Injured person a | Stopping fights or restraining pupils | Incidents as % of relevant FTE workforce b | Non-accidental injury involving: | Total non- accidental injury incidents | Incidents as % of relevant FTE workforce b | ||||
Pupil | Intruder | Ex-pupil | Parent | Other adult | |||||
Teacher | 114 | 0.54 | 48 | 10 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 73 | 0.35 |
School meals super- visor or primary helper | 95 | 2.81 | 22 | 3 | - | - | 1 | 26 | 0.77 |
Caretaker | 1 | 0.05 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 0.66 |
Other staff | 7 | 0.03 c | 9 | 2 | - | 2 | 3 | 16 | 0.07 c |
a Less than 20% requiring medical attention.
37 The figures show that the majority of injuries to staff occurred as a result of stopping fights or physically restraining pupils in some way. This has clear practical and training implications particularly for school meals supervisors who are on duty when fights between pupils are most likely to occur and who, according to these figures, are much more at risk of injury in such circumstances than teachers. They also show that the risk from intruders on school premises is not insignificant, particularly for caretakers. 38 Systematic exclusion records would also be useful for targeting consultancy and remedial action. Researchers have noted quite large variations in the rates at which different schools exclude pupils which cannot be explained by the nature of their catchment areas. A recent study of exclusions from secondary schools in Leeds found that the [page 191] schools with the highest exclusion rates were those in which pupils who misbehaved were most rapidly referred up to senior staff rather than being dealt with by class teachers or form tutors (McManus 1987). This finding suggests that exclusion rates could be reduced in some schools by reorganising their internal referral systems. 39 We recommend: 39.1 that an LEA/DES/Welsh Office working group should be set up as soon as possible to develop serious incidents reporting systems with the aim of having a pilot system in place by September 1989; (R132.1) and40 Both the national and local components of serious incidents reporting systems would need to be very carefully designed to maximise clarity and minimise bureaucracy. Different information needs exist at local and national levels. We envisage a system with a standardised 'core' of information needed by the DES or Welsh Office. Each LEA could then add its own more detailed information requirements. The national core might consist only of information about violence to staff, violence to pupils resulting in injury, serious vandalism and the permanent exclusion of pupils from schools. Preventing Violence to Staff includes some useful guidance on classifying violent incidents and setting up recording systems, including a model incident report form. We consider that exclusion records should include details of the age, sex and ethnic origin of each of the pupils involved, full details of the reasons for the exclusion and how it was resolved, whether by transfer to another school or unit or home tuition or some other means. ATTACKS ON STAFF 41 This enquiry was set up by the Secretary of State partly in response to reports of physical attacks on teachers and other school staff by pupils and parents. This issue is a matter of the gravest concern to us. 42 The breakdown of violent incidents resulting in injuries to school staff shown above provides a reasonably precise indication of the number of violent incidents resulting in injury which took place in one inner-city LEA in a year. The problem of attacks does not appear to be large in terms of the number of staff affected. We do not, however, underestimate its seriousness for the individuals and schools involved. [page 192] One of the main thrusts of this report is towards minimising the opportunities for bad behaviour of all kinds by improving the group management skills of teachers and other staff, and the organisation and atmosphere of schools. We believe that action in these areas can make an important contribution to reducing the risk of violence for school staff, particularly that which may result from the escalation of minor incidents, but it will not eliminate it. Violent incidents can occur in the best run schools. Teachers and school meals supervisors will occasionally have to break up fights between pupils, putting themselves at risk in the process. School staff will occasionally be attacked by intruders. We consider that the employers of school staff have a duty to support any employee who is attacked, and to facilitate appropriate action against their attacker. We recommend that LEAs and governing bodies which employ school staff should establish clear procedures for dealing with attacks on staff by pupils, members of pupils' families or intruders. (R133) 43 We consider that such procedures should include the following features. 43.1 Effective reporting systems. Recording attacks on staff would be an important part of the serious incidents reporting systems which we recommend earlier in this chapter. Employers should ensure that prompt action is taken as soon as a report is received. [page 193] expect employers to report an alleged criminal act to the police in cases where it has not already been reported by the employee, unless the employee objects. When such an allegation is reported the police will decide whether to refer it to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS will then decide whether or not to prosecute. We consider that the employer should try to find out what action the police and CPS propose to take and pass on this information to the employee. The police may decide not to refer the case to the CPS, or the CPS may decide not to prosecute. In these circumstances we consider that the employer should be prepared to provide legal advice on the other courses of action which remain open to the employee. One is to institute a private prosecution for common assault. The other is to take action for civil damages against the alleged attacker.44 In chapter five we recommend that the Government should investigate the possibility of imposing on parents civil liability for their children's acts in school. It would be inconsistent for this investigation not to cover the question of civil liability for injuries to school staff, which would also be relevant to cases involving children below the age of criminal responsibility. 45 Attacks on individual members of staff can affect the morale of their colleagues. We believe that damage to morale may be increased if the police decide not to refer the case to the CPS or the CPS decides not to prosecute. We recommend: 45.1 that, in considering whether to refer cases of physical attack on school staff to the Crown Prosecution Service, chief officers of police should take into account the effects of their decisions on staff morale as an aspect of public interest; (R134.1) and46 We consider that compensation should be available to teachers and other staff for personal injury or damage to their property suffered at school. We accept that LEAs and governing bodies cannot be expected to insure their employees against the theft of personal property such as handbags or wallets. This would not be normal practice for any employer. We are, however, concerned by accounts of damage to teachers' motor vehicles parked on school premises. It is not reasonable to expect teachers to supervise these in the same way that they can look [page 194] after small items of personal property while they are working. We therefore recommend that LEAs and governing bodies which employ school staff should, either through insurance cover or ex-gratia payments, ensure that adequate compensation is available to school staff for non-accidental injury or for damage to their motor vehicles or other belongings which they bring into school but cannot be expected to supervise properly while they are working. (R135)
[page 195]
11 The Government
THE GOVERNMENT'S ROLE
1 Throughout this report we argue that there is no single or simple solution to the problem of disruptive behaviour in schools. We emphasise the need for concerted action to promote good behaviour at classroom, school, community and national levels. There is no single, dramatic step that the Government can take to transform the situation in schools. Our report identifies a variety of specific actions which, taken together, will do much to improve the standards of behaviour in our schools. Some of them should be taken by the Government.
2 In chapters three and four we recommend ways in which the Secretaries of State can help to improve the quality of training for heads and other teachers and reinforce their authority and status. In chapter four we suggest ways in which the National Curriculum could be designed to promote better behaviour. In chapter five we recommend that the Government should consider ways of making parents more accountable for their children's behaviour and promoting the principles of responsible parenthood. In chapter 10 we recommend that the Secretaries of State should help to set up a national reporting system for serious incidents in schools. We also welcome a number of government initiatives such as the appraisal of heads and teachers (see chapter four) and the development of records of achievement, work experience schemes and compacts with employers (see chapter six), all of which we believe should help to improve the management of schools and classrooms and the motivation of pupils. This chapter deals with two further issues - the funding of the education service and the arrangements for excluding from schools those pupils involved in the most serious misbehaviour.
FUNDING LEAs
3 There is a link between the amount of money which central government makes available to local authorities and the amount that LEAs spend on schools and support services but it is not always direct and simple. About half the expenditure of a typical LEA is supported by government grant. Almost all this money comes in the form of Rate Support Grant which does not have to be spent on any particular service. The rest is specific grant such as Education Support Grant or money for in-service training. The other half of a typical LEA's expenditure is supported by the rates and other sources of income.
4 Levels of expenditure on teachers, schools and support services vary considerably between LEAs. For example, figures produced by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy for 1987/88
[page 196]
show a range of expenditure estimates for secondary schools from about £1500 to about £2500 per pupil. The range shown for primary schools is about £800 to £1700 per pupil. These variations reflect policy differences between LEAs as well as different social and economic circumstances in the areas they serve. The amount of Rate Support Grant received can also vary greatly. LEAs serving poorer and more disadvantaged communities tend to get more. A few in the most prosperous or high spending areas get none at all.
5 In chapters four, six and seven we recommend reviews of expenditure levels in five areas. They are the education welfare and psychology services, pre-school education, building maintenance and arrangements for lunchtime supervision. In the first three areas we note the large variations in levels of provision between different LEAs and recommend that those at the bottom of the range ensure that what they provide constitutes an adequate service in terms of this report. We draw attention to more general concerns relating to building maintenance and lunchtime supervision and recommend that the Government should give explicit encouragement to LEAs and governors to provide adequate funding for these activities in its expenditure plans.
CLASS SIZE
6 It is clear that most teachers see smaller classes as an important part of the answer to the problem of disruptive behaviour. This point is made in most of the submissions from the teachers' professional associations and in many letters from individual teachers. The majority of the teachers in our survey identify smaller classes as one of the things that would help them most. We therefore expected to find evidence that smaller classes meant better behaviour and looked very carefully for it.
7 The ratio between the number of pupils and the number of teachers in an LEA (the pupil:teacher ratio or PTR) is often used as a crude indicator of school staffing levels. There are considerable variations in this ratio between LEAs. In January 1987 average primary PTRs in English LEAs ranged from about 17:1 to about 24:1 and average secondary PTRs from about 12:1 to about 17:1. The national average PTR fell from just over 18:1 in 1983 to just over 17:1 in 1987. This must, however interpreted, reflect some improvement in provision. But average PTRs tell us very little about actual class sizes in individual schools, some of which will have ratios outside these ranges. They also tell us nothing about the nature of different schools' catchment areas. Aware of these limitations, we concluded that it would be misguided to look for any general relationship between an LEA's overall PTR and standards of behaviour in its schools.
[page 197]
8 We next decided to look for information about relationships between staffing levels and behaviour at individual school level. We asked our survey team to look at the responses made by teachers in 40 primary and secondary schools serving disadvantaged inner city catchment areas. They could find no significant relationship between the seriousness of the behaviour problems perceived by teachers in these schools and differences between their individual PTRs.
9 We knew that even individual school PTRs are not a very good guide to class sizes. They include heads and other senior staff who may do little or no teaching. In a primary school, the size of different age groups can affect class sizes and the age range within them considerably. Secondary schools with small sixth forms may have larger classes lower down the school than those with larger sixth forms or with none. There may also be marked differences in size between fourth or fifth year groups doing different subject options. We therefore decided that we needed information about the relationship between the size of individual classes and behaviour.
10 Research into the effects of class size seems to have concentrated more on academic achievement than on behaviour, and there does not seem to be any clear consensus among researches on whether smaller classes produce better results in either area. Studies by Glass and his colleagues in the USA in the early 1980s appeared to show that class size was a key factor in raising pupil achievement, but this work has come under some criticism in recent years. In this country Rutter looked for the relationship between class size and behaviour of the third year classes of secondary schools in his sample. Class sizes ranged from 22 to 30. He found no significant association between the size of these classes and the standard of behaviour observed. In his study of junior schools, Mortimore found some association between smaller classes and better behaviour. He found that teachers of smaller classes made more use of praise and neutral comments rather than critical comments about pupils' behaviour. The difference between these findings suggests that there may be a case for smaller classes for younger pupils.
11 The weight of professional opinion which considers that a general reduction in class sizes would be an effective means of improving standards of classroom behaviour is impressive and ought not be ignored. It is clearly the view of the majority of teachers that teaching smaller groups of pupils would reduce stress and make it easier for them to keep order in their classrooms. We could, however, find no consensus on what constitutes the optimum class size for this purpose.
[page 198]
12 This is not surprising. The range of other critical factors involved, such as the age and sex of the pupils, the experience and skill of the teacher and the teaching methods used, is very wide.
13 We have already emphasised that, for most of the time, most classes are well behaved and well taught. We do not accept, therefore, that a reduction in the number of pupils in all classes across the board would be an appropriate response, even if it were affordable. Much of the very considerable cost would be applied where it was not needed.
14 We consider that, in schools where discipline problems are acute, there is a case for deploying extra teachers as one medium term measure. This can at present be done by LEAs on a pragmatic basis and we recognise it as an effective strategy in appropriate cases. We regard this as particularly important in primary schools because large classes are more common there, and because it is important to establish habits of good behaviour as early as possible in a pupil's school career. We recognise that there are different ways of deploying extra staff. Behaviour may be improved by reducing class sizes, by introducing skills which are in short supply among the regular staff of the school in question, by reducing teachers' class contact time or by a combination of all these and other measures.
