Refusal

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‘Something must happen to send a message to all the pupils that this is not acceptable. Ideally, it would be that the child is sent home until the parents come in to discuss the matter, or the child is taken out of circulation for a period so that other pupils understand the seriousness of refusal. There is a safety issue here. Who would want to send their kids to a school where the kids routinely don’t do as the teachers say?’ (Experienced teacher)

‘Refusal is one of the few things I call for help on; it is suicide to let a class see somebody refusing and getting away with it.’ (Second year of teaching)

‘You can’t run a school where the kids can pick and choose whether they do what the teacher says. It’s important that something happens if a pupil refuses, that it is seen as very serious and unacceptable. Even if the sanction doesn’t “cure” the problem, doesn’t deter the pupil from refusing again at some point, it must be clear to the others that there will be serious consequences if they do not do as the teacher tells them.’ (Head of Department)

   One teacher used refusal to take off coats at the start of the lesson (a school policy), to remove uncooperative pupils from the lesson at an early stage:

‘At the beginning of every lesson, I insist that children take their coats off and put MP3 players away. Some teachers don’t bother with this at my school, but for me it’s the litmus test of a child’s willingness to accept my authority. The chances are that if they won’t take their coat off, they won’t do anything else I ask either. The coat test gives me the excuse I need (after the requisite three warnings) to send any complete refusers to the withdrawal room.’  (Second year of teaching)

    Although there was a consensus that refusal was very serious, and that some form of serious ‘consequences’ should unfailingly apply to pupils who refused, teachers did not feel that that it was politic to ‘use such force as is reasonable’ (DfEE, 1998: 4) to remove the pupils from the room, especially in the case of a trainee or NQT.

    The act allows teachers to ‘use such force as is reasonable’ if a pupil is committing a criminal offence, injuring themselves or others or causing damage to property. More pertinent to teachers’ day to day lives, the act also sanctions teachers to use reasonable force if pupils are ‘engaging in any behaviour prejudicial to maintaining good order and discipline at the school or among any of its pupils, whether that behaviour occurs in a classroom during a teaching session or elsewhere’ (DfEE, 1998: 4).

    Almost without exception, teachers felt that ‘reasonable force’ should only be used against pupils in extreme situations, such as if a pupil was endangering the health and safety of others. They did not feel that force should be used in the case of pupil refusal, and generally felt that teachers should always try and keep ‘an appropriate professional distance’ between themselves and pupils. Simply reminding the pupil of the seriousness of refusal and trying to point them towards less serious courses of behaviour, and then sending a pupil  for a senior member of staff or  following the refusal up later if the pupil remained obdurate, were more commonly suggested ways forward:

‘Certainly I would never march or frogmarch or drag them out of the classroom.. that seems to me a recipe for escalation. Even if you attempt to “guide” or steer them out, you are in dodgy territory. Regulations might talk about “reasonable force” but it is a grey area… who is going to decide what’s reasonable… what if some other kids’ description of what you did or views on what is reasonable differ from yours.. what if there is no other adult in the room as a witness.’ (Second year of teaching)

‘At our school, the protocol on this is clear; you always try to get another adult present in such circumstances unless there is an urgent safety issue.’ (Mentor)

‘In this school, refusal is very common. When they have had their warnings, they come to the last one and often refuse to go out. You are then in the hands of the school system. I’ve learned that you can often deal with it later. If they don’t go out, that’s their problem, they know that they will be in trouble later because of this and I notice that they often go quiet because they know that they will be in trouble and they have gone too far. I used to spend a lot of time and emotional energy trying to get them to go out, now I just get on with the lesson and move on. There’s no “show” for them all to enjoy, you try and just get on with the learning, not let them have the show they are looking for.’ (NQT in a difficult school)

‘They don’t always go out quietly, sometimes they do refuse… and I’m one of the senior team who go round the school picking kids up and sorting out things like this… taking them down to the remove room.  One kid in my lesson last week just point blank refused to leave the room. So I just said he’d have to do a half hour detention and moved on. It wasn’t a prefect solution but it allowed me to move on to something else… to carry on with the lesson – but you have to make sure that you follow it up – the kid does the detention.’ (Head of Sixth Form) 

    Even in difficult schools, physical restraint issues were felt to be unusual situations, not day to day occurrences,  but there was a clear view that using force to control pupils was an absolute last resort:

‘In our school, there is very little need for physical contact and restraint issues… I’ve been in classrooms now for two years some of which was spent in difficult schools and it’s never happened… it’s never come to that.’ (Second year of teaching)

‘Physical contact? Do it as little as possible, but the dictum during my training to not touch the children at all isn’t realistic. You do sometimes have to break up fights and I have been advised that the next time I do it, I should say to the child ‘I am holding your arms because you are putting your safety and the safety of others at risk’. Last time I broke up a fight one of the parents complained, but the HOY gave her short shrift; I’d expect most schools would support you as long as it was clearly necessary to touch the child.’ (Second year of teaching)

‘In the PGCE year or when I started here I would not have gone near a pupil, not have even thought of it. Now I am established, it’s less of an issue, not big deal but I’m still careful. I might just touch the back of someone’s bag and point them in the right direction or signpost them to move in a particular direction, hold my arm out to shepherd them somewhere… relaxed and low key. It’s a judgement issue that comes with knowing the kids you are working with and being comfortable with them.’ (Second year of teaching)

Clearly, there are other situations where teachers might encounter pupil refusal, but instructing/requesting pupils to move within the classroom was one of the scenarios where pupil refusal might occur (all the pupil has to do is refuse and stay put, which puts the teacher in a difficult position in terms of ‘next moves’). All the teachers who talked about refusal (and not all of them did – some said that they worked in schools where this rarely or never happened) felt that if there were incidents where refusal occurred, it was very important to follow it up, not just let it go, as it created a very unfortunate precedent, in terms of the teacher not being really in control of the room. 

‘Avoid it at all costs… no, at almost all costs. With all rules there’s always an exception. Don’t give people a rule and say it’s unbreakable.  The world of teaching is too complex for that but…. It should be absolutely a last resort, there’s usually a way round it. Unless, there’s a safety issue…  if a pupil is endangering the safety and well-being of other pupils.’ (Teacher Educator)

‘I have done it (been in physical contact with pupils) and have usually regretted it afterwards. It’s about being professional, and once you get into that territory, it jeopardises that. You take it into territory where they are more at home than you are, into their world. You need always to be  in control of yourself. Once you are in physical contact with pupils of one sort or another, you are in dangerous and unpredictable waters. Having said that, if pupil safety is involved, you have to step in.’ (Teacher Educator)

Behaviour expert Dr Bill Rogers models who to deal with a pupil who is refusing to comply with an instruction. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1bIQ1Hg00c&t=2s

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