Commenting on the Department for Education’s announcement of
support for schools from behaviour experts, Dr Mary Bousted,
Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“We support initiatives to promote good behaviour in schools.
Respectful, well ordered teaching and learning environments are
essential for effective teaching and learning. But this
announcement ignores the elephant in the room. Too many
children's lives are getting much harder - many more are moving
into care, are trapped in poverty, and have acute mental health
conditions. This announcement ignores the practical barriers, for
instance the unacceptable waiting lists for counselling for the
under 18s. The Government wants to pretend that ‘levelling up’
can be achieved solely through educational interventions, but it
cannot. We have three decades of evidence showing that preventing
and reducing pupil exclusions requires a multi-agency approach
and collaboration across children's services.
“Levelling up must include restoring the funding that schools
require for effective pastoral systems and time for teachers to
share strategies and to work individually with children who are
struggling. Supporting positive behaviour requires time for
teachers to build strong relationships with students and their
families and provide a range of interesting subjects, but recent
curriculum changes and rising class sizes is making this much
harder.
“Heads and teachers are only too acutely aware of what they want
to do more of in order to support students, but they can't
because of funding and staffing cuts. This frustration is one of
the drivers of the teacher recruitment crisis and so Government
must engage constructively with the profession if we're to find
long term solutions.
“This announcement is silent about the pressures on disadvantaged
schools, where more teachers are leaving. has once again made positive references to Ofsted,
missing the unavoidable fact that it is Ofsted which drives
teachers to leave the profession, not least from schools in areas
of high poverty.”
