Unruly Pupils

I have come back to this after a couple of days, and it's taken my breath away that I have taken JessM's breath away for using the word bolshie to describe the pupil in question. That has to be a first!

Boshie - dictionary definition difficult, rebellious. I am happy to say that on several occasions I have been described as bolshie, I'm wondering now if I am allowed to say that about myself!

One of the times I would have been described in this way was when I was in my early 20s working as a secretary in the West End for a life assurance company. The female secretarial staff were expected to make the mainly male sales staff coffee and wash up the cups afterwards. I lead a rebellion against this and got the status quo overturned, and the upshot was that male and females alike had to muck in together with this chore. I was glad to be bolshie back then, it's a characteristic that mainly lies dormant in me these days.

However, I can see with hindsight that this word could be deemed pejorative in the context in which I used it, but I've said it now, so I'll have to live with it. I don't know the background of the child concerned, but another poster has said he needed a knife wrestled off him, and so with that in mind and taking into account he is only 9, I'll conclude he is troubled. However, I haven't been schooled in minor politically correct terminology. Clearly I should have used the less contentious "challenging", but to me bolshie is just another word to describe stroppy or difficult. Maybe I should go away do a 100 lines of "I must choose my adjectives more carefully"

All that aside the main thrust of my argument was that it seemed a disproportionate response to this incident to suspend 6 members of staff, can a primary school sustain the loss of that number of teachers, albeit temporarily, and still run effectively? I can't help feeling that the other pupils at this school are going to be adversely affected by that decision. It would appear that the powers that be did not act for the greater good with regard to the other pupils and their entitlement not to have their education disrupted.

Would a primary school have a room set aside for cooling down? Are there members of staff willing/available to go into the room with the child? How do they protect themselves and at the same time not inadvertently harm the child and in doing so ruin their career? I can only imagine how difficult this would be, particularly when the child is citing his or her human rights. It is with all these things in mind that I am asking, and very much as a lay person, how are the teaching staff supposed to cope when they have so many restrictions placed upon them.? Grannyactivist, LullyDully,nanaej and granjura have all described potentially difficult situations where they had to tread a very fine line in dealing with problematic and unpredictable behaviour and it sounds a mine field, which at best has to be negotiated in a muddle through sort of a way. Although, I am sure it is very much as nanaej said "you have to live it to understand it" I am merely trying to make sense of it from the outside looking in. It seems that dedicated teachers have had their careers ruined and have had to leave their jobs under a cloud of allegations from pupils which often turn out to be spiteful and vindictive. That was my point when I said it seems that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

JessM I am sorry but why are you shocked? I totally understand a challenging background (probably more than most) . My beautiful intelligent grandchildren attend school situated in the middle of a large council estate. Many of the children are unable to hold a pencil let alone write! There are letters sent with the children virtually every week warning parents about bad language in the playground for gods sake.

I absolutely DO understand a challenging background and stand by every word that I have said.

But nanaej is it acceptable that you and other professional people have to take such 'legal' risks to ensure the safety of other children, let alone get on with the actual job of giving children an education?
#notbeingconfrontational

grannyactivist you have to live it to understand it! Such a familiar scenario!

I probably took too many risks (legally speaking) in 'restraining' children for the safety of others, Equally I would give hugs & not worry about finding rubber gloves when helping some poor kid who was throwing up or bleeding! I reckoned if I was in loco parentis & I did what I would do with my own kids I had a basic defence in court... happily never happened!

Nanaej that's reallky nice.

Granny-a You obviously needed me there.

[snore]

jingl I once gave up trying to get a paintbrush off a feral FIVE year old, because to do so would mean that I had to use 'unnacceptable force'. Said boy was using it to stab other (terrified) pupils and because we (three of us tried) were unable to get it off him the other children in the class had to be removed.

You can't hear me can you? It was a genuine question..I am always open to advice.

One of my daughter's is a teacher too and DH (though he is now an OFSTED inspector) other daughter works in PR!

Yep!

Sounded it anyway.

j08 Did you mean I was being confrontational?

Both of my daughterrs are teachers, so I do know what goes on in schools.

nanaej !

I dunno - taken him to the head's study and phoned his mum probably.

You could get a knife off of a nine year old.

#dontbesosoddingconfrontational

I keep thinking that the child could have stabbed himself - possibly fatally...

As a Head I would NEVER EVER ask teachers to stay in a room with a very violent child who's gone berserk and who has a KNIFE which he is threatening others with. NEVER. But they were wrong to leave him for 40 minutes and should have called a special police unit immediately. The consequences for the child may have been a lot worse, depending on the situation though- and result in him being taken away from home and placed in a young offenders centre, which they perhaps wanted to avoid, knowing the consequences.

