Wed, 5 Sep 2012
Official conclusions on the standard of behaviour in England’s secondary classrooms underestimate the scale of the problem in many schools – according to research from the University of East Anglia.
More than half of student teachers surveyed about their school experiences, either as young professionals or as pupils, said they had often been in lessons where the teacher was not in complete control of the class.
When considering their own school days, some 25 per cent said fewer than half of their lessons were under the relaxed, comfortable charge of their teachers.
And commenting on their worst experience of classroom behaviour as a pupil, 47 per cent said they could remember times when it was likely their teacher was “dreading the thought of the lesson”, with major disruption and pupils paying little or no heed to the presence of an adult in the room.
Of these, 21 per cent said they could remember lessons when the actions of badly-behaved pupils largely dictated what happened in the class.
The statistics come from a survey of 243 PGCE trainee teachers, carried out by Prof Terry Haydn from UEA’s school of Education and Lifelong Learning. They are the latest findings from nearly a decade of research being presented at the annual conference of the British Educational Research Association in Manchester today.
Prof Haydn’s research contrasts with official pronouncements on behaviour standards.
Ofsted data shows that 99.7 per cent of schools have pupil behaviour which is described by inspectors as at least satisfactory. Meanwhile the Steer Report, published in 2009 following an inquiry commissioned by the Labour government, found that “the overall standard of behaviour achieved by schools is good”.
And as far back as 1994, the then Secretary of State John Patten had said that poor pupil behaviour affected “a small number of pupils in a small number of schools”.
But Prof Haydn argues that these statements may present a misleading picture - Ofsted inspectors in particular might have no choice but to believe that behaviour standards are better due to head teachers doing all they can to minimise bad behaviour during inspections.
The research began in 2002, with a small scale pilot study which found little difference in behaviour standards between inner-city and rural schools, with average scores suggesting pupil “bubbliness” or “rowdiness” in lessons was not uncommon. A survey of 700 pupils also found 104 saying classmates’ behaviour put them off wanting to be in the classroom.
In 2006-7, Prof Haydn conducted interviews with 105 classroom teachers and 13 head teachers from more than 80 schools.
All 13 heads indicated that pupil behaviour was at least to some extent “an issue” in their schools. While in some schools it was not seen as a major problem, many teachers reported that at least some of their classes “required careful handling” to keep fully under control. Several teachers working in popular, oversubscribed schools reported having to work hard to control some of their classes.
Comments from teachers included: “I am very experienced and am generally accepted by the staff as someone who is good at dealing with the kids but I am finding it really difficult to cope with the number of pupils who are really serious cases, who are off the scale in terms of their behaviour.”
Another said: “The head is great, he leads from the front, he takes difficult classes, he is always about in the school, but he can’t stop the really difficult kids running riot.”
Evidence from these teacher interviews overall suggested that “at least to some extent, behaviour was an issue which affected most schools”.
There were, however, some different perspectives. One teacher, who enjoyed lessons in which behaviour was not an issue, said: “As you are walking around the classroom, or looking out of the window, you think to yourself there aren’t many people who have a job as fulfilling or enjoyable as this.”
In a 2009-10 survey, 94 per cent of the student teachers taking part reported that lessons they could remember either as a professional or as a pupil were at least sometimes a challenge for the teacher in charge.
And while 49 per cent said that, in their own experience as secondary school pupils the teachers had generally been in fairly easy control in the classroom, some 83 per cent had experienced lessons in which that control was “limited” or worse.
Prof Haydn said: “It should be stressed that there are many schools in the UK where the lower levels of the behaviour scale never occur. But the outcomes of the surveys I have undertaken over the past decade suggest that there would appear to be few schools in the UK where there are no deficits in the working atmosphere in classrooms.
“A second important point to note is that there would appear to be massive variations, both between schools and within individual schools, in terms of the behaviour levels prevailing. In-school variation is part of the problem. There is an important difference between classrooms in which the working atmosphere is ‘satisfactory’, and a classroom climate that is perfectly conducive to learning, in terms of the impact on pupil attainment.”
Prof Haydn said that policy-makers should not claim that there are easy fixes or suggest that poor pupil behaviour is simply due to poor teaching or bad schools. At least part of the problem lay in factors outside schools and classrooms.
