Need a spot of advice, and this forum has a fair few intelligent people on it, so thought I'd ask.

Some background first. The Wench teaches French at a local state school. The school has a policy that everyone must do a language for the whole time they are there. Those that are able do GCSEs, those that aren't do an NVQ (and oh my word is it a piece of piss). The issue lies with her year 10 (4th form in old money) NVQ set, who are a bunch of little [LIFTED], and that's putting it nicely. In the last two lessons, they have achieved absolutely zero, with the exception of two kids. The Wench has tried everything she can think of as far as making lessons interesting and engaging, but they really couldn't care less.

Part of the problem is that they have realised that they can just ignore the discipline procedure, ie not turning up to detentions etc. because nothing ever sees to come of it.

Every effort she's made to get assistance with it from senior staff seems to be turned back on her as her being incompetent, rather than that the Head has put a system in place that simply does not work.

Does anyone have any suggestions on this? At the moment I'm within a shades breadth of visiting the class with a baseball bat.

Get a head of dept to sit in on the class?

The Head of Department is teaching at the same time as all of these lessons.

She's got the head of year to come talk to them once or twice, and things improve for maybe a week before descending back down again.

I wouldn't get another teacher to defend her, the kids are going to think she's even weaker against them.

My dad uses with his monsters ( he has all the drop outs from various levels) ignore and focus on the ones that care until the others feel like participating, send out all the class or violence (sic) Did she try to contact the parents and warn of disciplinary action?

One of my friends is a maths teacher and he says the most effective solution is to actually phone one of the little scrotes parents up and get them to talk to the kid.
I wasn't entirely clear if he did this with the rest of the class watching or not but it certainly seemed to put the fear of god up the rest of them.

It's one thing to taunt or ignore a teacher. It's entirely another for said teacher to call your bluff and involve someone who can actually do something (assuming the parents give a rats backside of course).

The parents don't give a [LIFTED] either it would appear, from the one or two conversations at parents evenings. The one instance where a letter was sent home, the parent was particularly unpleasant about the whole thing. Thankfully the Wench was backed to the hilt by the department head et al when it happened because they all know the kid in question is horrific.

Apparently it's ok to beat them about the head with a dumbell screaming 'die, die'.

I'm sure this isn't the best "advice", but I'll tell you what I'd do in that situation.

Start the lesson by saying, "Anyone who doesn't care about passing this class, you can leave."

You teach the ones that want to learn. The rest fail. Teachers shouldn't need to be disciplinarians or babysitters, or youth club leaders. They're there to teach. If you're not interested - [LIFTED] off.

The only other (possibly more reasonable) idea I have, is get some brochures of the cool places involved. So if it's French, look at the Cote D'Azur, and the departements in the tropics, Reunion etc. Then maybe they'll wanna go visit. Tell the guys about the epic topless beaches, tell the girls about boys with disposable income who would love some English ass to tap. Look to their motivations.

If all else fails - capitalism. Appeal to their future wallets with talk of how Geneva has one of the highest standards of living and salaries in the world and how they can leave this hole behind.....

Sadly, the school has a duty of care. Should one of the little darlings then go out and, I dunno, be stabbed in a fight, then the school are faced with being negligent with the children in their care, and Jon's better half is up [LIFTED] creek without a good legal defence.

Please, okenobi - never become a teacher.

I would engage with the yoof on a scale never before seen.

To be honest, I could never be part of a system like that. Lots of people I've worked with have said in the past that I'd make an excellent teacher. But I like teaching people stuff who want to learn. And that's not teaching secondary in the UK. I respect anyone who tries.

Unfortunately, that takes an entirely different kind of "teaching skills"... more akin to a drill instructor or a prison guard than a tutor.

I've tutored before quite successfully, but I could never even attempt to control a room full of 13 year old delinquents. The temptation to smash their heads in would be too strong.

Here, if a pupil gets a 5 or less in class work, the parents are summoned to the school for a conference. If the kids are getting 5s or fails in each lesson, getting the parents in twice a week for a conference, or daily calls to come for a conference, might get them to talk to the kids, so they can enjoy their Tenants Extra and Pall Malls in peace...

Call all the parents to a meeting. Explain the situation. Discuss the school policy behind the language class and try to gain a consensus over its merits. Get the grown ups on your side
Look at the curriculum, does it try to do too much? Are the kids being left behind. If the framework is too rigid, you know it can't work.
Are they expected to finish with a GCSE qualification? If not then can you alter the content to be more engaging?
You will lose any child by flying straight over their heads. Dumb it down for a while to re-engage and don't forget respect is no longer a formality in schools.
I have made progress by keeping my promises and my temper. Though this is with the stepchildren, not a classroom and I am not a teacher, though several of my friends and my ex are. So not qualified advice, but you asked.

If anything the issue is the other way round. They are doing an NVQ, and having seen the level of work involved, a half-way intelligent person could probably get one in a weekend having never studied French before. It's so unbelievably simple it's unreal. Trouble is, some of the kids are just too damned thick to manage even that over the course of two years.

The parents are (at least the ones in charge of the worst) absolutely useless, and seem to think it's entirely down to the teacher. Their complete incompetence as a parent doesn't even come into it of course.