English schools are increasingly turning into battlegrounds. Teachers know it – this week it was reported that nearly one in five has faced physical violence from pupils this year, a startling snapshot of the mounting misbehaviour teachers face each day we cross the threshold of our school gates. Pupils know it, too – this startling statistic tells us that vulnerable children are suffering, as such lawlessness speaks of schools where bullying and intimidation thrive.
For those who may feel the language choice of battlefields and frontlines is a little hyperbolic, pause to consider the words of the new head of Ofsted, Martyn Oliver. In January, he talked about taking on wrecked schools when he was leader of an academy trust, including one in which students stopped staff, saying: “This is a no-go corridor, it belongs to the children.”
It is hard not to read this as a loud indictment of the political neglect of children and education under Tory governance. If the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable, particularly children, then we are failing miserably.
Earlier this year, the Observer discovered that increasing numbers of children suffering from serious neglect, homelessness and domestic abuse are being refused help from overstretched social services. Child protection cases that would have resulted in an intervention a couple of years ago are now “routinely being passed back to schools to deal with themselves”. The situation for many schools has been that when they identify a child with urgent safeguarding needs, they are unable to obtain the help that child desperately requires. Staff without the expertise or resources to properly support such children are left to deal with the fallout.
Whether it is routinely being told to eff off by 11-year-olds or breaking up fights, this isn’t a problem that can be chalked up to individual teachers’ poor classroom management. These incidents, ranging from spitting to throwing chairs, lay bare the impact of years of chronic underfunding of essential children’s services, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
How does this result in disruptive behaviour within classrooms? The absence of support from social or youth services exposes children to unsafe environments, at home and in their communities. Exposure to conditions where children are at risk, a direct result of insufficient funding, inevitably influences their behaviour. It is hardly surprising when this reality manifests in forms of aggression or profound withdrawal. This is not about school mismanagement or stricter behaviour rules – those who say so are indulging in a dangerous oversimplification, ignoring the reality that schools can only do so much.
The crisis of challenging behaviour in English schools unfolds, like the one of persistent pupil absence, against the backdrop of an election year. Labour, with a 20-point poll lead, should take this as an opportunity to reassess its fiscal conservatism, especially where children’s services and education are concerned. The continued refrain that a Labour government won’t “turn on the spending taps” may be meant to resonate with voters concerned about fiscal responsibility, but it rings alarm bells for those of us at the frontline of this crisis.
In making statements about the national “credit card” being “maxed out”, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, tacitly tells us that Labour is willing to preserve the status quo under which our children’s futures are being compromised. It forces the question: what, exactly, is the point of a Labour government if it will only commit to perpetuating what came before?
A “carousel” of education secretaries – nine in the past nine years – tells us something of the chaos the Tories have presided over in education. Their budget cuts and too-little-too-late measures have pushed our public services to breaking point. Whether it is the £11.4bn of repairs and remedial work needed so that some school buildings don’t collapse, or the fact that special educational needs provision is in crisis, children and teachers are living through the repercussions of shambolic Tory policies.
The question facing our next government is whether to continue the cycle of neglect or embrace a different future for our children – one in which bromides about how we value them and their potential is backed up with money spent. The escalating crisis in schools is a reminder, as if it were needed, of the costs of inaction.
Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer
