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It seems pretty logical that parents are to blame for children’s misbehaviour in schools. ÌýIndeed that was the general premise of the education experts and teacher’s union reps who recently addressed a . And it’s not hard to see why teachers and others are up in arms about pupil behaviour, when an average of 30 minutes teaching time per teacher, per day is estimated to be lost on ‘low level disruption’.Ìý

As education consultant and former Ofsted inspector David Moore asserted that the way children behave is modeled on their parents’ interactions with them and other people. You can see this starting at a very early age – preschoolers who are yelled at, told to shut up and generally pushed around verbally, are the ones who behave badly and aggressively amongst their peers. Ìý

Whilst good manners and respectful behaviour should be taught at home, it is not always going to happen. As a trainee teacher I saw primary children who were not neglected by the standards of social services, but whose parents just weren’t teaching them basic social skills before they arrived at school. They didn’t know when to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, how to wait their turn or how to behave if things weren’t going their way.

Willing parents can access help through social services or other state-funded bodies like . But not all of them want to or are able to. Ìý

Looking to blame someone in itself is not that helpful – we should be looking at ways to solve the problem. ÌýSchool, the place where children spend most of their time, has to be one place where they learn what is socially acceptable in terms of behaviour. There is no magic wand to make all children well-behaved, but there are simple steps that can make it easier.

To start with, clear behaviour policies in school, including bullying policy should be agreed by parents, staff and pupils. ÌýThis should be enforced rigorously, with sanctions for those who don’t comply. ÌýSo many teachers feel disempowered when it comes to behaviour management. ÌýMaybe the new will help towards this.

Reducing class and school sizes would be a major improvement, but a politically difficult one – are cheaper to run.ÌýBut would you want to go to work with 2000 other people? ÌýThis inhuman scale means that lots of students Ìýsimply get lost in the system and behaviour issues go un-checked.Ìý

Improving classroom management and Ìýbetter teaching methods will in turn improve pupil behaviour. Monitoring students more out of lesson times - increasing staff to pupil ratios at break times or providing space for students who have free lessons rather than expecting them to roam around.

So yes, good behaviour should begin at home, but simply blaming parents, teachers or the school system is simplistic. ÌýIt may be a cliché, but young people are the adults of the future and as parents, we need to give them the best start possible. ÌýModeling how we expect them to behave is a major part of this.

Hannah Hunter is a member of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ parent panel.

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