All these issues with schools!

The issue is not with schools. It’s with feckless parents and their feral kids. People with no purpose or usefulness to society, who think they are owed everything. Popping out more menaces like themselves.

I've no way of proving this but I'm not sure "parents not parenting" is the primary cause.

There have been a few threads like this recently and they have been overwhelmed by the 'gentle parenting produces naughty kids' posts to explain why there are so many issues in schools.

I've been trying to think why that is, and I agree that this discourse is distracting from the obviously massive problems facing the education system. I wonder if it's so that parents don't have to acknowledge that there is a massive crisis in the schools where they send their kids every day? If they think 'that kid is kicking off and behaving badly because their parents never told them no' then they can complain about how that child's behaviour is impacting their child and how they should be excluded without having to consider whether there are factors in play that are causing the behaviour of that child (lack of resources, crap teachers, inadequate curriculum) that might also be impacting their child.

I've no way of proving this but I'm not sure "parents not parenting" is the primary cause.

I expect there have always been parents who didn't "parent" up to whatever the norms were at the time.

Our expectations of what parenting is have totally changed for one thing, but at times there have been services (outside school!) to catch those struggling. Now they're either not there and/or the school is trying to fill the gap.

I'm not saying for a minute there aren't problematic parents out there, but schools don't exist in isolation from wider society and blaming individuals distracts from some pretty massive structural issues.

This

It's gotten far worse since some parents no longer parent and sadly these are the ones taking up so much valuable time and attention .

It did, just less often I think.

My DM was a learning support assistant 30 years ago and it was only the quick reflexes of the class teacher deflecting the chair a 10 year old threw at her from behind that saved her from a potentially serious injury.

The difference is that the school and associated people worked together and that kid was able to move from a mainstream primary to a special school for secondary. He would never have coped with mainstream secondary school. Now he'd probably have had to go to the local secondary.

When I was in school children with additional needs wouldn’t have to do French or 10 GCSEs. They’re set up to fail. I work 4 days in a secondary school and on my day off I do supply in a variety of schools. Last week I was scribing for two lovely ESLkids aged 12 who were so severely dyslexic that they couldn’t read or write. They were answering questions on monotheism and Transubstantiation in the Catholic Church. Why put them through this? It’s cruel to expect every child to do the same.

EBSA - emotionally based school avoidance. Huge problem in schools

Oh and DH's fantastic education didn't cost him a penny. Full grant and actually earned money (degree apprenticeship).

Long story short: if you have SEN needs and aren't supported/understood, your needs will seem more and behaviours and issues will be more extreme.

Poverty makes it more likely needs won't be identified/met because so much needs to be paid for privately and it all takes masses of time and frankly, cultural capital.

Soon child is EBSA (often year 7-9) and mum is out of the workforce.

I am a teacher and have a child with SEN and an EHCP.

I am no expert on rising SEN but from my own personal and professional experience here are a few factors.

Social: Covid - needs not picked up early/at all, services closed, no catch-up. Increasing levels of poverty (doesn't cause SEN but certainly doesn't help). Better medical care in early infancy means more premature children survive. Assortative mating (ASD/ADHD strongly heritable); modern life more social (in a bad way) and stimulating - needs more obvious.
Educational: larger schools, crumbling buildings (more DC in class, more crowded corridors, fewer facilities, lower staff to pupil ratio, less experienced staff, younger staff - less likely to be parents). Two facts: we have the second youngest teachers in the OECD and more teachers who are female in their 30s leave the profession every year than the total number of male teachers. Unsuitable curriculum (Gove). Important exams at 16 (unusual internationally). Generally this creates a hostile environment for SEN. Most SEN nowadays is ASD. Many of these kids are academic but have high support needs. Very few schools set up for this. Major transition between year 6 and 7 I often the crunch point; poorly handled in most areas. Year 11 to 12 transition even less studied/supported. Academy chains that drain what funding there is to corporate functions/CEOs. Loss of LA expertise.
Political: closure of special schools. Extreme barriers in the way of parents trying to access SEN support for children (took me two years and two tribunals to get that EHCP - it was like having a second job). Schools and local authorities free to ignore or pay lip service to the law. No punishment for them and no incentive to do well by SEN students who struggle as schools measured on results. General political hostility to anyone different to the norm.

