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If you haven’t watched Panorama this evening - give it a go, absolutely shocking

Really terrible. And the statement from the school blames Panorama


https://www.lifewirral.com/

I see the "teachers" have all been busy deleting their social media accounts.

One wonders whether Ofsted should employ undercover methods to find out what really goes on.

Unbelievably, they found the school to be 'Good'.

But I suppose its pretty easy to pull the wool over the eyes of a bunch of ex teachers and headteachers who prefer judging others to doing the job themselves for the duration of a brief visit.

Firstly before anyone puts words in my mouth, I am not condoning the behaviour of the teachers but ...

If you put people in an impossible situation, the general rule book goes out the window. The problem in this particular case is there should be a rule book for the teacher's in this situation and instead they were given free reign. The poor management has led to the behaviour of the teachers but of course the teachers are still responsible for their own behaviour.

Behavioural kids are extremely difficult, these can be the same ones that hang around the streets mugging adults, how is a teacher supposed to follow the same guidance for these kids as better behaved kids? Its even harder when the pupils are goaded on by their parents which is sometimes the case.

Very occasionally you get someone that has the personality to manage these kids, it isn't something that be taught, there is an acute shortage of such people who are willing to take the task on, you can't create these teachers.

I would say that for a special school, the average age of the staff looks a little young, especially those with enhanced responsibilities. Presumably the older staff aren't daft enough to take on additional work when they have their hands full and the younger staff have more need to boost their income. Considering the size of this school it looks like responsibilities might have been handed out as a staff retention enticement.

There is no answer, similar to the problems with youth crime. It not unusual for some classes to have a number of pupils with ankle tags on.

In recent times we see the same problem with the management of people with dementia. The staff get criticised if they man-handle them, the staff get criticised if they leave them on the floor. Eventually the staff realise they are in an impossible position and do whatever takes their fancy.

If you want to experience any of this, you can do the same as the reporter did and volunteer in a special school. Its no use volunteering in a normal school, generally the volunteers don't get to see the more challenging classes.

A factor that doesn't help is the shortage of money to pay for teaching/care assistants even when legally required.

One answer is to have more, but not exclusive, one-on-one teaching, but nobody has got the money for that. This private school was clearly set up to be awarded local council contracts which like fostering is being contracted out with lucrative rewards for challenging children.

What can be done? Closing down every facility that deals with challenging pupils doesn't solve the problem, criminalising the teachers doesn't solve the problem. How can we cope with challenging pupils?