 |  |
| www.dg.dial.pipex.com | 1190 readers since 30 Oct 2006 |
| |
| www.dg.dial.pipex.com | 1190 readers since 30 Oct 2006 |
Elton (1989) Notes on the text
|
The Elton Report (1989)
Enquiry into Discipline in Schools London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1989
Appendix D: Teachers and Discipline
A Report for the Committee of Inquiry into Discipline in Schools
Part II: Teachers' experiences and perceptions of discipline in ten inner-city comprehensive schools
Contents A. INTRODUCTION
B. THE NATURE OF DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS
C. DEALING WITH THE PROBLEMS OF DISCIPLINE
D. THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW CONTENT AND TEACHING STYLES
E. LINKS WITH PARENTS, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY
F. A NOTE ON TEACHERS' NEEDS IN RELATION TO DISCIPLINE Technical Appendices
A. Sampling procedures and response rates for the national survey
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 cooperation 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). 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: I think all organisations, particularly schools, have a tolerance level, which is built up by the culture of the school, about what they will say is the 'bottom line' and members of staff are not prepared to work beyond that. I think the staff here, whether they know it or not, have a particularly high tolerance level, so that a problem does not become a serious problem until much later than it would in some other situations in other schools, in other contexts ... most staff have developed a capacity for dealing with the situation. (M 18/2 headteacher) As our report shows, developing such 'a capacity for dealing with the situation' requires a major investment of time, energy and commitment. 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: I've got two very strong feelings about school; one is I enjoy my job and I enjoy teaching my subject to the children. I mean, 95% of individual cases - I've got no children that I actually dread coming into the classroom ... I get quite a bit done and I can measure my success, and that's very nice. That's positive. But on the social side of the school I have a horrible feeling of gloom, constant nagging: 'so and so's said this' and 'so and so's pushed me.' This kind of thing, bubbling under the surface ... (F 1/1 MPG modern languages) Occasionally, violent incidents had occurred and these could have important consequences, both for the individuals concerned and for the general morale and atmosphere of the school (see section B.2). Although significant, incidents of pupils' physical aggression against staff were isolated and exceptional; they did not emerge as the teachers' most pressing concern. In terms of their day to day experience of working in an inner-city comprehensive school, teachers' main worry was the wearing effect of a continuous stream of relatively 'minor' disruptions. 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: I think one of the reasons people outside teaching think it's such an easy job is that they think that 100% of your energy goes into merely teaching pupils, whereas in some schools a large proportion of your energy - probably most of your energy - goes into disciplining them in the first place. (F 20/5 MPG + incentive allowance chemistry) 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'. (M 18/18 MPG + incentive allowance special needs) It was the cumulative nature of such problems which was most significant. In isolation many of the examples which teachers gave could appear to be relatively trivial. However, it would be foolish to underestimate the cumulative force of pupil-pupil bickering, shouting, jostling and lack of concentration. Teachers regularly reported problems getting pupils settled and working at the start of each lesson. Once this had been achieved lessons were characteristically punctuated by a succession of interruptions as things had to be repeatedly explained or pupils reminded of the rules of the group concerning, for example, gossiping with friends, name calling and safety procedures in laboratories and workshops: ... they cannot concentrate ... general chatter and you fight against that the whole time ... You are continually having to stop, make sure everybody is quiet, carrying on far five or so minutes until the noise level is unbearable again and you make them stop, put their pens down, and give them another speech on keeping quiet. (M 1/1 MPG + incentive allowance technology) ... 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. (F10/10 MPG history) Such problems led to a sense of being slowly worn down by the sheer number of teacher-pupil interactions which involved some element of control or response to acts of indiscipline. This was a particular problem for staff who held a position of special responsibility, such as head of subject or pastoral head of year, for it meant that they were often the first port of call for teachers who wished to remove a child from their class or report an incident to their senior colleagues. In fact, the 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 head of subject:
A pastoral head of year:
A form teacher:
In addition to their exasperation at the succession of disruptive moments during lessons, teachers often reported a change in the overall nature of their interactions with pupils. Such comments were frequently worded in terms of pupils' poor motivation, 'quarrelsome' attitude and a 'lack of respect for authority'. In such cases, teachers often had difficulty pin-pointing what had led them to their belief in a deterioration in pupil 'attitude'. Examples which were common to several different schools concerned the levels of noise (both inside and outside the classroom), jostling in corridors and a failure to show recognition of the adult's status within the institution. As a woman in her second year of teaching put it, 'A lot of the children don't seem able to discern a difference between addressing a mate on the playground and a member of staff in a classroom'. (F 1/1 MPG modern languages): I think within the last two or three years, it's become fairly obvious that the pupils tend to ignore authority in some ways. You know, if you lay down certain rules they tend to disobey more than they used to, let's put it that way. I think they tend to resent being told ... If you give out an instruction and say, 'This is what we need to do', then there are individuals who might turn around and say blatantly, 'We're not really interested' - period. (M 14/14 MPG + incentive allowance physics) 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 boy that I taught told me to 'fuck off' which has never happened to me before. (F 9/9 MPG mathematics) ... 