Teachers have gone on strike over ‘intimidating’ schoolboys who fight on buses and ‘freely roam the corridors’ when they should be in isolation.
Staff at Haydon Bridge High School in Northumberland moaned they had given ‘chance after chance’ but to no avail – as the ‘persistent disruption’ continues.
Protesters are now set to stage a mass strike on December 16, 17 and 18, meaning the majority of pupils will be unable to attend lessons on those days.
Previous strikes, scheduled on November 19 and 25, had been called off amid discussions to find a solution; however, this came to nothing as teacher union representatives claimed there was no progress by the school ‘in the last few weeks’ to crack down on bad behaviour.
It comes as student misdemeanours at the school are said to often go unpunished, so pupils no longer fear the consequences of their disruptive actions.
Engineering teacher Matthew Ainsley added that punishments such as putting students in isolation are not working because they aren’t enforced.
‘Instead, pupils are allowed to roam freely through the corridors,’ he claimed.
‘We have had fights, and recently, we have had gangs of male students who won’t do what female staff ask of them.
‘Some of the female teachers have experienced groups gathering around them to argue a point when they are simply asked to stop playing football or go into the classroom.
‘It is intimidating for the teachers.
‘You get fights, mostly in the yard, which can be challenging for staff to break up.
‘There was a fight on the bus, which was quite nasty. A member of staff had to go on the bus and break that up.
‘Staff are often unsupported when students are removed from lessons, and asked to take them back again.’
Sean Kelly, branch secretary for the National Education Union (NEU), added: ‘A lot of this comes from dreadful pupil behaviour around the school. Not just the low-level disruption that goes on, but also violent incidents.
‘We think there’s a culture of misogyny within the school where female teachers, particularly, are being targeted by gangs, which is totally unacceptable and needs to be tackled.
‘We keep getting reports of assaults taking place in school, fights taking place.’
Punishments include being put in isolation, or ‘restart’, where students are forced to reflect on poor behaviour with the head teacher and their peers.
The school’s most recent OFSTED report, from September, said there was ‘persistent disruptive behaviour of a minority of pupils that is leading to high levels of suspensions.’
The school has just over 400 pupils aged between 11 and 18, but the headcount is on the decline, as parents are pulling their children from the school.
Some staff have also left due to the continued problems.
Simon Kennedy, regional organiser for NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union, added: ‘It boils down to a lack of management of behaviour in schools.
‘It is difficult being a teacher, but it’s about having a system in place to ensure pupils are punished, and they know the consequences.
However, what are the repercussions and the penalty? Because, from where I sit, misbehaviour in schools is no longer punishable.
The UK government took away corporal punishment in schools through the Education Act (1986), which was introduced in response to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 1982.
This ruling said that corporal punishment in schools was not permissible without parental backing.
The Act sought to shield kids from the psychological effects and the harm of physical punishment.
The ban was implemented in 1987 for state-run schools and for private schools where some government funding was involved.
The ban was later extended to private schools in England and Wales in 1998, in Scotland in 2000, and in Northern Ireland in 2003.
So, the act was to protect kids from harm; what about teachers? Well, our government is certainly reaping what they sowed – but when it boils down to it, they all sit in their glass houses, and they just don’t care.
Our government took a generation of children and made them into monsters because there is no punishment in schools or in the home – welcome to the jungle!
I wonder who else could see this coming, well, just about anybody with an ounce of common sense. Remove discipline, remove control.
Bring back corporal punishment, bring back reform schools for spoiled rotten children, that would be their reset. Bring back the cane, although I don’t believe that would be of any use now. Our children are too out of control for that. Boot camp because our children have become misogynistic little ogres!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 