Assault on a teacher

Originally Posted by Messie

Exactly the point I wanted to make. In my experience, and I accept this may not be the case in all schools, we actually do more to sanction the kid than the police do.

Anyway, I'll leave the discussion to others now. Ralph's missus had an unfortunate incident at her school. It's up to her and them to sort out.

If anyone wants to find out what it's like in an ordinary comp by doing a bit of work shadowing, then PM me

I wasn't in any way condoning the action.
I personally think that society and schooling has gone to sh*t.
Schools have gone far too soft and pc, seeming to look for the easiest (cheapest) way to deal with any problems or issues.
I know it can't all be blamed on schools and parents carry a lot of the responsability also.
Things seemed to have changed much for the worse since I was at school (not all that long ago in the grand scheme of things), there was hell to pay for playing up and god help you when you got home to the parents!
Seems there is no respect for anything anymore as its importance isn't being passed onto the future generations.

[Sir Trev]

Just imagine the look on the little scrotes face if he ever gets a job and carries on in the same vein because he thinks he can always get away with it... right up to the point when the security guard hands him a black bag/cardboard box after his manager and HR department have told him he's fired for gross misconduct. School is part of the (no pun intended) education for life that we give our kids and it should be realistic to the extent that you start as you mean to go on. Three of my good uni mates are teachers and the ones in the public sector schools have similar horror stories and frustrations as you guys have listed. The one in the private school does not have it so bad as the school admissions are based on projected results and if you don't make the grade you're out.

Ralph - wish your wife well. And fingers crossed it all works out for her.

I've just refreshed my training on intervention and physical restraint (Special School theacher) and the recent guidance on physical intervention is shocking. The key to it all though is reasonable and appropriate. If this lad is a regular offender he should have very clear behaviour management guidance, and sanctions. If this is a first then they should be drawn up very soon. The School should have clearly defined behaviour management policy and procedures. These must be regulary reviewed and shared with staff, and adhered to. The School will be walking on very thin ice if niether/either are the case.
I wish your wife a full and speedy recovery, and don't let her let the school get away without doing anything.

[MisterTommyH]

Originally Posted by martin15s

We often hear of zero tolerance policies without genuine government/society backing - we really only seem to treat the symptoms, not the root causes.

nevertheless if mrs Ralph is not is a position to effect root cause change the HSE is an option that is there. They are one area of government that seems to act on their remit (perhaps a little too eagerly at times), but it's not unknown for them to interject on sites and close them down where there are un-addressed risks. I don't see why the fact that the risk is a person should make any difference.

Yesterday another male pupil was excluded for 2 days for squaring up to a female teacher in a threatening manner, before pushing her into the wall. 4th incident in about 3 months. The kid will be happy to have got 2 days off to play his xbox.

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Yesterday another male pupil was excluded for 2 days for squaring up to a female teacher in a threatening manner, before pushing her into the wall. 4th incident in about 3 months. The kid will be happy to have got 2 days off to play his xbox.

On which he probably happily plays 18 cert games, which his parents are happy to ignore/condone. I blame the parents. If you're brought up to respect your elders (old fashioned view I know), you tend not to push your teachers around. That starts, or doesn't, at home.

And his parents probably mouthing off on Facebook how sh1tty the school is!

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Messie

punishment as per guidelines.... some days suspension (temporary exclusion)

Which dribbling spastic* decided a day off was a fitting punishment for being an unruly little sh*te?

Hows about 2 weeks shoveling coal from one side of boiler house to other and back again?


*If anyone finds out, please inform me of his address. Whereupon I will go and kick seven bells out of him, p*ss on his couch and await my expenses paid trip to somewhere warm

Originally Posted by DJFridge

On which he probably happily plays 18 cert games, which his parents are happy to ignore/condone. I blame the parents. If you're brought up to respect your elders (old fashioned view I know), you tend not to push your teachers around. That starts, or doesn't, at home.

It starts at home but when it comes to actions carried out in school it doesn't necessarily finish at home. Another pupil got excluded for 5 days for setting off the fire alarm (become a bit of a craze recently, happened 12 times now (!), so the school is cracking down on it). The pupils have been heard joking that the kid that carried out the fire alarm prank, should have just assaulted a teacher instead as it carries a lesser punishment.

It's the 4th such incident in recent times and the first exclusion, so pupils have watched it happen 3 times with no apparent punishment. So when that kid felt like pushing a teacher, what was his deterrent? He didn't have one, he's seen three other kids do it and it went unpunished, so he might as well jump on the bandwagon.

Kids need consistent rules and consistent discipline. If they don't have that in any environment, home or school, then they'll be unable to establish what their acceptable boundaries are when they are in that environment. If that's the case they have to test the water to find the boundary, because it hasn't been clearly set out for them, so you get them doing unacceptable things.

Then where there are teachers that can't be bothered with the conflict of imposing a punishment, the pupils are getting away with things. When the cats away (or the cat can't be bothered) the mice will play. And in this school the mice are setting the rules, and they know it!

I could go on and on. My wife tries to confiscate a mobile phone because a pupil is on MSN messenger in class. The pupil tells her to get lost and puts the phone in the pocket and point blank refuses to give it to her. She can't drag the pupil off the chair and forcibly remove it from the kids pocket, so she hands out a detention (which the kid doesn't turn up for). The pupil kicks off and starts shouting the odds because she was on MSN Messenger in another class, and that teacher just told her to put the phone away, but didn't try to confiscate it or give a detention, so 'it's not fair'. All that's needed there is the ground rule set by the headmaster in assembly one day, that if any teacher so much as sees a mobile phone in a classroom it WILL be confiscated and the pupil will not get it back until 3pm. Then ALL teachers enforce the same rule consistently. That's called setting acceptable boundaries! This kids will soon stop getting the phone out of the bag or the pocket in class at school, regardless of what their parents allow them to do with the phone at home.

'She can't drag the pupil off the chair and forcibly remove it from the kids pocket'
In not quite such blunt terms, yes she can. If the disruption is causing 'harm' (that being the disruption to the class and x number of students missing out on x number of minutes of education) she has the power, and, by government, is expected to use it, to remove the harm (either the phone or the pupil). And that goes for every member of staff in the school, from the Head to the kitchen staff! And the official government guidance is that schools don't need to create a policy about it.