% behaviour incidents cumulative % pupils Concentration of behaviour incidents: Percentage of pupils...
1
97 98 99 100 91 92 93 94 95 96 85 86 87 88 89 90 79 80 81 82 83 84 73 74 75 76 77 78 67 68 69 70 71 72 61 62 63 64 65 66 55 56 57 58 59 60 49 50 51 52 53 54 43 44 45 46 47 48 37 38 39 40 41 42 31 32 33 34 35 36 25 26 27 28 29 30 19 20 21 22 23 24 13 14 15 16 17 18 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 % behaviour incidents cumulati ve % pupils Concentration of behaviour incidents: Percentage of pupils accounting for percentage of incidents 0.15% of pupils explain 1% of incidents 0.39% of pupils explain 5% of incidents 0.91% of pupils explain 10% of incidents 2.89% of pupils explain 25% of incidents 7.86% of pupils account for 50% of incidents 17.57% of pupils explain 75% of incidents 31.51% of pupils explain 90% of incidents 41.23% of pupils explain 95% of incidents 58.1% of pupils explain 99% of incidents 32.79% of pupils have no incidents at all N pupils = 3284 N incidents = 44,668 67.21% of pupils account for all incidents (2) Persistence of pupils’ behaviour Pupils’ behaviour is highly persistent, both good and bad. Pupils who started in the 10 th (worst) decile for behaviour incidents by year group and school still had significantly higher average rates of incidents per day four terms later than pupils who started off in lower deciles. Pupils who started in the 1 st decile, with the lowest rate of incidents, still had significantly lower incident rates four terms later. Nevertheless, the graph shows a certain amount of mean reversion, particularly for the 10 th decile, with the incident rates of all groups converging. However, the initial ordering is maintained over two years. (3) Rate of behaviour incidents Even the most badly-behaved 10% of pupils start with an average incident rate of less than 0.25 incidents per day, or just under one incident every four school days. The mean for all pupils is 0.036 incidents per pupil per day, or about 6.8 incidents in an academic year: almost all pupils behave well most of the time. Cumulative frequency of incidents by pupil A small minority of pupils are responsible for the majority of incidents. Behaviour in Secondary Schools Amy Challen [email protected] Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics Press reports paint a bleak picture of behaviour in secondary schools in England. They suggest that disruptive and insolent behaviour is common; that a large number of pupils are badly behaved; and that violent incidents occur frequently. They also claim that behaviour is worse than it used to be, and that parents are to blame. Are these assertions true? I use data from the behaviour incident databases of four typical English comprehensive schools to look at behaviour patterns. The data covers 3,284 pupils in four schools over 2- 6 academic years. (6) Timing of behaviour incidents The rate of behaviour incidents varies by time of day and day of the week. Mondays have the most incidents, followed by Tuesdays, with few incidents on Wednesday-Friday. These schools have five lessons per day. Behaviour is best in Lesson 1, getting worse through the day, with the most incidents in Lesson 5. These patterns are seen in all groups of pupils, whether they have high or low rates of incidents. Figure shows rate of incidents per pupil per day with 95% confidence intervals. Figure shows rate of incidents per pupil per lesson with 95% confidence intervals. (7) Types of behaviour incidents The types of incident recorded in the databases are listed below, for 3,284 pupils over an average of 2.4 academic years per pupil. 69% of incidents involve disruption, defiance, lateness or lack of equipment: relatively minor offences. 13.3% involve verbal or physical abuse or aggression, or other severe incidents. This suggests that the majority of poor behaviour in schools is disruptive, but not violent. Type ofincident N Percent Disruption 12,486 31.15 Defiance 7,935 19.79 Lateness 4,211 10.50 N o equipm ent 3,035 7.57 Verbal abuse 2,064 5.15 verbal abuse - not specified 254 verbal abuse towards pupil 277 rudeness/insolence towards teacher 485 verbal abuse towards teacher 1,048 Truancy/leaving lesson w ithoutperm ission 1,525 3.80 Assault, aggression orforce 1,419 3.54 assault - not specified 26 assault on teacher 39 assault on pupil 814 fighting 489 threatening behaviour 51 Inadequate w ork 898 2.24 inadequate work 746 no homework 81 persistent lack of homework 71 M issed detention 539 1.34 N otin uniform 536 1.34 Dam age to property 516 1.29 Bullying 464 1.16 bullying - not specified 199 bullying of pupil 19 bullying of teacher 8 bullying physical 104 bullying verbal 134 Dangerousbehaviour 414 1.03 Sw earing 252 0.63 Sm oking 212 0.53 O utofbounds 178 0.44 Racistincident 163 0.41 Theft 79 0.20 Illicitsubstances 28 0.07 M obile phone 23 0.06 Forging notes/failing to inform parents 22 0.05 O ther 3,088 7.70 other (minor) 1,868 other (severe) 1,220 TO TAL 40,087 100.00 (8) Conclusions Many media reports probably exaggerate the severity of