Page 8 | To think something has gone wrong in schools? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz0m2x30p4eo

RebelBabybel · 2024-11-21T17:34:47+00:00

From the BBC : school exclusions have doubled in the last 10 years. I’ve worked in schools for 30 years : KS1/Early Years. When I first started I was expected to do : hand written, detailed plans. Assessments. Handwritten reports. I had no TA. I had a blackboard. Children had books. I had to be firm with behaviour, schools had very clear behaviour policies in place, and the head would have an overview, was visible, check classes, be the ‘go to’ person if anything was difficult to manage. 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’. There is an expectation, a ‘box’ of what constitutes ‘normal’ behaviour : even with very young children. Any child who is outside this box, is often labelled ‘I think they’ve got autism, I think they’ve got ADHD’ without a formal assessment. These children - rather than getting to know them, or putting clear strategies in place, are quickly labelled as difficult : and fall into a stereotype that causes a negative cycle. There seems to be little ‘fault’ addressed to the teaching style, and the ‘fault??’ is centred on the child, I’d also argue that it is NOT a fault. It’s called being a child. Children seem to be very readily excluded from schools without the adults fully questioning their teaching style and whether that might be at fault. To be completely honest, teaching was far easier 30 years ago. Children were better behaved, and there was far better, stronger support from senior management. It felt more like a team, rather than: an SLT who are in meetings, on a computer, off to conferences, in the staff room, pushing ‘new’ initiatives and criticising their staff.

SharpOpalNewt · 22/11/2024 11:22

noblegiraffe · 22/11/2024 11:15

Schools and pupils were promised that they would be able to catch up after Covid. In most cases nothing at all was offered.

That was a failure of government. The Covid catch-up tsar resigned over it.

Oh it's nearly all a failure of government.

A failure of GOVE-rnment, specifically. It all turned to shit rapidly after he was education secretary.

SharpOpalNewt · 22/11/2024 11:19

I have so many friends with children who have not coped well with school to a greater or lesser degree and can say for sure that there is no neglect or severe issues at home. The kids are very happy at home and thrived when they found the right environment for learning whether that was home school, another school private school, online school, college, special school or university.

THE ISSUE IS WITH SCHOOL. I cannot type in large enough font as I'm so fed up for decent parents being blamed and threatened with fines for absence instead of helped as if they are absolute deadbeats who can't be arsed.

I'm not saying that there are parents out there who could not do a lot better- but school is supposed to intervene and break the chain of poverty/abuse/social problems etc. The last government turned them into a prosecutor instead and they see abuse everywhere instead of where the true fault lies.

I'm almost out the other side of the system now but I wish parents and likeminded teachers could get together and rise up to create a better system - but I suspect both parties (and some of course fall into two camps) are far too knackered.

noblegiraffe · 22/11/2024 11:15

Schools and pupils were promised that they would be able to catch up after Covid. In most cases nothing at all was offered.

That was a failure of government. The Covid catch-up tsar resigned over it.

SharpOpalNewt · 22/11/2024 11:07

I could write a book on the matter but in short:

Schools are too big, too noisy, and kids, especially teenagers are treated as a group, not individuals
They have all adapted the system of growing the pig by weighing it - constant testing from a young age
There is a lot more pressure on schools to get good academic results - and teachers pass this on to the students
Further education budgets have been slashed at the same time as kids being expected to remain in education until 18
There are no second chances with GCSEs, except for Maths and English- this is ridiculous in my view
There is a one size fits all approach and zero tolerance of very minor and unintentional errors in behaviour- more suited to crowd control and the prison system than a school
Poverty has proliferated and there are many long term health needs unaddressed and social problems
Schools are out of touch and outdated with the rest of society- hardly anyone wears smart clothing for work let alone a uniform
They have become highly intolerant, socially conservative places when the rest of society is generally more relaxed and tolerant
There are very few places at special schools for those who need them
They are not fit for purpose for a huge number of pupils- at least a fifth. Not all of those actually have SEN or would need a place at a special school but just want a smaller, kinder, more tolerant environment where people respect who they are as an individual. As they are at home.
Schools and pupils were promised that they would be able to catch up after Covid. In most cases nothing at all was offered.

