I appeared on Vanessa Feltz’s Talk TV show discussing the misbehaviour of children in school.
I enumerated these reasons:
- The curriculum needs to be more engaging, and less ‘moribund’ (or boring as Vanessa Feltz translated me). There needs to be more music, dance, drama, physical education, and meaningful talk in schools.
- There should be less focus upon teaching to the test in schools. Educational policy needs to change so that exams are less ‘high stakes’ and much more supportive of children’s learning. Forcing children to take endless tests is an obvious cause of misbehaviour.
- Boost funding and resources. Staff cut backs mean children who find school challenging get less support than they used to. This then leads to misbehaviour.
- The Covid effect. Covid has meant children are less socialised, and more traumatised than previous generations.
- Teacher education. Teachers need to be constantly and engagingly educated to deal with challenging behaviour. Training teachers in mindfulness practices, in learning to remain calm in difficult situations can improve classroom environments.
To learn more about this topic, it’s worth reading this BERA blog.