When schools apply rules inconsistently, students stop believing in them—and social proof turns low-level defiance into the new normal
Every teacher sees it. That creeping tide of low-level defiance. Hood up. AirPods in. Pencil? Nah. Pencil Case – fuck no. Bag…as if. Homework? “Didn’t know we had any.” And what happens? Nothing. Or worse—’a smile and a shrug from some SLT douche’. You start wondering why you bother. But this isn’t about uniform policy or being a stickler for pens. It’s about something more corrosive: the slow collapse of expectations in our classrooms, aided and abetted by cowardice and convenience.
And don’t confuse this for some Daily Mail rant about trousers and haircuts. I don’t really support school uniforms as a concept (or business dress fyi). But rules are rules. If we set them, we should damn well mean them. If not, scrap them and be honest about it. Because what’s killing school culture isn’t kids being kids—it’s leadership bottling it every time a standard gets tested.
Problem – When Non-Compliance Becomes the Norm
In too many schools, disobedience has become the trend—and it spreads because we let it. One kid strolls in with no pen, and we lend one. Again. And again. Then another clocks it. “Oh, you don’t need a pen here? Cool.” Then it’s five. Then ten. Suddenly, a basic expectation like “bring a pencil” becomes a quaint fucking relic. “I remember the days when all kids brought a pencil?”
This isn’t just anecdotal. This is backed by hard behavioural science. In ‘Invisible Influence’, Jonah Berger shows how our actions are shaped, quietly and constantly, by what we see others doing—especially when those actions go unchallenged. It’s social proof. The same mechanism that drives TikTok trends is happening in the classroom. When negative behaviour is visible, repeated and tolerated, it becomes the standard.
The Psychology Today article ‘Why We Fall for Social Media Trends‘ lays this bare: humans are mimics. We copy. When we see a behaviour go unpunished—or even rewarded—we assume it’s fine. Apply that to schools and you’ve got a recipe for chaos. Monkey see, monkey mutha fucking do.
Causes – Inconsistency, Fatigue, and Faulty Logic
Ok, check in. Teachers are knackered. The workload’s obscene. Behaviour is tougher than ever. We’re underpaid, over-inspected, and constantly gaslit by initiatives that invented by some fuckwit, over-promoted, PE teacher. So yes, sometimes we let stuff go. Because it’s period 5 on a Thursday and if we challenge one more kid about his fucking hoody, we might scream. I get it.
But here’s the deeper rot: school leadership. Too many SLTs are clinging to bs logic to justify their inaction. The ‘false dilemma’: “We can’t enforce expectations and support wellbeing.” Bollocks. Those two things are not in conflict. If anything, clear boundaries support mental health. Or the ‘slippery slope’: “If we punish everyone for the rules, no one will be left in lessons!” FFS. That’s not a slope, that’s surrender.
But here is the elephant in the room: if they ‘did’ enforce the rules properly, the entire system would collapse. Detention rooms would overflow. The consequences system would buckle. Staff would be on their knees. So instead of facing that reality and fixing it—they fudge it. They water everything down. “Let’s not make a big deal about the hoodie.” “They’ve had a tough morning.” “Be flexible.” Translation: “please don’t create work for the systems we can’t be bothered to scale up”. But this isn’t leadership.
Look, schools are overwhelmed. But if the reason we’re not enforcing standards is because too many students would be in detention—then build a bigger fucking detention system. Don’t lower the bar to match the capacity of your admin. Raise the capacity to meet the challenge. Get more staff on duty. Use year teams properly. Involve parents. Make it work. Don’t just roll over and act like there’s no alternative.
And for the love of all gods, stop hiding behind trauma-informed buzzwords as an excuse for not doing a job properly? Consistency is not cruelty. Following through isn’t fascism. It’s care. Real care. The kind that says “I believe you’re capable of meeting expectations, and I will support you to do that—every time.”
Impact – Declining Standards and Damaged Trust
When kids see the rules don’t matter, they internalise that nothing matters. And the ones who do follow the rules? They feel like idiots. They start to question why they even try. It’s a bit like when the kid that told a teacher she was a bitch gets his artwork celebrated in the weekly praise powerpoint. What the fuck are these optics?As a result, that sense of fairness—the thing that keeps school culture alive—starts to rot. And that is where many schools now find themselves.
Learning takes a back seat. Lessons start ten minutes late because we’re handing out pens and equipment. Students sit passively because they’ve been taught that they don’t need to bring anything to the table—literally. That’s not inclusion. That’s institutional learned helplessness. It’s the opposite of empowerment.
And the biggest lie of all is that relaxing standards helps disadvantaged students. It doesn’t. They’re the ones who suffer most when classrooms become chaotic, when routines fall apart, and when the adults stop leading. They need consistency more than anyone. Not pity. Not tokenism. Just a system that works and sticks to its own fucking rules.
Solutions – Clarity, Consistency and Capacity**
If a rule exists, enforce it. If it’s a shit rule, bin it. But this halfway house—this selective enforcement bs—is a slow-motion collapse. Stop picking and choosing. Stop deciding who the rules apply to based on how tired you are.
To be radically poetic, leaders need to wake the fuck up. If you know enforcing standards will break your current systems, fix your fucking systems … why the fuck do I even need to spell this out to those on CEO payloads? Expand capacity, rather than CEO paycheck and the pool of directors. Staff the detentions. Train the support staff. Stop making it the classroom teacher’s problem to solve in isolation.
And kill the cowardly logic. Challenge the fallacies. Hold the line. Don’t just say “high expectations” on the website, it’s a meaningless platitude—live them. Mean them. Back the staff who fucking uphold them.
Also, learn the science. Stop reading the contrived educational-based research and read real-life research. Read Berger. Read Cialdini. Understand that culture is shaped by what is visible, repeated, and reinforced. If we want students to be prepared, respectful and responsible, we need to make those behaviours the social norm—every hour, every day.
Conclusion
This isn’t complicated. It’s just hard. And right now, too many schools are bottling the hard stuff in favour of the easy out. We don’t need another poster about values. We need consistency. We need courage. We need clarity.
Every time we ignore a rule, we create a new one: ‘this doesn’t matter anymore’. And students are watching. They’re smart fuckers. They know what we really stand for.
So what do we want to teach them? That rules are flexible depending on mood and staffing? That effort is optional? That leadership is about PR, not principle?
Or do we want to say: ‘You matter, so this matters’? That we give a shit. That we’re here to build something better—even if it’s hard. Even if it means having 400 kids in detention on a Tuesday.
Because this isn’t just about school. This is about the kind of adults we want them to become—and the kind of adults we need to be. Boundaries don’t limit kids; they steady them. Rules don’t crush freedom; they teach responsibility. And clarity doesn’t kill compassion—it proves it.
Society is fucking messy enough with Trump, Tate, GB fucking news. Our job isn’t to mirror the chaos. It’s to model something better. And if we don’t hold the line, no one else will.
