2 Problems caused in classrooms by low level disruption

Ofsted’s report describes ‘Close to three quarters of those secondary teachers surveyed said that low-level disruption was a major problem, having medium or high impact on learning.’ (Ofsted, para. 10.) A YouGov survey, included in the Ofsted report findings, puts a figure on the outcome of this impact at 38 days of lost learning time per year (Ofsted, p.4).

A breakdown of this impact is provided by Policy Exchange:

‘At its most straightforward, [low level disruption] directs a teacher’s time and attention away from teaching and onto dealing with bad behaviour. It distracts pupils and deflects concentration from the task in hand.

Teachers find dealing with low level disruption and disorder time consuming and exhausting. 

Teachers find being prevented from teaching to be a frustrating experience.’ (Williams, J., 2018, p.33)

A report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) highlights the disruption caused from a child's perspective [5]:

‘“The teachers have got to go and sort them out, and then you have to sit there and you’re not learning. Some people are doing it to get attention, and while the teacher is going over to help them we lose out...’” (p.17)

It is likely that this ‘sorting out’ - usually through some form of verbal counsel - accounts for as much if not more time being taken away from teaching and learning than the low level disruption event itself.

These occurrences are persistent. ‘Three quarters of teachers say they commonly experience disruption in their own school’ (Williams, p.6), a situation which leads to wider reaching problems for the teaching profession:

‘Persistent disruption has a negative impact on teacher retention. Almost two-thirds of teachers are currently, or have previously, considered leaving the profession because of poor pupil behaviour.

Persistent disruption has a negative impact on teacher recruitment. Almost three-quarters of the teachers we polled agreed that potential teachers are being put off joining the profession by the fear of becoming victim to poor behaviour from pupils.’ (Williams, J., 2018, p.6)

This in turn poses wider reaching problems for society:

‘Not dealing effectively with low level disruption and disorder may have further consequences for the children concerned who are not taught appropriate boundaries. At worst, children who are not challenged when they demonstrate low level disorder may come to be involved with more serious, potentially criminal, bad behaviour.’ (Williams, J., 2018, p.33)

In the next section we look at how schools are equipped to prevent, manage and resolve low level disruption.

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References:

5 Office of the Children’s Commissioner: Children and young peoples views on education policy Chamberlain, Tamsin and Golden, Sarah and Bergeron, Caroline (2011)