Student compliance will not mean ‘all teachers can teach’: a critical analysis of the rationale for ‘no excuses’ discipline

Abstract

ABSTRACTAn increasing number of English schools are embracing an extreme approach to student behaviour dubbed ‘no excuses’ discipline, inspired by charter school chains in the United States. Proponents argue the approach is necessary to allow all teachers to teach and that it places responsibility where it should be: on the student. However, this rationale ignores the interactional nature of classroom disruption and discounts the role played by teachers and teaching. In this paper, I explain the concept of ‘cumulative continuity’ and then use this concept as a lens to make sense of classroom behaviour using observational data from a current longitudinal research project investigating the development of disruptive school behaviour. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of pedagogical contexts, the responsibility that adults have, and the fallacy of the notion that students must be forced to comply in a one-size-fits-all system because we cannot rely on all members of the teaching profession to do the same.