The scandal of Scotland’s ‘corridor wandering’ pupils who go to school but not to class
Attendance in Scottish schools may be at an all-time low but the figures are actually worse than they seem
The middle of the summer holidays is, generally speaking, a good time to talk to teachers. Of course, as those in other occupations often mention, teachers do get lots of holidays, a fact that teachers themselves sometimes forget. To be fair, the initial stages of these ‘super’ holidays are often plagued with tiredness and, er, plague, as the illnesses they have fought off during term (”I can’t be ill – there’s too much marking”) take hold.
But August 1 sees them at their best – a wee holiday abroad, time to deal with their own children’s needs and delights and, of course, the ‘recharging of the batteries’, though older teachers may find that their batteries, like those in their phones, last less time these days.
It’s also a very good time to encourage them to reflect on their work; one expects them to be at their most positive, and to be looking at their pupils, their colleagues and yes, even their senior managers through sunglasses of a rosy tint. So in the past week I’ve talked to seven teachers, three of them in senior positions in Scottish secondary schools. And, I have to say, even in the sunshine on Portobello Prom, they weren’t exactly positive.
READ MORE: It’s a hell of an ask to eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap without eliminating poverty
‘Lappers’ scream and run in corridors
We need a sea change in Scottish schools. Something is just very wrong in many, possibly most, of our secondary schools (the same malaise affects primary schools, but the kids – if not the parents – are smaller, weaker, more in love with their teachers and less likely to attempt to smuggle vapes and bladed articles into school).
And much that is wrong is characterised by the relatively new phenomenon of ‘corridor wandering’ or, as it is called in some schools, ‘lapping’, with the young people doing it being described as ‘lappers’. ‘Corridor wandering’ just means being present at school but not going to lessons.
The ‘lappers’ turn up for school, then don’t attend classes, instead just wandering about the school, endlessly circulating round the corridors – sometimes running, sometimes screaming, sometimes knocking on doors, sometimes popping into a class to fetch a friend, sometimes phoning their friend in the Nat 5 maths class, sometimes just hanging about in the toilets with their vape.
I first found out about this when a friend – a young teacher - was being interviewed for a job. He was asked how he would encourage pupils (well, they would have said ‘young people’) who were in school but who weren’t attending classes to come to his lessons. I suggested “you told them you would go out into the corridor and say ‘Get into my classroom now!’”, but that, extraordinarily, wasn’t the answer the interview panel sought.
READ MORE: Scotland exam results: Ministers under pressure for failing to close poverty-related attainment gap
Fear and skiving
We know that attendance in Scottish schools is at an all-time low. The causes vary – illness, both physical and mental; fear (perhaps of the school or other pupils); skiving; holidays; phone addiction. But in fact attendance figures are even worse – because the corridor wanderers are marked present on the register at the start of the day prior to beginning their peregrinations. These are young people who, at most points in the school day, are simply not being educated.
There are schools with special hubs for young people who don’t attend regular classes. Corridor wanderers may go to these hubs for a chat. Sometimes parents are informed; most times parents do nothing. Sometimes the young person will actually go with a senior school manager to the relevant classroom. Sometimes they will swear at them and run away.
We have lost track of the most obvious thing: children who have little or no regulation at home desperately need regulation at school. It is not ‘kind’ to allow children to run around in corridors shouting, no matter the source of their ‘trauma’ or their ‘distress’ which may – or may not – be the cause of this aberrant behaviour. Apart from anything else this is not behaviour that would be tolerated anywhere else – a hospital, a church, a restaurant, a hotel and, in most cases, their own home. Schools are for learning, and these young people are not learning.
What about the other kids?
One of my senior teacher friends is a highly sympathetic person, someone who cares about each and every pupil they encounter, but who has a particular place in their heart for the genuinely troubled young person. Actually, most teachers I know – or have ever worked with – are like that.
But this fine professional said to me “I’ve started asking this question more and more – “What about the rest of the kids? What’s happening to them while their teacher is in the corridor trying to stop the racket?’” Well, the answer, of course, is nothing is happening for them.
No matter their ambition, no matter their work ethic, no matter their personal circumstances, the education of most of the children is being negatively affected by the behaviour of a few – in most schools just ten or 12 kids in a school population of say 800.
Are we surprised that Scotland is falling away in international lists of educational success? Are we surprised that we are (ye gods!) now trailing England? And all of this in the name of ‘inclusion’, a grandiose and sentimental policy imposed on teachers, pupils and parents by ‘experts’ who haven’t taught in decades.
Who will have the guts to change this? Any political party? Any local authority? Any trade union? Well, as we await the answer, the corridor wanderers will keep on doing lap after lap after lap...
Cameron Wyllie is a former head teacher. He writes a blog called A House in Joppa and is the author of a book called Is There A Pigeon in the Room? My Life in Schools
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.