15 It has been pointed out to us that most primary teachers have no non- teaching periods. Demands on teachers have been increased by recent developments like the General Certificate of Secondary Education, and will be further increased by the changes which will be brought about by the Education Reform Act 1988, such as the national assessment system. If implemented, some of our recommendations would have the same effect in some schools. We have no way of assessing the effect of teachers' workloads on their performance as class managers.
16 Throughout this enquiry we have sought only to make recommendations that can be supported either by evidence that was already available or by the results of our own survey. Conclusive evidence of the sort needed to establish a firm relationship between pupil behaviour and class size is not available. The response to our own survey reveals a general belief in the virtue of reducing class sizes but no indication of what the actual size should be in any circumstances. We suspect that there are circumstances where that relationship is important and relevant to the effective deployment of staff resources; but information does not even exist to define accurately what those circumstances are. In this one area only we consider that further research would be justified.
[page 199]
17 Such research would have to be very carefully designed and take full account of existing work in this field. It would not be appropriate for us to suggest a detailed specification. We consider it particularly important for the relationships between pupils' behaviour and the following factors to be investigated:
17.2 teaching styles,
17.3 teacher stress, and
17.4 class contact time and teachers' workloads.
EXCLUSIONS
19 Pupils involved in serious or persistent misbehaviour may be excluded from school. They may be excluded for a fixed or an indefinite period. In the past this was called suspension. In the most serious cases they may be permanently excluded. In the past this was called expulsion.
20 Before 1986 there was no clear legal basis for dealing with exclusions. Different LEAs had different procedures. The intention of sections 23 to 27 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 was to make exclusion procedures clear and consistent. This part of the Act came into force for most schools from September 1988, but for voluntary aided schools will not do so until September 1989.
21 Four of the seven submissions we received from the heads' and teachers' professional associations commented on exclusion. Three recommended that the 1986 Act should be amended. All four referred to the question of reinstating excluded pupils. Under the 1986 Act only the head has the right to exclude a pupil. If a pupil is excluded for a fixed term or indefinitely, both the school's governing body and the LEA can order that the pupil should be reinstated. If a pupil is excluded permanently from a county or controlled school, the school's governing body and the LEA can direct that the pupil should be reinstated. The governing body alone has the power to direct that a pupil who has been permanently excluded from an aided or special agreement school should be reinstated. Provision is made for appeals against decisions not to reinstate a pupil following a permanent exclusion which has been confirmed by the LEA or governing body. This gives parents the right to
[page 200]
put their child's case to an appeal committee. For county and controlled schools, that committee consists of members nominated by the LEA. They are members of the LEA itself, or its education committee, and other people who are not members of the LEA but have experience of education. Those who are members of the LEA or its education committee may not outnumber the other members by more than one, and a person who is a member of the education committee may be the chairman. Governors can appeal to the same committee against an LEA decision to reinstate a pupil. For aided schools the appeal committee is set up by the governing body.
22 The comments made about these procedures by the heads' and teachers' professional associations were as follows:
22.2 the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NAS/UWT) recommended that staff in county and controlled schools should be given the right to appeal independently of the head and governing body against LEA decisions to reinstate pupils; and
22.3 the Secondary Heads Association did not recommend any change in the law but advised LEAs to be wary about overruling the decision of heads and governing bodies in cases of permanent exclusion.
24 The arguments for and against the LEA's powers to order the reinstatement of pupils seem to be more finely balanced. The issue was highlighted by the controversy surrounding the reinstatement of pupils to Poundswick School by Manchester LEA in 1985 which resulted in industrial action by some of the school's staff.
[page 201]
25 The strongest argument for removing the power of LEAs to direct the reinstatement of pupils lies in the damage which may be done to the authority and morale of the head and staff if pupils whom they wish to see permanently excluded are reinstated. We also recognise that reinstatement under these circumstances is unlikely to be successful in most cases, as the events leading to exclusion and the exclusion process itself may have done irreparable damage to relationships between staff and the pupil involved. This breakdown may also have an effect on the behaviour of other pupils. We therefore find it difficult to imagine that reinstatement of a permanently excluded pupil, against the wishes of the headteacher, in the school from which he or she had been excluded could be either justified or successful except under quite exceptional circumstances.
26 The case for leaving the present legal position unchanged can be supported by at least two arguments.
26.2 There is also real concern arising from our lack of knowledge about the reasons for existing patterns of exclusion. Evidence that we received from a number of LEAs suggests that there are striking variations between the exclusion rates of different schools which cannot be explained by differences in catchment area. This is confirmed by research findings. In their study of exclusions in Sheffield, Galloway and his colleagues (1982) found that six of the 37 secondary schools in the sample accounted for about half of all the exclusions. There is no evidence to suggest that schools with high exclusion rates achieve better standards of behaviour than those with lower rates. In chapter four we argue that the way in which schools are run has a strong influence on pupils' behaviour and that institutional change is the best way of improving standards in less effective schools. Heads can usually persuade governors to back their decisions to exclude pupils. It can be argued that the absence of an external check from the LEA would encourage some schools to export more of their problems, and reduce the head's incentive to review and change the features of the school's organisation which make bad behaviour more likely.
[page 202]
27 In chapter two we comment on the general lack of information about exclusions. One of our difficulties is that we simply do not know how frequently LEAs order the reinstatement of pupils against the wishes of headteachers and governing bodies. Our impression is that it happens rarely, but that could only be confirmed by the serious incidents reporting systems which we recommend in chapter 10. In the absence of any systematic national information, the arguments for and against the present legal position are difficult to evaluate. What is clear, however, is that the procedures established by the 1986 Act have not been tested properly. At the time of writing they have been in force for the great majority of schools for less than six months. Poundswick, and the few similar though less well publicised cases which have been mentioned to us, took place before this legislation came into force. We consider that the most sensible course of action would be to monitor and evaluate the workings of the exclusion procedures established by the 1986 Act for a reasonable period of time before considering any change in the law.
28 The effect of schools opting out of LEA control from September 1989 is another unknown factor in this area. The governing bodies of grant- maintained schools will have the power to exclude pupils without reference to LEAs. If significant numbers of schools opt out in particular areas, the role of LEAs as providers of alternative places for excluded pupils may need to be more systematically reviewed. The future number and distribution of grant-maintained schools is as yet unknown. The pattern will take some years to emerge. We believe that it would be prudent to monitor developments for five years before reviewing their impact on the role of LEAs.
29 The proposed national reporting system for serious incidents and permanent exclusions could be used to monitor the operation of the exclusion procedures established by the 1986 Act. We therefore recommend:
29.2 that at the end of this period the Secretaries of State should decide, in the light of all the evidence then available, what amendments, if any, should be made to these provisions. They should act sooner if the accumulating evidence warrants it. (R137.2)
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excluded pupil against the wishes of the headteacher and governors. We believe lasting damage would also be done to the relationship between that school and its LEA. We believe that the incidence and nature of such cases will be of the first importance when the Secretaries of State come to review the workings of the 1986 Act in the light of the statistics accumulated in its early years. Section 92 of the Education Act 1944 enables the Secretary of State to require LEAs to furnish him with such reports, returns and information as he may require to exercise his functions under the Education Acts. We recommend:
30.2 that the headteacher should be asked to supply his own account to him within the same period; (R138.2) and
30.3 that similar procedures should apply in cases where the governing body directs the reinstatement of a permanently excluded pupil against the wishes of the headteacher. (R138.3)
[page 205]
APPENDIX A Written evidence received
The following organisations and individuals submitted written evidence to the Enquiry.
Local education authorities (68)
Avon
[page 206]
Lincolnshire
Initial teacher training establishments (59)
Bangor Normal College
[page 207]
Cambridge University, Department of Education
[page 208]
West London Institute of Higher Education*
*submissions from individual members of staff which do not necessarily represent the views of the establishment as a whole.
Other national and regional organisations (88)
Advisory Centre for Education
[page 209]
Education Management Information Exchange
[page 210]
Scottish Education Department
Other organisations and individuals
A further 394 submissions were received from other organisations and individuals. These included a number of schools and parent-teacher associations; medical and academic bodies and researchers.
[page 211]
APPENDIX B Witnesses
The following individuals met the Committee and, in their role as witnesses, gave oral evidence and answered members' questions:
Representatives of headteachers' and teachers' professional associations
Representatives of other organisations
[page 212]
Other expert witnesses
[page 213]
APPENDIX C Visits
During the course of the Enquiry, groups of Committee members visited the following 25 institutions:
Birmingham University, Department of Education
The following 10 institutions also contributed to the Enquiry:
Chaucer Comprehensive School, Sheffield
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Committee members also visited the following 20 institutions abroad:
The Netherlands
Ministry of Education and Science, Zoetermeer
Norway
Ministry of Church and Education, Oslo
USA
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton
Committee members also met teachers involved in the US/UK exchange visit programme, at a conference at the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges in London.
[page 215]
APPENDIX D
[page 217]
APPENDIX D Table of Contents
[page 218]
*Gillian Squirrell was also involved in the planning and interviewing for this part of the research
[page 219]
[page 220]
Preface
The research brief we were given by the Committee of Enquiry into Discipline in Schools was 'to examine teachers' perceptions and concerns about discipline'. We chose to pursue this in two related ways.
One was to undertake a national survey of primary and secondary teachers in England and Wales in order to obtain a general picture of their experiences and views. What kinds of behaviour did they have to deal with during the course of a week in the classroom? What sorts of problems did they encounter during the course of their duties round the school? How serious did they think discipline problems were in their school? Were any particular classes, pupils or pupil behaviours particularly difficult to deal with? What strategies and sanctions were they currently employing to tackle discipline problems? And, finally, what action would teachers themselves suggest should be taken?
At the same time we wanted to go beyond the kinds of information we could obtain in a national survey. We decided to interview one hundred teachers about their experiences and perceptions in order to establish a better understanding of what having to deal routinely with discipline problems was like. Given limited time and resources, we could only visit a small number of schools. We therefore concentrated our interviews in ten inner-city comprehensive schools.
We chose inner-city comprehensives because we believed they would give us important insights into experiences and practices in schools where, traditionally at least, both teachers and the public might expect there to be greater problems. If we had had more time we would have liked to extend this part of the research to other types of school and, crucially, to the primary sector as well.
Research is a cumulative process and we have learnt much from previous studies; most of them are summarised in a review of the literature undertaken recently by Mr John Graham. There are two other major contributions which we should also like to acknowledge. First, the various studies conducted over the past year into these issues by the professional associations. And second, the work of Dr Kevin Wheldall, Dr Frank Merrett and their colleagues at the Centre for Child Study, Birmingham University, whose earlier research in this field contributed in several ways to the practical tasks of constructing questionnaires for the national survey.
The heads and teachers in the schools we contacted for the national survey deserve especial mention. We knew, when we agreed to contact them on the Committee's behalf, that many teachers would be interested in cooperating but also that we were approaching them during a particularly busy period. In the event over three and a half
[page 221]
thousand primary and secondary teachers responded producing, in the process, one of the highest response rates for a national survey of this kind ever achieved.
Finally, we are in debt to the one hundred teachers and their heads who agreed to be interviewed. Our promise to maintain confidentiality prevents us from naming them. They gave generously of their time, welcomed us into their schools and talked openly about their experiences and concerns. They clearly recognised the importance of the Enquiry and we are grateful to them for their ready cooperation.
John Gray and Jean Rudduck
[page 222]
PART I Findings from the National Survey of Teachers in England and Wales
The national survey of discipline in schools was designed to answer five questions:
(2) How serious did they think the problems of discipline were in their school?
(3) What particular pupil behaviours did they find difficult to deal with?
(4) How were they trying to deal with difficult pupils and difficult classes?
(5) What action did they think might best be taken to help with the problems of discipline in their schools?
A questionnaire was sent to teachers in primary, middle and secondary schools during the first week of October 1988. It covered a wide range of topics and took between 20-30 minutes to complete.
The sample was drawn up with the aid of DES statisticians. A stratified random sample of schools was selected to be statistically representative of the regions and different types of school in England and Wales (for fuller details see Technical Appendix A). Headteachers were then approached for permission to contact members of their staff. Teachers' names were selected at random from staff lists provided by the schools. The teachers were then approached individually by means of a postal questionnaire.
