Teachers returning to work next month will confront a worrying “behaviour bubble” as younger children who were most severely affected by the pandemic reach the teenage years renowned for peak classroom disruption.
The warning from experts and school leaders in England comes as evidence shows that children of primary school age during the pandemic – when schools were closed to most pupils – have been accruing exclusions and suspensions at a record pace since moving to secondary school.
The most recent official figures, for 2022-23, show that the fastest increases in exclusions and suspensions were among a “bubble” of younger pupils in years 7 and 8. Those pupils will now be in years 9 and 10, when sanctions for misbehaviour are traditionally the highest.
Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said there was “no doubt” that worsening levels of behaviour have escalated into a crisis since the pandemic, and warned that there could be worse to come.
“In the aftermath of the riots in many towns and cities during the summer, we also need to see government and other agencies stepping up to work with our schools and colleges to support vulnerable young people who are at risk of being drawn into violence,” Roach said.
He added: “While the Covid pandemic highlighted the failures of government policy, it also amplified those failures, as more and more teachers reported being sworn at, threatened, shoved, kicked, bitten or punched and attacked by pupils carrying weapons.”
A government source said: “The merry-go-round of Tory ministers in recent years failed to grip the rising tide of poor behaviour pre-pandemic and then told children and their families they’d ‘maxed out’ on Covid recovery support. This government will do the hard yards and get to the root of much of the bad behaviour blighting our schools with a support-first approach that gets control of our classrooms once again.”
The Department for Education’s (DfE) most recent behaviour data for England’s state schools shows the proportion of year 7 pupils who received at least one suspension rose from 3.5% in the year before the pandemic to 5.5% in 2022-23, while the rate of year 8 pupils suspended rose from 5.5% to more than 8%.
Older pupils in year 9 and year 10 had close to 10% of pupils receiving at least one suspension in 2022-23, also well above pre-pandemic levels.
More worryingly, the rate of exclusions at secondary schools rose fastest among year 7 and year 8 pupils, particularly among girls. Before and during the pandemic, roughly three boys were excluded for each girl – but the ratio in 2022-23 moved to nearly two to one, with 1,000 more female exclusions compared with 2018-19.
Andrew Old, a secondary school teacher and blogger who identified the trend of rising exclusions among younger pupils and girls, said: “Next year’s year 9s and year 10s could be the most challenging for many years. However, that may depend on whether schools have successfully addressed the behaviour of those pupils in the years they have already been at secondary school.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “The rising number of school suspensions and permanent exclusions are shocking, and show the massive scale of disruptive behaviour that has developed in schools across the country in recent years, harming the life chances of children.
“We are determined to get to grips with the causes of poor behaviour: we’ve already committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school and ensuring earlier intervention in mainstream schools for pupils with special needs.
“But we know poor behaviour can also be rooted in wider issues, which is why the government is developing an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty led by a taskforce co-chaired by the education secretary so that we can break down the barriers to opportunity.”
Tom Bennett, a DfE adviser on behaviour management, said: “I think that the idea of a ‘behaviour bubble’ moving up the pipe is possible but not certain. I would speculate that the experience of home schooling during lockdown may well be responsible for the deterioration of some social skills, which, like truancy, will be disproportionately concentrated in sub-groups who were already most at risk of misbehaving.
“But it doesn’t guarantee that they will remain so chaotic forever. They could, for instance, readjust to the socialising effect of being back at school. It may be that these effects don’t persist in an environment of structure and boundaries.
“On the other hand, the effect may well be sustainable, and we may well see a bubble move up and create, with the effects of adolescence, a perfect storm.”
While poverty and an increasing proportion of pupils with special needs may be factors behind the recent increases in sanctions, exclusion rates in primary schools and among year 11 pupils remain around or below those seen before the pandemic, suggesting that the disruption experienced by pupils moving up to secondary school has had an outsized impact.
Lee Wilson, the chief executive of the Outwood Grange Academies Trust, said: “Many parts of our society are still feeling the effects of Covid. Its legacy in schools – the result of lockdowns and school closures – has led to weaker academic outcomes nationally, lower attendance and poorer behaviour, especially among disadvantaged children and in schools which were already struggling or were at the start of their transformation.”
Bennett added: “I think the pandemic disruption plus – I hate to say it – a burgeoning reliance on social media and smartphones has desocialised the cohort, giving them somewhere to invest their attention spans and cognitive bandwidth on pursuits that are essentially trivial and worthless.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the behaviour issues affecting younger children may continue to be a challenge as they progress through school.
“The sad reality is that schools and children have been let down by more than a decade of underfunding both in education and the broader network of local services. This is the result,” Di’Iasio said.