SquirrelSoShiny · 22/11/2024 11:04

ThoughtfulSchooldays · 21/11/2024 23:33

This thread is sad and worrying, but interesting.

30 years ago I was in year 5. Have been thinking about my primary school recently - in hindsight it seems such a good place. Caring, sharing, learning about difference but everyone being treated as equal, being taught good values - explicitly taught, talked about whenever something came up.

It was considered to be the roughest primary school in the area (a quick search on MN tells me it still is!) but they just seemed to do all the above so well. Class sizes were smaller, although not hugely (maybe 28?). In my class we had a couple of children who lost parents young, a child living in (in hindsight) absolute poverty with 10 siblings in a small house, a couple of really badly behaved boys, a couple of pupils who came and went a few times (nearby traveller's site), a pupil who lived with a grandparent (no idea why), several BAME pupils (a few newly arrived), children of very young single mothers without much money, loads of kids from poorer backgrounds actually, a boy raised by a single dad who was actually neglected, at least one refugee...
But we didn't have the problems detailed on this thread.

I think something has gone wrong in society. Or several somethings coming together. We know neglect and neurodiversity can look similar. I myself am one of the previously undiagnosed neurodiverse people, so I'm not saying that all kids now diagnosed don't have those issues. But I wonder how much is made worse by poor parenting/other social issues, or even where that is the sole cause.

A family member was a nursery teacher and I remember her being shocked and saddened when doing pre-nursery home visits - kids still in nappies, kids not being spoken to at home (whilst TV blaring nonstop), not being taught basic things by parents, neglect. (She was so frustrated at the Ofsted standards because they didn't seem to take into account the starting level of kids and their progress, just whether they'd reached the expected standard or not!) This was almost 25 years ago, and a nursery in a very rough area, but I wonder if this sort of thing is more widespread now?

Perhaps the same sort of people who were just about managing 30 years ago - when one wage was enough, with a parent at home or working very part time, with a simpler less 24/7 alert lifestyle - are not managing any more. Perhaps they are somewhat neurodiverse, perhaps other reasons. Because modern life is so demanding they are not coping, children are neglected, not taught basic behaviour, surrounded by more volatile relationships so more trauma. And schools are just seeing the results of this.

Apologies for the long rambles, just been pondering this recently!

Yes I'm glad I'm not the only one stating this - I am 100% seeing more children who are being diagnosed with neurodiversity when they instead have trauma, neglect or both.

I'm ND myself and have ND DC. I can absolutely see the difference. Some parents are VERY good at pulling the wool over the eyes of HCPs, especially the ones who aren't familiar with ND first hand.

LizzieBowesLyon · 22/11/2024 11:03

Thepurplepig · 21/11/2024 20:30

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?

Show quote history

Well <controversial and light hearted> internet dating! If there hadn’t been internet dating, I would have just married the local lads, had hefty rugby type kids and they’d have got jobs at the local Massive Employer or worked in a family firm and had their needs met like that.

Instead the internet meant I married a fellow ND type and we spawned our own tribe of little ND sprogs with double the ND genes.

LizzieBowesLyon · 22/11/2024 10:59

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 10:41

One thing I remember when I first started teaching was that the school was open plan. Open classrooms with a central area.

The heads office nearby, with one head for the infant school.

The head could hear straight away if anything was disruptive, and would be there : not only supporting the children, but managing the teachers if they were basically - being a bit shit.
And there wasn’t this overload of forms, emails, reams of paper streaming out the photocopier…twinkl signs, lamination etc etc
I think we had a Banda machine. Didn’t use it much although it smelt great!

Ohhhhh the lovely Banda machine! Banda Purple! The colour of my veins!

We had actual blackboards too. Then one day a GREEN board appeared. On a sort of roll, that you pulled and around it went. Took weeks to come to terms with that sort of a tech-upgrade!

AtomHeartMotherOfGod · 22/11/2024 10:50

RebelBabybel · 21/11/2024 17:58

@cansu

I’m not so sure. There seems to have been a movement away from planning with children. It seems a lot more lax. With the youngest children, we used to have clear roles for each adult in the classroom.
One adult would play a board game, or teach how to use scissors.
Now these things are put out, but with no guidance. So the board game is distributed around the classroom and pieces lost - while the adults cut out Twinkl signs or are called out to a meeting, leaving one person trying to cope with behaviour.

Edited

This seems really weird and against a lot of the current advice, which is always mentioning that you should be 'explicit'.

Explicit explanations of vocabulary, thought processes, feelings etc. to help children understand and apply. I would have thought that your play-stations would also need 'explicit' instructions about how to use them, for them to be effective.

I used to work in Montessori and children could only use pieces of apparatus once they'd been 'presented' to them by a practitioner a few times.

Original poster

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 10:43

And we had to mark and check work. The head would check this, and we’d have to hand in our planning/evaluation every week to be checked. All hand written.

OP posts:

Original poster

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 10:41

One thing I remember when I first started teaching was that the school was open plan. Open classrooms with a central area.

The heads office nearby, with one head for the infant school.

The head could hear straight away if anything was disruptive, and would be there : not only supporting the children, but managing the teachers if they were basically - being a bit shit.
And there wasn’t this overload of forms, emails, reams of paper streaming out the photocopier…twinkl signs, lamination etc etc
I think we had a Banda machine. Didn’t use it much although it smelt great!

OP posts:

EdgyDreamer · 22/11/2024 10:30

DC like my very academic, inquisitive daughter, who thrive on questioning things and veering off-topic because they're so interested in a topic, get immediately get shut down because of the obsession with 'pace'. I see it all the time in the Year 5 class I currently volunteer in - no time to answer the children's often very interesting questions, or to follow interests, and make connections between topics.

My kids have had this as well - it doesn't help then later in education where they are expected to do research and make connections.

A PP mention secondary uniform -and none consistent approaches my well behaved kids being told off despite having correct uniform - office agrees- being told of next to kids blatantly in wrong but much harder to tell off. Every one of our kids fed up with entire school so last 12 - 6 month is us just ride it out you'll do A-level elsewhere.

That secondary blames the intake - but fail to mention decade before same intake did much better academically - they blame parents never their systems - will I think it's probably both.

Reugny · 22/11/2024 10:02

LittleBearPad · 22/11/2024 08:29

All of those points barring the last are down to parenting.

The last isn’t new - there have always been global factors that make life difficult.

Show quote history

Parents cannot help it if they cannot afford a decent place to live.

Have you missed the issue with social housing and how councils and HA treat their tenants?

It has taken a 2 year old to die and about a dozen reporters to showcase what councils and HA, with their overpaid bosses, get up to or rather don't when it comes to making their homes fit for human habitation.

TempsPerdu · 22/11/2024 10:00

Appuskidu · 21/11/2024 19:42

The curriculum has narrowed so much with such a focus on testing that the joy has been sucked out of education. The war on attendance has been the icing on the cake. You’ve got to go every day, whether you are ill, miserable, your mum is dying, you’re homeless etc etc

Whereas 30 years ago, you could go to school and be a bit quirky or different and that was fine, you could probably muddle through regardless and you’d find subjects you liked and were good at. Now, you have to be learning exactly the same as everyone else, you are tested to the nth degree continually on maths and English and if you aren’t doing well enough, you’re taken out of the fun subjects you enjoy, to do more maths and English. Once you’ve done 11 years of that every day, you are probably given a handful of grades that mean you still have to keep resitting maths and English till you’re 18. There’s no wriggle room for anything other than ‘achieving what the average child should be able to achieve’.

Traits of ADHD would have made you a sought-after hunter in years gone by! Those skills just don’t translate well to sitting at a desk filling your head with enough facts so that you can pass maths, two English, three sciences, a humanity and a language exam at the end of your school career. It’s that or nothing-there’s no alternatives, no creativity, no fun.

All of this, absolutely. But just to add that this approach is IMO even failing the more able kids who can jump through those hoops. DC like my very academic, inquisitive daughter, who thrive on questioning things and veering off-topic because they're so interested in a topic, get immediately get shut down because of the obsession with 'pace'. I see it all the time in the Year 5 class I currently volunteer in - no time to answer the children's often very interesting questions, or to follow interests, and make connections between topics. It's so different from my own time at school, or even a decade ago when I was teaching primary myself and there was that bit more space in the curriculum.

