...having the whole class stare 2 inches above the teacher's head for the whole detention. Worked like a charm.

Its the same problem as it is everywhere else in life. Little neds think they can get away with anything they like, mainly because they can. What punishment can a teacher actually apply these days? Particularly when the parents are probably as big neds as the kids so no point talking to them or sending punishments home etc.

My mother used to be primary teacher and after a kid punched her she grabbed his arm in self defence to stop the little chav doing it again, next thing she knows the parents are threatening to sue her for assault. Thankfully nothing ever came of it but the stress she was under with that hanging over her nobody show go through simply for trying to do their job.

Kids do what they like as there's no deterrent, then grow up to be adults with no respect, regard for other people and no fear of authority.

Wearing coats? The youth of today!

I'll get mine.

the cane, was a good deterrent when I was at school. Nothing worse than being sent to the headmasters office

I was with a group of kids and they decided to vandalise a car which ofcourse led to several members of the group (including myself) being arrested. When my mum heard about what had happened, she beat me senseless. She used a cricket bat, and when that got too heavy, she used a 2by1 stick, and when that got tiring she finshed me off with a good hiding with a very very thin whip like stick which hurt bucket loads. Needless to say, I never did anything like that again. I know there are some parents who say that punishing children is barbaric and that you should show love and care and understanding to teach them from right and wrong. I say bollox to that and all their wooly ways, whip the little sh*ts, and if that doesn't work, send them to military school.

Paris cos she needs a good whipping as well.

We used to make paper rain. You took a piece of paper about three inches wide, rolled it up and chewed one end. You then threw it at the ceiling, chewed end first, so that it stuck. Repeated that until there were about 20 or so paper rolls on the ceiling above the teacher's desk.

They would dry out and fall down at intervals throughout the lesson. Getting the teacher on the head was a bonus. Much more entertaining than the other staple of filling Bunsen burner hoses full of water and sticking them back on the gas taps.

All perfectly Legal and government approved. Should be used more frequently.

Google it if you aren't familiar with the term...

In a past life I worked part time as a maths teacher, did supply for an old school I used to attend after leaving university before getting on with the rest of my life. This highlighted many problems.

Number 1, shortage of qualified teachers. I was given the job as I had a degree in match/comp sci. I had ZERO training. None at all. There wasn't a single qualified maths teacher available for the post so a maths graduate was allowed to do it. Nobody wants to go into teaching anymore, the job has become unattractive, not for the pay which although not great is still decent. Not even for the long hours (however long you think teachers work, double it). Its for the abuse you suffer every single day while in the classroom. Who wants to spend all day getting abused?

2. Mixed ability classes. I had a few different classes, but I will highlight the year 7 class (11-12 year olds). In one class I had 2 kids who could both do long division, could manipulate fractions, understand reasonably complex algebra and what not. I also had a couple of kids who might, on a good day, work out how much change they were going to get if they spent 50p and gave the shop keeper a quid.

How the hell do you teach that class. If I set work that the smart kids can do, nobody else gets it. If it set work that the thick (sorry) kids can do, the rest finish it in 2 minutes. Either way I end up with a class full of kids who are bored, frustrated and because of the lack of discipline, unruly. So, you end up setting work pitched at the middle abilities. But now you have the bright kids who have finished it in 5 minutes, so you give them something extra, and the thick (sorry again) kids who don't understand it. So you need to give personal attention to the top end of the class and the bottom end of the class, helping one lot along, giving the others more work.

And who does that leave unattended. The middle of the class. The reasonably intelligent lot, the ones who are intelligent enough to work out that because teacher is distracted, they can get away with not doing anything, and not smart enough that they are ruining their own education.

End result, 30 kids in a classroom not working, a frustrated and overworked teacher, and the teaching profession going down the toilet because nobody wants to do it anymore.

