To think change is desperately needed in schools?

Oh, I agree! I don't think it's anything to do with the teachers. I do think a lot has to do with parenting (or lack of).

You only need to read the posts on here from stepmoms to see why so many children are hurting and angry! Apparently it’s ok to intrude on a family dynamic, dislike the kid, add new kids to their family, exclude them from family life, resent their presence in their own DF’s house and hope the new kids replace the original DC in their father’s affections. Add to that adults taking issue with young children and you have your answer to why young children feel entitled to fight back with adults.

P.S respect to all the step parents who treat their DSC as equals in the family and shower them with love ❤️

I wondered if the teachers on the thread have any views on flexi-schooling? My DS and I really loved lockdown school and would have liked to carry on doing it. I could then have given him the extra attention that he needs to differentiate the learning, without the teachers being overwhelmed with work. We're now out of school entirely, but it's a bit lonely without the school community and contact with the teachers.

btw, I'm finding the teachers' views of parenting very interesting and informative on here. I've never heard a lot of these views before. I was only aware that they wanted sky high academic achievement and constant test performance because of the Gove curriulum. Tbh it's been so hard keeping up with the sky-high demands. I wish that stuff would all go away.

I think if the demands of the curriulum were reduced then we parents might have time to parent the kids and teach them the skills of independence that you want. There just isn't time to manage both. So much of the evening is spent trying to reduce the distress that has built up during such hard lessons during the day. I can't discipline a chronically distressed child.

Do you think there is any chance that the curriulum could be changed to be less demanding, especially in primary school, and with more science, music and art? My son especially missed the music in primary. Music was cancelled entirely when he was in year 5 and he gave up learning the horn, and musical composition, as it bought him no credibility in the playground at all.

It’s really sad . The brightest need to be challenged as much as the lower ability need support . We are heading to a generation of children that have higher scores but no knowledge retained or capable of more but disillusioned and given up x

My child (10) told me they hadn’t learned anything new in maths for 2.5 years. When I complained to the school they said they couldn’t spend time on the brightest as they were fine. They had to work on the weakest instead.

@LanaL I could have written this post! Y3 too and it’s exactly the same. Throw in a few chairs being thrown, parents telling us we are lying because we are telling them about their children’s behaviour and the children say it’s not true we are accused of lying, door slamming, kicking etc and it’s all accurate.

Although we make scaffolds for different children and then differentiate and make more scaffolds for the most struggling learners so they focus on their needs- but that adds more work. That’s all normal, but in the past I’d have 1 or 2 really struggling learners, now there are a lot more.

Totally agree with all of your points!

@waterrat I suppose that depends on the school. Writing is also a big part of my role but we don’t have that huge focus on grammar. Our writing is focused on audience and purpose and closely linked to reading. They achieve well in writing - maybe not so well in grammar SATs but if they can write well and enjoy writing, then that is a win in my eyes.

There's a minor issue going on at my DCs school at the moment. Basically something hasn't been handled well but nobody is hurt or injured, it's just a bit of a let down.

Several parents first reaction is to go straight to ofsted (pretty sure it's not an ofsted mattter but hey ho). It's this attitude that must make teachers second guess themselves all the time, want to quit, get defensive etc.

Society is more challenging and our children are products of this and can't regulate themselves (neither can adults it seems).

Yes a change is desperately needed . I’m a teacher and I feel like it’s so difficult to teach with behaviour how it is and the mixture of - lack of support for staff , the element of blame on staff and how much our hands are tied that is having a massive impact on education.

I teach year 3 at the moment. A class full of mixed needs - some very clear additional needs that aren’t diagnosed therefore no funding for extra support - behaviour issues and quite frankly children who are extremely low ability . There are so many working at reception or y1 level . I am spending my day feeling like I’m running a marathon just trying to get work in books , whilst dealing with awful behaviour issues . TAs are so over worked - mine is barely ever in class . I have children that can’t do anything independently so I have to spend the lesson guiding them through every single word they write , meaning those who are capable are not getting pushed at all . They pretty much have to just carry on whilst I deal with the lower ability pupils or if I deal with the highers I know there will be no work done in books. Then you have the children who aren’t being pushed then exhibiting negative behaviour ( probably as they are just so bored ! ) which impacts the whole class . It ends up that the lowers are pretty much copying work from the board - it’s so heavily modelled and guided that they aren’t doing anything independently which is clear when last term we did assessments and most of them scored 0 . I can’t see how they will progress like this , it actually makes me feel like a failure as a teacher ! For example a lesson today. I had about 8 children who I had to guide , the noise level in the classroom was horrendous as I had to choose between addressing it every 2 minutes or getting some kind of teaching done for the lowers . I had one child hit another , one screaming because he said he couldn’t do the work when I knew he could , I had 3 children accusing each other of saying things that needed reporting, I had to do these reports . I had one child do no work at all as I hadn’t jad chance to get around the whole class and another spent the whole lesson writing 3 words . It’s impossible and it’s me who will be accountable when they don’t meet targets - when there is absolutely no differentiation in the school and children who are of the lowest ability are doing exactly the same work and expected to be able to , as children who are working at way above the expected standard .

I have children who point blank refuse to do anything I ask, I have children who will just started drawing in their books and who hit others and nothing happens at all except they miss their break - which then in turn means I miss my break .

It’s impossible and this is why teachers are leaving the profession .

