To think change is desperately needed in schools?

Things can only stretch so far. Parenting used to be done by the parents rather than nurseries, schools and afterschool clubs. Parents can no longer afford to bring up their own children. The parents suffer, the children suffer. We have less and less time, less and less money. Those with helpful grandparents have a significant advantage. Less time means less social interaction, many of us live quite reclusive lives.
A completely separate point I just wanted to relay my experience. In my last job (20 yrs) I visited thousands of families in all sorts of social groups and situations. In the last 10 years, what became more prevalent and obvious was the open smoking of marijuana at home.To the point where you could smell it outside the front door - it permeated the whole house. What was happening to the brains of the children who lived in these houses? In some areas 10-15% of the children must have been affected. It isn’t just deprived areas either, I live in a village and next door, professional people, are bringing up their children in a house where they smoke marijuana .
Im not saying this is causing the problems mentioned but I have always been surprised that this is something that is so prevalent but not really talked about.

Absolutely but the issues are multifaceted.

Bad parenting? Maybe, I'm not convinced this is any more rife than before personally.

Sen on the increase? Quite possibly, it's better recognised now although not necessarily quickly diagnosed. people have children later in life, it's hard to get support though, in and out of school

Parents both need to work. There's not one at home to do pick up, chat through the day, facilitate play dates, help with reading etc

Funding - a huge issue! Less TAs = less support therefore issues escalate. Schools can't access services easily like speech and language etc.

Lack of playtime - this is so important. When I was at school we had two playtimes and lunch all through primary. This doesn't seem to happen anymore.

Too academic focused - music, art, cooking etc in primary all seems to have dipped. Year 6s are hot housed through SATs.

Covid - we will be seeing children in reception now who would have been 1/2 during covid so won't have had the same amount of social learning due to us being bubbled, which may well impact their social and play skills.

I spent thousands of hours in meetings with many different professions regarding SEN children. No matter who was involved, no matter how much money was spent, no matter what new plans were put in place for the majority of those children, nothing worked. The only course of action that was ever going to be of any help was to get the child a new parent ! I heard every excuse under the sun as to why a bone idle parent can't parent. A useless parent rarely changes.
So much money and resources were wasted when they were desperately needed for children who had SEN and not just god awful parents.
Our education is close to breaking but that isn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem is our pathetic parents.

The way some students behave and treat teachers, peers and the school resources is pretty dreadful. Children draw on books and tables. They drop their litter on the classroom floor. They steal equipment. They answer back and are often disrespectful. They talk over the teacher when they are teaching. They are late. They don't bother about their homework etc etc. It is a really dispiriting job. Then throw in kids who are violent or verbally aggressive. Add in unsupportive or overwhelmed leadership teams. Add in parents who cannot or will not discipline their kids or support the school.

It doesn't make for a pleasant environment where learning is the focus.

I work in a primary school within KS2 (7-11 yr olds) and I'm absolutely exhausted, mentally and physically, so I'm looking at getting out too.

Children are being failed by the system, by parents, by Govt (lack of funding).

Children with SEN and MH needs need support but there isn't enough to go round so parents are having to fight for it, with that fight taking many months. Meanwhile the child continues to suffer, as do their class mates. It's bad enough being an adult on the receiving end of physical and verbal abuse - imagine being a child witnessing it daily!

Seeing lots of comments implying that a lack of stay at home mothers is the cause of these issues. But all of the children I know with terrible behavior come from homes with a sahm. I don't think it's about a loss of a stay at home parent but more how much both parents actively engage with children when they are home together. Children also seem less likely to play with other children outside of school hours. Mainly though, I think too much screen time and domestic violence, are the biggest contributors.

The quality of adult caregiver/baby and adult caregiver/toddler interactions have been hugely impacted by adults (and toddlers) use of screens. It's such a crucial time and too many people aren't aware that the interactions (babbling, repetition, simple games, mirroring facial expressions, modelling behaviours, labelling feelings) that occur in this time are so so crucial and grounded in interactions between baby/toddler and adult. When I see toddler in pushchairs with tablets it slightly kills me.
The US has guidance about screen times (that I'm sure most ignore) but tablet use in under 5's is so normalised now.
https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Children-And-Watching-TV-054.aspx#:~:text=Between%2018%20and%2024%20months,limit%20activities%20that%20include%20screens.

I wonder if some of this is a consequence of covid lock downs?

This last sentence made me laugh because I felt exactly the same - I couldn't have coped with the shame!

Same, I recall in my middle school there was one none verbal girl and one disruptive kid, (she had the odd outburst). That was it, rest of us just got on with the lesson. I was scared of my teacher ringing my parents. If I got a detention I think I would have left home to avoid the wrath.

I think blaming families where both parents work is poor. We both work FT and have since both daughters were babies. We do it because we both have careers which don't have to stop the moment you have kids; you just make an extra effort. Both of my daughters are polite, well behaved children and at parents evening they both receive praise for their behaviour. Perhaps it's how you discipline them when you're at home - not how much time you spend at home.

And their grandparents have all died, with no aunts or uncles either - so according to some posters, my children ought to be horrendous!