A total of just under 4400 teachers in main grade and promoted posts were sent questionnaires; no fewer than 82% returned them. Just under 3200 questionnaires were sent to teachers in secondary schools (or middle schools deemed secondary) whilst just over 1200 questionnaires were sent to teachers in primary schools (or middle schools deemed primary). 79% of the secondary teachers who were believed to have received questionnaires returned them as did 89% of the primary teachers. About seven per cent of all the replies were returned by teachers who had exercised their option to reply anonymously. With one or two exceptions response rates by region and school type were high. These high response rates contribute to our belief that the survey's findings are likely to be generally representative of the overall sample of teachers originally contacted and, more generally, of the population of teachers in England and Wales (for fuller details see Technical Appendix A).
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For the purposes of explication we have decided to report on the primary and secondary school samples separately. We shall commence with the secondary school sample and then turn, at a later point, to the question of whether the experiences of the primary teachers' sample were similar or different.
B. SECONDARY TEACHERS' ROUTINE EXPERIENCES OF DISCIPLINE
Most of our secondary sample spent most of their time teaching in the classroom. It seems appropriate, therefore, to begin our analysis with a brief account of what discipline problems teachers reported having to deal with on a regular basis. To make their reports more specific, however, we asked teachers to confine themselves to those classroom experiences which had occurred during the previous week; for a period as recent as this there was little chance of memories being faulty. Given the timing of the questionnaire, these would mostly have covered a period in the first half of October 1988. We also asked them, after they had reported their particular experiences, to reflect on 'how typical ... the pattern of occurrences they had (just) described was of their general classroom experiences'. 94% thought it was 'typical' or 'fairly typical'. We can be fairly confident, therefore, that the types of pupil behaviour reported were seen by teachers as being generally representative of their routine classroom experiences.
B.1 Discipline inside the classroom
The fourteen types of pupil behaviour listed in Table 1 are not intended to be exhaustive of all the possible categories of pupil behaviour teachers in secondary schools might have encountered during the course of the survey week. What they offer are some general indications of the reported incidence of behaviours, ranging from the fairly mundane to the more serious, against which subsequently to assess their concerns.
A note of caution must, we believe, be sounded here in interpreting the data emerging from Table 1. Whilst any examples of pupil misbehaviour or indiscipline are to be deprecated and are potentially undesirable, it would be inappropriate to interpret each and every one of these as offering cause for concern. Indeed, there are strong indications later in this analysis that most teachers are quite accustomed to dealing with certain kinds of pupil misbehaviour and treat them as routine. In interpreting the evidence in Table 1, therefore, we use it in two ways: first, to establish the common patterns and experiences teachers shared; and second, to establish those specific areas of experience which departed from this general picture.
[page 224]
Table 1: Percentages of secondary teachers reporting that they had to deal with different types of pupil behaviour during the course of their classroom teaching the previous week.
Note: 16% of teachers wrote in about some 'other pupil behaviour'. Of these 23% reported that it occurred at least daily and 57% reported that it had occurred at least once during the week. The percentages are based on total numbers of responses of around 2500. Respondents who missed out particular questions averaged around 1% in every case.
Four pupil behaviours would appear to have been common experiences for the vast majority of secondary teachers. In each case they were reported as occurring by 80% or more of those in the sample. At some point during the week, then, most teachers said they had had to deal with instances of pupils 'talking out of turn', 'hindering other pupils', engaging in 'calculated idleness or work avoidance' and 'not being punctual'.
[page 225]
A majority of teachers (around 60% or more in each case) also reported that they had had to deal with pupils 'making unnecessary noise', 'persistently infringing class rules', 'getting out of (their) seats without permission', directing 'verbal abuse towards other pupils', 'general rowdiness, horseplay or mucking about' and 'cheeky or impertinent remarks or responses'. 'Physical aggression towards other pupils' was also mentioned quite frequently (by 42%).
In brief, at some point during the course of their week's classroom teaching, the vast majority of teachers reported having to deal with examples of pupil behaviours that had impeded the flow of their lessons. Furthermore, at some point during the week a majority had had to deal with behaviours which had actually disrupted their lessons or produced an atmosphere which was not conducive to learning. These seem to have been common shared experiences amongst secondary school teachers and they provide the backdrop against which we now assess some teachers' daily experiences.
'Talking out of turn' was the only pupil behaviour a majority of teachers reported having to deal with on a daily basis (see Table 1). About one in four teachers mentioned 'calculated idleness or work avoidance', 'hindering other pupils' and 'making unnecessary (non-verbal) noise' whilst somewhat lower percentages than this mentioned 'not being punctual', 'persistently infringing class rules' and 'getting out of seat without permission'. Around one in ten mentioned 'verbal abuse towards other pupils', 'general rowdiness, horseplay or mucking about' and 'cheeky or impertinent remarks or responses'. About one in twenty reported dealing with 'physical aggression towards other pupils' on at least a daily basis.
Clearly, all these behaviours, to a greater or lesser extent, disrupted classroom teaching and were likely to have been experienced as, at best, irritating and, at worst, wearing by the teachers concerned. Depending on which specific items were included, between one out of ten and two out of ten secondary teachers, therefore, reported experiencing disruptive behaviours on a daily basis.
To this point we have not considered teachers' responses to three items that were designed to pick up considerably more serious examples of pupil indiscipline. It is clear from the drop in the overall percentages reporting these three items that, compared with the remainder, they were experienced differently. During the course of the week about one in seven (15%) teachers reported being the target of 'verbal abuse' from a pupil(s); and about one in eight (14%) dealt with instances of 'physical destructiveness'. However, fewer than two per cent (1.7%) of
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teachers reported that they themselves had actually been the target of some "physical aggression' that week (for a fuller discussion see Section B.4 below).
The overall picture of classroom life suggested by Table 1 is one in which 'talking out of turn' is the only area of pupil misbehaviour that was reported as a common daily occurrence for the majority of teachers. However, there were a variety of 'minor' disruptive behaviours which up to two out of ten teachers found themselves dealing with on a daily basis whilst four out of ten teachers had had to deal with 'physical aggression' between pupils at some point during the week. One in seven teachers had been 'verbally abused' during this period but only one in fifty reported having been the target of some form of 'physical aggression' (see Footnote 1).
B.2 Discipline around the school
Teachers' experiences of pupil indiscipline were not, of course, confined to the classroom. We asked a series of questions designed to establish their common experiences during the course of their duties around their schools (see Table 2). Almost all (98%) thought the experiences they reported during the week of the survey were 'typical' or 'fairly typical'.
A number of pupil behaviours emerged as ones that were encountered by the vast majority (80% or more) of secondary teachers at least once during the week (see Table 2). These included: showing a 'lack of concern for others', 'unruliness while waiting', 'running in the corridors', 'general rowdiness, horseplay or mucking about' and 'persistently infringing school rules'. Between two out of ten and three out of ten teachers reported encountering these behaviours on a daily basis (see Table 2).
Common encounters (reported by 60% or more) included experiencing at least once during the week: 'verbal abuse towards other pupils', 'loitering in 'prohibited' areas', 'cheeky or impertinent remarks or responses' and 'physical aggression towards other pupils'. Between one out of ten and two out of ten teachers encountered these behaviours on a daily basis.
Of the three more serious behaviours, one in four (26%) teachers reported examples of 'physical destructiveness' and one in eight (12%) reported being the target of 'verbal abuse' at some point during the week. However, only about one per cent (1.1%) reported some form of 'physical aggression towards themselves' (for a fuller discussion see Section B.4 below).
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Table 2: Percentages of secondary teachers reporting different types of pupil behaviours they encountered during the course of their duties round the school.
Note: 14% of teachers wrote in about some 'other pupil behaviour'. Of these 25% reported that it had occurred at least daily and 45% at least once during the week. The percentages are based on total numbers of responses of around 2500. Respondents who missed out particular questions averaged around 1% in every case.
In some respects the picture of life around the school parallels that within the classroom. There were a large number of relatively 'minor' problems which formed part of the experiences of the vast majority of teachers at some point during the week. Depending on the particular behaviour concerned around two out of ten teachers experienced these at least daily. The incidence of direct 'physical aggression' towards teachers was extremely rare but about one in eight teachers received 'verbal abuse' at some point during the week. Again, as with the classroom data, extrapolating these figures over longer time periods would be inappropriate (see Footnote 1).
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B.3 The relationships between different pupil behaviours
We were interested in whether teachers who reported dealing with or encountering one type of pupil behaviour more frequently reported experiencing others more frequently as well. As a general rule we found that they did. For example, in relation to the behaviours listed in Table 1, teachers who reported more 'talking out of turn' also reported more of the other behaviours such as 'hindering other pupils', 'calculated idleness or work avoidance' and 'general rowdiness'. They were also somewhat more likely to report higher levels of 'verbal abuse' towards themselves.
There was one exception to this general clustering of behaviours occurring in the classroom. Teachers who reported being the target of 'physical aggression' were, on the whole, no more likely to report experiencing higher levels of most of the other pupil behaviours with two exceptions: they were somewhat more likely to report 'physical destructiveness' and 'verbal abuse towards themselves'.
Similar patterns prevailed with respect to the behaviours listed in Table 2. On the whole, teachers who reported, for example, more 'general rowdiness, horseplay or mucking about' in the course of their duties around the school also reported encountering more of the other behaviours.
When we compared teachers' reports of pupil behaviours in the classroom (listed in Table 1) with their reports of behaviours around the school (listed in Table 2) we found similar patterns prevailing (tables not shown). Teachers who reported higher incidences of undesirable pupil behaviours in one setting were more likely to report higher incidences of pupil behaviours in the other. This was especially true of the examples of pupil behaviours that were common to the two lists (in Tables 1 and 2). For example, teachers who reported more 'cheeky or impertinent responses' in the classroom were considerably more likely to report higher levels of this same behaviour around the school; and teachers who reported more 'physical aggression towards other pupils' in their classroom were likely to encounter more 'physical aggression' amongst pupils around the school.
Eight pupil behaviours were common to the lists in Tables 1 and 2. For six of these, teachers were likely to report considerably higher levels outside the classroom compared with inside it (table not shown but for details see Tables 1 and 2). These were: 'persistently infringing class (or school) rules', 'general rowdiness', 'verbal abuse towards other pupils', 'cheeky or impertinent remarks', 'physical aggression towards other
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pupils' and 'physical destructiveness'. Only in relation to 'verbal abuse' and 'physical aggression' towards themselves were there no substantial differences.
The evidence suggests that teachers' experiences of disruptive pupil behaviours inside the classroom and around the school went hand in hand. Teachers who reported more disruptions in their classrooms were also likely to report more disruptions around their schools.
B.4 The incidence of physical aggression by pupils towards teachers
That any teachers in the survey should have reported being in receipt of some form of 'physical aggression', either in the classroom or around the school, is clearly a matter of concern. We therefore looked in greater detail at the questionnaires of all those teachers reporting any experience of physical aggression'.
Just under two per cent (1.7%) of teachers reported experience of 'physical aggression' directed towards them in the course of their lessons at some point during the survey week. Almost all reported that their experiences during the previous week had been 'typical' or 'fairly typical'. Most chose not to elaborate further on these experiences elsewhere in their questionnaires. We interpreted their responses as implying that they were in receipt of some form of physical contact that was 'aggressive' in intent; they did not necessarily mean by this that the experience was a 'violent' one as the fuller discussion that was possible during the interview-based part of the research makes clear (see Part II, Section B.2).
A handful of teachers (making up about one in ten of all those teachers who reported any 'physical aggression' and less than 0.2% of the total secondary school sample) reported that their experiences during the week had 'not been typical'. Of these, two referred directly to being struck.
Just over one per cent (1.1%) of teachers reported some form of 'physical aggression' towards them in the course of their duties around the school. All of these teachers reported that their experiences were 'typical' or 'fairly typical'. Again, we inferred, from the general patterns of their responses, that they were referring to physical contact with pupils rather than violence; and, again, there is further support for this view in the interview-based part of the research (see Part II, Section B.2).
Overall, just over two per cent (2.1%) of teachers reported some form of
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'physical aggression' towards themselves, either in the classroom and/or around the school.
A small number of teachers (again making up less than 0.2% of the total) used the open-ended part of the questionnaire to describe incidents in the fairly recent past during which they had been subjected to very serious threats or violence. One of the incidents so described had originated inside the classroom, the others outside it. These teachers' descriptions left no room for doubt about the seriousness of the particular incidents being described.
