Policies to tackle classroom disruption must be consistent

Persistent disruption is a serious problem in English schools, according to research carried out for Policy Exchange.

In a study into pupil behaviour, Deltapoll found that 75 per cent of teachers think that low level disruption occurs frequently or very frequently in their schools and that 72 per cent of them know a colleague who has “left the teaching profession because of bad behaviour”.

It is also having a major impact on pupils’ ability to learn, according to a majority of teachers.

Almost three-quarters of the teachers polled agreed that potential teachers are being put off joining the  profession by the fear of becoming victim to poor behaviour from pupils.

Teachers are not adequately prepared to tackle disruption with confidence. Just under half of teachers polled claim their initial teacher training did not prepare them to manage pupil behaviour.

The majority of schools have behaviour management policies in place but teachers say that in relation to many incidents of  disruption, the consequences specified are mostly applied occasionally, rarely or never.

Only 27 per cent of teachers polled claimed to be very confident that they would have the support of senior staff in their school. A majority of teachers expressed reluctance to talk about behaviour management difficulties in case other members of staff thought their teaching ability was poor.

The report recommends that ‘Low level’ disruption needs to be taken far more seriously. Higher standards of behaviour should be required of pupils for schools to achieve good or better Ofsted ratings. Ofsted inspectors need to be better trained in how best to evaluate and rate pupil behaviour.

Behaviour management policies alone are not enough to ensure pupils behave well. Policies must be applied and interpreted consistently by all members of staff including senior managers. Ofsted need to evaluate not just a school’s behaviour management policy but, importantly, its implementation.