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 ... (M 18/18 MPG + incentive allowance special needs) Overall we found no significant difference between the levels of disruption reported by male and female teachers. However, gender could influence the kind of problem which they encountered. Female staff, for example, sometimes complained of pupils' use of sexual innuendo in class and again stressed the importance of the continual, wearing nature of these disturbances. 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: I walked up to him. He said, 'Don't touch me or I will hit you with this' [a pick axe handle]. So I said, 'Okay, fine. You are into criminal damage at the moment. If you hit me with that it's grievous bodily harm as well as criminal damage'. He was holding it high and threatening me and all sorts of things. I just very slowly talked to him and walked up towards him and asked him several times to put it down. And in the end he just put it on the ground and said 'Let's go inside'. (M 24/5 headteacher) This incident was presented as an example of physical aggression, even though no physical contact was made ('He was holding it high and threatening me ...'). Therefore 'physical aggression' did not always involve contact: however, interviewees also noted that physical contact did not always signal that the pupil had intended any aggression towards the teacher: 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. (F 6/6 MPG physics) 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. (M 11/11 MPG modern languages) [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. (F 11/9 MPG + incentive allowance chemistry) 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: I was actually hit last year, or at least deliberately elbowed out of the way by a very big lad and we managed to sort that out, in that I still teach the child ... but I don't really class that as being assaulted. (F 17/14 MPG + incentive allowance French) The interviewees' responses, therefore, confirmed the complexity of relationships in school by highlighting the variety of occasions where teachers might have to deal with physical aggression; most importantly, they were quick to point out that it was very rare for pupils deliberately to direct physical aggression at staff. Very often teachers noted that with hindsight they would have handled the situation differently and might now be able to avoid escalating the teacher-pupil conflict. 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: [A youth not attending this school] spent most of his time hanging around the fringes of our area and then presumably somebody annoyed him and he was determined, come what may, he was going to get equal. And he literally climbed the drainpipe, in through a window, thumped the lad and was out through the window and was gone again. We had an incident last week where two outsiders walked in and sat in a classroom, two 19-20 year olds. A female member of staff, all she could do was ask a child to go and fetch help ... There are two lady members of staff who moved classrooms recently because they wanted to be in a kind of suite together, because they both worked in this particular way, and eventually they got two very nice classrooms. Once they were in it, they suddenly realised how exposed they were: they were right out on the far corner of the school at ground floor level, and it was into one of these classrooms that these two yobs [from outside the school] walked in and sat down. (M 22/2 MPG + incentive allowance geography) Although isolated, such incidents dramatically exposed how vulnerable 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: ... a girl brought a machete to school to sort somebody out. Now we are talking about a machete. We are talking about a real weapon. Now many people might think that is desperate, but in one of my lessons 14 years ago I had a boy chase another boy through the crash doors of a fire exit with a hammer in his hand. Had he caught him, he would have killed him. It's no different to a girl bringing a machete is it? Had she got close to the person she wanted to do in, she would have done him in. So the major incidents haven't changed, they are still as isolated. Those are the two that come to my mind after 16 years here. The major incidents haven't changed and I don't think they will. I think you are always going to get a major incident in a place like this once in a while. (M 20/16 MPG + incentive allowance design) It is clear, therefore, that occasionally teachers had to deal with violent or physically threatening episodes. These incidents were exceptional but could nevertheless have important consequences for the individuals concerned and for the general atmosphere in some schools. However, teachers identified their most pressing problem as the wearing effects of a continual stream of relatively 'minor' disruptions to classroom teaching. Although, viewed separately, the individual disruptions could sometimes appear trivial, their cumulative effect could place staff under enormous physical and emotional strain. 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. 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 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 supports 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: The incidents have gone down in terms of severity but I think the number is still running, for the number of children we've got, at about the level it always has been. In a sense this doesn't concern me because ... this is the sort of school where you will always have that kind of difficulty. (M 24/7 headteacher) 'Disruption in the classroom', not violence, 'is now the big issue', confirmed one of the staff (F 17/7 MPG + incentive allowance mathematics). The school serves a 'poor white area' in the most deprived part of the county. When the headteacher joined the school, 300 pupils were caned in his first year. He changed the regime, and in the following year (now about five years ago) the LEA prohibited corporal punishment. The school already had a support unit, which continued, and staff worked at