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airy:

Nope. It was a pretty average class in the school I'm thinking of. The low attaining SEN kids are generally far more bidabble.

I've worked in two schools where most of the classes were this bad at first.  In one school I was also trying to cope with similar classes on either side of me being covered by supply teachers.  In the other the management infrastructure gave way.

But they were very different after a while. 

When you start in a new situation like this it's virtually impossible to sort out the final year students unless you have a lot of back up.

You've just got to be realistic - they've already defined their personalities at the school and you haven't yet.  

There's got to be decent, engaging work available for those who are prepared to do it.  As for the rest?  If they do a basic amount of work, just chat to them as human beings and give them positive attention.  Show an interest in them, their lives and their interests.  Let them teach you about the school.  If they're foul shut all this off.  This kind of set seems to really like smiley stamps/star stickers etc. in year 11. Dunno why.

If you're established at the school obviously they way you interact with and teach them will build on the (hopefully positive) relationships you've established with hopefully at least some of them lower down the school.

weebecka,

You keep banging on about the time you led a mathematics departement in a school earmarked for closure for just over one year.   We previously established you had 60 something children in your Year 11.   Your school presumably then had between 300 - 350 students on roll at the end?   I expect you taught at least 150 of them so I am guessing your Department consisted of you and one other full time teacher or you and a couple of part-timers?   This is hardly a wealth of middle management experience in my book.

DM

Airy, you must be getting a serious case of deja vu by now.

I too read "take child on to corridor for understanding chat with all the time in the world whilst the rest of the class may or may not get on with some work" and thought it best just to not even comment.

Weebecka: hating the sin but loving the sinner, separating the child from the behaviour - it's all rubbish. Behaviour is the executive arm of the will.  The will is an extension of the personality.  You can't treat behaviour as some separate bolt-on accessory that the child isn't personally responsible for, that can be detached, polished and returned.

Didn't the GTCE strike someone off a couple of months ago for leaving a class unsupervised (I recall he made inappropriate comments to a sixth former and some other stuff too)?

weebecka:

What happened to my classes?  Some got on with work some didn't.  But the the behaviour was not extreme.  It was somehow more responsible than it had been before.  I'm finding this really hard to describe.  There was something about the way the dynamics change when the teacher is out the room that isn't what you expect.  I'm not saying they were angels at all, but I am saying benefits of working with students one-to-one in this way I've described were worth the costs.

It perhaps hasn't occurred to you that your 'really challenging' class perhaps wasn't that really challenging, rather than some wondrous behavioural management and teaching on your part which works in some mythical way you don't understand.

Really challenging classes are not borderline 'C' grades. Not saying it's impossible, just I've never seen one. This is because really challenging classes/children have been so since they were in reception class, so however bright they are their work throughput is less than stellar.

Occam's Razor suggests it's you that's wrong, but that's a possibility you seem totally unable to cope with.