To not understand the negativity about schools in England

Phonics weren't great for my DD. She learned to read by sight. Some children do. Phonics meant nothing to her and she failed the phonics test. So marked as a failure at a very young age when she could actually read perfectly well - and better than her age.

It's a big problem pushing all children down one route... but that's the DfE for you 🤷🏼‍♀️

Fortunately DD had a fantastic teacher who knew that DD could read and apologied for having to put 'fail' on her record.

This will not go down well but.., I've been teaching 20 years. Children haven't changed - they're amazing, bonkers, hilarious and wonderful. They are all different. They need firm boundaries and to know that you love them no matter how far they push you. What has changed, is what parents expect of us. Parents want difference to be recognised but expect outcomes to be the same for all. They want adjustments but only when they benefit their child. They want strict punishment for other children but slack for their own. There are children with significant SEN who are set adrift and need a provision they are not getting but others who are needlessly creating a backlog in the system.

Perfect summary 👌🏾

I was mostly educated abroad and the standards were really low so I am really impressed with my DC's (British ) school. The teaching has been very inventive, topics broad and engaging, teachers enthusiastic and going above and beyond. Perhaps it was even better in the past, hence people's views.

I think the play-led curriculum across EYFS and also the phonics scheme are the two biggest strengths of the English primary school system.

It started to fall apart a bit for my kids in about year 2 or 3, when the focus shifted quite suddenly and dramatically onto fronted adverbials and all that bullshit that's in the SATS.

DDs primary school experience went well. A few ups and downs but generally good. Teachers were great.

Secondary school has been a whole different ballgame. School closed in Y7 due to Covid. Not the schools fault, but their lack of any online provision throughout Covid was totally their fault. Kids fell behind. Y8 finally got into school and there was a mad scramble to get kids up to speed. Y9 was marred by teachers strikes. Y10 the school was impacted by RAAC/asbestos and pupils didn't get onto site (in portacabins) until January 2024. The first term of Y10 completely missed, online teaching never got up and running, with lots of excuses and ignoring parents requests for information for why not.

The school continues to be impacted by RAAC/asbestos. 70% of the building has now been closed since September 2023 and the earliest date for opening again is November 2025. DD will have left school by then.

The whole of her GCSE years will have taken place in portacabins with no access to any facilities whatsoever. For example her Food Tech GCSE practicals have involved using an air fryer in the corner of a portacabin. I can't really see how the students stand a chance of getting good grades in any subjects where facilities are needed. So science, D&T, PE (no changing rooms) art, drama, etc. are all delivered really badly.

Funnily enough morale is low for pupils and teachers. Great teachers are leaving in their droves. 25 left at the end of the summer term. Can't really blame them. How can they meet the targets the DfE sets with no facilities?

DfE is very, very quiet about how many schools are struggling in collapsing and inaccessible buildings. OFSTED have been contacted by many parents but weirdly won't act. We'd like nothing more than them to go in and do an inspection and take action to ensure pupils get the level of education they're legally entitled to, but they're not interested. It seems crazy to me that OFSTED are ignoring schools in crisis. Isn't it their job to make sure standards are met?

On top of all this, SEND pupils are being really badly let down. General behaviour seems to be far worse than ever before and the divide between selective schools
(Private and grammar) and state schools is growing wider and wider.

I have teachers in my family, have always supported DDs teachers and helped DD at home as much as I can but it's a real uphill struggle to keep her on track now. The provision at school is so poor and it's fair to say DD has lost her love of learning. An endless stream of supply teachers prevents good teacher/student relationships building and provides stilted learning. Who can blame DD for being disheartened with what she's experiencing?

I can't wait for her to finish secondary school and hopefully get a better experience at college (if she gets in!).

The system is so, so broken. It's really sad to watch. Before anyone asks, there is no other school to move her to.

Really? My state comprehensive school get better results than the local private schools!

FWIW I love teaching, if it wasn’t for Ofsted it would be the best job in the world!

The standards of uk schools are nearly the lowest in Europe.

State education isn’t much good compared to everywhere else these days.

There are loads of reasons why, and exceptions, but if you think your child deserves a fair chance in the world and you’ve got a choice, I’d look at your local provision first.

No SEN provision for DS's classmate who has no school to start at next week while all his old classmates go to secondary school.

He coped with a 1:1 at primary, but there is no suitable specialist place in the city for him to move on to and mainstream secondaries will be unsuitable.

Mainstream schools have virtually no SEN provision. The provision thats making councils bankrupt is social care and schooling for children with very complex needs who probably 30 years or more ago would not have lived very long. The head of my local council made a very smug speech blaming old people living too long and disabled people not dying for their massive budget deficit a few years ago. The way he said it wasn't nice but he probably wasn't wrong about the figures. Most mainstream schools have had to cut back significantly on support staff including TAs who in the past did a lot of the support for SEN kids.

