply involved going back out into the corridor, stand in a quiet orderly line & re-enter the classroom quietly and sit to await instructions.
You cannot begin to teach a class anything without an element of control - you must remember that you also have a duty of care to vulnerable pupils who very frequently feel threatened in a noisy unruly lesson.
Discipline within schools can only be achieved by commitment from all staff

Excellent about time some discipline was reinstated to some schools. If teachers are in fear that they have to go on strike then tougher rules need to be in place. My school was strict but as long as you kept to the rules (the ones my parents signed up for when I started there) you were fine. We had very little bad behaviour and we all had pride in our school. Out in the working world as a manager, the difference in new intake as years went on and standards dropped in the schools it showed. Not sure how we all survived school with rules, strict uniform, no make up and sensible length skirts!!! Some of the girls at our local comp leave very little to the imagination 😳