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I posted the following opinion piece on the website: www.homeworkclub.co.uk. Does my experience with this kid ring a bell with anyone else? --- Oh joy, the truants are back. When the government recently trumpeted its success in cutting long-term truancy rates no-one bothered to mention the consequences for teachers and other pupils. Just one example. Little Tommy, a lively 12 year-old returned to my class last week. A poor little chap from a horrendous home background and deserving of all our sympathy. A few moments into the first lesson, the class had settled to some quiet work when Tommy, with skilful use of his armpit, produced a most-impressive rasping sound. Cue general hilarity. Drawing on my 20 years classroom experience and hard-won reputation as a strict disciplinarian, I leant down for a quiet word, making it clear I was someone not to be messed with and had no intention of tolerating such behaviour in my classroom. Tommy looked blankly back at me. As I turned away fully back in control, he cupped his armpit once more and filled the silent room with an even more impressive eruption. The class fell off their chairs laughing. What now? I moved Tommy to the other side of the room but he refused to open his book. I switched mode to 'Mrs Shouty', and bellowed that he better open his book immediately. The others gasped and all eyes turned to Tommy who remained unfazed. A pregnant pause ensued as he slowly turned his head towards me, waited a second to build the tension further and then replied, "Computer says no.". Game set and match to Tommy. Lesson over. Time for reinforcements. The teacher next door agreed Tommy could copy something out in his class. Anything to take the heat out of the situation. However, Tommy refused to move and instead began tickling the youngsters on either side of him. Aware we dare not lay a finger on him lest his parents and some grasping, tedious lawyer accuse us of grievous bodily harm and abusing a child's basic human right to be a disruptive pain in the proverbial, we tried a variety of persuasive techniques. Tommy's response was to dive off his seat and start crawling up and down on his hands and knees under the desks of the other youngsters. Which they loved. Next we phoned a member of the Senior Management Team. An irate Depute Head duly arrived. She meant business and everyone was impressed ... apart from Tommy who was now hiding under a table at the back of the room and shouting for us all to play hide and seek. So by this time, three highly-paid members of staff with a joint 70 years teaching experience were standing powerless while one disruptive 12 year-old completely destroyed a lesson for thirty youngsters in my class and another thirty in the class next door. The situation was finally resolved when Tommy took it upon himself to shoot past us, straight out of school and over the horizon ... leaving the school office to complete the resultant paperwork. I say finally resolved but in fact, Tommy did not fall back into habitual truancy. He had clearly had a whale of a time because he turned up the next day and has since blessed the school with intermittent appearances. In my classroom, the lesson is normally interrupted while a senior manager is called to remove Tommy. Alternatively he opts to do a runner instead. On one heady occasion I did actually manage to retain him in class for a whole lesson but only because I gave up any semblance of normal teaching and instead sat the class of 12 year-olds down to tell them a story, just as I would an infant class. Even then it was touch and go because Tommy punctuated the entire story by poking the other youngsters around him. (It is noticeable how they are now just as heartily sick of his presence as I am.) Incidentally, our enlightened Head of Ofsted, Christine Gilbert would no doubt nod approvingly at the 'tell-'em-a-story' approach, as she has made it abundantly clear that pupil misbehaviour can be traced back to uninspiring teachers who fail to make lessons sufficiently engaging. (By the way Christine, how is the weather on Planet Zog these days?) So Ms Gilbert, I need your expert advice on what I should do. But first let me place things in context. We are not talking sink school here. I teach in a leafy suburb with lots of advantages and high achieving pupils. We don't have to cope with the horrific discipline problems that other schools do ... and Tommy is not a large, lumbering, potentially-violent thug. He is a small, undernourished unfortunate child ... who routinely wrecks the education of those around him for fun. Given his background, I actually like and admire him ... but I certainly cannot teach him. Nor can I teach the others while he is in the class. However, it seems the local authority back-up services are already overwhelmed by more demanding and no-doubt more threatening cases from schools which face far greater problems than we do. So surely our school can cope with this small child. In the final analysis I suppose we can ...... so long as the teachers, parents and other pupils are prepared to put up with chaos and falling standards as a direct and obvious result. Mind you, if it's like this in our privileged little area what on earth is it like in a sink school or even a middle-of-the-road school? So, a big welcome back to the truants ... your presence will not go unnoticed.
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