Having classes of equal ability is the only way you are able to teach a decent lesson that the whole class can understand. Of course there are still going to be disruptive kids. I favour low levels of tollerance, if they want to waste time, find, stick all the disruptive kids in a classroom somewhere and teach them how to lay bricks. If they want, they can rejoin the normal stream. Screw up again, its bricks for the rest of the year.

The country gets a load of qualified brickies, everyone else gets a good education, and teachers get much less abuse.

Mines the one with the target on the back, for the spit balls.

"I hope you mean that such behaviour 'worked' in the sense that got you another month of detentions and a whole term of picking up litter with your teeth."

Well, no. Because we were told that we had to sit still and do nothing during the detention, and so we were doing exactly what we were told. Wasn't easy, mind you, to stare at one fixed spot for 30 minutes... We never had detention again, don'tcha know.

I blame the parents and our society!

It's very simple: we need:

a) Compulsory Military Service

b) A few more hidings for the foul-mouthed, undisciplined, poorly-mannered brats, that people claim are nothing but a few children with some issues!

I have one child myself (second's on the way) and we do have a very strict regime at home! Don't get me wrong! I love my daughter to bits and dare anyone come near her in a fashion, I don't like!

But, when it comes to foul language, poor behavior, discipline (or lack there of) and just general manners towards others (and I mean children and adults!), we don't have any ifs or buts!

I cannot understand how parents can allow there children to talk rudely to other children or adults and let that go without any consequences!

But I suppose that is our society:

Nobody wants responsibilities!

When my daughter plays up when shopping, I take her either to a quiet corner or to the car and she get's a decent (but NOT HARMFUL!!!!) hiding.

Then I talk to her and ask her if she understands why, and the matter is sorted.

I DO NOT ABUSE HER!!!

But I suppose we have way to many parent's out there, who should have been sterilized before they started scr**ing around and proved how incapable and useless they are in raising their offspring!

And for those morons who claim, that a hiding is no good:

In some cases you may be right, and I do believe and know that there are some children who never required a physical, but I do believe, that the vast majority are still in need!

Best regards

Can't help but wonder just how civilising all that corporate punishment really was. So many posts here gleefully recall their school pranks.

"oh but we were punished for it, didn't do us any harm."

Doesn't appear to have done you any good either. Just how civilised did you end up, when you suggest solutions including military training and sterilisation of the unworthy?

The synchronising of watches, the clearing of throats...

Some days we'd get creative- everyone would have their ties slightly to the right (this would piss off the more OCD teachers).

Of course back then it would be taken in good humour because the teachers knew we weren't concealing weapons. Mobiles weren't even around in schools back then.

*sigh*

The good old days of humming the theme to rhubarb and custard over and over again until Wiggy flipped out and started throwing books.

Stupid Liberals have made sure that there is nothing a teacher can do to prevent a child from acting like an animal and this somehow makes the world a better place. With idiots who have no comprehension of what they are doing and the effects of their actions on others and with NO comeback on them, how can we even begin to think that things are going to get better in schools and outside of schools.

This kind of thing sucks. Kids encourage each other to ape about like brainless schmucks and there's no discouragement at all to try and be a human for five minutes because teachers are (rightfully) afraid that if they try and do something about it they'll end up on the sex offenders' register.

If nobody can teach these moronic kids about responsibility, cause and effect, right from wrong, and how to not be a mong, then they won't learn those things and they'll just end up being benefits cheats that we have to pay for.

And someone wants to lower the voting age? We're all doomed!

An alien because Stupid Liberals have no shields against their laser blasters.

As an ex (supply) teacher I was privy to bad behaviour first hand at a number of schools, especially as a supply teacher because, as you all know, it's so easy to wind up/annoy/torture these people.

Anyways, I was working in a school that was not exactly known for being a good school but I was a regular there and so knew a few kids by name and they knew me by sight so not all bad.