behaviour in schools, focusing on violent incidents which are in fact relatively rare. However, low-level disruption is common. It is also not true that most pupils are regularly unruly: most pupils are well behaved most of the time, and one third are never involved in incidents. These findings are in line with reports by the Department for Education and Ofsted (DfE, 2012; Ofsted, 2005). Nevertheless, there is a high degree of concentration in incidents, with 10% of pupils accounting for more than half of all incidents: these pupils clearly have problematic behaviour. Pupils’ behaviour is persistent through time, and pupils who frequently misbehave do so with many different teachers, suggesting that behaviour problems are not context specific. Demographic characteristics are good predictors for behaviour, but do not tell the full story: they do not explain that much of the variation in behaviour, and there is substantial heterogeneity in behaviour within demographic groups. Segal (2008) obtains very similar results with a detailed dataset from American high schools. Thus although we cannot say whether parents are ‘to blame’ for their children’s behaviour, a pupil’s demographic background is a strong predictor of the likelihood that they will behave well or badly. Interestingly, rates of misbehaviour vary through the day and week – schools could take this into account when scheduling to minimise disruption in key lessons. My data panel only lasts up to 6 years, so I cannot say whether poor behaviour has become more frequent or more severe over the past few decades. However, it would appear that bad pupil behaviour is at least nothing new… (1) Pupils and incidents Poor behaviour is highly concentrated among a small number of pupils. 7.86% of pupils are responsible for half of all behaviour incidents, while one third of pupils have no behaviour incidents at all. The remainder are somewhere in the middle, with occasional misbehaviour. Descriptions of behaviour from the database (names have been changed) Gluing a teacher to a chair. Set fire to a flip chart during the lesson Verbal abuse towards a member of staff. Covered 4 girls in yoghurt Throwing things again at people at break time. In science Sophie asked me if she could leave the class so she could "Have a fag", as she didn't have time to have one in the morning and had her last one last night. Defiance, disruption, swearing, threatening behaviour towards student. . Every lesson, Callum draws soldiers. Every lesson, he has to be prompted continually to write anything down. He usually says 'I don't know what I'm doing' - which is because he's drawing soldiers. Today, 10 minutes before end of lesson, nothing written . Incidents per pupil and number of teachers involved (4) Consistency of pupils’ behaviour Is poor behaviour usually the r esult of a bad pupil- teacher combination, or do pupils with many behaviour incidents behave badly with many different teachers? It appears that pupils with more incidents also misbehaved with more teachers, with a ratio of about one new teacher to every two more incidents. This suggests that poor behaviour is not context specific. (5) Pupil characteristics 10% of pupils are responsible for over half of all behaviour incidents. What are the characteristics of these pupils? Here I compare the 10% of pupils responsible for most incidents, with the other 90% of their peers at these schools. Pupils with poor behaviour are significantly more likely to be boys; to have special educational needs; to be eligible for free school meals; to be from a white ethnic background; to live with only one or neither of their parents; and to have failed to achieve the national standards in English and maths in national tests at age 11 (level 4 at Key Stage 2). However, there is still heterogeneity, and no variable is a perfect predictor of behaviour – for instance, although boys are more likely to have poor behaviour, 29.3% of the worst behaved pupils are girls. Overall, demographic characteristics are strongly associated with the likelihood of a pupil having very poor behaviour, but the relationship is not deterministic and there are many pupils who buck the trend. Daily Mail, 25 th July 2012 Refs/acknowledgements C ontent based on “Behaviour and scheduling in English seconda ry schools”, Amy Challen, u npublished manuscr ipt January 2 013 Additional data from the National Pupil Database DfE. (2012 ). Pupil behaviour in schools in England DfE Research Report s . London: Departmen t for E ducation. Ofsted. (2005). Managing challengin g behaviour HMI 236 3 Segal, C. (2008). Classroom Behavior. Journal of Human Resources, 43(4), 783–814. H istoric newspaper citations from the B ritish Newspaper Archive: http://www .britishnewspaperarchi v e.co.uk / Blackboard image: http:// www.officialpsds.com/images/embe dPSD/10951 .jpg Stationery clip art: http:// www.hs
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Transcript of % behaviour incidents cumulative % pupils Concentration of behaviour incidents: Percentage of pupils...
