To think change is desperately needed in schools?

I'm a primary school teacher of 20+ years.

To comment on older children, I've had work experience children aged 15/16 coming into my classroom for years. Without fail they've been helpful, polite, keen to get stuck in and enjoyed being with the kids. They've been a real help and a pleasure to help them on their first steps to a career.

In the last two years I've had approximately 8 work experience students.

Only two lasted the full week. Excuses included boredom, tiredness, can't get a lift, saying their mental health couldn't take it. One couldn't leave their phone alone, another said they couldn't come on the bus due to not being allowed and most of them looked purely bored and irritated by the whole experience.

Whenever I asked them to do a job like help a child do up or a coat or sharpen pencils they looked visibly annoyed and did so grudgingly.

Only one showed any initiative at all despite me saying frequently how I welcome them getting stuck in and giving lists of jobs to do if they got a second.

Now I have refused to take any more work experience students as filling in the long forms at the end of their time was also becoming cumbersome and I have a large class of 6 years olds to teach.

I don't know what has caused this very recent shift.

The cane in schools: gone. We didn’t have this sort of behaviour when I was a kid. We were scared of the teacher

I was a child in the 1960’s and none of these things existed. Yet somehow none of the staff at my primary school got injured by the pupils.
As previously said a minority of parents don’t actually parent their own children just leave it to schools/the state.

Sure Start and children's centres round here (a relatively deprived area) were brilliant, i dont deny that but round here they were full of mums who didn't need it though. If it hadn't existed, these mums would have set their own groups up tbh.

There was 1 teenage mum who needed help and she used to come of her own volition and I expect the resource was invaluable to her.

There was 1 mum who was totally useless and she was brought by all manner of support workers in a taxi and didn't interact with her kids or anyone else. She didn't engage with the resource at all and so it didn't seem worth putting it on for her tbh.

Why do we think this is happening?

GoodnightAdeline I think this is right but all the way through childhood. The amount of kids at our school who can't function without their phone is unreal. They want them constantly and they can not cope when the pace of lessons does not match that of the endless YouTube and TikTok videos.

@karriecreamer I’m really interested to see the effects of screens on the brains of little babies. Not just toddlers, but 3 month olds being propped up in bouncers to watch YouTube videos and Cocomelon. I think people have forgotten how much babies learn in the first year of life because they tend to ‘do things’ like walk and talk in the second year. But in the first year they’re information gathering and setting up important pathways. If that’s being disrupted by endless dopamine hits from screens I wonder if it means something goes wrong somewhere.

Purely speculative on my part.

My children also both went to the surestart play centres, bosom buddies etc and they were fantastic. Such a brilliant resource for help and support. It was such a shame when the facility went.

As a child in the 80s and 90s I was scared of my teachers (don't get me wrong, they were great) such that we wouldn't have dared to answer them back. There were about 30 kids and 1 teacher and, despite being in a really deprived area with a lot of issues, I don't remember anyone playing the teachers up like this.

I'm a parent and the mouth of time I read/hear the school and teachers being blamed is ridiculous. Parents and children don't seem to want to take ownership like they did when I was younger (not all obviously).

The respect seems to be gone. I would say this is more apparent at secondary level. The behaviour not the parents feeling the children are not at fault.

I don't know what the answer is as it's a societal norm. It's a real worry and I always encourage my children to be aware of how their actions impact others. They are respectful and kind. They are infallible and they make mistakes which is ok as they learn from them. I support teachers and when other children have bullied or harmed mine have had the school thank me for supporting them in putting consequences in place. I really feel for the schools at the moment. It must be incredibly difficult.

I feel you did the right thing. I hope the parents know what happened and also that the children harmed an adult. Hopefully your workplace will be more understanding in future and safeguard you. Also understand the triggers that led the children to be dis regulated and have the altercation in the first place.

Our LA said that no children were to be excluded unless a weapon was involved. Hmm a fist, feet, teeth, a pencil, a chair could all be considered a weapon if used as such.

With our previous HT we filled in a violent incident form every time something happened. When a teacher enquired what was happening, it turned out he wasn't sending the forms to the council because he didn't it to look like his school had issues.

The thing I've really noticed in the past few years is the problems with speech. In a class of 18 5yo there were 5 whose speech was unintelligible. I think some of the parents thought it was up to the school to teach them to speak.

Sure start centres etc were, I think, a Blair thing, so pretty recent. All this mental health issues, etc also seems to be recent thing.

