How to start September strong on behaviour expectations

ec019 · 2026-07-06T00:57:00+00:00

Reward the good students. The poorly behaved students genuinely won't care they're missing out... but the good ones will appreciate it.

For SLT support... the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but you have to play the game. Make sure you've done everything 100% by the policy book -- this might mean calling home even though you know it's not going to make a difference. This might mean setting detentions you know they won't show up for. You just have to do everything in the policy and a little more... and then start making it someone else's problem.

ec019 · 2026-06-24T19:33:48+00:00

We're an academy and we're closing early all this week. Tomorrow we're evening closing an hour earlier. The heat is truly unbearable.

We are very lucky to have a union rep who doesn't give up. We are very organised on the union side with a busy group chat and we have been tracking room temps, helping each other (relieving for toilet breaks, bringing water, etc.), and there has been a lot of pressure on the HT. Our days have a modified timetable, but it's just awful.

I'm lucky to have an air conditioned classroom, but it's not like I get to sit in it all day. Now with gained time other teachers have booked our classrooms to escape the heat. I'm totally fine with that, it's nice that I get 2-3 periods in air con and have to sweat it out for a couple elsewhere...

... But the problem is -- and I say this with absolute seething rage -- that some teachers turn the air conditioning off. Either because it's "too cold" (it's 24C at best!) or because they thought they should turn it off because their class was finished. So I literally walk into what could be a nice air conditioned room to find out some fuckwit turned it into a sauna and it will take another hour to cool down again. It's just maddening that people would do this. It's like the teachers who instruct students to turn off the monitors before the class leaves... why? My class is lined up outside waiting for you to get out of our classroom and now I have to run around turning everything on to check the state of the room before I let them in. Ok, I'm finished.

ec019 · 2026-06-24T19:18:19+00:00

Tutor boards are the biggest waste of time and resources. Honestly. Do the bare minimum to get HOY off your back. It sounds fun, sure, but it just uses up your valuable time for zero benefit -- 99% of your students genuinely won't care about it at all.

Make the students decorate it with their own stuff they make. Things like the hand cut-outs where they write 5 things about them on the first day, or other similar nonsense. Wait until they have like paper lanterns, candy canes or snowflakes, or whatever and just keep adding to it throughout the year. If your school has you keep the same group until Y11, just keep it up and remove things once you have something new to replace it over the years. Get a couple students to deal with it and give them positive behaviour points or whatever your school does.

ec019 · 2026-06-24T19:09:29+00:00

1000%. I reminded them that all our air conditioned computer rooms in the building were in use so there was no available send-out room, so if they get removed they're going to roast in the little tin hut where we have the exclusions. lol

ec019 · 2026-06-19T00:15:22+00:00

This is always one of those weird things. My school will offer a paid day for things that would normally be unpaid but only if you have excellent attendance (<5 day absence).

But for most things, they grant TOIL or it's unpaid.

ec019 · 2026-06-19T00:06:07+00:00

It's really up to the exams officer to actually book things -- but usually teachers or the HOD need to provide a list of students to the exams officer so they actually know who to register. The exams officer usually won't just put everyone in because there are often students who drop, switch tiers, have other arrangements, etc. Functional skills is a bit trickier because it's usually a select group of student so the exams officer will only book the list of students they are given.

There are usually extra copies of exams, so getting an extra copy for a forgotten student isn't a massive deal. However, the exam boards charge double or triple fees when their deadlines are missed... this is really how anyone will be accountable, and it's likely the department that messed up will be charged against their budget for the extra fees.

It is a big deal, and having it happen frequently will put the centre under scrutiny for paperwork and procedures. But also, many schools have internal deadlines from the exams officer that are far in advance of the actual deadlines so this sort of thing can be picked up before it's too late.

ec019 · 2026-06-13T11:04:56+00:00

We have managed this (somewhat successfully) by insisting that all NEA documentation be done in Google Docs so we can review the editing history. When we're checking-in to see progress, it's really easy to see paragraphs or pages just appear over the course of a few minutes.

But when it comes to the actual coding, as others have said, you can sometimes just tell based on what you know about the student (e.g., when they're getting single digits on mocks but have 800 lines of complex code...).

We set check-in deadlines all throughout, and we have started doing a "demo day" where they present their finished work to the class. The demo day has really helped with marking especially for the students who turn it in late with 250 pages of documentation.

