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

Absolutely-yet, people post on here all the time with complaints about teachers making decisions they disagree with and want to go in and ‘kick off’ at them about it!

-the teacher shouted at my child.
-the teacher moved my child’s name onto the cloud.
-the teacher has suggested that my child plays with someone other than my friend’s daughter.
-the teacher has separated my child from his ‘best’ friend on the carpet.
-the teacher has given too much homework.
-the teacher hasn’t given enough homework.
-the teacher has dared get pregnant whilst my child is in their class.
-the teacher wouldn’t give out 28 party invitations for me.
-the teacher has left and now we have to get used to another teacher.

etc etc

An all too common response on here if a child is told off at school now is for the parent to go and put the teacher straight!

If you read my PP you would see that some health services were looking at it before austerity but some schools refused to engage.

People forget stigmas against illness and disability were worse in the 00s then they are now.

This is definitely the case, and has been known about by people working population/public health for years. I work in this area and years ago I worked on modelling the predicted growth in numbers of children with disabilities and additional needs.

However it seems that despite knowing this was going to happen there has been no preparation all by education, LAs and children's health services. Presumably it is difficult to prepare for anything under austerity when there's not enough funding for your current caseload, nevermind preparing for future caseloads.

Exactly! My parents were the same! I wouldn’t even think the teacher would have marked it wrong. They are the expert not the kid

There is better diagnosis of conditions - I spoke to a consultant paediatrician about this - and more parents are willing to allow their child to be diagnosed with ND conditions.

I've volunteered on and off with kids since I was a teen, and only in the last decade, give or take a few years, have children or their parents willing have come forward and said they/their child has x. There as before I had my suspicions but the parent has acted like their child was really badly behaved with everyone, when they weren't. I also know a couple of people who didn't get an official diagnosis at primary school as their parents didn't want them "labelled". They subsequently screwed up at secondary school where there was no help for them. Now everyone is trying to get their kids diagnosed asap and particularly before secondary school.

The consultant paediatrician when she just got her role with the team she was in approached primary schools in in the area she worked in to make it easier for them to get pupils get assessed. The schools refused to engage. (This was under Blair's government.) Over a decade later there were large waiting lists for children to see the team she worked in for any reason.

Wow this is crazy. When I was a teenager of course I had an attitude etc and wanted to be big in front of my mates but overarching feeling i knew the adults were in charge and were to be respected. If I was in trouble at school then my parents backed the teachers. They instilled with me even if I disagreed that in the world of work etc we have to respect the ‘boss’
Like you say, everyone thinks they’re an expert. They sit and watch TikTok and YouTube or podcasts and think they know better than for example a subject specialist, the kids and the parents. The kids behave poorly and don’t respect the rules and the parents back the child, it’s bonkers. If you don’t like the school and the rules then simply homeschool but no they want the free childcare!

One change since the 1990s is the improvement in neonatal healthcare for very premature babies, and babies with other conditions. Many who wouldn't have survived now do, but with significant disabilities. I wonder if this could account for the greatly increased demand for special school places, for which there simply hasn't been enough special school expansion?

Was there no need to exclude them though as they were allowed to be them selves and work at their level even if that meant colouring in the corner? Today those children are being forced to sit still and follow an impossible (to them) curriculum.

@LittleBearPad I mean sure, if you are only interested in apportioning blame, then “bad parenting” can be a useful catch-all. But if you are interested in WHY the aforementioned bad parenting is on the uptick, my answer to that is that we have massive social problems that are being manifested through our children’s inability to cope in school. Stop at blaming the parents if you just want to stop having to think or do anything to change it.

Were they all diagnosed though?

Many people are only diagnosed with ND from late teens onwards, and particularly if they are women it is more likely when they are much older when they have a child who has a diagnosis themselves.

I agree with all your points apart from being socially conservative. The whole trans issue is like walking on a tight rope at our school, terrified to say anything deemed as wrong

I agree - our primary is the opposite of socially conservative. I hate the word 'woke' as a general rule, but feeding the children the latest right-on social justice themes often seems to take precedence over wider learning, well-being and creativity.

The academy secondary it feeds into, however, is the epitome of socially conservative - zero tolerance, focused on narrow academics, obsessed with petty uniform rules, little pastoral care, not remotely inclusive (they are notoriously brilliant at avoiding acceptjng pupils with SEND, even those with EHCPs).

I think it's about extremes - so many schools seem to have polarised into taking one ideological approach or the other, rather than finding a sensible middle way.

Or she was masking heavily and came home and exploded!

How do you manage to meet everyone needs.

Ie your teaching a yr 4 class
Most of the class are managing the work.
But child A is bored as they are working at yr 7 level and child B hasn't grasped reception level learning.