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0.15% of pupils explain 1% of incidents0.39% of pupils explain 5% of incidents
0.91% of pupils explain 10% of incidents2.89% of pupils explain 25% of incidents
7.86% of pupils account for 50% of incidents
17.57% of pupils explain 75% of incidents
31.51% of pupils explain 90% of incidents
41.23% of pupils explain 95% of incidents
58.1% of pupils explain 99% of incidents
32.7
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N pupils = 3284N incidents = 44,668
67.21% of pupils account for all incidents
(2) Persistence of pupils’ behaviourPupils’ behaviour is highly persistent, both good and bad. Pupils who started in the 10th (worst) decile for behaviour incidents by year group and school still had significantly higher average rates of incidents per day four terms later than pupils who started off in lower deciles. Pupils who started in the 1st decile, with the lowest rate of incidents, still had significantly lower incident rates four terms later. Nevertheless, the graph shows a certain amount of mean reversion, particularly for the 10th decile, with the incident rates of all groups converging. However, the initial ordering is maintained over two years.
(3) Rate of behaviour incidentsEven the most badly-behaved 10% of pupils start with an average incident rate of less than 0.25 incidents per day, or just under one incident every four school days. The mean for all pupils is 0.036 incidents per pupil per day, or about 6.8 incidents in an academic year: almost all pupils behave well most of the time.
Cumulative frequency of incidents by pupil
A small minority of pupils are responsible for the majority of
incidents.
Behaviour in Secondary SchoolsAmy Challen
[email protected] Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics
Press reports paint a bleak picture of behaviour in secondary schools in England. They suggest that disruptive and insolent behaviour is common; that a large number of pupils are badly behaved; and that violent incidents occur frequently. They also claim that behaviour is worse than it used to be, and that parents are to blame.
Are these assertions true? I use data from the behaviour incident databases of four typical English comprehensive schools to look at behaviour patterns. The data covers 3,284 pupils in four schools over 2-6 academic years.
(6) Timing of behaviour incidents
The rate of behaviour incidents varies by time of day
and day of the week. Mondays have the most incidents,
followed by Tuesdays, with few incidents on
Wednesday-Friday. These schools have five lessons per
day. Behaviour is best in Lesson 1, getting worse
through the day, with the most incidents in Lesson 5.
These patterns are seen in all groups of pupils, whether
they have high or low rates of incidents.
Figure shows rate of incidents per pupil per day with 95% confidence
intervals.
Figure shows rate of incidents per pupil per lesson with 95% confidence
intervals.
(7) Types of behaviour incidentsThe types of incident recorded in the databases are listed below, for 3,284 pupils over an average of 2.4 academic years per pupil. 69% of incidents involve disruption, defiance, lateness or lack of equipment: relatively minor offences. 13.3% involve verbal or physical abuse or aggression, or other severe incidents. This suggests that the majority of poor behaviour in schools is disruptive, but not violent.
Type of incident N PercentDisruption 12,486 31.15
Defiance 7,935 19.79
Lateness 4,211 10.50
No equipment 3,035 7.57
Verbal abuse 2,064 5.15
verbal abuse - not specified 254
verbal abuse towards pupil 277
rudeness/insolence towards teacher 485
verbal abuse towards teacher 1,048
Truancy/leaving lesson without permission 1,525 3.80
Assault, aggression or force 1,419 3.54
assault - not specified 26
assault on teacher 39
assault on pupil 814
fighting 489
threatening behaviour 51
Inadequate work 898 2.24
inadequate work 746
no homework 81
persistent lack of homework 71
Missed detention 539 1.34
Not in uniform 536 1.34
Damage to property 516 1.29
Bullying 464 1.16
bullying - not specified 199
bullying of pupil 19
bullying of teacher 8
bullying physical 104
bullying verbal 134
Dangerous behaviour 414 1.03
Swearing 252 0.63
Smoking 212 0.53
Out of bounds 178 0.44
Racist incident 163 0.41
Theft 79 0.20
Illicit substances 28 0.07
Mobile phone 23 0.06
Forging notes/failing to inform parents 22 0.05
Other 3,088 7.70
other (minor) 1,868
other (severe) 1,220
TOTAL 40,087 100.00
(8) ConclusionsMany media reports probably exaggerate the severity of
behaviour in schools, focusing on violent incidents which
are in fact relatively rare. However, low-level disruption
is common. It is also not true that most pupils are
regularly unruly: most pupils are well behaved most of
the time, and one third are never involved in incidents.
