ABSTRACT
The view from the staffroom window of Livingstone Comprehensive School (LCS) was dramatic. LCS was a comprehensive school with a staff of 50 full-time staff and 650 pupils on roll. It had a reputation in the neighbourhood as a very caring school and, though its examination results were comparable with the other two comprehensive schools in the area, the local folklore painted an image of a non-academic institution. In all, Thomas Farrell observed twelve lessons, seeing each of the classes and their support teachers in several situations. He used a tape recorder to capture the dialogue and wrote notes on what he saw happening. The class teachers were, in the main, experienced teachers who found this kind of disruption to be quite threatening to their status. The teachers had all, at sometime in their careers, coped with this kind of classroom management situation, but this was an entirely new challenge.