I'm afraid until you have been in this kind of situation, you have no idea. Teachers are not supposed to put themselves at risk of severe injury and death.

So what would you do j08? what would be your solution?

.......still don't think you should shut young kids in small rooms/cupboards.

nanaej, granjura and *Lully - you make the point very well that these things are often much more complex than what we see/hear in the media.

As a headteacher I have had to make difficult decisions about the management of children unable to control their behaviour. The child that most readily springs to mind (there have been a few) was a 6 yr old boy. His mother had fled to local refuge to escape domestic abuse. She had a younger son and was pregnant with a daughter and her partner had assaulted her to try to cause a miscarriage. Her son was extremely troubled having spent 6 years observing violence against his mother and against him. He had no way of managing his emotions. He had already attended two schools.

When things were going his way it was OK but if he was unable to do or have something his only response was anger and fury. He was very violent and though 'only 6' was also very strong. He had to be removed from class regularly for the safety of other children. He trashed my office on a number of occasions: files spilled, notices torn, items hurtled etc etc.
Eventually we had to make our medical room 'safe' as a time out space for him. It was small and we could lock fixed cupboards and removed all 'loose' items. The windows were high and not eye level. He was placed in the room o his own whilst I sat outside. Sometimes it took more than 40 mins for him to be able to be calm enough to talk to. The school office was opposite so always others on hand. his mother knew all about this arrangement.
If I had excluded him he would have been at the refuge all day & before we could get his needs fully assessed we had to show that the school had tried a range of strategies to help him.. if he was not in school we could not demonstrate what we had done to try to help him. The eventual outcome for this sad little boy is that he ended up in residential school.

Nothing is ever black and white in these situations. Don't be quick to judge..either way!

One of my ex colleagues used to do supply teaching after retirement at my school. During a lesson, 2 14 year old girls at the back were being a total nuisance and badly disturbing the class. After several warnings, he told them off more firmly - and one of them then burst into (pretend) tears- he went to the back of the school, bent his knees and got to her level - and put his hand on her shoulders and told her not to worry, etc. 3 days later the door bell rang, and there were 2 police officers asking him to go to the police station, where he was accused of improper sexual behaviour as the mother had put in an official complaint. The new Head teacher didn't support him - although all of us colleagues (and I had been on many a school trip with him and trusted him absolutely) knew he was totally innocent - and so were the whole class, apart from the other girl who got roped into the lie. It was so dreadful and upset him and his wife so deeply - I refused to ever do supply teaching at the school after that.

Some kids have worked out that they can get away with 'murder' by lying and especially using sexual harassment to get at teachers. Tragic, but real. Of course she did admit it was a total lie at a later stage - but the damage was done.

Nearly lost my career by the false report from a very difficult 10 year old girl and her mother who thought she always told the truth.

She was refusing to come off the playground and the buses were due there {special school with transport provided.} got her in eventually but did not touch her.

When she got home she had bruises all round her wrists and blamed me. Mum went to the police!!! The head did some wonderful interviewing in the morning when the girl broke down and said she had chewed and scratched her wrist to make marks, the bus guide also saw her do it.

After 40 years a bit of a shocker. The days when my mum who would say 'you must have done something to deserve it' if I complained, have long gone.

And not terribly unusual I'm afraid jings. Yes, even in (sometimes, especially in) affluent middle class areas there are children who somehow have lost touch with what childhood is and are instead inhabiting a far darker inner world. These children are naughty, yes, but many of them are as bewildered by and afraid of their behaviour as the people around them. I have cried many times at the seeming hopelessness of some of these youngsters.

this is interesting. and sad

I once spent one of the scariest hours of my life alone in a classroom with a pupil who had been put there for 'time out'. There was no-one within calling distance and we both knew it. The boy in question was ten years old, but already set on a path which has resulted in him having graced Her Majesty's Prisons many times since. He was a danger to staff and to other pupils and I honestly don't know what the answer is when a child is genuinely beyond control.
If there's an outrageously behaved child in a class then parents want them dealt with, but how is this to be done when a child is unafraid of the permitted sanctions? Or if the child is a danger to other children or staff and know his/her 'rights' and can exploit the vulnerability of the system. I have had an EIGHT year old tell me he knew his rights and that I wasn't allowed to touch him or he'd have me 'done for assault'.
I'm a tough and wise old bird with a lot of life experience so I was able to handle some potentially explosive situations, but there are young and inexperienced staff - and we were all that once - who are (as yet) still finding their feet and at times are simply out of their depth.

If she approved the policy....................

But how ridiculous to suspend the headmistress, who wasn't even there at the time....

The room/cupboard had been used before for another child. So it must have been policy aprroved by the Headmistress.