Teachers rattled by hums and coughs in class
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Last Updated: 2:14am GMT 26/03/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/26/nteachers126.xml
Teachers are being worn down by increasingly devious pupils who hum in unison and start "orchestrated coughing" in front of staff.
A union warned that standards were being undermined because of an increase in schoolboy pranks in the classroom.
Many new teachers are ill-equipped to handle the rise in poor behaviour as classroom training courses are inadequate, it was claimed.
The comments - by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) - come amid growing fears that standards of behaviour are in decline because parents refuse to enforce boundaries in the home.This week the union will call for mobile phones to be banned from classrooms as they become "potentially offensive weapons" in the hands of unruly pupils.
Many schools have bowed to parental pressure for children to keep their mobile phones in school, despite mounting concern that some pupils are taking compromising pictures of teachers on camera phones and posting them on social networking websites.
Teachers insisted that schools should take a harder line on low-level disruption.
Tim Cox, a member of the NASUWT's ruling executive, said: "Members frequently state that it is the constant low-level disruption that wears them down. It is the drip, drip effect that increases stress.
"It is the disrespect and the defiance that are the most difficult issues to deal with. It is the tap, tap, tap of the pen on the desk, the orchestrated coughing, the swinging back and forth on the chair, the refusal to comply with the simplest of requests, wearing coats, hoodies, sunglasses, the text messages and phone calls that disrupt lessons.
"We all know the impact they can have on day to day classroom management, but we don't always know how best to deal with it."
Mr Cox added that low-level disruption often escalated into "major incidents" because staff were ill-equipped to discipline children.
He said that behaviour management training for teachers was "patchy to say the least".
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