Behaviour management – £10 million taskforce oversimplifies hugely complex issue
Education secretary Gavin Williamson's 'silent corridors' idea seems based on a one-size-fits-all approach to disruptive behaviour, and that's doomed to fail, says our anonymous head…
- by Anonymous
A little while ago, Gavin Williamson, the secretary of state for education, stirred the pot by saying that ‘silent corridors’ should be the ‘norm’ in every school. His comments followed his pledge to spend £10 million on a taskforce to tackle disruptive behaviour in schools.
I was quite excited when I heard the term ‘taskforce’. It conjured up images of latex-clad superheroes bursting into school corridors whenever an unruly seven-year-old dared to skip down a corridor in a bid to be the first one out to play.
Perhaps we’d all be given a special red phone that we could ring whenever a child repeatedly swings on their chair. “Holy low-level disruption, Batman!”
Sadly, it’s not quite as exciting as that. It’s six advisors who are going to select 20 schools across the UK to become a behaviour hub. I’m not sure what a ‘behaviour hub’ is, but it seems as good a place as any to hide away 10 million quid.
When announcing his big plan, the secretary of state described some behaviour expectations of a few schools – no slouching, line up quietly, hand in your mobile phones, wear this GPS ankle-tag during PE. (I may have made that last one up.)
Now, I can’t disagree with what some schools have done to tackle behaviour. Why? Not because I’m a draconian monster, but because I don’t know the school. I don’t know it now and I certainly didn’t know it back when behaviour was, apparently, a problem.
So, I am therefore unqualified to pass judgement on any successful strategies that they used.
I also completely agree with the secretary of state for education when he says that if you visit some of the best schools you’ll often ‘notice that many of them have one thing in common: discipline’.
He’s right. But this is hardly news.
They also have teachers in them, and leaders, and breathable air. But, effective schools do, also, run on effective behaviour management systems.
What I disagree with the secretary of state on is his decision to not only name specific schools, but to list specific strategies that some schools have used to improve behaviour.
I think that was misguided because it gives the impression that these are the only types of strategies that work or are right for all school settings. I fear that he has inadvertently attempted to over-simplify one of the most complex and dynamic issues facing every school in the country.
Schools can demand silent corridors if they want to. They can remove children’s phones. They can demerit a kid for doing whatever they’ve decided they shouldn’t be doing. Schools can insist on all of these things if that’s what they want to do, but don’t mistake these rules for a positive school culture.
That would be like presuming a kid can write properly just because their handwriting is joined up.
Unfortunately, there’s more to it than that. Creating a positive school culture where learning is respected and everyone within the school community respects each other is a very difficult thing to pull off.
Demanding that children don’t slouch in their chairs is only going to be a tiny part of the puzzle.
Now, we all know that because we’re educators. And I’m sure the six advisors know that as well. But the minister’s rhetoric doesn’t quite inspire the same confidence.
If I was cynical then I would say that he deliberately listed these behaviour strategies because that is what he wants every school to put in place.
If I was naive, I’d think that he really does think that these tactics are all it takes and if we see them in a school it must therefore mean that the school is good.
If I were cruel, I’d say that the minister wants schools to be silent because it reduces the risk of any young person talking to him while he’s on a ministerial visit. But I am sure the minister was just misguided in his words and that we will all look back at his decision to spaff £10 million on some behaviour hubs and agree that it was the right thing to do.
The writer is a podcaster and headteacher of a UK primary school. Find them at brainedcomedy.comand follow on Twitter at @brainedcomedy.