I think we need to find out why SEN is rising, spending more money is just a sticking plaster

I taught at the school I attended as a teen. My school experience which was great with lots of clubs and school productions and sporting opportunities and the experience of those that I taught 20 years on were like chalk and cheese, the only thing that was similar was the classrooms because they hadn't been updated. It was a leadership problem and behaviour significantly declined in the decade I worked there, as did the budgets.

To be fair DDs school a mile away is more how I remember school, it benefitted from the last lot of big school refurb funding as it was one of the first schools to become an academy, they have excellent (for a state school) sports opportunities, a big school production each year, good selection of trips, behaviour is well managed as is SEN. So it is very school dependent.

Huge amount of money on few kids. Leaving others who need a bit of money spent on them with nothing. With rising SEN needs we need to open state run SEN schools.

’hot chocolate and chats with the head’ made me laugh! And it virtually never makes the disruptive child improve their behaviour (why would they when they’d had so much fun!) but always reminds the rest of the class that if they’re bored and fancy kicking off, there’s free choc on offer with no punishment involved.

What do you mean virtually no SEN provision? We spent huge amounts on SEN, to the extent it’s basically the reason councils are declaring bankruptcy. The issue is the astronomical rise in demand.

Children who have disabilities should have allowances made, thats the law. They just don't as schools don't have the budget. All we can do as parents is complain and many of us are reasonable human beings who know complaining to the school staff won't get anything done anyway and will just potentially make them even more likely to leave so all thats left is venting to strangers on the internet.

Teacher workload is insane. Kids' behaviour is getting worse. Schools are very, very under-funded.

And this: Teachers are ground down, defeated, told they mustn't expect obedience from Timmy because he's got PDA, Millie's parents have a private doctor telling them she needs all sorts of adjustments (all of which have resulted in things getting worse, not better). Repeat offenders get sent to the head for hot chocolate and chats. Parents insist their parenting is absolutely in no way a factor in anything and school are getting everything wrong - they can't possibly know what they are doing with a child like theirs (i mean they've only taught 2000 children in the last decade, they couldn't possibly know).

From my experience, the primary school my kids went to was excellent. Secondary schools however, although have some good points, and some good teachers, are like zoos. Much too big and over-crowded, and have constant disruption in class and low-level misbehaviour (not blaming the teachers for this, btw).

That is part of the job. I didn't say they hated the actual in front of the kids part

My childrens school is lovely but there seems to be an epic rise in

• kids with behavioural problems
• kids in reception not properly toilet trained
• there's no room for acceptance that some kids struggle academically, so teachers have to plough a massive amount of time and energy into the lower quartile of the class to try at the expense of all the others
• staff shortages

When i was a child teaching was a career where women trained, then did about 5 or 6 teaching, then stopped to have their own family. They then did a bit of supply here and there until their own kids were older, then resumed teaching. It wasn't actually a job with a workload that fitted easily with having a baby or toddler at home!! Now most families have to have two working parents to survive financially, and the workload is worse, the pay is also much worse relative to costs of housing etc. Teachers are ground down, defeated, told they mustn't expect obedience from Timmy because he's got PDA, Millie's parents have a private doctor telling them she needs all sorts of adjustments (all of which have resulted in things getting worse, not better). Repeat offenders get sent to the head for hot chocolate and chats. Parents insist their parenting is absolutely in no way a factor in anything and school are getting everything wrong - they can't possibly know what they are doing with a child like theirs (i mean they've only taught 2000 children in the last decade, they couldn't possibly know).

Schools are now much bigger with less money and less staff. Too much crowd control and not enough time for teachers to get to know individuals, with virtually no SEN provision. No support staff - playgrounds are brutal with no supervision.

I was a teacher 15 years ago before kids and wouldn't go back now.

Ahhh, my kids used to love Time for School!! They did endless roleplays of 'the little girl whose beans were too hot'

Mine enjoyed primary and both crashed at secondary. Homeschooled oldest (16) for years 10 and 11 and she's just passed GCSEs and going to 6th form college.

Youngest (14) missed most of the last term of school because she couldn't cope with it anymore, so she'll be home schooled for years 10 and 11, too.

Not by choice, there is no choice.

My DC are both neurodivergent and academic, school doesn't meet their needs at the ages that they are.

The issue is the kids tbh.

"some parental views of education - some schools are fighting off complaints left, right and centre - some will be justified but not all."
There does seem to be a level of parental expectation that their offspring are so very special that allowances must be made at all times. These students don't accept that requests for good behaviour in class apply to them, too. It makes classroom management difficult.

Depends on the school. We have three good to excellent primaries within walking distance which are at capacity. The parents I know are very happy with the education the kids are getting. Do your research.

Plus MN has a vocal high % of private school parents and grammar school parents who feel the need to justify their own position as necessary in the face of state / comprehensive ed.