To think change is desperately needed in schools?

@fuckityfuckityfuckfuck your response matches your username! What's the issue with thinking nursery is a factor? I'm sure nursery is better than being with a carer with poor parenting skills, but for most kids being at home or in a home like environment has got to be better for under threes?

This is actually really rude - like I've subjected my children to some kind of abuse. What do you propose people do with their children until the age of 3? Most of our friends are either doctors or lawyers and we all went back to work after mat leave to keep those careers. Our kids are well behaved but I see no rhyme or reason amongst our friends for who has badly or well behaved children...other than lack of discipline and giving into their demands from some of them.

If your child is being roasted for being a geeky nerd and isn't able to concentrate on their work die to disruption than you've got a problem with behaviour in your school. Also, its not just low attaining kids that misbehave. Most comps set for almost all subjects by the time kids are in GCSE years anyway, you get your grammar dream in set 1.

ODFOD

@izimbra

I never said that I think children are made mentally ill from their phones but you cannot surely think that a 12 year old spending 12 hours a day on their phone (tiktok, Snapchat, Instagram) is going to be good for their mental health?

When parents don’t ever put boundaries in for the children then their children are completely uncontained and that is a horrible feeling for a child. I’ve had phone calls from parents threatening me because I won’t prescribe their child ADHD meds immediately, despite them having not had an assessment and also being too young for an assessment. I’ve had conversations with parents who will not put any sort of limits on their child’s internet use despite them being groomed. Parents will demand I medicate their autistic child who is having a meltdown whilst at the same time not doing anything to actually try and support and adapt to their neurodivergent child’s needs. I’ve seen children become so distressed that they’re slamming their heads off walls and attacking staff whilst their parents stood back smirking and laughing because they’re glad to see us getting hurt. I’ve seen parents be so engrossed in their own phones that they are not remotely interested in their own child.
Parents can be so quick to blame CAMHS, teachers, GPs, social workers, etc but parents play a role in this as well.
I know that it’s complex and that many many families are doing everything they possibly can to support their children and getting let down by the system. You’ll hear of the families from the fb groups but there is also another huge side of it that you won’t see.
I’m sorry your child is unwell. That must be absolutely horrific.

@Leah5678 i went to a grammar school and did well but I’m very aware that those who didn’t get in at age 11 were only given the possibility of achieving a B grade at GCSE because the non grammar schools only did foundation papers.

my dc now go to a comprehensive (no local grammar) and it’s so much better the dc can move up or down depending on their ability rather than a test they did at age 11. Lots achieve 7-9 grades at gcse.

I suspect nursery is more of a culprit than screens. If you came on Mumsnet 15 years ago the threads about return to work all featured advice about nurseries being bad for development for kids under 3, quoting various studies. Hence the age for free hours, which was based on these studies. Now it is just assumed kids will go straight after maternity leave ends. I can't imagine how stressful it is for such small children to go from a home environment to full time nursery days. It must impact development.

Our neighbour’s son is 11 and autistic so stays up playing video games until gone midnight (we can see through DD’s window when I go to check on her before we go to bed). An 11 year old needs sleep to help develop but it’s easier to just let him play until he’s ready to turn it off. I don’t have autism but know lack of sleep make me horrible so a dc unable to regulate emotions combined with lack of sleep is setting him up to fail, surely? The dc I know for DDs’ primary who struggle to manage emotions and behaved badly were often (not always) the same ones who played fortnight from age 6 etc - the dc with no boundaries or parenting.

there was one family where the parents had good jobs but their sons were in nursery from 7am to 7pm and then breakfast club and afterschool club. They weren’t around to parent but continually tried to get a diagnosis because they couldn’t comprehend they were the issue… they lived in a big house and had anything they wanted so well behaved dc should be a given right? Nope.

Yesss I've always loved the idea of grammar schools even though there's none in my area and I don't know anyone who's been to one. You're going to get a lot of heat for saying that though Mumsnet considers grammar school "unfair" even though it's great for poor smart kids but private school is ok ?
I don't get it but a whole school just for the smart kids where they won't get roasted for being "geeky nerds" and will actually be able to concentrate on their work would be great

Agree, very true for front line nhs staff too.

I wonder what it is about these two professions that lead to them being under staffed, under respected and supported? I wonder what they possibly have in common????

I would never go back to school as a full-time teacher. Never. It was a dreadful experience.

I agree to an extent but I think most people on here understand that and are mostly commenting about the toddlers in buggies clutching screens watching YouTube instead of the world around them, or the same when sitting eating out with their families. It's just everywhere, even in situations when it's really not needed.

Lol. Please. Gove has ensured the academic kids are catered for. The current curriculum is mainly only accessible by them. If by any small miracle schools have the money or staff to give functional skill or vocational provision, they're penalised in progress measure calculations.

Sorry - I mean yes screentime is bad, but I'm not sure it's a choice to do without it for a lot of people.

I don't think this is strictly true. My son had terrible health problems as a baby and we couldn't get medical help for him, and I had to work round the clock for years. Pretty soon we were both on our knees and relying on screens. Nobody wants to plonk their kid in front of a screen. I think people have to be really struggling before it happens. That's how it happened to us.

I think you need to ask secondary school teachers how they would feel about teaching without screens too. I think you'd find it's quite a hard thing for them to contemplate and if you want kids away from screens, it has to happen at school too. The new "gamified" learning apps are terrible, I think and are driving dopamine addiction in schools.

In our house we are now on zero computer gaming, and DS has always chosen never to look at any social media. He has only very minimal time on youtube with a parent there talking to him and controlling the website. He read an article in the FT about it and basically gave up screentime.

The hardest thing was having to give up school, but it was all screentime. We're now home edding from books and he is recovering.

SCREEN TIME
parents are the worst for it.

2 words:

Screen time.

Parents don't speak with their young offspring as much as they used to, they spend family time scrolling.

Young babies, toddlers, and older kids spend hours and hours on devices, watching, gaming. Often interacting with very age inappropriate content.

Everyone wants different paths available for the less able children, but not the academic ones?

This is true for nhs workers too. Only job where you can be assaulted by another adult and no one really cares and nothing really gets done about it. It’s rotten but no idea how it could be changed.

Depends on your area. Lots stil have grammar schools and the pitfalls they cause.

Bring back the grammar schools and allow those who can operate in a strict academic environment to excell. Equally, provide an alternative school environment for those who need something different.

We're trying a one size-fits-all education system when different children respond to different approaches.

What was the reason before covid then? I'm sure this won't help but this isn't a since covid issue.

There are so many factors at play in this that it's hard to know where to start really.

I wish we could get the cars off the streets so kids could play out. That would solve the screen problem so quickly and take the edge of things, but how on earth would we do that?

In our street we have one day a year when we clear all the cars and close the road so the kids can play and they absolutely love it. It really feels awful when we have to reopen the road and the cars come back.

Also the little tiny toddlers who have just learned that they can kick a ball in the road have to be told that they can't do it again until next year. That really sucks.

@Mumma2024 I agree with you. We're under CAMHS now with medication too and we've never been asked to do ECGs on DD! Weight and height only. She lost lots of weight but thankfully back up now.

Yes, as a snark remark towards you, in reply to your very entitled post where you didn't even realise the OP worked in a private school. You brought up the poorer state school kids yourself. For all you know OP might be working at your kids school. And for the record, my DD was in a private school. I had to remove her as they were so woeful and undertrained. The state school she's in is 1000x better and the SEN kids have their needs met.