I had one kid acting like a complete dick in a lesson, I used all possible sanctions that were allowed and also kept him in at break time. At this point he lost it and tried to barge past me (I'd stepped in the way of the door to stop him leaving, no force on my part but more like a barrier, there were other students in the room and there was a window so I wasnt; too worried about anything that could be said). This was followed up with the statement:

'If you don't move I'm going to knock you round this classroom'

At this point I let him go because there was nothing that I could do or say to resolve the situation due to the fact that if I'd gone with:

A) 'go on then take your best shot' - this would be seen as escalting the situation

B) 'belted him' - assault, end of teaching career and probably tim in jail so defo not an option

C) 'You can try but you'll be getting carried out of this room' - This would be seen to be threatening behaviour

and I realised that teachers now have no power and cannot discipline students effectively. hence why I now work in telecoms, no more annoyances then!

Hell, back in the day, I saw a Biology teacher throw a STUDENT for smart-mouthing him (bounced the little bastard right off the blackboard).

NOBODY fucked with Mr S.!

Not being TRAINED to deal with it?

They can deal with it easily - what they lack is the permission. The whole PC culture where we can't do anything but politely ask the students to stop stabbing each other with protractors is to blame for this.

*The bird because that's what would happen to him after 10 minutes as a pet in a state school.*

Not surprised at all. I work in schools doing IT but I don't teach... I have a degree, I have a good teaching manner, I am able to think, I've had offers from private tuition companies to teach, I've run youth clubs and karate clubs with a hundred screaming, adrenaline-hyped kids. Never had a problem with the kids. Wouldn't touch a teacher's job with a barge pole, though.

Kids cannot be disciplined in schools with the modern legal environment. It just doesn't happen. You can shout (if the school lets you, as pointed out above), you can report to the head (who will ignore you until it's time to expel, sorry, "exclude" the kid), you can (possibly, after lots and lots and lots of paperwork and visits and parent co-operation and months of time) get them suspended or "excluded". That's it. And then the law says that the local authority has to find somewhere for them, so they get put into another school (who don't really get much choice but to take them) and the whole thing starts all other again.

Detention is a farce for any kid that gets them regularly - they just don't turn up or try to start a fight with the teachers. Schools sometimes have special areas set aside for the problem kids - I've seen one with a Playstation for the kids' use and where mobile phone use is allowed, so they phone up the kids in OTHER schools special units and have a chat with them while playing games - guess what they do next time they want to phone a friend? They play Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, on Playstation in the "naughty room" after decking one of their classmates, that's what.

You have absolutely nothing that can make them stay in class. Nothing. You are stuck in a room that you can't leave with an open door. There are 30 kids, about 5 of whom want to learn, and you can't really stop any of them leaving, can't discipline them, can't rely on any form of punishment at all. You have a stern voice. Now, in the right vocal cords, that can do wonders but that's **IT**. You don't have anything else without risking your job.

In my last school (a slightly-below-average English secondary in not a bad area), every lesson, every corridor was monitored on CCTV. We had to submit more incidents to the police which involved teachers disciplining kids than we did kids actually doing stuff (mainly because every kid's parents would bring legal action for stopping a kid leaving a classroom, but nobody cared about the kids smashing up the place or walking around out of lesson so long as they weren't causing a problem for the specialist behavioural teachers on duty).

In a classroom, it takes twenty minutes to sit them down, another twenty minutes of discipline and confiscation of gadgets and twenty minutes of actual teaching to make a GOOD lesson. And most lessons are far, far below that, unless the Ofsted inspectors are nearby (please, please, institute random, warning-less inspections, for God's sake!). And, despite modern thinking, you can't "incentivise" because the lessons can never be controlled enough to get the kids interested in the first place.

Even now, sitting in a primary school, I have had to very carefully break up fights where the consequences for the kids are pretty much a stern word, maybe a letter home that gets ignored. And this is a BLOODY GOOD school. My previous school was a struggling secondary school in "special measures" (i.e. it was crap).