progressively strengthening the pastoral system, exploring ways of recognising and rewarding regular attendance, commitment to learning and good behaviour, making the school a more comfortable and attractive place to work in (carpeting was mentioned 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 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 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 majority of staff are keen to get the place running nice and smoothly for their own sake and they talk about the problems that they've got. We tell each other solutions that we've got, we show how we do that sort of thing and most of them are not afraid to ask for help. Even the better teachers, you know, they say, we've got this problem here. How would you cope? (M 9/9 MPG + incentive allowance information technology) Less experienced teachers can, however, feel some ambivalence about disclosing problems before they have 'proved themselves' to colleagues. The two main concerns teachers have in relation to the quality of mutual support are consistency and reliability of back-up. Teachers 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: If there was a genuine consistency throughout the school, obviously staff are individuals, but some staff will react to a situation in a totally different way to others. We do have, and operate, school rules - some I don't agree with but I try to enforce each one where some staff will, I'm afraid, say that's a school rule but perhaps it is not an important rule, And perhaps it isn't but ... consistency I think would be a help ... That would be something I would like to see happen and I think then our users would know better where they stood and would feel happier that they were in a situation where they could sort of live easier perhaps. (M 12/12 MPG + incentive allowance English) While emphasising the need for consistency, teachers still have a strong sense of individuality. This expresses itself in a number of ways: in personal reputation - 'They know that I don't allow them to mess around and they know they're coming to work' (F 15/7 MPG English); it is also expressed in physical presence and style of command, and in techniques for achieving a disciplined start to the lesson. Teachers talked a lot about the need, against a background of less than perfect consistency in relation to general rules, to develop a habit of orderliness and an atmosphere for learning in lessons that was related to them as individuals and to their subject and setting. 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: You can't go into a classroom and expect their respect. They put more demands on you for that than ever before. Whereas before you went in as a figure of authority, as a figure of respect, because of being a teacher, you now no longer have that automatically. You have to earn it, justify it much more often - perhaps to yourself as well as to the pupils. (M 11/11 MPG + incentive allowance CDT) Respect has to be earned and teachers who have a reputation for being 'easy' or 'weak' can be vulnerable: 'once the kids know, they're in there like bull terriers' (M 13/13 MPG + incentive allowance humanities). The aim of helping pupils to achieve some quality of learning is still high on the agenda: teachers are not content just to 'clown about, keep 'em happy and baby mind' (M 11/11 MPG + incentive allowance CDT) and they maintain, despite the distractions, a keen commitment to teaching their subject and to helping pupils learn. There is the need to establish a 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: I've had to be seen to be doing something ... If I had to go cap in hand to anybody else to sort out any problem in class ... If the children see you doing that then they obviously feel that oh that teacher who you sent them to, they are important, they sort out all the problems, and I think that works against us. I personally do not send people to senior members of staff because I don't want to lose face in front of the kids because my own belief is that I've got to create an atmosphere in the classroom where learning can take place and I want to have the power to be able to make that happen. (M 9/9 MPG geography) Where teachers do send pupils out of lessons to senior staff they expect some action to be taken and feel let down if it isn't. Teachers particularly resent it if members of the senior management team exercise their privilege of ad hominem judgements - which may lead to their deciding not to proceed to the usual sanctions. In such circumstances, the teacher can feel that his or her own judgement has been undervalued. On the other hand, senior management staff justify their approach in terms of the need to see both sides of a situation and to take into account background information that a teacher may not have, and this may lead to different interpretations of the episode. Teachers can also feel irritated when information about what difficult pupils have done or how they are being handled is not communicated by colleagues in senior management or pastoral teams. Anxiety about 'not knowing' is also experienced by heads: 'the most disturbing bit', said one headteacher, 'is that you never find out. Whenever a staff feels unsupported, you don't actually know'. (M 18/2 headteacher). The complaints tend to be exchanged within the peer group rather than explored directly with members of senior management teams. 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 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: This poor lass has got this trauma so I try and discuss these sorts of things. The others are usually very good and I say, 'Just get on with your work while we have a chat outside or in the other room'. I had one girl the other day who'd snapped at one of the others and I thought well it's not like her and one of the others said, 'Oh, Miss, she has had a lot of worry today. She has had a bit of an upset at home'. (F 13/8 MPG + incentive allowance business studies) Some teachers may also try to help pupils see discipline from their perspective as a person rather than just as a teacher. For example, one teacher outlined a situation when she herself was feeling upset and her tolerance was lower than usual. This led to an episode with a boy who upset her and her rebuke led to 'a little shouting match in front of the rest'. She handled it by taking him aside and talking to him on a one-to-one basis; her explanation