It’s easy to dismiss concerns about behaviour getting worse in education because as each generation of teachers has matured, they have always looked back and stated that it was much better before.
But right now, the trend over time - and the spread of the types of school and the levels of teacher raising the alarm - suggests there is clearly a significant issue in need of attention.
Both suspensions and exclusions are up by a third. Teacher Tapp data suggests a significant increase in teachers at all phases and across all subjects reporting that they are worried about behaviour affecting learning. Pepe Di’lasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), has highlighted the “challenge” of an “increase in poor behaviour” that headteachers are facing.
And in the government’s national behaviour survey, published in April this year, 76 per cent of respondents said pupil misbehaviour had stopped or interrupted teaching last year.
Poor behaviour hits teacher workload
As much as this poor behaviour directly affects learning when it happens, teachers also report the extensive knock-on impact of the fallout from incidents. Conducting the review of the behaviour, deciding appropriate sanction, implementing the sanction, communicating with parents when needed and then managing that parent relationship all present a huge workload challenge.
And the toll on mental health from dealing with misbehaviour is also hitting teachers hard: in the government survey, 74 per cent of respondents said pupil misbehaviour had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing.
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Schools are doing their best to deal with this problem in various ways, be it tightening behaviour rules and consequences or opting for more restorative approaches or combinations of many different methods.
Regardless of which approaches they try, though, the problem seems to persist. And the level of parent support for the school in upholding behaviour is, school leaders tell me, declining: more and more parents feel their role is to fight their child’s corner, despite the evidence, rather than to work with the school to deal with the challenging behaviour.
A widely reported rise in parent complaints to schools is certainly linked to this issue.
This is not to say that every child is misbehaving: most follow the rules. And neither is it to say that all parents are unsupportive of the school: again, the majority do their best to work with schools.
But the size of the minority presenting challenges is increasing at a point in time when there is no capacity in education - in terms of time, money, training, support services and so on - to flex to meet the challenges.
The need for a holistic response
The behaviour issue now needs a holistic response. At a school level, collaboration across the sector to find common challenges and brainstorm solutions is a must. Examples of success need to be shared widely.
The ASCL, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the Confederation of School Trusts have done excellent work in bringing leaders together to find solutions. This needs to be supported by government.
The government also needs to take a broad, cross-department view of poor behaviour in schools: what are the contributing factors, and what levers does it have to tackle them?
For example, if mental health is a factor, what needs to happen to enable cross-department early intervention and support? If the curriculum offer is a factor, how might the review of curriculum and assessment better bring other government department areas - the Department of Health and Social Care, the Treasury, the Home Office - into the conversation?
Most importantly, it needs to be recognised that behaviour in schools is not a school problem. It is an “us” problem. And it therefore can’t simply have a school solution.
Jon Severs is editor at Tes
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