pension333: Secret Teacher: student behaviour is slipping but the head does nothing

The kids are climbing the walls at Secret Teacher's school - so why doesn't the head do something about it?

"Hello, is that Bryan's mum? It's your son's school. Bryan's up on the roof again. We've asked him to come down but?"

For the past four weeks, I've been overhearing phone calls like this, made between the deputy head teacher of my school, and the parents of various pupils. "Up on the roof" can be quite easily swapped for "at the top of a 20ft tree", "is heading down the road" or "has been running around the corridors shaking a loosely closed fist at everyone he passes". The phone call is usually made after the incident has been going on for at least an hour or so, and has caused the maximum amount of disruption to the rest of the school, as is possible.

Behaviour standards in my school have been slipping for the last year. In 2011 the infant and junior schools amalgamated, and the (successful!) behaviour management strategies of the junior school were scrapped. Gone is the traffic light card system that allowed teachers to remove unruly pupils from their classroom so that learning could continue. Gone are the golden time reward charts that encouraged and incentivised good behaviour.

In their place are fluff and hugs. Tea and biscuits for children who storm out of class after punching more than just calculator buttons. One child in my class used language very similar to that of John Terry, verbatim, a month before the footballer used it himself. While Terry faced criminal charges (he was acquitted), this child wasn't even removed from the lesson.

If Ofsted had walked into school when I was on lunch duty the other afternoon, they would've witnessed half of Year 4 acting out Mary Poppins' rooftop scene, Kaylum hopping over the fence and hot footing it down the main road, and Brandon at the top of a tree with a toilet roll telescope clutched to his eye. And by the end of lunchtime the boys were back in their classrooms, heroes among their peers. I'm all for raising standards in teaching and learning, but outstanding lessons aren't going to save our school from special measures if the children are running wild!

Words cannot describe the frustration felt when a child behaves in a way you deem unacceptable and senior management do not act accordingly. If a child has been disrupting a lesson for an ongoing amount of time, and you ask for them to be removed by senior management, returning them to the classroom 10 minutes later, after they've "promised to be good", isn't on. Especially when, nine times out of 10, that promise is worth about as much as a share in Clintons Cards. Yes, that child has a right to an education, but not at the expense of 25 other children. There is a limit to the amount of pen throwing and arm flatulence that one can "tactically" ignore.

I am by no means a hard-nosed authoritarian. I have implemented reward charts and golden time on a small scale in my own classroom. I also have an array of sanctions up my sleeve, should I need them. But these tricks of the trade only work when teachers feel supported by their management team. We need to know that there's someone who will remove the child who has already stolen enough of their classmates' educations. We need to know that the child isn't going to return to us for round two, after a cup of tea and a sugar fix. We need to know that the child roaming the corridors isn't going to recruit an army of followers, because there is a clear and effective behaviour management policy in place.

Today's Secret Teacher works in a primary school in the north of England.