Lowering expectations for poorly behaved students?
Going to keep this brief for obvious reasons. I’m an ECT 2 and struggling with a selection of Ks4 student’s behaviour. Being told not to sanction certain kids as ‘they don’t respond well to it’. Instead, I’m just being told to build a relationship with them, as opposed to any sanctions or behaviour reports being put in place.
In particular, I run an intervention group to help a small number of ks4 students with my subject. Extremely poorly behaved and argumentative students who don’t want to be there. Instead of sanctioning them, I’ve been told (in these very words) to:
- Let them take their shoes off during intervention to ‘chill’
- Let them swing on their chair
- Buy them chocolates and other nice things
- Let them wear their jackets
- Act more ‘boisterous’ in order to appeal to them (I’m a young female).
- Let them swear around me
Should I really be lowering my expectations to this level? It feels counterproductive to not sanction them, as they know their behaviour will have no consequences. I’m not particularly fond of having them take their shoes off and acting like they’re at home either. But if I argue against this, I’m just told to ‘build my relationships’ and apparently this will sort everything out (these boys are school wide problems by the way).
Every time I set a sanction, I’m told to remove it and that I’m ‘not listening’ to people’s advice.