of how she felt had, she thought, a positive effect: I was on the level with him and said, 'I am human and I have a lot of problems, especially today. So you could have picked another day' and he could see how much he had upset me. I didn't cry or anything, I saved that 'til later, I think that would have been really bad, breaking up in front of a pupil - but he could see that I was upset and he was really sorry for what he'd done and he saw that he was wrong, and he was ever so apologetic. (F 5/5 MPG chemistry) There was evidence of growing commitment to treating young people in a more adult fashion; in particular a recognition that if teachers require pupils to be courteous then they should show courtesy to pupils: 'Come in, sit down and let's sort of discuss this now', and they can see that perhaps someone is taking them a bit seriously for once and wants to know. (F 9/6 MPG + incentive allowance home economics). Talk is also used to help individual pupils set their learning targets and to help them review and recognise their achievements. Teachers may feel awkward at first in managing such dialogue with pupils but 'a number of staff are already seeing the advantages' (M 26/11 headteacher). Individual discussion may be supplemented by class discussion of responsibilities and problems: We sort of discuss most things and we have lots of majority decisions on as many things as possible so that they realise they are very important. Lots of children don't realise. They have no worries. They just don't value themselves at all ... I have got to try and get them to realise that what they think is important. (F 16/16 MPG general subjects) Here, as in other developments, schools recognise the importance of helping pupils to build more positive images of themselves. 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: If the actual content of the lesson is boring, that's when you start losing them. So that's the struggle, You've got to make it interesting all the time. (M 9/9 MPG + incentive allowance information technology) Content, however, was only one aspect of this general concern among the interviewees with ensuring that pupils were well motivated and that lessons engaged their interests. The way in which classrooms are organised, the kinds of activities that are introduced, and the quality of the relationships within the classroom were also seen as important factors governing the kind of discipline that might be achieved. Changes in the content of particular subject specialisms were almost always discussed in relation to corresponding changes in teaching styles. 'It's both,' insisted one interviewee, 'the content of the curriculum has got to change and teaching styles have got to become more informal'. (M 23/13 MPG + incentive allowance CDT). 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: If you take what seems by many people to be a traditional kind of lesson - the teacher in front gives some instructions, maybe does some question and answer work, maybe writes one or two points on the board and has a worksheet where the youngsters have a list of the questions they are going to be doing - that means a certain kind of discipline ... a certain style of discipline which is often teacher-led. If we take some of the more, what some people might call risky activities - you know, the discussion group, small group work - that depends a lot more on personal discipline. (M 16/16 MPG + incentive allowance geography) The distinction here - between the style of discipline associated with 'a more traditional kind of lesson' and that associated with 'risky activities' in which pupils have greater responsibility for managing their own learning - was central. Few interviewees, however, saw themselves as operating solely within one mode. Different groups of pupils, it was argued, required different approaches and most teachers, therefore, rejected any typification of their role in terms of such simplistic dichotomies as traditional-progressive, formal-informal, etc. 'You play different roles ... with different groups', as one teacher put it, 'until you get what you think is the best out of them'. (F 18/18 MPG + incentive allowance humanities). 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): There are standards that you set and you make it clear to the kids what your standards are and that you're going to stick to them. (M 9/9 MPG geography) There is also a clear sense of discipline, not as an achieved state, but as a process which takes time and requires the willing participation of the learner. Discipline, from this perspective, is part and parcel of what it means to learn - which is why, as one interviewee pointed out, 'it's very difficult to isolate discipline from interest and learning methods. It's not something separate'. (F 14/14 MPG + incentive allowance art and design). The aim is for pupils 'to take authority for their own minds'. (M 28/1 headteacher). 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': You can't have discipline for discipline's sake. Discipline has to have a purpose within the learning situation. There has to be a point to it, not just that you don't want to hear them making any noise or they get on your nerves. There has to be a reason for the discipline to be there. For example, when we are doing printing, you have to understand that if you don't keep your work surface in reasonable condition your work will get into a mess and the sequence will be destroyed and you won't be able to organise your ideas or your methods. It will become chaotic, so that's discipline. It's discipline within the subject area, in what you're doing, and you have to understand that and the children have to understand. They have to see the purpose of it. (F 14/14 MPG + incentive allowance art and design) A number of interviewees mentioned the safety aspects of their particular subject as providing a readily understood logic relating to matters of discipline. Teachers of subjects such as science, home economics, art and design and physical education, which necessarily involve some practical work together with the use of specialist equipment, were particularly aware of the strength of that logic, based as it is upon the pupils' own personal safety: You've got to have discipline, because you have to have regard to personal safety, handling apparatus, movement around the building, moving around the field ... that's got to be laid down on day one and continue right through the school, so it becomes after a while second nature for the majority. (M 22/16 MPG + incentive allowance physical education) D.3 The emphasis on learning 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. 