The School Corridor Tatler

Schools that do not protect teaching time have the most problems. This is a fact.  There are many contextual issues that play a role, but class teaching time is the teacher's domain.  Before we look at the external issues, we need to ensure that the classroom environment is structured in favour of good, solid teaching and learning. There are certain fundamentals that must be in place when we talk about protecting teaching time.  Firstly, teachers must be in their classes on time.  If teachers are habitually late or absent from their classes, children will take over the space. This is not rocket science. There will be a breakdown in discipline because the children have been allowed to  run wild.  If this situation happens, then the teacher must take responsibility for the chaos and the waste of teaching and learning time. Secondly, there must be a deliberate intention to devote the lesson time to  disciplined teaching and learning...

All poor schools are equal... Excluding the discipline of children? I know there are many struggling schools, including primary schools, that cannot teach because the children are extremely ill-disciplined. Principals and teachers offer all kinds of relevant reasons for this situation, including poor parenting. While I agree that multiple factors impact on schools, there are many poor schools that have excellent discipline and their overall learner performance matches that of better resourced schools. Why do we have this phenomenon then? Given that we cannot change many of the external factors that affect children's behaviour, we have to focus on the variable that we do have control over: the school and its classroom spaces. Strangely, very few schools that have a poor discipline record, will talk about the school's role in impacting on children's behaviour. Why is there this reluctance to reflect on possible internal problems that add to the lack of discipline acro...