The same Year 5 class also has about 6/7 boys with ADHD and autism (one also with Tourette's) who are constantly acting out and whose needs are completely unmet - no TA support, just 'Quality First Teaching', hours of sitting down staring at 36-slide PowerPoints and the other children sitting patiently, arms folded, while these boys shout out, roll around on the floor or throw their sensory toys around the classroom.

The system really is failing everyone atm.

Reugny · 22/11/2024 09:59

@DiggetyDog I pointed that out to the poster.

I also pointed out the poster doesn't know the number of adults in the home.

Then again I know a few ND individuals of different ages including children. They have anything from 1 to 4 adults in the home plus other adults they have regular contact with.

NotMeNoNo · 22/11/2024 09:55

Apparently a third of children are now living in relative poverty. Regardless of the definition, that means a significant hardship or struggle in daily life. Bad accommodation (e.g. moving around B&B rooms), lack of food or clothes, stressed ill or busy parents (at best, at worst:total chaos at home), less access to friends, play, fun and activities. It won't be evenly spread, some schools it will be more than half the school. There has got to be a link to behaviour and exclusions. Kids are coming to school tired, cold, hungry and demotivated.

The government needs to fix housing, fix employment, fix opportunity - these are foundations for a stable childhood. And remove the 2 child cap immediately.

Dandeliontea123 · 22/11/2024 09:45

the children should get what they need out the cupboard.

But how do they know what they need if they haven't been introduced to colour, shape, etc?

Sounds boring for everyone, tbh.

WinterBones · 22/11/2024 09:38

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 08:24

@user1469207397

I just want to highlight this post because this is EXACTLY what happens and it’s shocking.
One activity I remember : a staff member had bought lots of (quite expensive) canvasses to create a special poppy painting to take home. Another vocal staff member who has just been on a course about creativity decided no resources should be put out at all, the children should get what they need out the cupboard. There was no input about what a poppy is, colour, shape, its meaning etc. I spent the whole time cleaning up mess, while the children created some brown splat pictures. Every time I attempted to ‘teach’ vocal staff member told me I was stopping their creativity. Except when she went on a tea break - and I showed one child a picture of a poppy and discussed colour, shape etc.
The result? Vocal staff member said - we can’t send these home and binned them. Except one. Guess which one.

Now I would ALSO expect this vocal class member to blame the situation on the children having needs or being unteachable. Definitely not down to her lack of input.

user1469207397 · Yesterday 18:57
The reason I left my role of Reception Class TA after 20 years.
So many activities put out for the children with no guidance as to how to use them.
We had a dozen story sacks with all the components to act out the story. Two children went to empty them all out in a big pile on the floor. The teacher encouraged such "creative play".you can guess whose job it was to sort that mess out and find the missing pieces!
Art- I would take a small group, we would talk about what effect we hoped to achieve, the technique used, discuss colours, textures etc. but now the
art supplies are left on the table. Top set girls (not being stereotypical but purely my experience) would use them sensibly but most would rush past, put a couple of spoldges of paint on the paper and leave it at that. Such a waste of resources and the opportunity to teach new skills.
I sadly left as I felt that my only contribution to the class was clearing up mess rather than help children to learn.

this is what i was talking about, there should be a mix of guided, purposeful play for learning, and times when freedom to explore and imagine is encouraged.

Neither need to be a chaotic free for all, there are ways of doing both.. generally by setting ground rules on behaviour expectations around the play equipment/art supplies.

The poppy one, for instance, there should have been an example, and pictures on the tables of different art images of poppies for 'inspiration' with different tables with different supplies on, like collage stuff on one, paint on another...etc

Original poster

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 09:35

Agree @WinterBones

I HAD to have boundaries 30 years ago because I had no TA. The whole school did. And I didn’t have anyone questioning this because the whole school had the ethos of clear rules and consequences. The children felt safe with them in place. Everyone knew the ‘score’.