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: You've got always to be there. You've got to face up to pupils, acknowledge them, talk to them - with your eyes, with your voice. It takes some doing but you can't give up ... It's a persistent thing. (M 31/15 deputy English) One way in which many classroom teachers had attempted to 'acknowledge them' was by instituting what one interviewee referred to as 'systems of praise, report and encouragement: valuing youngsters work, seeing that it's marked, seeing that it's appreciated'. Clearly, the relation here between consistent whole school strategies and the individual teachers' professional commitment is crucial if 'schools are to be maintained as places where respect and good working relationships can continually improve'. (M 28/1 headteacher). 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): When we had a parents' evening to discuss the governors' report to parents we only had - as most schools - about a dozen parents turn up [approximately 550 pupils are on the school roll]. But at least it's a start. (M 28/20 headteacher) Clearly, there is an increasing need for contact to help parents understand how the structures of curriculum and assessment are changing, as well as to understand what pattern of sanctions and support the school is operating in relation to discipline. Schools' 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: [When public figures] say that the standard of teaching is much inferior than it used to be - even though they qualify it in later interviews - the press pick these things up and it undermines the status, the level of expertise, the quality of the teaching profession ... And that in itself breeds disrespect from parents, and that disrespect is passed on to their children. (M 18/18 MPG + incentive allowance special needs) E.2 Teachers' knowledge of home and community 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: English is not the first language for many of our parents. One of the things we try and do is work via the children to try and give their parents more confidence. A couple of 'for instances'; always on reception we have children who are the first people to greet visitors to the school. The make up of the school suggests that one of the people, if not both the people on reception, will be able to speak community languages - Punjabi or Urdu or Bengali. That immediately means that if mum comes up - who may have very little English - mum can talk to someone in her own language, in the language where she knows she will be understood and she will get some assistance. On parents' evenings all our paperwork we send out is sent out in community languages and again we have young people who will assist the adults as soon as they come in ... (M 21/16 deputy history) In schools where Asian pupils made up a substantial part of the roll, language was a vitally important issue: one of the schools' headteachers was instigating moves to increase the number of teachers drawn from the Asian communities, and although the policy was still in its infancy it was viewed as a positive move by staff at all levels within the school. 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: From my own experience you see I know that at my daughters' school - my greatest need was to go and meet the teachers' to see who they were, what they were like and so on and so forth. Until I actually went and met them I somehow felt uneasy about what was happening in the school ... Now as a teacher I find whenever I've met parents - as a school-community tutor I've gone and met parents and talked about their children in their homes - I find I come back to school and my concern for the child, for that particular child, assumes a slightly greater depth. And what is more, the child himself or herself looks upon me in a very different light altogether, not just as a teacher who stands over there and delivers his lectures, but somebody who knows Dad ... Do you see? (M 11/I I MPG + incentive allowance English) 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: Where they are out of control here and at home, I do feel that we are spitting in the wind, that really we can do absolutely nothing. (F 22/1 headteacher) As we have already stated, we visited schools whose location indicated a relatively high degree of social and economic deprivation. However, it would be wrong to assume that the composition of the catchment areas necessarily had negative consequences. Teachers often held positive views concerning some aspects of life in the local community. The following quotation from a headteacher illustrates the 'riches' which may be an untapped resource in some school-community relationships: The catchment is made up of a poor working class side of the city. In terms of all the indices that you could want to look at - which would include the number of people unemployed, number of people who receive free school meals, the number of people who are receiving FIS [Family Income Supplement], the smallest number of car ownership - it comes top of the list in the city by every measure that you could look at; so it is the poorest working area of the city ... The proportion of single parent families is quite high. Having said all that, it is culturally the most rich and diversified of the whole city, with populations drawn from a variety of Asian cultures, Afro-Caribbean cultures, Anglo-Saxon and European cultures - because it's a diversified city in itself. It has these enormous riches and I think the greatest strength of the catchment area is that very fact. (M 18/2 headteacher) 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 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 transcripts highlighted text: denotes emphasised speech or raised voice. [Square brackets]: signify background information or where speech has been paraphrased for clarity of understanding.
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 In the circumstances, the numbers of headteachers agreeing to allow staff in their schools to cooperate 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 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 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. 
|
