Cribsheet daily 18.11.10

Young boy thumbs his nose — Where are the naughty kids being hidden? Photograph: Simon Rea/Alamy

Pupil behaviour is in the spotlight, with a report that unruly kids are being hidden from school inspectors. Apparently headteachers have a variety of ruses, including sending them home for a week, and squirrelling them away somewhere with a supply teacher who isn't going to be inspected.

And the story we ran earlier in the week by "Charlie Carroll", who chose to live in a campervan for a year and do supply teaching at challenging schools around the country, has sparked a huge debate about discipline issues in classrooms.

Capaddona:

"Poor article – it looks as if the author was just looking for juicy stories to fill a book. What I was drawn to the article by was the hope of a serious analysis of what on the face of it looks like an interesting counterfactual – teachers leaving the profession during a recession.
But no, just a load of loaded anecdotes about how bad it is in inner city schools. Well hold the front page already!"

Ptitemaud:

"All the things Carroll described are true and are happening. People who disagree with him should go and teach in a tough school first and then come back to him and criticise him. I lasted 6 months as a secondary school teacher. Not for me. My health and my morale are more important than a job. Most teachers are doing an amazing job in hard conditions. We should give them the management they deserve.

Ronpert:

"I wouldn't be able to hack it. I don't understand anyway: if somebody threatens you with violence in front of a room of witnesses, shouldn't you immediately contact the police and take them to court? Sue their families or something? If for some reason that isn't possible, perhaps there is some way of arranging privately for the offending students to be punished out of school. Some sort of hit squad, or some kind of decent public humiliation. There must be a market for that, if it doesn't already exist."

Usedtobeateacher:

"And they're off! Lots of people on here who can't bear the idea that there might actually be a cultural problem and refuse to address the points made but instead resort to personal attacks on the author and his motivations. If you are so sure you are right then why not sign up to be a teacher? You'll quickly find that "Charlie" is right. Just like Katharine Birbalsingh and Frank Chalk. And then you too will be able to write a book.

"They are not saying that there needs to be grammar schools or academies or free schools, or that teachers are lazy. They are saying that there is a problem in the culture that allows kids to treat teachers like crap and so, ultimately, screw up their own lives."

News from around the web

Final year students are having to take jobs to cover their costs.

"Xenophobic" British students are reluctant to consider going to university abroad, says the Telegraph

The Mail has discovered that "cash-strapped" schools in Essex are shelling out £1,000-a-day for motivational speakers to encourage teenagers to revise for exams.

Blog of the day

Susan Young blogging for the National Association of Head Teachers:

"Pretty nearly everything that's happened in education in the past 20 years seems to have been slammed into reverse, and the scale and sweep of what's happening is so enormous that it's hard to see what the big picture is going to be.

But it's starting to become clearer. In future, it's going to be all about heads and probably their academy sponsors. And it's not going to be a good time to be a shy and retiring leader."

Competition

Do you have a clever way of using technology to teach children at your school? Enter the Classroom Innovation awards by sending us a short video of what you can do. There is a primary and secondary category and each winner will get £7,500 of Asus computing kit.