The difficulty is that to get a place in a specialist provision that will meet the child's needs means the child having to be failed by mainstream.

Children with behaviour challenges make life difficult for the school and are more likely to get a specialist placement. Some children are failed as they can not cope in mainstream but are made to stay in this environment especially in instances where they cause little disruption.

The damage to the mental health and well-being of these children is huge.
I almost wished my child would have kicked off at school as then maybe they would have been placed into a school that would meet their needs.
Instead we have been forced to home educate

Their safe space is at home. They cope at school but once they are home they have run out of spoons and they melt down. They don't feel able to show their true feelings at school. It shows that they aren't actually supported enough in school or cannot cope with the school environment.

I taught in Scotland so I realise things aren't quite the same.

I had a challenging class of 26 P2s of whom there were behaviour issues, a couple of ASN pupils and no help apart from a PSA for an hour, twice a week. After Christmas there was a reorganisation of the classes and I got 3 more pupils, then the HT came to my door saying (absolutely no prior warning) that I was getting 2 Romanian children who had no English. We got EAL teacher one morning a week for a school of 360 pupils. As they couldn't understand anything and I didn't have much time to spend with them, they wreaked havoc. That was the year that made me decided I needed to retire.

We've had parents complain that their children find lessons boring because they're used to all singing all dancing nonsense on Tik Tok etc.

Unfortunately Play Based Learning is very much the fad of the moment. In our early years, our pupils were taught quite traditionally but now activities have to be laid out and children engage in whatever takes their fancy. If they want to play with lego all day, that's fine - the teacher is not allowed to intervene and guide them to something more academic. We had 2 very experienced infant teachers leave since this started as they couldn't do something they didn't believe in. It's currently being done up to P3 but some schools do it all the way through to P7.

I expect in about 10 years the powers that be will be wringing their hands as Scotland slips further down the rankings - but will no doubt blame the teachers as thy always do.

And she diagnosed with ASD before she started school so it wasn't that her needs weren't known about.

My niece was excluded because she was forced into a mainstream school she couldn't cope in. There have been no problems at all since she moved to ASD primary and then ASD secondary.

Unfortunately it took a permanent exclusion, a year out of school aged 7 and a sendist Tribunal to get this.

She is at a LA ASD special school so didn't even need an expensive independent special school to get her needs met

Also reading some of the comments about inclusion, yes inclusion is absolutely important. However, when a child (or indeed multiple children as is now often the case) are spending their days out of the classroom with a TA because they can't cope with or access the learning in the classroom, and spend their playtimes distressed, that is not inclusion. Budgets have been stripped to pieces and their is not adequate provision to be truly inclusive. We are not helping children such as these, or their peers, by keeping them in an environment where we are not meeting anything but the most basic of their needs.

I agree with all your points apart from being socially conservative. The whole trans issue is like walking on a tight rope at our school, terrified to say anything deemed as wrong

I agree. Started teaching over 10 years ago in a deprived area of south London - it wasn't easy but was doable. Our planning was tight and we had specialist intervention teachers for reading and maths to help those behind. Now I teach in a rural village school and it is far harder. My workload is lighter and we follow a lot of schemes but it has to be because so much time and effort is now on behaviour and SEN. I've gone from maybe up to 5 children in a class working a long way behind or with significant behaviour issues, to more like 10 of them per class. It makes me fearful for the future.

I don't know what's caused it. Screens definitely play a part. Also a line that is getting more and more blurred between gentle and permissive, both for parenting and teaching. All children need clear boundaries.

@RebelBabybel
What do you do now?
and how long is it since you were 'just' a teacher in a classroom?

I can think of numerous kids with speech impediments, learning difficulties and ADHD in my class at primary school.

The difference was that they were punished, sure, for being very disruptive or violent, but also with kindness and with high but realistic expectations and as individuals and they were understood and included, not sent to isolation or expelled.

Right bunch of leftie hippies teachers were back then. Gove hated that.

I’m a teacher. We saw a big uptick in issues after Covid- I think parents and children’s attitudes to education changed- seen as even less important and became less respected. Taking time off- they felt like they didn’t miss much for some reason. Everyone thinks they are an expert these days so children and parents will challenge teachers all the time. I had a year 10 come to my office door the other day with three of her friends shouting at me to remark her test and I had marked it wrong with all her friends shouting “ go (girls name) . I got my head of department to remark it then and there ( eventhough I should have told them no) guess what same grade! I would never have dreamt of doing that to my teachers!! The audacity

I remember this. He came up with a comprehensive plan and the goverment came back and said you can have a very small % of how much your plan will cost. He resigned saying it wasn’t enough and the need to catch up was forgotten about. It’s an issue of 4 year governents, there is no concern about what will happen in the next 15/20 years.