Neither the evidence on the 'atypicality' of teachers' experiences nor the open-ended reports are conclusive as regards the full extent of physical violence directed towards teachers in the classroom or around the school. Teachers who reported no examples of 'physical aggression' being directed towards them during the week of the survey could, of course, have experienced it during other weeks of the school year. Furthermore, although very large numbers of teachers took the opportunity to comment on their experiences in an open-ended way, by no means all will have chosen (or seen fit) to use the space provided to recount their previous experiences of 'violent' incidents. However, the data we have collected do offer some estimates of the probable limits.
Somewhere in the region of two per cent of teachers reported experiencing some form of 'physical aggression' towards them during the week of the survey (see Footnote 2). However, it should be recognised that this is an estimate based on a particular time period of one week and that extrapolation to longer time periods would be inappropriate because the vast majority of teachers reported that their experiences during the week were 'typical' or 'fairly typical'.
Our detailed analysis of all those questionnaires reporting 'physical aggression' of some form suggested that the proportion of teachers referring to incidents of a clearly violent nature was considerably lower than the above figures. Our best estimate is that about one in two hundred (0.5%) teachers had had experiences of this kind. Again extrapolation to longer time periods would be inappropriate (see Footnote 3).
C. SECONDARY TEACHERS' VIEWS ON THE 'SERIOUSNESS' OF DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS
We have confined ourselves up to this point to teachers' factual reports of the discipline problems they were encountering. But how 'serious' did
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secondary teachers believe the problems of discipline were in their schools?
About one in six (16%) teachers thought they were 'serious' (see Table 3). A majority (53%) thought they were 'not very serious'. One in four (26%) thought they were 'not at all serious' but only one in twenty (4%) was prepared to say they were "no problem at all'.
Table 3: Secondary teachers' perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems in their school.
Note: The question asked was as follows: 'Discipline problems vary from school to school in their seriousness. Looking at your own school as a whole, how serious is the problem of discipline in your opinion?'
In general, teachers' perceptions of the 'seriousness' of the problems in their schools were associated with the patterns discussed earlier in Tables 1 and 2. Teachers who reported that the problems were 'serious' in their school were somewhat more likely to report higher incidences of 'talking out of turn', 'cheeky or impertinent remarks' 'verbal abuse towards other pupils', 'unruliness while waiting' and so on (tables not shown).
C.1 Differences between schools
We were particularly interested in the question of how much teachers in one school differed from teachers in others in terms of their perceptions of the 'seriousness' of the position. We therefore aggregated the responses of the individual teachers in each school to create an overall 'seriousness' score for each of the schools in our study, where a score of 1 meant that the individual teachers thought the problem was 'very serious' and a score of 5 meant they thought it was 'no problem at all' (see Table 4). A score of around 2.0 meant that, on average, the teachers from a particular school thought the problems in their school were 'serious' whilst a score of around 4.0 meant that, on the whole, they thought they were 'not at all serious'.
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From Table 4 it can be seen that only in a very small number of schools were matters as extreme as this. Teachers in fewer than one in ten (8%) schools thought the problem was verging on the 'serious' (average scores of 2.5 or lower) whilst teachers in about two out of ten (21%) schools thought that matters were 'not at all serious' or, indeed, 'no problem at all' (average scores of 3.5 or higher). The average scores of the staff in more than half the schools clustered round the view that the problems were 'not very serious'.
Table 4: Secondary teachers' perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems in their school aggregated to the school level to show variations between schools
What Table 4, by itself, does not tell us is the extent to which teachers in any particular school agreed amongst themselves about the 'seriousness' of the problem. To answer this question we used a statistical technique (known as analysis of variance) which allows one to make an estimate of how much of the overall differences in responses is made up: (a) of differences in the replies of teachers in one school as opposed to another (the 'between-schools' variance); and (b) of differences in the replies of teachers within any one school (the 'within-schools' variance).
This analysis indicated that just under 40% of the variance lay between schools whilst the remaining 60% lay within schools (see Footnote 4). In short, although there were some differences of perception between teachers in any one school, there was quite a strong tendency for
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teachers in some schools to maintain that they had discipline problems and for teachers in others to maintain that they did not.
We explored a number of factors relating to the circumstances of teachers in different types of school with a view to seeing whether any of them systematically related to teachers' perceptions of the 'seriousness' of their own school's discipline problems.
Some relationships between the circumstances of particular schools and teachers' perceptions did emerge. For example, teachers were more likely to report that discipline problems were 'serious' in their school when they had also reported that they had higher proportions of pupils of 'below average ability' 'compared with the national picture' or higher proportions coming from 'economically disadvantaged areas' (table not shown). They were a little more likely to report problems if they had more pupils from the 'inner areas of large towns or cities', more pupils from 'ethnic minority' groups or more boys. And they were also a little more likely to report problems if their school had made greater use of corporal punishment around the time when it was formally abolished (table not shown). Since all these relationships were based on teachers' reports of the situation in their school, rather than independently collected evidence, they need to be treated with some caution. Teachers may not always be in the best position to know the particular circumstances of their own school or pupils relative to others. It would also be unwise to single out any one of these factors as being necessarily more important than the others. All point to the view, however, that schools serving areas of social disadvantage (however measured) were more likely to be seen by their staffs as having 'serious' problems. The size of the school (as measured by the numbers of pupils on roll or the numbers of teaching staff) did not appear to matter (table not shown).
We considered, in addition, a limited number of aspects of the career backgrounds and circumstances of individual teachers in relation to their perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems in their schools. The teachers' sex, age, years of teaching experience and years of experience in their present school, as well as the number of schools they had taught in, did not appear to make any difference to their views, except that those with little or no experience of teaching were slightly more likely to report that the problems were 'serious' (table not shown). There was some small indication that teachers who had gained most of their experience with the 11-14 age range felt the problems were slightly worse than other teachers whilst those who had gained most of their experience in 11-18 schools felt they were slightly better (table not shown). Teachers who spent more of their 'contracted time' on classroom teaching were also slightly more likely to report 'serious'
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problems as were those on the 'main professional' grades as opposed to the higher ones (table not shown). However, none of the factors we have discussed regarding teachers' background characteristics were sufficiently strongly related to their perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems in their school to merit much further comment.
About one in six secondary teachers thought there was a 'serious' problem of discipline in their schools. Statistical analysis of the distribution of responses indicated that there were likely to be a few members of the teaching staff in a majority of secondary schools who believed the problems were 'serious'. The more notable finding, however, was the extent to which there were differences between schools. Teachers in some schools differed in their perceptions of the 'seriousness' of the problems from teachers in others. Teachers in about one in ten secondary schools thought (collectively) that the problems in their school verged towards the 'serious'.
Most of the information collected on the backgrounds and circumstances of schools and teachers did not appear to be systematically related to their perceptions about the 'seriousness' of the problems. However, teachers who reported that they taught in schools with higher proportions of children from 'economically disadvantaged areas' or with 'below average' attainment levels tended to perceive the problems as more 'serious' than those teaching in other sorts of schools.
D. THE CLASSES AND PUPIL BEHAVIOURS SECONDARY TEACHERS FOUND DIFFICULT
In this section we consider the particular pupil behaviours teachers found difficult to deal with, either in the classroom, around the school or with respect to the teaching of difficult classes or pupils. But first we offer some perspective on the proportions of teachers who reported that some aspect (or aspects) of their work was 'difficult'.
D.1 The incidence of difficult classes and pupils
Just over one in three (37%) teachers reported that they found one or more pupil behaviours they had experienced in their classroom 'difficult to deal with' whilst three out of ten (30%) reported finding something difficult to deal with during the course of their duties around the school (see Table 5a). One in five (20%) teachers reported finding something 'difficult' in both settings whilst rather lower proportions than these found something 'difficult to deal with' in one setting but not in the other.
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Table 5: Percentages of secondary teachers who reported finding certain pupil behaviours difficult to deal with
Six out of ten (59%) teachers reported finding one or more of the classes they taught difficult to deal with (see Table 5b). Not altogether surprisingly, the classes teachers described as 'difficult' tended to contain pupils from the older age bands (23% were 14+ and 40% were 15+ or over) and they were likely to have more boys in them than girls. More than half of these classes (56%) were grouped by ability in some way (by sets, streams or bands) and three out of four (74%) of these ability groups were of 'below average attainment level compared with other pupils in the school' (tables not shown).
Eight out of ten (78%) teachers reported finding one or more individual pupils 'difficult to deal with' in the classroom. Again, these pupils tended to be from the older age bands (23% were aged 14+, 45% were aged 15+ or over) and three out of four were boys (tables not shown). Over half were 'below average' in ability 'compared with other pupils in the school' and only one in ten was of 'above average' ability. Contrary to some prevalent stereotypes, teachers reported that difficult pupils were no more or less likely to come from 'ethnic minority' backgrounds
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than others. Just under one in four were receiving 'special provision or support' whilst, in addition, just over one in twenty were 'being considered' for it (table not shown).
In short, whether they were reporting on difficult classes or difficult pupils, teachers found male pupils of lower ability more difficult to deal with than others. Most teachers had at least one or two pupils they were prepared to say they found difficult to deal with whilst a majority had at least one class which they found difficult.
D.2 The nature of the pupil behaviours teachers found difficult
After we had requested teachers to report on the frequency with which they had had to deal with various pupil behaviours during the course of their week's classroom teaching (see Table 1), we asked them which of the pupil behaviours they had actually experienced they found 'most difficult' to deal with. They were offered the opportunity to list one or two specific behaviours. It should be remembered, as we have already reported, that just over one in three (37%) mentioned something whilst about two out of three (63%) did not (see Table 5a).
In terms of the sheer frequency with which they were reported, three items stood out from the rest. These were: 'talking out of turn'; 'calculated idleness or work avoidance'; and 'hindering other pupils'. But this was not altogether surprising since these were also overwhelmingly the three items which the vast majority of teachers reported having some experience of (see Table 1). In Table 6, therefore, we confined the analyses to those teachers who had reported actually experiencing particular pupil behaviours at some point during the course of the week and then used these as the bases for deciding what percentages of teachers found them really difficult to deal with.
When we looked at the results in this way we still found that 'talking out of turn' was commonly reported as the 'most' or 'next most difficult' behaviour (see columns 1 and 2 of Table 6). No fewer than 15% (11% plus 4%) of the 2440 teachers who had experienced dealing with it described it in this way. 'Calculated idleness or work avoidance' was as frequently mentioned (by 15%) whilst dealing with 'verbal abuse towards other pupils' (11%) and 'hindering other pupils' (11%) were also prominent. 'Physical aggression towards other pupils' was also reported by one in twenty (6%) of the sizeable number of teachers (over 1000) who had had some experience of dealing with it during the week. Interestingly, only just over one in six (17%) of the small number of teachers (42) who had experienced 'physical aggression (directed) towards themselves' thought this was the 'most difficult' or the 'next
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most difficult' pupil behaviour to deal with, which tends to confirm our earlier conclusion that most of the incidents so described were not deemed to have been particularly serious by the teachers concerned.
Table 6: Pupil behaviours secondary teachers reported finding difficult to deal with: (a) in all classes taught and (b) in particularly difficult classes.
Notes:
**The percentages should be interpreted as follows. Of those teachers (2440 in all) who reported that they had at least some experience of this pupil behaviour (talking out of turn) 11% reported that this was the most difficult problem they had to deal with whilst a further 4% thought it was the next most difficult. Some sense of the numbers of teachers reporting experiences of particular problems can be gained by referring to Table 1 or the figures in brackets which indicate the numbers of teachers actually experiencing each type of behaviour. [page 238]
When teachers were asked to frame their replies within the context of a particularly difficult class (see Table 6, columns 3 and 4) rather more chose to list some behaviour(s). However, the general patterns were not much changed: 'talking out of turn', 'calculated idleness' and 'hindering other pupils' were the most frequently mentioned.
Three out of ten teachers reported that they had found one or more pupil behaviours that they had encountered during the course of their duties round the school 'difficult to deal with' (see Table 5a earlier). 'Showing lack of concern for others' was a common encounter amongst virtually all teachers (see Table 2 earlier) and just over one in ten (11%) of those teachers (2315 in all) who reported that they had experienced it nominated this behaviour as the 'most' or 'next most difficult' they had had to deal with (see Table 7). 'Verbal abuse towards other pupils' and 'verbal abuse towards themselves' were other behaviours which were nominated as 'difficult' ones (by just over one in ten of those with experience of them in each case). Just under one in five of the very small group of teachers (28 in all) who had experienced some 'physical aggression towards themselves' around the school put this top of their list of difficult behaviours.