'To what extent is behaviour a problem in UK schools?' is being presented to BERA by Prof Terry Haydn on Wednesday, September 5.
When considering their own school days, some 25 per cent said fewer than half of their lessons were under the relaxed, comfortable charge of their teachers.
And commenting on their worst experience of classroom behaviour as a pupil, 47 per cent said they could remember times when it was likely their teacher was “dreading the thought of the lesson”, with major disruption and pupils paying little or no heed to the presence of an adult in the room.
Of these, 21 per cent said they could remember lessons when the actions of badly-behaved pupils largely dictated what happened in the class.
The statistics come from a survey of 243 PGCE trainee teachers, carried out by Prof Terry Haydn from UEA’s school of Education and Lifelong Learning. They are the latest findings from nearly a decade of research being presented at the annual conference of the British Educational Research Association in Manchester today.
Prof Haydn’s research contrasts with official pronouncements on behaviour standards.
Ofsted data shows that 99.7 per cent of schools have pupil behaviour which is described by inspectors as at least satisfactory. Meanwhile the Steer Report, published in 2009 following an inquiry commissioned by the Labour government, found that “the overall standard of behaviour achieved by schools is good”.
And as far back as 1994, the then Secretary of State John Patten had said that poor pupil behaviour affected “a small number of pupils in a small number of schools”.
But Prof Haydn argues that these statements may present a misleading picture - Ofsted inspectors in particular might have no choice but to believe that behaviour standards are better due to head teachers doing all they can to minimise bad behaviour during inspections.
The research began in 2002, with a small scale pilot study which found little difference in behaviour standards between inner-city and rural schools, with average scores suggesting pupil “bubbliness” or “rowdiness” in lessons was not uncommon. A survey of 700 pupils also found 104 saying classmates’ behaviour put them off wanting to be in the classroom.
In 2006-7, Prof Haydn conducted interviews with 105 classroom teachers and 13 head teachers from more than 80 schools.
All 13 heads indicated that pupil behaviour was at least to some extent “an issue” in their schools. While in some schools it was not seen as a major problem, many teachers reported that at least some of their classes “required careful handling” to keep fully under control. Several teachers working in popular, oversubscribed schools reported having to work hard to control some of their classes.
Comments from teachers included: “I am very experienced and am generally accepted by the staff as someone who is good at dealing with the kids but I am finding it really difficult to cope with the number of pupils who are really serious cases, who are off the scale in terms of their behaviour.”
Another said: “The head is great, he leads from the front, he takes difficult classes, he is always about in the school, but he can’t stop the really difficult kids running riot.”
Evidence from these teacher interviews overall suggested that “at least to some extent, behaviour was an issue which affected most schools”.
There were, however, some different perspectives. One teacher, who enjoyed lessons in which behaviour was not an issue, said: “As you are walking around the classroom, or looking out of the window, you think to yourself there aren’t many people who have a job as fulfilling or enjoyable as this.”
In a 2009-10 survey, 94 per cent of the student teachers taking part reported that lessons they could remember either as a professional or as a pupil were at least sometimes a challenge for the teacher in charge.
And while 49 per cent said that, in their own experience as secondary school pupils the teachers had generally been in fairly easy control in the classroom, some 83 per cent had experienced lessons in which that control was “limited” or worse.
Prof Haydn said: “It should be stressed that there are many schools in the UK where the lower levels of the behaviour scale never occur. But the outcomes of the surveys I have undertaken over the past decade suggest that there would appear to be few schools in the UK where there are no deficits in the working atmosphere in classrooms.
“A second important point to note is that there would appear to be massive variations, both between schools and within individual schools, in terms of the behaviour levels prevailing. In-school variation is part of the problem. There is an important difference between classrooms in which the working atmosphere is ‘satisfactory’, and a classroom climate that is perfectly conducive to learning, in terms of the impact on pupil attainment.”
Prof Haydn said that policy-makers should not claim that there are easy fixes or suggest that poor pupil behaviour is simply due to poor teaching or bad schools. At least part of the problem lay in factors outside schools and classrooms.
'To what extent is behaviour a problem in UK schools?' is being presented to BERA by Prof Terry Haydn on Wednesday, September 5.