OP posts:

WinterBones · 22/11/2024 09:30

Children aren't unteachable, the discipline ethos has changed because we've learned how much shouting/smacking...etc traumatises young children.

Now before everyone jumps on me, i'm not advocating for bringing them back, but we're in a transition period where parents like myself were bought up with smacking, who have gone the opposite way, and got too permissive and afraid to so much as shout 'no' at our kids for fear of being accused of abuse. I fell into that hole for a while before i realised my kids were becoming feral, so i picked my game up and got firmer/stricter.

There needs to be a middle ground.

As yet, parenting as a whole ethos hasn't found a happy medium in how to teach kids discipline while not falling back on the old ways, and it does mean you've got kids who have mental health issues because they STILL NEED boundaries, but parents aren't providing them. It feels like quite often school is the first place to try and instil them.

Just me, but as a TA i rarely had issues with kids behaving for me because i was always quite firm, same as with my own kids, but fair, and i explain the why of stuff in an age appropriate manner, while still giving them space to explore where its ok to do so.

Some of the stupid ideas the education department come up with don't help.. like participation trophies and not giving kids the opportunity to learn that not everyone can win at something....

Original poster

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 09:29

@EdgyDreamer

Lots of great points in your post.

With the poppy activity I was part of in reception : the whole thing was confused.

Lots of different adults were inputting, but a vocal adult was taking over.

The original idea of poppies, a canvas to go home WOULD require adult input and teaching in my eyes. If you state poppy, you need to have knowledge of what a poppy is. I don’t think a 4 year old would automatically know.

If the objective behind the task was : the children select their own paint and express their ideas (without the initial constrict of (poppy/expensive canvas/item to go home to parents) - I’d fully support the learning.

The vocal adult STILL expected a poppy, and blamed the children’s lack of painting skills. If I’d challenged this I would have created tension, no support from SLT and staff room criticism. Plus the ethos on EYFS IS to be creative, which I fully understand - but I also think there is a need to teach, depending on the task.

What you’ve described to me sounds like the box mentality. Teachers, SENCOS, the curriculum etc have that ‘typical’ box and those not in that box need to be labelled.

OP posts:

GiveMeSpanakopita · 22/11/2024 09:12

I honestly think social media and online life in general is fucking ALL of us up.

Humans still have the same brains we had 2 millennia ago, our brains are made for in-person socialisation, in-person conversation, in-person conflict resolution, in-person learning, in-person behavioural norms-setting and crucially, PHYSICAL EXERCISE.

Social media denigrates and destroys all of the above.

As a result, our minds are crumbling and we are losing our in-person communication abilities. Anyone born before say 1995 is gonna basically be OK because we grew up in the way humans are meant to grow up - physically around other people. Anyone born after 1995 is, or will grow up to be, different, and society is gonna have to change itself to accommodate.

EdgyDreamer · 22/11/2024 08:58

I thought this to a lesser extend over a decade ago - my kids are now near end of education. Its more educational ethos than a teacher problem though.

My eldest is a carbon copy SEN wise to me - I coped much better.

Overly busy visual classroom - stuff hanging from ceilings and constant change- lot of noise- lots of fun activities that confused my kid with short term memory issues as they still had explanations then but by time fun activity was set up they'd lost it all, large classes - very hard to get into support groups as so many worse. So much emphasis on things being "fun".

We spent year paying for on-line service to each maths which did it was we were taught - explanation, worked example then 20 questions 20 minutes a day. They went from possible dyscalculia to doing A-levels maths.

Spelling not taught but not consistently corrected either- relying on spelling tests which don't get words into every day writing - letter formation not corrected - all that had to happen at home. It wasn't fun for us at home but massively helped their confidence when they started to struggle less.

It took getting DD1 to 19 before education system finally tested her we couldn't afford private prices- and she has dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD. So much time wasted and energy wasted with teachers flip flopping if there were issues

Also less slack in the system if they fell behind they couldn't catch up as I did - they needed outside school support. DSis is single parent kids are in childcare after school and in holidays ex won't do any homework - there less time and energy so when they fall behind they stayed behind.