Table 7: Pupil behaviours secondary teachers reported finding most difficult to deal with around the school.
Note: *The percentages should be interpreted as follows. Of those teachers (28 in all) who reported that they had had at least some experience of this pupil behaviour (physical aggression) 14% reported that this was the most difficult problem they had to deal with whilst a further 4% thought it was the next most difficult.
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In brief, around two out of three teachers reported that they had found none of the pupil behaviours they encountered during the course of their classroom teaching difficult to deal with. Roughly the same proportion reported in similar terms on their encounters round the school, 'Talking out of turn', 'calculated idleness or work avoidance', 'hindering other pupils' and 'verbal abuse towards other pupils' were reported as being the 'most difficult' behaviours to deal with in the classroom. Outside the classroom, 'showing lack of concern for others', 'verbal abuse towards other pupils', 'verbal abuse' towards themselves and 'physical aggression towards other pupils' were the most frequently mentioned.
E. THE STRATEGIES AND SANCTIONS SECONDARY TEACHERS USED WITH DIFFICULT CLASSES AND PUPILS
Teachers reported a variety of strategies and sanctions which they had 'recently used in dealing with difficult classes or pupils'. Before we consider them in greater detail, however, it is important to remember something of the past. Until fairly recently another sanction or deterrent had been available, namely corporal punishment.
We asked our sample whether corporal punishment had been used in their schools about three years ago. About two out of three teachers told us it was still in use at that time. However, they varied in their reports on the frequency with which it was employed: only 3% said it was used 'quite frequently'; 23% 'occasionally'; and 36% 'hardly at all' whilst just over one third (37%) said it was 'not used at all' (table not shown). For a majority of secondary teachers, therefore, the complete removal of corporal punishment as a sanction or deterrent was a fairly recent experience.
Table 8 shows the strategies or sanctions teachers had been employing to deal with difficult classes or pupils. Efforts to 'reason with pupils', either in the classroom setting or outside it, were strategies that most had had some recent experience of (reported by 80% or more). 'Requiring pupils to do extra work', 'discussing with the whole class why things were going wrong', 'keeping pupils in' for detentions and 'asking pupils to withdraw temporarily from the room' were also common strategies (reported by 60% or more). Substantial minorities also indicated that they had taken further steps such as 'referring pupils to another teacher' and 'removing privileges' (40% or more). About one in ten (27%) teachers had found it necessary to 'send pupils direct to the head, deputy or another senior teacher' and about one in ten (9%) had, in the recent past, 'requested (that a pupil) be suspended from school'.
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Table 8: The strategies and sanctions secondary teachers were employing to deal with difficult classes or pupils and their perceived effectiveness.
Note: 20% of teachers mentioned some 'other strategy' they had used,
*The figures should be interpreted as follows. Of those teachers (2281 in all) who reported that they had used this particular strategy recently, 21% said it was the 'most effective' strategy they had used whilst 12% said it was the 'most ineffective'. Over three out of ten (32%) of those teachers who had recently 'reasoned with pupils outside the classroom setting' thought it the 'most effective' strategy they had used whilst only 2% actually considered it the 'most ineffective' (see Table 8). Opinions were more divided,
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however, on the 'effectiveness' of many of the other strategies and sanctions that had been employed. No one approach stood out as being uniformly identified by teachers as highly 'effective' or 'ineffective', suggesting strongly that the 'effectiveness' or otherwise of a particular approach depends both on the individual teacher and on the circumstances of the particular school.
F. THE EXPERIENCES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS
In many respects the experiences of primary school teachers paralleled those of secondary teachers. They had had many of the same experiences in the classroom or around the school as secondary teachers reported. However, the frequency with which these occurred was lower and, in general, they felt less needed to be done. Nonetheless, there were some distinct ways in which their experiences differed from those of secondary teachers and it is to these that we pay particular attention in the following sections.
F.1 Discipline in the classroom and around the school
Like their secondary counterparts, the vast majority of primary teachers (80% or more) reported having to deal with pupils 'talking out of turn', 'hindering other pupils' and 'making unnecessary (non-verbal) noise' at least once during the week (see Table 9). A majority of primary teachers (60% or more) also reported that they had had to deal with 'getting out of seat without permission', 'calculated idleness' and 'general rowdiness' at least once. Whilst the general patterns of the other pupil behaviours that were dealt with paralleled the experiences of secondary teachers, their incidence was usually somewhat lower.
There was one major respect in which the experiences of primary teachers differed. Whereas about four out of ten (42%) secondary teachers reported having to deal with 'physical aggression towards other pupils' at least once during the week, over seven out of ten (74%) primary teachers had had this experience (see Table 9). And one in six (17%) of them had had to deal with this behaviour on a daily basis compared with only 6% of secondary teachers.
In the course of their duties around the school, the vast majority (over 80%) of primary teachers reported encountering pupils showing a 'lack of concern for others', 'running in the corridors' and 'unruliness while waiting' (see Table 10). 'General rowdiness' and 'verbal abuse towards other pupils' were also common experiences (reported by over 70%). Primary teachers reported less experience of having encountered
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'persistent infringement of school rules', 'cheeky or impertinent remarks' or 'loitering in prohibited areas' (reported by about half) whilst 'physical destructiveness' and 'verbal abuse' towards themselves were rather rare (reported by around one in twenty).
Table 9: Percentages of primary teachers reporting that they had to deal with different types of pupil behaviour during the course of their classroom teaching the previous week.
Note: 15% of teachers wrote in about some 'other pupil behaviour'. Of these 30% reported that it occurred at least daily and 58% reported that it had occurred at least once during the week. The percentages are based on responses of around 1050. Respondents who missed out particular questions averaged around 1% in every case.
*The figures in brackets are the comparable percentages for secondary teachers (taken from Table 1). [page 243]
Table 10: Percentages of primary teachers reporting different types of pupil behaviours they encountered during the course of their duties round the school.
Note: 13% of teachers wrote in about some 'other pupil behaviour'. Of these 17% reported that it had occurred at least daily and 40% at least once during the week.
*The figures in brackets are the comparable percentages for secondary teachers (taken from Table 2). [page 244]
'Physical aggression towards other pupils' was again the one major area of pupil behaviour where primary teachers' experiences differed significantly from those of secondary teachers, just under nine out of ten (86%) primary teachers had encountered this at some point during the course of their week's duties round the school and two out of ten (21%) on a daily basis (see Table 10). The figures for secondary teachers were under seven out of ten (66%) and about one out of ten (11%) respectively.
As in the secondary survey, very small percentages of primary teachers reported 'physical aggression' by pupils directed towards themselves. Only 2.1% reported this experience occurring once during the week in the classroom (see Table 9 and Footnote 5). The figure for encounters around the school was only 1.6% (see Table 10). As in the secondary survey, extrapolation of these figures to provide estimates over longer time periods would be inappropriate. The overwhelming majority of primary teachers reported that their general experiences were 'typical' or 'fairly typical'. We inferred that by 'physical aggression' they meant physical contact initiated by a pupil and this interpretation was borne out by the fuller comments some teachers made in the open-ended section of their questionnaires. 'Aggression' was most frequently described as occurring whilst primary teachers were trying to restrain individual children. Unlike a few of their secondary counterparts, none of the primary teachers in the whole sample used the opportunity to comment on 'any matters they wished' in order to describe 'violent' incidents which had happened to them personally, although a few wrote about incidents which they knew of. We conclude, on the basis of our primary sample's reports, that the incidence of 'violence' directed towards primary teachers, either in the classroom or outside the school, was very low indeed, certainly no higher than the figures reported for the secondary sample and almost certainly considerably lower.
F.2 Primary teachers' perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems, their particular difficulties and concerns
The generally lower incidence of potentially problematic pupil behaviours was reflected in primary teachers' assessments of the 'seriousness' of the situation in their schools. Fewer felt it was 'serious' (11% compared with 16% of secondary teachers) and more were prepared to say it was either 'not at all serious' or 'no problem at all' (51% compared with 31%) (table not shown).
We have already suggested that there were quite considerable differences between teachers in different secondary schools regarding their perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems. In only
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about one in twenty (6%) of primary schools did primary teachers think the problem was verging on the 'serious' (average scores of 2.5 or lower) whilst teachers in two out of three (66%) thought the problems were either 'not at all serious' or, indeed, 'no problem at all' (average scores of 3.5 or higher) (see Section C.1 and Table 11).
Table 11: Primary teachers' perceptions of the 'seriousness' of discipline problems in their school aggregated to the school level to show variations between schools
In the case of primary schools the differences between schools were still larger than in secondary schools. Over half of the variation lay 'between schools' and under half 'within' them (see Footnote 6). This analysis served to emphasise the extent to which primary teachers in some schools believed that the problems were 'serious' and to which those in other schools did not. As with their secondary counterparts, primary
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teachers working in schools with greater proportions of pupils from 'economically disadvantaged areas' or of 'below average ability' were more likely to report that the position in their schools was 'serious' (tables not shown).
Primary teachers were considerably less likely than secondary teachers to report that they found individual pupils 'difficult to deal with'. Four out of ten (40%) said, for example, that they had no difficult pupils in the classroom setting compared with two out of ten (22%) secondary teachers. And only about two out of ten reported finding particular pupil behaviours difficult to deal with, either in the classroom or around the school, compared with well over three out often secondary teachers (table not shown).
The particular pupil behaviours that this relatively small group of two out of ten primary teachers said were 'most difficult' to deal with corresponded in most respects to the concerns of secondary teachers. 'Talking out of turn', 'hindering other pupils', 'calculated idleness or work avoidance' and 'physical aggression towards other pupils' were the behaviours the vast majority of primary teachers reported having to deal with in the classroom situation (see Table 10). They were also the behaviours that they found 'most' or 'next most difficult' to deal with although, in each case, fewer than one in ten of the 900 or more teachers with actual experience of them nominated them as 'most/next most difficult'.
'Physical aggression towards other pupils' was nominated as the 'most (or next most) difficult' problem to deal with outside the classroom (mentioned by about one in eight primary teachers). 'Showing lack of concern for others' and 'verbal abuse towards other pupils' were also mentioned, but less frequently, by around one in twenty (tables not shown). Hardly any of the 17 primary teachers who reported 'physical aggression' directed towards themselves thought this was the most difficult behaviour they had to deal with. The pupils primary teachers found most difficult to deal with were overwhelmingly male.
F.3 The strategies and sanctions primary teachers used with difficult classes and pupils
Half (50%) the primary teachers reported that corporal punishment had not been in use in their school three years ago compared with about one third (37%) of secondary teachers; only just over one in ten (12%) reported that it had been used 'occasionally' compared with one in four (26%) secondary teachers (table not shown).
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Given that their pupils were younger, most of the strategies and sanctions primary teachers reported using recently differed from those employed by secondary teachers, but only insofar as they were more appropriate for the age of their pupils. There was widespread use of 'reasoning' with pupils, both in the classroom and outside it, as well as 'class discussion about why things were going wrong' (mentioned by over 80% of primary teachers as being used at least once recently). There was less imposition of 'extra work' (reported by 61%) or 'keeping pupils in' (reported by 33%) compared with secondary teachers whilst 'removing privileges' was more commonly used (by 71%).
This latter sanction featured highly on teachers' list of 'more effective' strategies along with 'reasoning with a pupil in the classroom setting' (both mentioned by over one out of four who had used them). 'Requiring pupils to do extra work', asking a pupil to 'withdraw temporarily from the room' and 'deliberately ignoring minor disruptions' were all seen as 'ineffective' strategies by those who had used them (tables not shown).
G. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TEACHERS' PRIORITIES FOR ACTION
Given the very different circumstances facing schools, as well as teachers' widely differing perceptions of the 'seriousness' of the problems in their schools, it is scarcely surprising that a wide variety of priorities for action were put forward. We listed fourteen forms of action that could be taken and asked teachers to say, with respect to each, whether it was 'needed', 'possibly needed' or 'not needed' in their own school. The particular structure of the question allowed teachers to recommend several priorities if they wished. Their choices reveal, to some extent, their analyses of the prevailing situation in their own schools.
Over six out of ten secondary teachers (63%) recommended 'establishing smaller classes' (see Table 12). The other strategies they mentioned can be considered as proposals for action in relation to five particular areas.