In the secondary school, we had happy slapping incidents where the mobile phone footage from confiscated phones actually showed teachers not even notice kids get the crap kicked out of them IN CLASS and then run from the room, being pursued by half a dozen other kids - the noise and movement in the room was that bad. We had teacher's whose "lessons" were often "sit on the computer and doodle in WordArt, while talking to each other and playing on your phones". Not just at certain times of the year but ALL YEAR. Because it was easier than trying to discipline them. We had kids storm out (well, cause disruption and yell for 30 mins before leaving) of GCSE exams because they were going to be a mechanic "like their dad".

From an IT perspective, IT rooms were trashed and we could narrow the culprits down to the millisecond on CCTV but nothing ever happened unless someone stole an entire base unit or similar. Kids wandered into the IT office (or, indeed, any door left unlocked by a lazy member of staff for a millisecond) and "just looked" at the laptops in the corner of the room when they thought you weren't there. Parent's evening you would lose a handful of laptops, a couple of base units or a few flatscreens (even in one primary school I worked in - two laptops stolen in a single parent's evening).

The bad kids (and there is still a distinction and a small minority of good kids) have NOTHING to make them stay in school. Nothing. There's no incentive, no consequence and the only thing that results from playing up is things that just add to their street cred or they get to play Playstation. And yet the schools are forced to keep even the worst of them in school for months and months and months until they can get rid of them.

The teachers are welcome to it. A lot of them bring it upon themselves by not complaining to those higher up but there's no way I'd go into teaching until it was sorted. And I'm one of those Maths and IT graduates that the government are crying out for at the moment. I can get a decent year's wage just by agreeing to train as a teacher (a 1 year PGCE at university) and it wouldn't be enough if it were ten times as much.

Funnily, though, when you put the same bunch of kids into a karate club where you can make them do 100 push-up's, use them as your demo student for pressure points, throws, holding the pads etc., can ban them (and physically eject them) from the club in a second because you want to, don't take any rubbish from them, shout to your heart's content, don't take ANY backchat of any kind and send kids home immediately if you find that they've even been fighting with other people in school, or swore, or called someone a name, you don't get problems.

Weird that. That discipline stuff must work.

"If a child didn't want to participate in a lesson, then they were removed so they couldn't disrupt it for everyone else."

Please, spend a day in a modern school with modern kids. If you do this, then they leave the school. Seriously. They wander off, walk into other classrooms and disturb them, can be brought back to class a dozen times by senior teachers but effectively all you've done is removed them from the boring stuff that they are trying to avoid and wander off. You can't chase after them because you can't leave the class unsupervised. I've seen it too many times (I don't teach myself, I just witness a lot of what goes on in schools).

Modern schools have site radio systems, card-swipe systems for emergencies (so you swipe a card in your room and senior teachers "theoretically" come running to help you) and none of it works enough to keep every kid in class. I work in urban schools and I've never witnessed a single period in an average school where there wasn't at least 2 or 3 kids roaming the halls, jumping the fence or just plain annoying every other class by wandering into it and causing disruption when the senior staff come to collect them. I'm not saying it's right but there's little a modern school is ALLOWED to do to stop it.

"There's no point forcing a child to learn "for their own good" if they flatly refuse and disrupt the lessons for everyone else, just remove them and leave them uneducated."

Bang. You just broke the law. The schools (and, in some part, the parents) are legally obliged to provide him with an education. Local authorities fight to make sure that's in a "normal" classroom as much as possible. And it takes MONTHS to remove such a child from a school, if not years.

I agree with the sentiment but the process is no longer viable (no matter how stupid you or I think that is). They don't want an education, shouldn't be in school but ARE and are in EVERY school in the country. No more "specialist" schools for behaviour, they just get shuffled between every local school until they're old enough to legally stop coming to school.

"Also, parents actually need to be told that their child is disruptive and they will be moved to a special needs class if they don't improve."

Read my other comment (which should hopefully pass moderation) about what happens in those classes. The teachers can't do anything and the kids know it. They can't stop them walking out the door, they can't stop them walking out of the school. It's ridiculous but it's true. I've seen two supply teachers sacked in their first week of teaching because they didn't know this and the kids and their parents got the police involved and were prosecuting (with the help of the school's own CCTV evidence).