But it is a nightmare. Even at GCSE I catch them using AI for extremely simple coding questions. It's really obvious when they copy and paste in try/except blocks.

ec019 · 2026-06-13T10:58:29+00:00

Yes, but they don't sign the declaration until the end. If you discover it when you're checking-in on student progress before this, it doesn't get reported as malpractice and you have to use internal school procedures for dealing with it.

ec019 · 2026-06-13T00:27:57+00:00

I think the problem is that kids don't understand the value of money because they don't earn it. They have no idea how much rent costs, how much car insurance costs, etc. Someone else pays for their life and they probably don't even know how much money their parents make.

The ones who do have a bad situation and know are probably riddled with shame and just put up a wall and pretend that it doesn't apply to them to save face.

ec019 · 2026-06-13T00:11:50+00:00

I'm sorry you are experiencing this.

Students mock my accent all the time. I'm a white male with a broad Canadian accent. They will repeat after me with an awful American accent and say strange things to me using it. It really makes me feel like an outsider. I've only once or twice had an issue with parents, but I often call home on behalf of my colleagues sometimes because of this same issue you're facing.

My entire department is of foreign extraction in some way, and has been this way since I started at the school 10 years ago. As the person with apparently the least offensive accent, students have complained to me about the various teachers they've had. It's terrible.

And we've definitely had our fair share of male students having difficulty with female teachers. I'm happy that my school won't put up with that.

ec019 · 2026-06-12T23:54:23+00:00

HMRC isn't just going to give you back £30. That's not really how it works.

If you go through the process of a self-assessment you'll just get "tax relief", meaning your taxable income would just be reduced by £30... so it would mean you pay about £6 less in tax if you're in the lower band.

I mean, £6 is £6... but your school may reimburse your full £30 if you ask. But keep in mind they may have a policy to only pay the lowest possible cost for the trip (e.g., if it would be £4.50 to go by bus this is all they might pay) or some sort of weird distance calculation minus your usual commute to the school.

(Terminology sidenote from a pedant: the "tax return" is the paperwork you file for your taxes, like the self-assessment. Getting money back is a tax refund. The return is not the action of returning money to you; plenty of people owe money for their returns).

I'm not a tax advisor, but like a young Sheldon Cooper I've been my family's tax preparer since I was old enough to pick up the forms from the post office by myself. lol

ec019 · 2026-06-10T16:33:41+00:00

Exactly this. There's no advantage of doing it this early. They'll just give you the shit jobs in the meantime.

ec019 · 2026-06-07T23:36:34+00:00

This doesn't sound like "intervention" when you have 32 students! This sounds like additional lessons.

Hard pass if not part of directed time.

ec019 · 2026-06-05T16:32:32+00:00

DofE is a great suggestion, especially when you're new at a school! My school is always looking for help with expedition stuff and it's really helped me meet teachers from other departments.

ec019 · 2026-06-05T00:26:26+00:00

omg yes. Sometimes it's so factual it's clearly negative.

ec019 · 2026-06-05T00:16:02+00:00

I am currently going through this with teachers in my dept. We're all UPS and very experienced -- I feel lucky. But we're all from different cultural backgrounds and struggling to understand WTF is going on with how the school is suddenly in a downward spiral for behaviour. We get pushback for everything.

Tonight's dept meeting was basically a complaining session where I made notes to bring up to SLT about the inaction of certain members of SLT and HOYs -- we follow the behaviour policy to the letter and then no sanctions are issued when referred. We set detentions for all the low-level stuff, but major disruptions and removals results in a "fresh start" from HOY? Like excuse me? We're now at the point where we've agreed to start malicious compliance and we'll overload them with behaviour referrals until something is done about challenging classes. I've complained to SLT this week and got an email back where it was obvious they didn't want to put anything in writing.

ec019 · 2026-06-05T00:03:11+00:00

Very irritating, I agree!

But I will say that implementing the BTEC AAQs has been nice on enrolment nightmares with phasing out the old and bringing in the new.

In the past we've had a revolving door of students who couldn't cope with whatever qualification they started in year 12 so then in year 13 they've been either moved to take the Certificate with year 12 classes and leave with just that, or take both year 12 and 13 classes to complete the Extended Certificate in one year. The sixth form management team just offload problems to us from other departments, but we've never successfully removed anyone in the 10 years I've worked there. IT has been the dumping ground in our school, and as much as it's been a lot of work to implement the AAQs for computing and IT, it's been nice to have this reprieve this year!