These findings are in line with reports by the Department
for Education and Ofsted (DfE, 2012; Ofsted, 2005).
Nevertheless, there is a high degree of concentration in
incidents, with 10% of pupils accounting for more than
half of all incidents: these pupils clearly have problematic
behaviour. Pupils’ behaviour is persistent through time,
and pupils who frequently misbehave do so with many
different teachers, suggesting that behaviour problems
are not context specific.
Demographic characteristics are good predictors for
behaviour, but do not tell the full story: they do not
explain that much of the variation in behaviour, and
there is substantial heterogeneity in behaviour within
demographic groups. Segal (2008) obtains very similar
results with a detailed dataset from American high
schools. Thus although we cannot say whether parents
are ‘to blame’ for their children’s behaviour, a pupil’s
demographic background is a strong predictor of the
likelihood that they will behave well or badly.
Interestingly, rates of misbehaviour vary through the day
and week – schools could take this into account when
scheduling to minimise disruption in key lessons.
My data panel only lasts up to 6 years, so I cannot say
whether poor behaviour has become more frequent or
more severe over the past few decades. However, it
would appear that bad pupil behaviour is at least nothing
new…
(1) Pupils and incidentsPoor behaviour is highly concentrated among a small number of pupils. 7.86% of pupils are responsible for half of all behaviour incidents, while one third of pupils have no behaviour incidents at all. The remainder are somewhere in the middle, with occasional misbehaviour.
Descriptions of behaviour from the database(names have been changed)
Gluing a teacher to a chair.
Set fire to a flip chart during the lesson
Verbal abuse towards a member of staff.
Covered 4 girls in yoghurt Throwing things again at people at break time.
In science Sophie asked me if she could leave the class so she could "Have a fag", as she didn't have time to have one in the morning and had her last one last night.
Defiance, disruption, swearing, threatening behaviour towards student..
Every lesson, Callum draws soldiers. Every lesson, he has to be prompted continually to write anything down. He usually says 'I don't know what I'm doing' -
which is because he's drawing soldiers. Today, 10 minutes before end of lesson, nothing written
.
Incidents per pupil and number of teachers involved
(4) Consistency of pupils’ behaviour
Is poor behaviour usually the result of a bad pupil-teacher combination, or do pupils
with many behaviour incidents behave badly with many different teachers? It
appears that pupils with more incidents also misbehaved with more teachers, with a
ratio of about one new teacher to every two more incidents. This suggests that poor
behaviour is not context specific.
(5) Pupil characteristics10% of pupils are responsible for over half of all behaviour incidents. What are the characteristics of these pupils?Here I compare the 10% of pupils responsible for most incidents, with the other 90% of their peers at these schools. Pupils with poor behaviour are significantly more likely to be boys; to have special educational needs; to be eligible for free school meals; to be from a white ethnic background; to live with only one or neither of their parents; and to have failed to achieve the national standards in English and maths in national tests at age 11 (level 4 at Key Stage 2).However, there is still heterogeneity, and no variable is a perfect predictor of behaviour – for instance, although boys are more likely to have poor behaviour, 29.3% of the worst behaved pupils are girls. Overall, demographic characteristics are strongly associated with the likelihood of a pupil having very poor behaviour, but the relationship is not deterministic and there are many pupils who buck the trend.
Daily Mail, 25th July 2012
Refs/acknowledgementsContent based on “Behaviour and scheduling in English secondary schools”, Amy Challen, unpublished manuscript January 2013Additional data from the National Pupil DatabaseDfE. (2012). Pupil behaviour in schools in England DfE Research Reports. London: Department for Education.Ofsted. (2005). Managing challenging behaviour HMI 2363Segal, C. (2008). Classroom Behavior. Journal of Human Resources, 43(4), 783–814.Historic newspaper citations from the British Newspaper Archive:http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ Blackboard image:http://www.officialpsds.com/images/embedPSD/10951.jpgStationery clip art:http://www.hscripts.com/freeimages/icons/stationary/index.php
