We can have the best curriculum in the world – spoiler alert, we don’t – but if pupils are disrupting their learning and that of the well-behaved majority, then everything else is pointless.
What’s preventing this from being tackled? I think there are broadly three main reasons.
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First, there’s systemic and institutional denial that there’s even a problem in the first place. This permeates governmental, local authority and school leadership level, and is present even amongst some teachers – “they behave for me” – for whom poor behaviour and low standards are just normal.
This is driven by ideology. The system is based on trauma-informed and restorative practices. Not only are these not working, they’re causing immense damage. To challenge those ideological sacred cows is to admit their ineffectiveness and we don’t have brave or visionary leadership prepared to do that, beyond the occasional outlier like [head teacher of Berwickshire High School] Bruce Robertson.
Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, is part of the problem, as they too are committed to this flawed and damaging approach to behaviour that’s wreaking such havoc in our schools.