About half the secondary teachers recommended two strategies that were designed to tackle directly the problems posed by individual pupils or groups of pupils. These were: 'tougher sanctions for certain forms of indiscipline' and 'more opportunities for counselling for pupils whose behaviour is often difficult' (see Table 12).
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Table 12: Primary and secondary teachers' perceptions of the priorities for dealing with pupils' behaviour problems in their own schools.
Note: 14% of secondary teachers and 12% of primary teachers mentioned some other strategy or priority which they believed was needed.
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About four out of ten teachers diagnosed the problems as stemming from the community and wanted to 'build more parental involvement' and 'more respect for the school in the local community'.
Similar proportions thought that more support for the individual teacher 'facing problems with discipline' would be valuable. The 'personal guidance or support' could come either from 'colleagues' or from 'LEA staff', although more favoured the former than the latter. 'More in-service training' was also recommended, either for individual teachers or for groups.
Around four out of ten teachers again favoured collective action on the part of the staff, recommending 'more discussions of discipline amongst staff as a whole' and 'firmer communications to pupils about what they can and cannot do'.
Changing 'the content of the curriculum', 'teaching styles', 'the climate of the school' and 'creating more opportunities for team teaching' attracted the support of around two out of ten teachers.
We also asked which strategies teachers felt were 'most/next most important'. 'Smaller classes', 'tougher sanctions', 'counselling for pupils' and 'building parental involvement' all received strong support (table not shown). However, it was very clear from the very high percentages of secondary teachers in Table 12 reporting that certain strategies were 'needed/possibly needed', that action across a broad front would be likely to command support from a considerable majority of secondary teachers and that they felt there were several starting points for tackling the problems. No fewer than eleven of the fourteen items listed in Table 12 received support from seven out of ten (or more) secondary teachers.
In general terms, primary teachers' priorities for action matched those of secondary teachers. However, given the lower incidence of behaviour problems and the extent to which the situation was perceived by a considerable majority of primary teachers as less serious, correspondingly fewer reported that particular approaches were 'needed', apart from 'establishing' smaller classes (mentioned by 57%).
As with the secondary teachers, views on which approaches were required varied quite considerably (see Table 12). There was much less support for 'tougher sanctions' than amongst secondary teachers and lower proportions recommended 'firmer communications to pupils about what they could and could not do' (recommended as 'needed' by about three out of ten teachers in each case).
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Around three out of ten primary teachers were in favour of 'building more parental involvement' and 'respect for the school in the community' whilst similar proportions favoured 'counselling for pupils', 'counselling and support for teachers with discipline problems' (both from colleagues and from LEA staff), more 'in-service training' and more 'staff discussions'. Less than one in ten recommended changing the 'content of the curriculum', 'teaching styles' or the 'climate of the school' (see Table 12). And whereas only a small minority of secondary teachers (between two and three out of ten) were prepared to state that particular approaches were 'not needed' between three and five out of ten primary teachers reported that many of the items we had listed as possible priorities were definitely 'not needed' in their school (table not shown). We took this, in part, as reflecting their view that there was no major problem that demanded immediate action.
Footnotes to Part I
(1) In order to obtain estimates of the relative frequency with which teachers had experienced particular forms of pupil behaviour it was decided to confine the survey to a period (one week) during which their memories of what had happened were likely to be reliable. It is not possible to extrapolate the teachers' replies to provide reliable estimates of the percentages of teachers who would be likely to encounter particular types of behaviour over longer periods. In order to produce such figures it would be necessary to make assumptions about the extent to which particular teachers would or would not be more likely than others to experience such behaviour. Such assumptions would clearly be unsafe.
(2) Allowing for simple sampling errors, the 95% confidence intervals surrounding this estimate are plus or minus 0.5%.
(3) The 95% confidence intervals surrounding this estimate are plus or minus 0.3%.
(4) The exact estimates were: 'between-groups' 38.3%; 'within-groups' 61.7%.
(5) The 95% confidence intervals surrounding this estimate are plus or minus 0.7%.
(6) The exact estimates were: 'between-groups' 54.2%; 'within-groups' 45.8%. [page 251]
PART II Teachers' Experiences and Perceptions of Discipline in Ten Inner-City Comprehensive Schools
A. INTRODUCTION
This paper reports the findings of an interview-based research project. After a brief methodological introduction and a consideration of the problems of generalisation across ten sites, teachers' experiences and perceptions of discipline are discussed in relation to four main areas: the nature of discipline problems; responses to discipline problems; issues relating to curriculum and pedagogy; and links with parents, family and the community.
A.1 The conduct of the study
This project was specifically designed to complement the national postal survey of teachers (also carried out by members of Sheffield University's Educational Research Centre) and sought to explore in detail the perceptions and experiences of teachers who spend the majority of their working day in the classrooms of inner-city comprehensive schools.
Because of time constraints, we decided to approach schools in ten LEAs which were within a couple of hours travelling distance of Sheffield. This offered a good range, taking in several northern and midland authorities.
Census data were used to identify schools whose location might reasonably be described as 'inner-city'; these reflected the characteristics of the school's electoral ward in relation to indices of multiple disadvantage such as the level of unemployment, proportion of one-parent families and percentage of households lacking basic amenities. We made telephone contact with the headteachers and where the school was confirmed as an inner-city comprehensive we sought their co-operation in organising a series of interviews over a two day visit to each school. In addition to the headteachers themselves, we asked to see ten classroom teachers who would offer a cross-section of the views, concerns and experiences in each school (a total of 100 classroom teachers in all).
We specifically requested that interviewees should represent different subject areas, years of teaching experience and both sexes. Throughout our analysis we have been sensitive to the complexity of factors which may influence teachers' experiences. Although our interviewees must remain anonymous, in presenting our findings we have chosen to indicate the following characteristics of those whom we quote: gender (M/F); years experience in teaching (in total/in present school); salary scale (main professional grade/allowance for special responsibility/deputy/headteacher); main subject specialism (see Footnote).
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So as to maximise comparability across the ten research sites the interviewers were guided by a semi-structured schedule. The main areas explored during the interviews were:
A.2 The problems of generalisation across the schools
At one time or another each member of the research team encountered an interviewee who queried what we meant by the term 'discipline'. We had deliberately avoided being prescriptive about such matters, wanting to explore each teacher's own perceptions. The teachers' questions served to highlight the dynamic and complex character of discipline in schools: across the ten research sites we were told of many different problems and of the varied responses to these problems.
The themes explored in this paper are those which consistently emerged in interviews as important areas of concern across all ten schools. In many cases there was striking similarity between the schools despite their very different histories and location within specific LEA and local community contexts. However, each school had its own identity and it was therefore not possible to generalise across all ten schools on some issues. We asked, for example, whether interviewees thought that, during their time in the school, discipline had got worse, better or remained about the same. Within each individual school the interviewees were consistent in their replies, yet between schools there was often significant variation. This reflected very different factors in the location and history of each school.
We chose to concentrate the interview-based study on inner-city schools; it may be that teachers in schools in less 'disadvantaged' areas experience and perceive discipline problems differently. For example, when we asked teachers to describe the general level of discipline in their school they usually qualified their answers by adding, '... for an inner-city school'. This reflected an assumption that teachers in other schools might view certain issues differently:
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B. THE NATURE OF DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS
Teachers often revealed complex feelings which were sometimes ambivalent about their working lives. On the one hand they tended to display a strong personal and professional concern for their pupils, yet the job of teaching was made both physically and emotionally wearing through seemingly incessant problems related to discipline:
B.1 Teachers' experience of frequent and wearing indiscipline
For many of the teachers we spoke to, teaching had become a struggle: a sense of frustration and the slow erosion of their energies frequently emerged when teachers explained their concerns regarding discipline:
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Just can't get them to settle down to work to the best of their abilities. And this seems to be the constant hassle that teachers are having in the classroom these days ... It becomes more of a battle, more of a hassle. All the time, you know, the teacher is having to say, 'Come on'. 'Get on with your work'. 'Stop turning around and talking to the person behind you'.
... they will yell out even when they see I am talking to someone else at the other side of the room, and they won't wait their turn. That infuriates me. It might seem a very trivial point but I find it infuriating. And then if I am spending time with one child they tend to be impatient because they want my attention immediately.
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frequency of problems was such that even staff with no special responsibilities often found that disciplinary issues came to dominate their experience of school:
A pastoral head of year:
A form teacher:
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A further dimension to the loss of respect which teachers reported concerned the level of insulting language which they encountered in the classroom. Mostly this involved pupils swearing at each other and making a show of aggression to their classmates. However, occasionally pupils did not restrict bad language to interactions with their peers:
... a fifth year boy had gone to the general office and asked to borrow 50p. When he was told he couldn't - he didn't actually swear at the member of staff, he swore in front of her, saying 'shit, fuck'. Right, this is one example of disrespect, you know, using that sort of language in front of a member of staff ...
It should be noted that, although the pupils who caused the disruptions were almost always described as a small minority of the whole pupil population, the cumulative demands upon teachers' energies were very great. Similarly, the very few pupils who had been physically aggressive towards staff could have an effect upon morale (and the general 'atmosphere' of a school) which was much more significant than might at first be suspected.
B.2 Teachers' experience of physical aggression in school
We asked every interviewee whether, in the last five years, they had been the recipient of 'physical aggression from a pupil'. Interviewees usually qualified their answers by emphasising the need to understand pupils' actions within their situational context: teachers highlighted the importance of several factors which made this a surprisingly difficult question to answer in simple 'yes'/'no' terms.
Some teachers stated that pupils' actions could be 'physically aggressive' without actually involving contact. The following quotation, for example, concerns a pupil who had smashed the windscreen of a teacher's car:
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I've had confrontation situations in the past where there's been verbal aggression, but no physical aggression. The only physical aggression has been really just the heat of the moment, due to a fight between two pupils, and it's not really been aimed at me, it's been aimed at the other one ... but it's just that you've had to get between and separate them.
I can't remember any incident where anybody's threatened me with physical violence ... I've been hit once, when I was separating a fight. I was separating a fight and somebody was swinging a punch at the adversary and I got it on the chin - but that was an accident, there was definitely no way he could have meant it.
[A pupil] got cross and on his way out [of the classroom] unfortunately he pulled the door very very hard - I think he was basically in a temper - and he got me right down the arm - I got a bruise ... he did not come towards me to do anything to me, he just didn't control his temper and it was unfortunate that it happened - the door happened to hit me - I mean, he wouldn't have taken notice who was there ... I don't think it was deliberate, he just wasn't in control of what he was doing.
The three examples above illustrate the interviewees' desire to qualify their answers by reference to their assessment of the situations in which the incidents occurred. Thus, even in those situations where the teacher had felt physically threatened or where contact had been made there was sometimes doubt as to whether the acts were deliberately directed towards themselves as teacher. Moreover, even where there was contact the teacher might not feel that 'assault' was an appropriate description:
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Thus, intended physical aggression by pupils against teachers was not a common experience in the schools which we visited and was not perceived by staff as the major disciplinary issue. Cases of physical aggression were isolated and must be viewed within the whole school context. However, the importance of such incidents should not be underplayed. In fact, teachers could have to deal with physical aggression in a variety of forms: for example, by interceding in a pupil fight; or by questioning strangers (often in their late teens or early twenties) who entered the school site during the day and might respond in a threatening manner if challenged. Schools which acted as community colleges faced a particular problem in this respect; one school we visited had to cope with a public right of way which cut across its site, while another had recently suffered a guerilla-style attack upon one of its pupils:
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teachers could be and this in turn could lead to a general sense of unease amongst staff in the school.
Very occasionally teachers might have to face physical aggression which seems to have little or no rational basis. However, experienced staff often pointed out that such exceptional cases had always existed and should not be taken as indicative of a disciplinary crisis. The following example of pupil-pupil violence clearly illustrates this:
C. DEALING WITH THE PROBLEMS OF DISCIPLINE
C.1 Reactions to the abandonment of corporal punishment
Among our ten schools were some which had recently abandoned corporal punishment and others which had dropped it six or more years ago. In the latter schools, teachers were, on the whole, markedly less worried about coping without corporal punishment: 'We weren't happy at the time of changeover but now we never think about it'. (M 9/9 MPG + incentive allowance information technology). Alternative perspectives on discipline have evolved, and new strategies for dealing with discipline problems. These are more in accord with the principles that structure new curricula, new teaching and learning styles, and pastoral work.