We also in their first school felt like we were drowning in busy work - home work that had to be done but was rarely looked at and seem poorly thought though.

When we changed schools we went to small classes,much less busy with displays, no busy work as parents couldn't be relied on - and suddenly we had time at home to do other stuff.

When I was at secondary creative subjects like art and drama were painful we were taught nothing - no techniques no history - either you were naturally good or you just lost interested and got berated for not being creative. DH different school got proper lessons and took it at GCSE. My kids have much better experiences and within the parameter's are creative and have taken the subjects further. I sounds like that thinking is now in your KS1 - so moving school may make this less an issue.

So yes there's a lot of societal issues playing into schools - but I agree there are issues.

LittleBearPad · 22/11/2024 08:29

Tangledmane · 21/11/2024 19:53

I think it’s a combination of factors? Were those children you taught:

living in temporary accommodation aka shipping container?

Being neglected at home, but not removed because there were literally no foster carers / moved into care 500 miles away because it was the only foster placement available

Watching violent porn at age 11

Stuck in their bedrooms all evening and weekends on devices because there are no heap or free youth activity or social clubs, or no transport to get them there.

Contactable 24/7 through social media / smartphones, and riddled with anxiety.

Living in poverty but watching influencers living heavenly-looking lives, daring to dream it might be possible for them before reality hits.

Brought up in a home where adults interacted with their personal screens more than their children.

Hearing messages every day about how humans are killing nature, the world is on fire and at war and robots will soon rule the world and take all the jobs.

And, yes, taught in overcrowded, understaffed schools by burned out teachers trying to achieve the impossible and tightening the iron fist of control in a desperate but futile attempt to get things ‘how they use to be’…

Show quote history

All of those points barring the last are down to parenting.

The last isn’t new - there have always been global factors that make life difficult.

Original poster

RebelBabybel · 22/11/2024 08:24

@user1469207397

I just want to highlight this post because this is EXACTLY what happens and it’s shocking.
One activity I remember : a staff member had bought lots of (quite expensive) canvasses to create a special poppy painting to take home. Another vocal staff member who has just been on a course about creativity decided no resources should be put out at all, the children should get what they need out the cupboard. There was no input about what a poppy is, colour, shape, its meaning etc. I spent the whole time cleaning up mess, while the children created some brown splat pictures. Every time I attempted to ‘teach’ vocal staff member told me I was stopping their creativity. Except when she went on a tea break - and I showed one child a picture of a poppy and discussed colour, shape etc.
The result? Vocal staff member said - we can’t send these home and binned them. Except one. Guess which one.

Now I would ALSO expect this vocal class member to blame the situation on the children having needs or being unteachable. Definitely not down to her lack of input.

user1469207397 · Yesterday 18:57
The reason I left my role of Reception Class TA after 20 years.
So many activities put out for the children with no guidance as to how to use them.
We had a dozen story sacks with all the components to act out the story. Two children went to empty them all out in a big pile on the floor. The teacher encouraged such "creative play".you can guess whose job it was to sort that mess out and find the missing pieces!
Art- I would take a small group, we would talk about what effect we hoped to achieve, the technique used, discuss colours, textures etc. but now the
art supplies are left on the table. Top set girls (not being stereotypical but purely my experience) would use them sensibly but most would rush past, put a couple of spoldges of paint on the paper and leave it at that. Such a waste of resources and the opportunity to teach new skills.
I sadly left as I felt that my only contribution to the class was clearing up mess rather than help children to learn.

OP posts:

stickygotstuck · 22/11/2024 08:16

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 21/11/2024 20:30

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.

Show quote history

I think this is a key point.

There is a huge disconnect between primary and secondary.

Wobbly cushions for ADHD kids in primary, detention for loosening your (ridiculous, unnecessary and uncomfortable) tie in secondary. Freedom to choose what they want to work with (like OP said don't plan, make stuff available and let them get on with it), don't deviate one inch from the exact vocab you are expected to use in French in secondary.

This is creating neurotic teens. Add to that societal issues and political point scoring with the curriculum, and we have... this.

Plus a raise in SEN. A lot of these kids' difficulties would be easily overcome if school wasn't such a hostile environment to begin with.