"Force them to take some pride/shame in the performance of their child."

You can't force them to TURN UP to a meeting with the school. What chance do you have? They have no pride of shame in their child at all. None. Zero. Zilch. And no incentive to have any either. Parents no longer drag their kids to school by the ear. They lend them twenty quid for fags and tell them to stay off school to help mend the car.

A BBC article just masterly summed up the problem:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7314454.stm

"The government intends to improve the handling of children excluded from school in England, Schools Secretary Ed Balls has said. All schools - as 97% already do - will have to work in partnership with others and to take in expelled students."

They're expelled. But you have to put them in another school ASAP, like 97% of schools already do. That's a problem right there.

In response to John's comment:

"Doesn't appear to have done you any good either. Just how civilised did you end up, when you suggest solutions including military training and sterilisation of the unworthy?"

I'd much rather the above, than having copious numbers of chavs abusing me in the street or damaging my property - in the name of 'fun' too. I'm 18 years old, but I agree with the majority of these comments. My mum perhaps smacked me two or three times throughout my child hood, I guess she was good at using other methods because I turned out fine (I like to think). I care about my education and have no interest in becoming a stupid little crettin that talks like a cross between Ali G and Barry Manilow.

I agree that teachers can do nothing these days. I have sat in various lessons in the past (from year 7-11) and in all of them there has been a few quiet kids getting on with the work, and the rest were just unruly. All the teacher could do was ignore them, or ask to 'see their homework diary' to write in a note that their parents would never see. I'm also appalled these days at the standard of english adopted by these youths. Many of them can't spell for sh*t, and nor do they understand any words that are longer than 4-6 letters.

Quite frankly it's embarassing to be young today - especially with the use of these 'mixed group' classes. Eurgh. </rant>

We once had a music teacher who made two pupils in my class stand on chairs either side of the school gates and sing hymns to the 1400 exiting pupils after the home time bell. No-one messed around in that lesson ever again....

Bringing back the cane, or physical punishment, is only part of what needs to be done.

Discipline needs to be enforced. kids need to learn that their actions have consequences. A recurring theme of the posts admitting bad behaviour was that they knew that a real punishment was in the offing. They broke the rules, they got punished. Not one of these posts complained that they had been punished unfairly.

You say that there is no use in punishing kids. Well you are teaching them that they have no responsibility for their actions and can do whatever they like. So when they turn 18 and break the law are YOU going to explain to them that they are now going to go to prison for a long time?

You say that the parents of kids who received the cane would sue the school. Well involve the parents. MAKE them attend the canning. With the threat of legal action against them if necessary. Exclude the student until punishment has taken place. The sooner Mum and / or Dad come into school for the punishment, the sooner little Jonny can get back to school.

There are already laws forcing the parents to ensure that their kids attend school, perhaps these need extending to ensure that the kids behave at school as well, or the parents get punished. There used to be secure schools for the violent and unruly. Perhaps these should be reintroduced and then we can lock up some of the worst of the thugs.

The one thing that you didn't mention was the kids rights. Well ALL of the kids at school have rights, not just the ill behaved ones. Don't their rights count for anything. How does the rights of one child overrule the rights of the other 29 in the class.

Spleen liberals got us into this mess, and are now bleating that there is nothing that we can do about it. There is a lot we can do to turn this situation around but it involves taking responsibility for the situation, to DO something and not just talk about how bad it is. Things that I have found liberals very loath to do.

The Good Old Days were crap. The Not-Quite-Old Days were crap. And the Present is crap. Britain can't take any public effort seriously. Schools are just containers for alienated and frustrated kids and alienated and frustrated adults. Homes ditto. Public places ditto.

Sterilization and whipping are useless and vicious solutions proposed by alienated and frustrated people a million miles from the social reality of schools and the way kids and parents work.

