There were almost always reasons why a kid was behaving poorly. It didn’t excuse them or mean that they shouldn’t have got into trouble, but it did help temper your response.
Take, for example, Patrick in my Year 9 class. He invariably sat with his head on his desk, yawned every few minutes and rarely produced homework. I was worried he wouldn’t be ready for GCSEs so I bit the bullet and called his parents.
Here’s how the conversation went: ‘I’ve noticed Patrick seems to be tired a lot of the time. He struggles to do his homework and sometimes falls asleep in class.’
‘I’ll tell you what the problem is, Mr Wilson. He sits up most of the night playing his Xbox.’
‘Do you think we could try taking the Xbox off him for a period?’
‘Ooooh, I don’t think so. He wouldn’t like that at all.’
Ryan Wilson, Mail. Teaching.
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