I’d like to add another unfairness to the list: for teachers who accept that Inclusion is part of their job and also that a disorderly class is learning nothing, genuine earnest attempts that are made to instil some sort of order and respect amongst the pupils are routinely dismissed because they “waste” time that “should” be used to press on with the National Curriculum Programme of Study. Of course, you can be assessed against your cramming in of the NC; nobody ever assesses you on the improvements made to the children’s minds and souls.

“The changes in school discipline (mainly centred around inclusion) have ensured that it is now normal for teachers to be subject to physical and verbal abuse and for school management to be engaged in concealing it. Even more than the removal of trust in teachers’ judgement, this has downgraded the role and status of teachers. The ability to survive in the jungle of modern secondary schools, to put up with the abuse, to have patience with the unwilling and uncooperative, are now more important than subject knowledge or the ability to explain material. By extension school management cannot be about managing the students, this battle is already lost, it must instead be about managing teachers, scrutinising them for signs that they are not doing their job rather than creating the climate where they are best able to do their job.”

This sums up so well what I’ve seen happen in education and was a major factor in me leaving my permanent job.