I agree. DD came home yesterday asking if she could have a pair of noise cancelling headphones to be like the other children at school. This seems very recent too - I don’t remember any children at school having sensory meltdowns or sitting with their hands over their ears. The profile of special needs has really changed from children with Downs or cerebral palsy (for example) to almost exclusively autism, ADHD or both. I’m always surprised to hear about a child with SEN where the diagnosis isn’t ASD/ADHD.

Screens for parents and screens for kids. Both distracted and neither engaging with the other. I see it all over the place. Went to a family wedding last year. The adults on our table constantly faffing with their phones and the kids were handed tablets as soon as they sat down. We had no conversations on our table outside of our immediate family.

When both parents are working full time they find it easier to parent a screen-sedated kid. Cartoons are a catastrophe for language learning - infants pick up language by watching mouths as people talk and animation just can’t show that effectively. Plus cartoons can be paused, stopped, started and changed at will - there is no learning the give and take of conversation. As a society we should be supporting small kids to be able to stay with a parent as much as possible rather than shoehorning children into expensive nurseries.

What’s happening in schools is just a reflection of what is happening in society in general. People no longer have respect for authority, for others, or themselves. I’m currently job hunting for a TA job supporting the teacher in class and doing small group work, but all the job adverts are for TAs to do 1-1 support with children with behaviour problems. That’s what I currently do and I’m looking for an out because it’s fucking dreadful.

I certainly don't judge you! There have always been children with SEND, and there have always been a small number with really very extreme behavioural difficulties, disregulation, sensory overload, meltdowns etc, and I've always felt this is entirely innate, and not a product of environment or parenting.

But there seems to be an explosion in the sheer numbers of children who are falling into this category these days. And some of those must be in part down to something we're doing differently as a society these days.

I was working in the 70s like several of my friends. DH and I shared childcare, we had no family nearby and nurseries were non existent where we lived. My children turned out OK, and my teenage grandchildren, whose parents all work get good reports at school.

I’d like to bet that many of the children who are not school ready don’t have full time working parents. I see parents not engaging with small children, preferring instead to look at their phones. @OldChinaJug you have my sympathy, as do many of today’s teachers.

How many times do we read on here about parents going in "All guns blazing" if there is an issue at school?

Why do guns need to blaze? Why not just have a conversation? Hear what the school staff have to say?

Teachers know all this but are bound by Gove's 2014 curriculum and Ofsted. It goes against our training (well, certainly mine) and child development / psychology. Yet another reason why teachers are leaving. We know what's wrong but are powerless to correct it.

No my point is I don’t think there is any actual increase in the percentage of children with ADHD etc. it’s just recognised more now.

The increase in violence is from a different cause in my opinion.

Honestly, my eldest might be one of these (if she weren't home educated).

But she gets relatively little screen time (lots of hours when ill, but that's rare, and usually less than 2 hours a week). She has lots of time outside playing energetically, lots of playdates as well as all the time with siblings, lots of visits to relatives, lots of downtime for free time at home, nearly every meal eaten together as a family around the table, and a mostly home-cooked diet that's full of fruit and veg and goodness and low in UPFs.

And yet she has severe ADHD - probably genetic. Plus a significant speech delay. Her vocabulary is years ahead, but her articulation is terrible so it's hard to understand her. I don't know why - we talk so much together as a family. I really did try with potty training and from an early age - she was 90% trained aged 1, but she was still having accidents aged 5 and isn't night trained.

And the last three weeks she's started having violent tantrums. I'm beside myself with worry. I'm clearly not a great parent, but I'm truly trying so hard. Certainly not lazy or unwilling to discipline or thinking she's someone else's "problem".

Professionals sometimes offer helpful tweaks to our routines/habits/strategies, but nothing major. Every single one has told me what a wonderful mother I am- I know I'm not, but I don't know how to improve things.

Please don't think all the parents of these children with SEN are lazy or too arrogant to listen to advice, or even just working long hours away from their children. I have no idea why my child is one of the "problem" ones, but it's not for lack of effort on my part 😞

My experience is that parents feel like their child can do no wrong, despite considerable evidence to contrary!

I work with many of the most dysregulated, aggressive children in the city I live in (ones who have been removed from mainstream due to behaviour). Almost all of them have been physically abused by parents or witnessed domestic violence. Children who live in fear are unable to learn or develop emotional regulation skills. Fear and punishment is not the answer it's the root of the problem. Apart from kids who have asn, it's usually trauma that is the reason.

You are correct. The first 2 years (if I remember correctly) are key so lots of face to face talking, interactions etc rather than plonking in front of screens. Taking them out to new and interesting places (not just to the shops on a weekend) and really engaging with your DC.

But there are more children now than ever before getting diagnosed. There was for certain more undiagnosed ASD, ADHD, dyslexia in the 80s, and behaviour wasn't this challenging. There were definitely behaviour problems, don't get me wrong, but not of the scale or extent that we're seeing today.

So of course things could be even better if ALL children could quickly access diagnoses, and even more importantly support, but undiagnosed ND can't really explain the increase in violent behaviour among children.

If I went home from school in the 70s and told my mother the teacher had told me off she’d say “well you must have done something” I don’t recall her ever steaming up the school to eff and blind at the teacher. Parents were authority figures as were teachers. Kids were wrong. They could be told off. Nowadays it’s “rights” and entitlement gone way too far and run away with itself