To think something has gone wrong in schools? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz0m2x30p4eo

I was at school in the 80s and 90s. I remember about half the children in my year 7 form couldn't read fluently. Maybe behaviour was better but I don't think the level of education was that great. Although actually there was plenty of bad behaviour too. There were quite a few problem children at my primary school, mostly they were adopted or came from difficult families. There was no one with downs syndrome or a mental disability though - I guess they wouldn't have been in mainstream at that time.

@LizzieBowesLyon

That's not been my experience working in primary or secondary. The children I have seen permanently excluded are often those where SEN and poor parenting collide. The children have trashed classrooms, been violent towards other children and/or staff, refused to stay in a classroom or engage in any way with learning (usually despite the school bending over backwards to find ways to accommodate them), spend their days rampaging around the school hurling abuse and swearing at anyone who dare suggest they should either be in class or in another safe place. In secondary their preference is generally to be in the toilets with a vape.

This behaviour has to have been extreme and ongoing for a long time before it gets to the point of permanent exclusion. The schools I have worked in have tried very hard to keep those children in school. Permanent exclusion really is the last resort.

When I was in primary there were children who clearly had SEN but for various reasons they were not diagnosed. After they were excluded and sent to the PRU the diagnosis followed. I know of at least one who subsequently ended up in a special school and thrived. Mainstream was just the wrong environment.

That's not a thing. In any of the schools I've worked at or had children at.

The only shift that comes to mind is not doing it FOR the children or doing it with your hand on top of theirs . Which is fair enough, and I doubt it was a widespread phenomenon.

What OP describes must be specific to her school/EYFS lead.

I still teach kids in y6 how to play board games.

That's the thing, they pretend such policies mean a better experience for the child. Whereas we all know they're just putting a different spin on things and the real reason for not wanting to exclude is that, despite knowing full well that these kids SHOULD be excluded, they just do not have the funding to put them anywhere decent. So it falls back on schools to just deal with them. Everything falls back onto schools unfortunately, all of society's ills. Because the funding just isn't there and the easiest thing for LAs to do is bat it back to the school.

No planning, no assessment. Resources are put out, but there is an ethos that it’s ‘wrong’ to show the children how to use them.

I'm horrified by this.

Plenty of computer use in schools is good, but some is bad. Ridiculously long reports for primary school level written to a generic template with the bulk of it just a long list of what the child has learned that year. A parent can just have a read of the curriculum instead to get the same information. It doesn't give a true picture of their child's ability and is so SO impersonal. I don't think I ever re-read my own children's reports after the first read because they were meaningless really apart from a couple of personalised sentences which really WERE about my child. The worst thing is they take teachers a long time to produce. As a parent I'd much rather have a free style much shorter report. I want to know where they are in relation to their peers and expected standard, and how much effort they put in, something particular the teacher has been impressed with, and areas for improvement. I don't need the rest of it. Neither do the teachers.

The whole of primary education is like this. Absolutely pointless work the teachers need to do which benefits no-one.

The curriculum is too rigid.

My DD has been told off for doing "too much" homework.

There as when I was her age if I did "too much" homework I was given more as the concept didn't exist.

<wonders if we are colleagues>

Bollocks, I didn’t think of that!

I used to teach in a deprived area in England and I can never remember a single child being excluded - 1980s.

I've just retired after working in a nice little coastal school in Scotland. I've lost count of the amount of pupils who should have been excluded but our LA has a policy of non exclusion and will not be keen to support HTs who push for it.

It’s the same in primary, too.

Oh, except in the OP’s school though, seemingly.

Definitely. That is a symptom of the crap state of education at the moment. So many good experienced teachers have left-either retired, early retired, quit or managed out because it was suddenly miraculously found that they needed a capability plan round about the time they got onto UPS. There’s not enough good people left to move into those senior posts, (even if they wanted them), so they are filled up with young people who were often not great in the classroom themselves.

But where have all these children come from?

Did we heard them all away 30 years ago? I went to 4 different primary schools due to my dad’s job. I never came across anyone who needed extra support. Middle school was the same. Why are there far more children with additional needs than there were 30 years ago?

It's the opposite in secondary. Far more rigid and planned. Far higher expectations of lesson quality. I've been a teacher for 30 years too.

Masking.

Also you don't know how many adults were involved with the child at home.

And SENCOs became a thing after the Education Act in 1993.

I teach in reception and what you describe certainly doesn't reflect my classroom. We model how to use equipment and toys and role play areas.

I've been teaching since 1996!

Exclusions have rocketed because SEN kids whose needs are not being met, kick off, and the school instead of doing what would have been done in the 80s and 90s and taken a view on each situation, are so hampered by all sorts of well meaning and necessary legislation but without the funding to do things properly, that it becomes an opportunity to off-roll the tricky ones.

That’s why SEN kids are disproportionately more likely to be excluded. It makes them and their lack of funding, someone else’s problem.

What were the other 29 kids doing whilst you were 1-2-1 with him? I have class sizes of 32. That's less than 3 minutes 1-2-1 per child per week and a lot less once you account for settling them and giving them time to pack up and instruction giving.

Ineffective, inexperienced,absent or apathetic SLT can be a massive issue though and affects the whole culture of the school, including behaviour. I'll give you that.

So we have 9400 perm exclusions in 22/23

5795 in 14/15

9880 in 03/04

Over 12000 in 94/95 .

1050 SEN schools (private and state)

2019 1044

1148 in 2004.

In 1997 1239.

You were saying?

I only have examples of 2 children in a one form primary but cohort makes such a difference. Child no.1 describes her classroom in ways that make me want to weep to be honest. She’s been hit, sworn at, verbally abused by kids (all boys) in her class with some really high needs that clearly aren’t coping. She loves learning but really is desperate to get out of there and secondary can’t come soon enough for her. Child no.2 seemingly has a class that is full of angelic, clever children. Now as the expectations get higher, child no.2 might have a different experience but the teachers all say how lovely that year is, how well behaved they are etc. no-one ever says that about my eldest’s class.

Over the years, particularly in the Early Years things have changed massively.
My latest role has involved a manager who is mostly on the computer and rarely interacts with the children. No planning, no assessment. Resources are put out, but there is an ethos that it’s ‘wrong’ to show the children how to use them. Therefore children don’t use jigsaws as puzzles, they take the pieces out and transport them round the classroom. A doctors role play is set up, but with no input as to what the resources are there are for or how to role play ‘being a doctor’.

This is not good early years practice though and not typical of what I see across a wide range of schools.

In a class of 30+ it's impossible to consider behaviour as communication for every child in every lesson. What am I supposed to do with 30 children all communicating with me in some way? What I do is try my best but I'm sure it falls woefully short.

Some people suggest methods that work at home in a 1:1 situation and are then surprised a teacher can't do the same in a 1:30 situation.

Agree but is the problem with the child/adult or is it the shitty society we've created?

I'd argue it's society and the problem with school is that it's hothousing young people for that society. From a neurodivergent perspective, it's an utterly hostile society and schools are by and large hostile environments for neurodivergent children. It's no much wonder they have 'behavioural' problems or they become school refusers. Remember, behaviour is communication- that's what we're told when they're babies and toddlers. Not for neurodivergent children - it's naughtiness, bad parenting or bless, part of their disability - god forbid we might consider the problem they're trying to communicate - this environment and many of the staff are hostile to me and my needs is wht we should be hearing.

The school environment has become increasingly rigid and therefore increasingly unsuitable for many of the cohort - lo and behold, more exclusions. No surprise many are neurodivergent. Rather than address institutional failings, these kids are being broken in the name of efficiency or inclusivity as its now called.