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There were other schools where corporal punishment had been used, albeit sparingly, until its recent prohibition. It was clear that these schools were in a state of transition. There was, not surprisingly, some disorientation, nervousness and uncertainty as alternative systems were being developed and tried out. An additional factor was that the media had given prominence to pupils' rights following the abandonment of corporal punishment and many pupils had been quick to let teachers know that they were well informed. For example, one teacher, whose habit it was to flick small pieces of chalk at pupils as a way of re-engaging their attention, recalled one boy's recent response: 'Well, you can throw it to us but you can't throw it at us'; he added '- which I thought was a fine distinction for a boy of twelve to make'. (M 11/11 MPG + incentive allowance CDT). Pupils' remarks were often more aggressively challenging.
A number of teachers in both groups of schools thought they would like firmer sanctions for more serious acts. There were also some who felt that corporal punishment itself still had a place in school. These teachers typically offered the following arguments: pupils 'understand' the cane or the slap because it's the language of the home; parents urge teachers to hit or cane pupils because it's the style of retribution that they are familiar with; it is quick and immediate - you can have a joke with a pupil later the same day - whereas other procedures are protracted and lose their meaning in relation to the act that elicited the punishment; there has to be an ultimate deterrent for the really bad cases; corporal punishment is a deterrent to pupils who wonder how far they can go.
These arguments were counterbalanced by a different set of arguments from other teachers: corporal punishment cannot be an effective deterrent since the same pupils have, in the past, been caned on more than one occasion, and sometimes repeatedly; pupils do not 'learn' from corporal punishment, they merely accept it; pupils become more aware of the seriousness of their misdeeds or irresponsibility when parents and/or other teachers become involved; some pupils need to see that there is, in society, an alternative to the language of violence that they experience outside school; to hit or cane another human being is 'dehumanising' and 'barbaric'. Some teachers recalled the humiliation they had felt at being caned as a child and they mentioned the commitment to retaliation that caning could evoke if pupils felt that the punishment had been unjustified. Some also recorded their own feelings of abhorrence about occasions when they had had to administer corporal punishment themselves.
Overall, the abandonment of corporal punishment seems to have
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occasioned an important reappraisal among teachers of the coherence of the values and practices of schooling. It has also created a climate in which it is becoming increasingly possible for teachers 'to talk about (discipline) freely'. (F I7/7MPG + incentive allowance mathematics).
C.2 Developing alternative perspectives and strategies
In developing alternative perspectives and strategies, schools have identified a number of important areas:
C.2.i Incentives, sanctions and support. Schools are tackling the problem of discipline from a number of perspectives. One headteacher said that his school 'is now built on incentives rather than punishment'. It had been 'a very violent school'. As the numbers of pupils in the school fell, so the discipline pattern seemed to change. The headteacher commented:
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by several headteachers as a desirable development) and raising money to give pupils some residential experience. Staff persisted in trying to build closer links with parents, and tried overall to achieve a sense of 'confidence and consultation' among staff. A similar profile of effort and initiative existed in some other schools.
A clearly articulated and consistently handled set of sanctions is something that classroom teachers strongly urge. Behind sanctions lie expectations about behaviour. It is when these codes of behaviour are challenged - whether the general code of behaviour that the school establishes for all its pupils or the codes embodied in the expectations of individual teachers - that the sanctions and/or support systems come into play.
The most common are the individual report, temporary exclusion, detention, withdrawal and long-term or permanent exclusions. These now form the backbone of the system, and although deemed to be generally effective, each component is seen by some teachers as having drawbacks. It might be helpful briefly to discuss each of these in turn.
The individual report: a pupil who is on individual report carries a proforma from lesson to lesson and each teacher is required to make a written comment on his or her behaviour during the lesson. Although this is a fairly common and conventional form of 'probationary' checking, it is not without problems. The major one is lack of consistency among teachers in interpreting what counts as 'satisfactory behaviour'. Some teachers, it seems, will give a 'satisfactory' comment for attendance, while others also expect evidence of concentration and participation. In addition, there is a limit to the number of days a pupil can be on report before it becomes a tedious device, both for the pupil and for the teacher, and decisions to take the pupil off report may not reflect any substantial commitment to a more constructive outlook or pattern of behaviour. At the same time, the individual report does ensure that a number of teachers are aware of and are communicating about individual pupils whose behaviour has given cause for concern.
Temporary exclusion from the classroom: a teacher who feels that a pupil is disturbing other pupils or who has behaved unacceptably may be excluded from the lesson or, if the behaviour is more serious, from the remaining lessons of the day. This can mean, according to circumstance or policy, that the pupil is isolated in an adjoining room but under the eye of the class teacher, or is required to sit/stand out in the corridor, or is sent to a duty tutor and required to work independently, or is sent to a member of senior staff. The temporary exclusion is generally seen as an immediate and helpful device and one that allows the teacher and the
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rest of the class to resume their concentration on the task in hand. The problems most often mentioned by teachers were these: on a bad day the duty tutor's room may become crowded and the excluded pupils may themselves become too difficult for the duty tutor to handle; the excluding teacher may be anxious lest pupils see exclusion as a sign of teacher weakness; the teacher may feel that he or she is sacrificing the needs of the individual to the needs of the group; exclusion necessitates a cycle of spoken or written communication among staff; and teachers complain widely about the amount of paper work and time that the bureaucracy of support systems can lead to (this is not to say that they do not find them helpful in principle).
Detention: this is a traditional sanction which schools are reacting to in different ways. One school was about to reintroduce detention as a follow-up to temporary exclusion and as a way of underlining its seriousness. Another school had dropped it. Others continue with it but recognise some of the problems: for example, the time involved in writing to parents to give them warning; the reaction of some parents who are unwilling to allow children to stay on at school; the reaction of some pupils who like staying on at school and may prefer it to going home with the result that the sanction loses its meaning.
Withdrawal: some schools have a withdrawal or support unit where particularly difficult pupils can be given help, usually over a period of time, until they are thought ready to return to the regular work of the classroom. The support unit may be dealing with persistently difficult pupils or with pupils whose need for remedial help is leading, or is likely to lead, to boredom and disruption. Many teachers feel secure in the knowledge that such a unit exists and value its long-term potential for the resocialisation of difficult pupils but the counter-pull in many schools is towards the greater use of support teachers within the normal classroom setting. Teachers mentioned two particular problems: pupils who are not behaving badly can resent the fact that the disrupters, rather than being punished, are getting 'preferential treatment' in being allowed to work in a more comfortable setting where they receive greater individual attention; for pupils who have difficulty, for whatever reason, in keeping up with the progress of their classmates, withdrawal can compound the problem of discontinuity of learning. An additional problem with the withdrawal unit is that schools with such units may be sent difficult pupils by other schools, and while headteachers may pride themselves in being able to cope with pupils that other schools cannot cope with, not all teachers may share the head's enthusiasm for the intake.
Exclusion from school: this may be temporary or permanent. A
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temporary exclusion will require parental contact and the pupil may not be allowed to return to school until an arrangement has been made between teacher and parents. While this sanction was considered essential for serious misconduct such as fighting or bullying, there was concern about the amount of paperwork and time involved. For extreme cases or for a succession of serious incidents, the school may consider permanent exclusion. Teachers expressed concern at the time taken to achieve a decision, and the damage that may result to the pupil concerned or to others if an 'unmanageable' pupil has to remain in school while a decision is being made. There is some feeling among classroom teachers that governors may oppose the idea of exclusion in order to avoid the school acquiring 'a bad name', ie a reputation for having pupils whose behaviour is such that they have to be removed.
In addition to these 'school-wide' systems, individual teachers have their own personal systems which include such traditional punishments or privilege withdrawals as: doing extra work, writing out lines, tables or explanations of why what they have done is unacceptable; staying behind (when a break follows the end of a lesson) for as many minutes as the whole class delayed the start of the lesson; and not being allowed to join in favoured communal activities during the course of the lesson.
C.2. ii Shared understanding and mutual support. All schools recognise the importance of discussion about discipline. Not all schools, however, have as yet created occasions for open discussion within the staff group as a whole. In schools where this has been achieved, staff value the sharing of experiences and of strategies for responding to problems. The aftermath of the period of teachers' action has worked against the development of corporate planning and in some settings it has left a residue of friction that may be perpetuated in different attitudes to discipline, or even in some distrust. But the sense of community and mutual support that some schools are beginning to achieve is impressive:
The two main concerns teachers have in relation to the quality of mutual support are consistency and reliability of back-up. Teachers
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need to feel that they are working to roughly the same standards for interpreting the seriousness of pupil behaviours and working to roughly the same procedures for dealing with them:
The convention of developing a strong individual style to maintain classroom discipline is in fact quite complex when one examines it closely. Teachers realise that they can no longer take respect for granted:
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sense of achievement, not just for the pupils but also for the teacher's own sense of professional pride. Teachers often talk about the need to have faith in their own capabilities to manage classroom discipline - partly because pupils might judge them to be weak if they regularly send miscreants to senior staff:
C.2.iii Talking things through with pupils. One school, which had worked for 16 years without corporal punishment (and which still has 1200 pupils on roll), has reduced its rules to one: 'to respect and show courtesy and kindness to all people at all times' (M 18/2 headteacher). As one teacher said: 'in this atmosphere, it's hard not to be reasonable' (M 11/6 MPG + incentive allowance English). The aim, as in other schools, is to create 'a whole net of caring' (M 12/5 MPG + incentive allowance music). This means being attentive to pupils' concerns, particularly at the point of transition from primary or middle to secondary school, and ensuring that they feel secure, but it can also involve spending time 'teaching
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pupils how to get out of conflict' (M 18/2 headteacher). It can involve creating good working conditions for pupils and it can also involve taking time to get to know 'a little bit more about the history' of a young person who is disruptive, 'because sometimes it could be the problem is a deep-rooted one' (F 5/5 MPG chemistry).
Teachers recognise the time that it takes to understand and support rather than merely to punish. Problems may be brought in from outside school and many teachers are concerned to undertake a sympathetic diagnosis rather than merely to treat the symptom:
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number of staff are already seeing the advantages' (M 26/11 headteacher). Individual discussion may be supplemented by class discussion of responsibilities and problems:
D. THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW CONTENT AND TEACHING STYLES
Many teachers, in speaking of discipline within their own classrooms, expressed a concern, as one interviewee put it, with ensuring that 'boredom doesn't have a chance to set in' (M 17/17 MPG + incentive allowance French), Not surprisingly, therefore, 'motivation' and 'relevance' were key terms in teachers' accounts of lessons which they felt had been successful. Classroom discipline, in other words, was seen as having a great deal to do with 'the way you ... turn your teaching towards the children you have got' (F 9/6 MPG + incentive allowance home economics). The introduction of new curriculum content was considered to be of particular significance in this respect:
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D.1 Approaches to classroom discipline
Perceptions of what constitutes 'a discipline problem' or 'disciplined behaviour' would seem to vary considerably according to the particular teaching style adopted:
Even those teachers who favour a more 'informal' approach insisted upon the importance of there being certain clearly defined expectations regarding pupil behaviour. One teacher, for example, who acknowledged that 'we have a freer approach now', stressed that 'you still expect certain things and ultimately you're still the one in charge'. (M 20/12 MPG + incentive allowance English as a second language):
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D.2 Discipline with a purpose
Different curriculum areas would seem to vary considerably in the kinds of opportunity they offer for developing self-discipline in pupils. A science teacher, for example, pointed to the way in which 'science lends itself to ... group work and problem solving activities' which, she claimed, 'give the kids something meaningful to do (F 21/17 deputy biology). Similarly, an art and design teacher explained how, within her subject, discipline has to be understood in terms of 'the way an artist works or the way a designer approaches the work':
Regardless of their subject specialisms, interviewees stressed that for them discipline in the classroom was primarily about creating 'an atmosphere in which kids can learn' (M 9/9 MPG geography). Many felt that, in order to create such an atmosphere, teachers needed to stimulate pupils through the use of teaching methods designed to encourage a greater degree of collaboration and active participation.
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Several cited CPVE, GCSE and TVEI as examples of initiatives which had helped to promote work of this kind and thereby raise the level of motivation in the classroom. Above all, however, they felt that discipline should be associated, in the minds of both teachers and pupils, with the process of learning itself. Indeed, one of the major benefits to have accrued from the introduction of a broader range of teaching methods was, in the words of one interviewee, 'that there is now more learning than teaching going on generally in classrooms' (M 20/12 MPG + incentive allowance English as a second language).