So what we have is a tightly knotted sack full of cats and rats hissing and spitting and biting each other, getting whacked from outside at frequent but irregular intervals.

Hopeless.

What we all need is a society where everyone has a guaranteed job with a liveable income, and a guaranteed home. Every individual (from the age of say 16). No one dependent on anyone else's say-so or funding. No one under threat of penury or exclusion or ostracism if someone "in charge" doesn't like their face.

In the meantime it's the war of all against all, look after Number One, and the devil take the hindmost. The only thing keeping us from all murdering each other is some kind of innate decency in humanity, not any kind of good vibes imparted by a caring and compassionate society.

I used to be a teacher (not in the UK, I'm not fucking mad... - "look Ma, I made it in metalwork!" "That's nice, Jimmy, what is it?" "It's a thumbscrew!!"). What that experience showed me is that I love teaching and I like kids, but I hate schools and particularly school authorities and school policies. As for the Tories vs New Labour, I'd want to put em all in the sack with a few ferrets thrown in for good measure.

Sauve qui peut!

(Paris cos her and Bush both know the true value of education in relation to wealth and power...)

I remember my Maths teacher when I was 13, Bachelier was his name (nicknamed Bach'). Normally, on a good day, having your theorem wrong while on the board would result in a big slap in the face and some shouting and a 0 at the end.

Also, while doing exercises, the bugger would patrol silently around and look from above your shoulder and scream like a madman in your hears "ARE YOU GONNA DO IT RIGHT, EH ?". Scary.

Needless to say, there's never been any story (verified or not) about someone badmouthing him, or doing any noise in the classroom. And we were all 2 years in advance in maths, when going to college.

As for "tip tap of the pen" and "orchestral coughing" being *that* a problem, it's another story, the one of no life poor teachers that have become completely paranoid, and collapse in tears unexpectedly when soneone drop their pen by pure accident.

We always had that, this side of the Channel as well, there's no cure, apart from changing jobs, since kids are like gremlins: exponentially bigger burdens when in groups. Either you can cope with it, either you can't, no learning.

AC, cos' the kids are after me !!!

I have gone through this, and have noticed, that my comment about sterilisation of useles parents has been quoted or at leased refered to a few times.

I just wanted to make clear:

I didn't mean it in the sense of physically sterilising them, what I meant, was the fact, that parent's need to be held more responsible for their childrens actions (as long as the law says they do).

Spleen did mentioned rightfully, that children are not logically and rationally thinking beings! The are children, and as children they have to learn!

They have to learn, that actions have consequences, and if they commit actions that are undesirable, they have to feel the undesirable consequences.

For one child it may be that it gets a good hiding, for the other child it may be that it has to stay in the bathroom or bedroom for 10min, and for yet another you take a way the TV privileges. But they have to be made aware, that they cannot get away with it. Just saying "You naughty child..." doesn't really help matters. it'll stop taking you seriously and loose respect! And that is exactly what is happening: There is no more respect for other children, for grown-ups, for other people belongings etc.

This already starts with the adults: we have way too many single parent families. Why? because we adults are incapable of trying to stick to something and working issues out! I am not saying that all marriages can be saved, or that single parents are bad or not worth it, there are many reasons why marriages break up and I am sure quite a few of them valid!

But children need to have more, than just brought to the nursery, cresh etc in the morning and picked up in the evening. They need time with their parent's and it's up to the parents to provide this! When there are children in the family, one parent should be at home, for and with the children. They are our responsibility!!!

Yes, often our situation doesn't allow us this "luxury" but it is sad, that we have to call it a luxury. this should be the norm!

I am very well aware, that this opinion is not very popular in some cases even hated, especially by the government. Why, because with every mom or dad staying at home, they take in less taxes. and with that less money to squander!

I will probably receive a flame war, but I can only say: our children are our future, and for the sake of my and my families future, I am quite happy to stand on an unpopular opinion.

All the best!