I don't recall any significant problems like we experience now back in the 80s and 90s.

Something else must be going on. I'd suggest it's permissive parenting and we're now in the second and third generations of people who've simply never been told "no" and passing their sense of entitlements off to their children and grandchildren.

Parents need to parent and need to take responsibility for their children rather than whinging about lack of support services etc. How about teaching that actions have consequences, how about teaching about respect for authority etc? It ALL begins at home and that's where it's going badly wrong. Too many parents wanting to be their sprog's "best friend" instead of being a parent, just because it's easier to blame someone else and let other people deal with the fallout.

I'm support staff in a school and you're completely right. Some people think because we get school hols off we've got it easy.

It's the hardest most stressful job I've ever done. Some parents refuse to parent and that's one of main issues in schools. Something has to change that's for sure.

. I'm a nursery teacher and this year is the worst by far. Out of 20, 5 seem to have SEN but I'd say in most cases it's parenting. No expectations of what a 3 year old should be able to do, not toilet trained, can't follow a simple instruction (e.g. take your coat off), can't feed themselves, rip books, paint on the walls, can't play. We have 4 that can communicate to a somewhat appropriate level in English although 14 were born here. Over half can't communicate effectively in any language.

I could have written this. 😔 Our nursery children are a world apart compared to what we were dealing with just a few short years ago. Forget teaching them to zip up a coat or write their name, most of our current nursery children can't put their coats on or hold a pencil. They're nowhere near ready to start school in September. But what makes it worse is so many of the parents are in denial. They have such low expectations for their children, and constantly argue that they're too young to do ask we as, and we expect too much from them. 😔

I’m sure it’s had a negative effect but I honestly don’t think it accounts for the severity and prevalence of what’s going on.

Think about it, how many non verbal children did you know growing up in the 90s/2000s and how many do you know now? I would be really interested to hear answers from other people.

@wubwubwub I very much doubt the dad did anything to discipline the child in any way whatsoever.

That Dad probably "dealt with" a 3 year old by hitting them .... Surely he didn't expect you to do that?

We have a boy going to a top RG uni and a child that suddenly out of the blue has got violent. I have asked the gp for a urgent referal to camhs, gp said school have to apply, school talked to camhs, didn't invite me, I got no chance to imput into that meeting and camhs signposted to the NAS website.

So there's one issue off the bat. Luckily I have money so I pay the £400 to talk to a private psychiatrist. But even if you act fast on shitty behaviour ( only seen in school as its anxiety due to ASD overload) you get fobbed off.

Only the children of the rich can get the sen help they need

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we need some kind of public inquiry as to why the behaviour and development of children have gone so badly wrong over only the last 10 years or so, with the last 5 or so years seeing the most frightening acceleration.

Throwing money at support services will help but not solve the root of the issue.

I’ll be shouted down but I’m willing to bet in 10+ years posters on here will be asking why the heck everyone ignore the elephant in the room for so long.

Absolutely agree. I'm a nursery teacher and this year is the worst by far. Out of 20, 5 seem to have SEN but I'd say in most cases it's parenting. No expectations of what a 3 year old should be able to do, not toilet trained, can't follow a simple instruction (e.g. take your coat off), can't feed themselves, rip books, paint on the walls, can't play. We have 4 that can communicate to a somewhat appropriate level in English although 14 were born here. Over half can't communicate effectively in any language.
We are inner city and near a university. We take from a wide cross section of society and it's seems to be a running theme whether they are a low income family or a child from an oversees family paying a pretty penny to attend uni here.
We aren't doing too badly with assaults at the minute but I remember having to physically restrain a 4 year old while 8 months pregnant and was expected to get in with it.
This year I rang a dad to collect a child as he had hit staff twice and also another child. Dad sneered at us and questioned why we 'couldn't deal with a little 3 year old, it's your job isn't it '.

I've gone zero tolerance in nursery as they don't legally have to attend. You hit staff and you're going home. You hit a child (more than a tussle over a toy) and you're out. I feel it's more the parents that need to understand we are not accepting it

Teachers and PSAs were being kicked, hit, verbally abused etc at our school but the HT didn't do anything apart from tell them it was part and parcel of the job nowadays.
Suddenly that attitude changed when she was hit so hard she had to go to A and E.

My DS start’s school in September. I’m so apprehensive about it due to these sorts of issues.