DH is almost certainly AuDHD like DD. Needs well met at rural primary and secondary in 60s and 70s. Degree from Cambridge, good career. Lifelong struggles with depression and feeling different, but education provision and support was there for him - it wasn't a battle. It wasn't politicised.

SEN can cover a whole range of stuff. The poster you quoted said about parents in jail or kids with FAS. I’m assuming it’s probably a deprived area. Could be why.

My son has SEN and his main need is cognition and learning. My daughter also has SEN though and her main need is listed as SEMH.

Very broad range.

Why is there so much SEN?

YABU.

some teachers are dreadful, some are amazing. I feel like only on MN do we make every single teacher out to be a saint!

some parents have every right to complain about the lack of support for their children.

others will find an issue in anything.

it’s not just parents are moaners and the poor schools.

a one size fits all education system was always going to go to shit eventually.

I have over 70% SEN in my small school mixed year class.The majority of them have trauma in their lives.'Just be firm with them' is not going to work on a 9 year old whose parents are in jail,or the kid who has brain damage from FAS. As an ECT I have another kid in my class who special schools won't take because they can't meet her needs, but I am expected to cope with.
Parents daren't say no to their children, they dont let them experience disappointment, frustration, boredom, They let them sit on screens watching brain rotting things like cocomelon, so they have no concentration span.They don't have resilience or resourcefulness or perseverance .They encourage kids to disregard rules and don't support school's discipline processes.

In the 90s I disclosed to a teacher I had been sexually abused for 2 years she did not report it she also did not recall my disclosure some 15 years later when I reported it myself, this would absolutely not happen nowadays. A lot more pressure is on school now that was not there 20 years ago, one of the staff had a big box last week and told me that it was full of toothbrushes to show each child how to brush their teeth and to take the brushes home in case they did not have one. Two very extreme examples two decades apart the same town different expectations and roles now.

14 years of Conservative government stripped the school system bare.

Misogny is a huge issue in our local Secondary schools and creeping into our Primary schools. Yet another thing schools have to deal with.

And my username sums up another issue!

This, to a certain degree. When people are happy about something, they rarely go online to spread the good news.

@noblegiraffe 100% agree with everything you mentioned.

@noblegiraffe thankyou. That's a very informative overview. And utterly depressing beyond words.

I teach a core subject at secondary in a department that has one male teacher and about 10 female teachers. Rest assured that we make short shift of even the faintest whiff of misogyny. It is IMO one of the most worrying issues facing our kids at the moment.

Some of it definitely is. Schools and children's services have been completely starved of funding for the last 14 years and that has had a huge impact. How much of the current poor behaviour in primary schools is down to cuts to services like Sure Start? The fact that the 2 year health check is now done by filling out a form instead of the child actually being seen?

At the same time covid has also had an undeniable impact, which links to the collapse in children's mental health services that I mentioned. But the Tories refused the suggested £15 billion children's covid-catch up scheme that could have gone some way to alleviate that.

Teacher recruitment has been below target for years, but has plummeted further since covid. Some of that is down to how poorly teachers were treated by the government during the pandemic, some the obvious result of years of increasing expectations and reduced pay. However it also seems to be an issue in other countries so isn't all down to government mismanagement.

And SEN - provision has been devastated. It started with austerity when the first people to be made redundant were TAs and pastoral staff. There seems to also be a huge increase in diagnoses and needs - EHCP costs are just spiralling out of control and it is sending councils bankrupt. These things put together have been a disaster.

The thing with teacher recruitment that doesn't get mentioned very much is that it is pretty shitty for kids to go to school and be faced with incompetent teachers (heads admit they have to hire teachers they would rather not because it's them or no one), supply teachers who don't know the subjects they are supposed to teach because they are hired to be a warm body at the front of the room, and just an endless turnover of staff. Cover lessons are not generally a great time for either the cover teacher or the class.

The Tories definitely have made a huge contribution to the problems in education, but there are other things at play too.

One of my schools is an SEN school and we don't have many issues with the children as compared to the mainstream schools

Issues with parents have become a growing problem.
More parents on cannabis, more threats and swearing, more abuse, more SS and early help involvement. More policies we never needed like searching, . Prevent, Dealing with extensive online bullying, porn, sexual images being exchanged. Bringing in drugs and prescription drugs, Children watching porn at home, massive rise in DV , neglect and mental health issues all in primaries.

We live in an age of blaming others.

@LucyLastik that's so nice to hear. I hope you get the extra resources you deserve sometime in the near future.