Forgiveme
I remember those days from my own childhood. . Huge classroom with lots of play and mums and grans came into help with reading groups. Kids drew and wrote stories that didn't need.a fronted adverbial.
Your teacher and a few parents could take an ad hoc autumn leaf walk . You could bring your cat and her new kittens in for show and tell which took up most of a morning.
We could make sandwiches without someone being deathly allergic to gluten, butter or jam.
I picked and brought the teacher a bunch of daffodils to say thank you.
We all wanted to be teachers.

Nail on the head. Schools simply havn't moved on at all in the last 40 years. A fair bit of re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic with lots of reorganisations and minor changes, but it's not touched the sides as to the real changes needed.

When we did secondary school open days just over a decade ago, I couldn't believe how schools seemed to be stuck in a time warp as they were so similar to our secondary schools back in the last 70s and early 80s, even down to the range of subjects taught. When he started school, the content of the subjects was virtually the same as we experienced 40 years earlier. School classrooms looked the same, the woodwork/metalwork labs looked the same, even some of the teachers looked the same, one in particular with elbow patches on his sports jacket!

Yet the world has changed so much over that time, yet the subjects, the content, school procedures, the form system, the years system, the setting system, etc., etc., hasn't. They're still doing the sodding "line of shame" where the favoured pupils good at games get to choose their team from their classmates - that should have been banned years ago!

My son who is well behaved (in school anyway!) and generally finds life pretty easy (no neurodiversity/ no anxiety, just gets on with it all) - started crying in year six and begging not to go in - that is how painfully boring it was.

Such a tragic waste of kids lives and time. And no wonder we have huge obesity problem when kids are forced to sit down all day - and actually shamed /told off if they wriggle and move - despite that being totally natural.

Teaching was a different world then.

Children with significant SEND weren’t in mainstream so mainstream teachers didn’t have children with eg high need ASD/ADHD or significant SEMH needs in their class. We have children needing hoists, PEG feeds and alternative communication systems in our classes. The class teacher is often expected to meet all of their needs alone, plus ensure everyone else is making constant progress in continually adapted lessons tailor-made to individuals.

Children were virtually all toilet trained in mainstream then, so teachers weren’t trying to change nappies, soiled pupils or manage this need with regular reminders, checks, charts, monitoring fluid intake etc

No Ofsted so the pressure of Deep dives, observations, single-word judgement with forced academisation and job losses for a poor result were unheard of.

Curriculum expectations were totally different so teachers weren’t trying to teach an unsuitable curriculum to their class because Michael Gove decided 8 years ago, it would be a great idea to try to recreate a 1950s-style public school classroom across the county.

Funding was organised so that teachers were paid centrally and it didn’t matter what pay grade they were on. Now schools have to sort their own very limited budgets and heads can’t afford to have expensive teachers, so are forced to remove them. This is often done by telling teachers they are out of date and below par and need to go on capability.

It’s impossible to directly compare education now and then and say, ‘well, my teachers didn’t have a TA and didn't moan’.

@Forgiveme you are right! The curriculum shifted in 2014. Things done in secondary are now expectations for Year 6 children.

@Forgiveme totally agree. Writing is a core part of what I do at work and has been since I left uni 20 years ago - I loathe the focus on grammar - spag and all the bollocks they do in year 6 - fronted adverbials in year 2 !! I complained about that - not that there was any point. It's all deathly and joyless - they would be better off just letting kids read a lot with most of the time they spend learning all the really really dull formal english they do instead. Or - better still - letting them run around, play, use their imaginations - be physical and happy instead of sedentary and anxious.

I’ve seen a big difference in behaviour, parenting, emotional readiness, impact of covid lockdowns, impact of cost of living, expectations in terms of standards etc in 26 years.
Not all teachers were with out TAs 30 years ago. However, it would be interesting to see if teachers who had classes 30 years ago alone, would notice any difference going back in to class now and whether they would agree that it could be managed. I think there is a big difference based on my experiences since 1998.
To be clear though, this is the situation - teachers are ‘managing’ without TAs but it’s very, very hard work and if there was more support, things could be done better.

It really is.

I have no idea why they're trying to get children to learn things at a much earlier age. My DS is in year 3 and the spellings they have are so hard! I'm pretty sure I was doing that sort of level in year 6.

And times tables; they now have to learn them all to be assessed at the end of year 4. Again, when I was at school, it was the end of year 6. And he's learning quite complicated fractions that I don't think I did until year 7.

I'm pretty intelligent; had a reading age of 16 at 11, went to grammar school and a RG university to do a science. Not learning my times tables until year six didn't hold me back, so why the immense pressure on children to do more at such a ridiculously young age?

Thank you so much for such an informative reply. I do feel that in contrast we are doing our small children a real disservice by not encouraging them to stretch their minds and in particular engage with nature. X

But I had no TA at all in any of my primary school classes 30-35 years ago, not even reception - it was just one teacher and 25-30 kids.

Kids and teachers managed then... 🤷‍♀️

Agreed. It was a really odd set of opinions. Especially saying they aren't keen on teachers given the nature of the thread. Arranging play dates?! How very dare they!!

So so true!

Utter rubbish to keep on saying this. We sit down at the table for dinner EVERY night as a family! I'm at work when the kids are at school and by the time they get home I've generally finished!

The people I know who let their kids eat at the table with iPads definitely do not work.

Not a dig just an opinion.

Is that a dig at older parents or grandparents helping out? I don’t see the link with behaviour either way.

Parents have always organised play dates…