The emphasis on learning goes some way to explaining the premium placed by many interviewees on talk and interactive activity as a key element in pupils' classroom experience. 'They are all working', said one teacher of his pupils, 'there is a lot of talk going on, but it is all to do with the work' (M 15/5 MPG history). While acknowledging that a lesson organised in this way may appear from the outside to lack order, they argued that it in fact makes heavy demands on the teacher in terms of developing alternative organisational structures and pupil expectations. Such an approach, in other words, was seen to require a different kind of orderliness which gains its rationale from the nature of the tasks being undertaken and the interests and insights that these generate. It requires, as one interviewee put it, 'discipline from the teacher. It may look very informal, but it is actually very structured'. (F 10/1 MPG + incentive allowance personal and social education).
Off-site activities, such as residential and work experience, were also seen as providing important opportunities for developing in pupils the collaborative skills that are central to group work. Activities of this kind were valued not only as being worthwhile in themselves, but as having a positive impact on the subsequent attitudes and behaviour of pupils in the classroom. One interviewee, for example, spoke of 'the difference in relationships when people have been on a residential ... you find a totally different attitude in the classroom' (F 16/11 MPG + incentive allowance pre-vocational); another spoke of her own experience of 'taking kids out of the classroom' as having been 'the greatest influence on changing my teaching methods generally' (F 21/17 deputy biology).
There was broad agreement among the interviewees that unless learning takes place within a context that is genuinely caring, the outcomes of that learning will inevitably suffer in quality. One of the interviewees articulated very clearly the view that, to be effective, teaching necessarily involves the teacher in close and sustained relationships with pupils:
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There was a very strong sense among the teachers interviewed that there are no simple answers to the problem of classroom discipline. Relevant and stimulating materials, careful lesson preparation and classroom organisation, varied teaching methods and learning experiences and a commitment to the personal welfare of pupils were all mentioned as elements in the equation. None of these elements in itself was seen as sufficient. Taken together, however, they were seen as significantly increasing the likelihood of classrooms becoming places in which pupils want - and are able - to learn. The commitment of teachers to that possibility is - arguably - the most significant element in that complex equation.
E. LINKS WITH PARENTS, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY
E.1 The importance of home-school links
All schools considered their links with pupils' parents and communities to be a crucial factor in relation to discipline. Teachers distinguished between occasions when it was easier to bring parents into school (for example, a specific invitation which allows a one-to-one conversation, whether in response to a crisis or to hear about their child's progress) and the occasions when it is less easy to attract parents (for example, information giving sessions in a large group):
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attempts to improve links with the family and community were often based upon familiar initiatives, such as fairs, sales, performances, outings and parent teacher associations. Evening or day classes may be run at schools and parents were sometimes involved in voluntary work. In addition to the range of activities which schools ran, the most significant aspect was the amount of effort it takes for schools to win (or maintain) the interest, confidence and support of families in the community, or communities, which they serve.
Although some schools had very good links with the local community, many teachers felt that some of the discipline problems in the school reflected a parental and/or community influence. There were many references to the problems created by protracted unemployment and family tensions and upheavals. In addition, some teachers believed that there had been a loss of discipline and 'respect for adults' in the home which could carry over into school. There was also some feeling that communities which had once been supportive of schooling and teachers were now becoming less so. Teachers suggested that this change in attitudes may have been strongly influenced by public attacks on the quality of teaching and a tendency to seize upon dramatic incidents that often present a poor image of the school:
A key problem in interpreting what teachers say about the communities which they serve is that of judging how well teachers really know and appreciate the values and perspectives of parents. Teachers were often troubled by their lack of time and opportunity to build better understandings of the local communities. In fact, the teachers themselves were sometimes the first to point out that one of the benefits of close home-school contact would be the greater mutual understanding that this would create. This was particularly true in the case of ethnic minorities whose attitudes to school and schooling may be very different from those of neighbouring 'poor white areas'. In such cases the situation was further complicated by problems of language and tradition. In some of our schools tentative first steps had been taken towards addressing some of these issues:
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However, links between the school and home do not necessarily rely upon the parents approaching the school. Visits by staff to meet parents at home was an important feature of the pastoral system in some of the schools. This required a great deal of time and effort on the teachers' part, but where the practice had been established there was a very strong feeling that school-home links had improved as a result. Home visits were seen as being a very great help regardless of the nature of the school's catchment area: home visiting was not seen as a resource for multi-ethnic schools alone. However, in areas of substantial ethnic minority settlement this was viewed as a particularly important resource. An interviewee of South Asian origin (speaking as both a teacher and a parent) offered an insightful account of the mutual benefits of home visiting:
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Regardless of the particular characteristics of the catchment area, both teachers and headteachers in several schools saw it as important to have a staffing allowance which would support home visiting.
Some teachers identified tensions between the norms and values which pupils met at home and in the school. There were many accounts, for example, of parents urging teachers to control their children through 'a quick slap' or even a more extended beating. Indeed, there were instances of parents doing this themselves on the school premises after being called in and informed of their child's behaviour. Sanctions could cause further disagreements between home and school when parents refused to agree to their child staying at school for a detention. Such actions are further evidence of differences in perception between parents and teachers.
Forging good and mutually beneficial links with parents is a difficult, yet crucial, task. Although relationships with parents were generally good in some schools, in all ten schools which we visited there were many teachers who wanted greater parental support. The reasons for some parents' reluctance to be involved will tend to vary according to local circumstance. For instance, one of our schools was situated away from its catchment area. Most pupils walked up to a mile to school, few families had cars and the neighbourhood had a reputation for violence at night: attendance at evening meetings was poor. Part of the school's response was to reschedule its parents' meetings for 3.30 pm (rather than later in the evening). Where relationships are developing well, constant effort is needed to sustain them. For example, in one school the year tutor encouraged parents to telephone before school started (or even during the day) to talk about children who might not be attending school or who were facing problems. Clearly, both schools and parents must work at improving and sustaining home-school relationships.
There were occasions when the lack of parental support and control was seen as so serious that the school might be powerless to help:
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may be an untapped resource in some school-community relationships:
F. A NOTE ON TEACHERS' NEEDS IN RELATION TO DISCIPLINE
Real problems exist in schools. In many cases, these problems are being contained by strategies that require considerable professional commitment. Teachers are trying to achieve a coherence of purpose and practice that goes beyond mere coping.
Teachers are investing considerable amounts of energy, time and effort in maintaining or developing a balanced system of sanctions, incentives and support. Some improvements are within the capacity of the school itself and can be achieved by careful planning. These would include better communication between senior management teams and other teachers, a clearly formulated system of sanctions, reliable back-up in relation to agreed sanctions, and greater consistency in the application of sanctions. There are other sources of support that teachers identify but cannot be provided from within the school. The items most often mentioned were the following:
Support from agencies or services outside the school: teachers would find it helpful to be able to rely on better liaison with, and quicker response from, outside agencies that are called on to give specialist help and advice in relation to pupils who find it difficult to accept the discipline of schooling.
Exclusion procedures: teachers would find it helpful if decision-making procedures could be somewhat faster for those pupils for whom exclusion seems the only possible solution. If procedures are protracted, pupils are held within an environment that has already proved
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unsuitable or uncongenial, and other pupils may suffer as a result of sustained contact with the disaffected pupil.
Class size: in smaller classes, teachers can give more attention to individual, or small groups of, pupils; a sense of group identity is more easily established; the possibility of disruptions escalating into minor disorders is decreased. Overall, teachers feel that they can help pupils to learn more effectively when class sizes are smaller.
Staffing: teachers would value a staffing complement that would allow regular collaboration with support teachers and that is generous enough to allow more staff to make regular home visits. All staff would gain from the greater recruitment of bilingual and ethnic minority teachers.
Resources: teachers would welcome more resources, not only for curriculum development but also to improve the quality of the environment. Schools and classrooms are sometimes of depressing appearance, acoustically inadequate, and generally dispiriting. While teachers make every effort to brighten the appearance through displays and exhibitions, the fabric of the building and its general demeanour may remain unwelcoming.
Footnote to Part II
(1) For example, a female chemistry teacher on the main professional grade only, who has taught for a total of fourteen years, the last nine in her present school, would be identified as: (F 14/9 MPG chemistry).
KEY TO THE INTERVIEW
highlighted text: denotes emphasised speech or raised voice.
[Square brackets]: signify background information or where speech has been paraphrased for clarity of understanding. [page 278]
Technical Appendices
A. Sampling procedures and response rates for the national survey
Sample design
The target population for the national survey was defined as all teachers (of whatever status) in the state maintained primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. The selection of teachers from this population was performed in two stages.
Stage 1: DES statisticians provided a national stratified random sample of the names and addresses of 300 secondary and 250 primary schools, drawn to ensure the appropriate representation of the various school types and regions.
The headteachers in these schools were contacted for permission to approach members of their staff. Unfortunately, shortly after the process of seeking such permissions was under way, progress was halted by a national postal strike. During this period chief education officers were approached to contact schools in the sample and forward the required staff lists from them by facsimile transmission.
Table A1: Responses of primary and secondary schools to requests for staff lists
Notes:
**Secondary schools included: middle deemed secondary, 11-16 comprehensive, 11-18 comprehensive, other comprehensive, grammar and other secondary.
The ten regions represented in the sample design were: North, Yorkshire and Humberside, North West, West Midlands, East Midlands, East Anglia, Greater London, South East, South West, Wales. In the circumstances, the numbers of headteachers agreeing to allow staff in their schools to co-operate was most encouraging (see Table A1). In all, 91% of those believed to have been approached replied. However, the time being taken to obtain such replies meant that decisions had to be taken about going into the field with the questionnaires shortly before absolutely all the staff lists had been
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returned. The result was that 476 of the 550 schools originally sampled (that is 87% of the total) were actually included in the survey. Inspection of the relevant tables (not shown) indicated that schools' responses were spread evenly over the various regions and school types.
Stage 2: the sampling of teachers from the staff lists provided by schools was performed on a systematic random basis. For the secondary schools a sampling fraction of 1 in 4 names was used whilst for primary schools it was 5 in 8.
These procedures generated an overall sample of 4444 names. 37 teachers were withdrawn from the sample as they were either on secondment, maternity leave or were not, in fact, members of the school's current teaching staff. A further ten questionnaires were returned as 'undelivered' by the Post Office. This left a total of 4397 teachers who were believed to have been contacted.
Response rates
Each teacher in the sample was initially sent a questionnaire to complete along with a reply paid envelope. Those who failed to reply were subsequently sent a reminder. After about three weeks from the time of the initial mail-out those who had still not responded were sent a second questionnaire to complete. As a result of these procedures 89% of those primary teachers and 79% of those secondary teachers believed to have been contacted returned their questionnaires (see Table A2). Just under 7% exercised the option to respond anonymously.
Table A2: Response rates amongst teachers to the postal survey
Note: Of the teachers who responded just under 7% chose to do so anonymously.
*Includes those who were on secondment, on maternity leave, no longer teaching in the school, etc. [page 280]
During the period when the questionnaires were being mailed out there were continuing disruptions to postal services in some parts of the country. These circumstances may have contributed, in part, to the slightly lower response rates in the Greater London and Welsh regions amongst the secondary sample; amongst the primary sample response rates were, however, almost uniformly high (table not shown).
Response rates did not vary significantly amongst the different types of primary schools. Amongst secondary schools the response rates for '11- 18 comprehensives' and 'middle deemed secondary schools' lagged somewhat behind those for other types of school (tables not shown).
B. The background characteristics of the interview sample
We requested schools participating in this part of the study to provide us with interviewees who represented different subject areas, years of teaching experience and both sexes.
In all, 100 teachers and nine (out of 10) headteachers were interviewed. 55% of them were male. They averaged about 15 years of teaching experience each, nine years of which had been in their present schools. Just over one in 10 had between 0 - five years experience; one in five had 20 or more years experience. They had mostly pursued their teaching careers in comprehensive schools, although about one in four had had some experience in secondary modern schools and just under one in 10 in grammar schools.
One in four of those interviewed were on the main professional grade whilst a further one in three were on main professional grades with allowances A or B. Well over half said they spent 'all or most' of their contracted time on classroom teaching whilst, in total, four out of five said they spent 'over half' their time in the classroom.
Allowing for the over-representation of headteachers in the sample, these figures compare favourably with those obtained for similar schools from the postal survey.
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