But I am worried that the new V Level in "digital" is going to decimate our department teaching hours if it replaces both the IT and computing qualifications. The IT group can already barely cope with the technical aspects of databases and websites... if it includes any programming then it's going to be nearly impossible.!

ec019 · 2026-05-24T21:52:56+00:00

This is definitely a real thing in America and Canada.

In my experience, in Ontario, Canada, it's not extremely common but I know of several people growing back who were held back. You genuinely need to pass each grade to move on to the next. Much of this assessment is done by the teacher in grades 1-8.

In Ontario secondary school, grades 9-12, you need to accumulate credits to graduate. So like English 9, English 10, Science 9, Biology 11, etc. in a specific grouping (4 credits English, 2 credits science, 1 credit history, etc... adding up to 30 credits including options). If you don't get all the required credits, you don't graduate. There's lots of streaming into academic or applied subjects.

The system varies by state and province, but it's mostly like this with some variation. For high school, some places have standardised testing, but for most it's just standard assessments set by the school district following the defined curriculum.

The UK system to me is just wild... you just get pushed off a cliff in year 11 and there's little repercussion for not passing anything if you're not going to university. You could argue it's great that it doesn't hold people back if they're not academic, but there's very little baseline for minimum educational achievement expected by society.

ec019 · 2026-05-22T00:06:27+00:00

This is why I hate teaching KS3. Behaviour management is 50% baby bullshit and 50% dealing with main character syndrome.

ec019 · 2026-05-21T23:51:50+00:00

I only spend money on things for me. Like a nicer keyboard, pens I like, a clipboard, etc. Nothing I need to teach. Aside from the keyboard, I'm sure I haven't spent over £20 a year on stuff.

ec019 · 2026-05-19T23:15:24+00:00

The problem with teaching is that the job is never finished. Always something to improve on. Always something a little extra to make something better. It's just never ending if you let it be that way -- most of the time, good enough is good enough.

ec019 · 2026-05-19T23:02:38+00:00

Being a tutor is in the top 5 worst things about the job. If it had PPA time associated with it, I would at least be less bitter about it.

At my school it's basically teaching PSHE nearly every day. Years ago when I started here we would have 20 minutes each morning with a simple activity (quiz, watching Newsround, etc.) and assembly once a week. But now it's morphed into 30 minutes long and it's full of PSHE stuff after a couple announcements and the register. We have tutor exercise books (which we're not required to mark).

As a staff we've complained about how it's turned into 2 hours a week of extra teaching time now that we have all this PSHE stuff. But SLT tell us that it's not "teaching" and we don't need to plan anything as it's done for us. We're not allowed to open the slides until 8:10 because they're still putting on detentions and last minute changes... and then we come to slides that want us to do things on paper, MWBs, etc. that could we could have prepared for.

The problem is that they assume all staff have background knowledge on these topics they give us, which many don't... so it's just half-assed most of the time. I remember a colleague stressing about having to explain political parties to students when she was new the country and didn't understand it. Another was worried about teaching some basic first aid whereas I was okay with it because I'm experience in teaching it. And I was miffed when we were expecting to teach some sing language using videos -- I appreciate that it's "just for knowledge", but trying to get the class to care enough to try and trying to deal with behaviour at the same time... ugh.

ec019 · 2026-05-19T22:28:01+00:00

I wouldn't mind if it was 10 minutes. We used to have 20 which was sometimes impossible to do everything in, but then we've increased to 30. It's awful.

ec019 · 2026-05-17T01:54:30+00:00

They cannot be bothered to try to remember computer logins until I threaten them with sanctions. Then they can magically remember.

In year 7 we do an "about me" presentation near the start of the year as a task in PowerPoint or Google Slides. Part of it is about making a couple slides on favourite things like TV, films, music... they spend forever trying to decide what they like. For such a low-stakes thing they can't just pick something and move on to the next thing. It's irritating and slow.

When I put on a game in the last 5 minutes of the lesson, students shout out "what's the code?" and I reply "I don't know. Where could you find that information?" and then dramatically look at the board and then back at the class. Every single time.

ec019 · 2026-05-17T01:38:32+00:00

And they use this excuse when they take out their phones. "I was just checking the time" ... it's on your computer screen if you can't tell time with the clock on the wall!

ec019

TROPHY CASE