Keir Starmer "sick and tired" of hearing about children who aren't school-ready

My point is that many people in this country eat with their fingers. If the whole family eats with their fingers it is unreasonable to expect a child of four to do otherwise. If the school requires them to use a knife and fork the school has to teach them.
Your analogy with toileting is spurious. British houses have British toilets.

I don’t think it is working parents not doing this. We both work and ours were potty trained before two. We just took a couple of days holiday. Many others have said on here they work and their children are trained. At the private nursery we use, a large number of children age 2 and up are using the toilet cubicles - all have working parents. At our school pre school, all of the 28 children are toilet trained - age three and not one started in nappies. It’s an area with a lot of two working parent families.

I think it’s more complex than this. Some areas are reporting huge numbers not school ready. Children that don’t know what to do with a book, can’t use cutlery, won’t sit at a table to eat, and aren’t potty trained. I’m not sure what the answer is.

"Ironically at parent evening parents do not always want significant improvement of statemented child confirmed in writing as it might affect their benefit package??"

"Statemented"??

They have actually brought in (or are in the process of bringing in) a new service to replace the sure start centres (that never should have been gotten rid of by the tories, due to their proven success) Best Start family hubs, It hasnt been very well reported though.

I think the push from government to make sure both parents return to work shortly after they have a child (not to mention the financial need to return to work for the majority) really doesn't help children's development either.

Yes parents should be the ones taking responsibility to teach their children to use the toilet, dress, sit still, how to eat politely and use cutlery, follow directions etc, but when they are spending most of their week working and dealing with housework they don't have enough time to do this effectively. Certainly not to the same standards parents bringing up kids in the 90s and earlier when it was more common for women to work part-time or be a stay at home parent. Childcare settings help with this but won't be able to devote the same amount of time for every child.

Most parents are trying their best with the time they have but it just feels like another stick to be beaten with at times. Parent like you don't work but we want you to work as if you don't have children.

How many parents do they really think are at home with their kids not teaching them these things out of choice? The free childcare isn't really free when you take into consideration additional fees. It can still add up to spending hundreds each month even using a fully funded place. So it's just proof the system doesn't work if there are parents who still can't afford to use it.

This is correct but in the UK the norm is to use cutlery and to remain seated at the table. Not sure what your point is.

You could equally make a comment on the lack of proper toilets in many developing countries so what’s the problem with children in this country not being able to use the toilet?!

What a great idea!

You are aware, aren't you, that in many cultures eating with your fingers is the norm. Knives and forks are very "western"

20 % non verbal? Dear God

What is your evidence for poor parenting like this? I would suggest there is something much more complicated going on here.
My youngest grandson is not completely school ready because he has delayed speech and no-one can tell us why. He has been brought up in a loving home with the attention of both parents who have done their utmost to ensure he has had a well balanced childhood and every opportunity to develop normally.
My second grandson still had toileting accidents in year 1. It was only when in desperation my daughter consulted the GP that we discovered he had a physical condition that was treatable. His parents had thought he was just "lazy" because that was the prevailing verdict of their friendship group.
Casting judgement on parents is simply not going to solve the problem faced by schools, nor is uneducated condemnation from a prime minister who probably knows nothing at all about day to day childcare.
We need a proper investigation into why this is happening so much more than it did in the past, and a well thought out policy for correcting it if it can be corrected.
There is always the possibility, of course, that this is nature's way of telling us that we are pushing our children too hard and that they need more time to mature. Perhaps some clever anthropologist would care to comment on this idea.

People won’t accept that this was and still is a massive part of the problem. That’s what we were told when we googled, when we ask the HV , when we looked on the NHS website , when we went to the GP. They’re not ready yet. Then suddenly it’s too late and they should’ve been ready two years ago and why did you wait you lazy , crappy parent?

I’m using the general we here, DD was potty trained at 2 and a half, the only thing that actually went well.

The new advice is now very clear , but not updated on the NHS , only on the ERIC website. Do not wait for the signs! Interestingly, the requests from parents have increased massively in the past few years. If parents are so shit and lazy…. Why are they asking for help and support?

Local infant school 20% non verbal nappy wearing on intake that is a huge load on teaching staff. Local inner city secondary 25% SEND. Do we blame schools ? Ironically at parent evening parents do not always want significant improvement of statemented child confirmed in writing as it might affect their benefit package??

That's really interesting to know that parents actually think the school is meant to toilet train their kids. That's a big problem.

My DS was the surestart generation and it didn't help us, but I think my DS's very mild ASD was hard to spot.

Some years ago I worked with Sure Start centres where we delivered classes to parents and their preschool children to support them in exactly these skills. Language skills, playing without screens, encouraging parents to help their children to learn skills they would need in the future. Brushing teeth, toilet training, just the skill of sitting with others and how to cope with meeting new children and new places.

The previous government cancelled Sure Start and I came across a report recently (though can’t find it at the moment) that identified the massive difference in outcomes in children who had been supported by a SureStart programme and those who hadn’t.

More recently I worked as an Admissions officer in a primary school. The number of parents who actually believe that it is the school’s responsibility to toilet training their NT children is ridiculous.
I would run a new intake meeting each June for the September intake. The head and SENDCO would underline that children need to be able to use the toilet, feed themselves and basically dress themselves (help with fasteners obviously). Some parents would be outraged when told that the school nurse would help them with these things.

There are also many more ND children arriving in Reception who do require support with such activities but if the teachers and TAs are helping the ones whose parents just can’t parent, it doesn’t work does it?

As a parent of a child who was born very premature I feel for you OP. I also had a second with a lifelong medical condition that caused some toilet issues when he was little so I know some children (and parents) need extra support, but that’s not what the prime minister was talking about.

So offensive!

This country does have a different demographic compared to some of the more successful countries. But our curriculum does need an overhaul.

No, that isn't a reason to defer education for the majority. The reason is that quantity of time in class room does not equate with quality of education. The whole system needs a rethink, as it's safe to say the pre-15 education system in the UK is not working as well as it should, and literacy and numeracy skills are not on a par with those of the more successful countries.

It's also clear that education is used as as ideological and political football - educators don't know what to expect from one electoral term until the next party is voted in. For starters, the unfit-for-purpose national curriculum needs overhauling and it would help were power devolved to the LEAs and to people who know how education actually works, as opposed to those in Westminster with political points to score.

2yo funding was originally brought in to cover areas where families were not necessarily providing the right support for their DC.

I don't think that putting in children in nursery will help.

It isn't like he's going to put toilet training into the early years curriculum and therefore that means that there'll be no universal approach to toilet training in these settings.

All it will do is mean children are at a much larger child to adult ratio, more of the time, with more inconsistencies. Some children are much more adaptable than others and can cope with these inconsistencies, but some aren't as adaptable.

@OhDear111 If you think that nurseries are holding back kids from getting toilet trained, then is the change possibly explained by the fact that so many kids are in nurseries now? (I have no opinion one way or the other.)

Mr Starmer was suggesting that the free nursery hours offered by the government would somehow solve this problem, but it sounds like it may not if your theory is right.

I sent my ds to preschool and they flagged that he was not school ready but all the things that they did just made everything harder. They had to refer to other agencies so that ofsted would give them their "outstanding"rating, but the other agencies took up a huge amount of my time and achieved nothing.

It just made everything more stressful and prevented us from actually solving the problems.

@ChangingWeight I’m 40 years older than you and you are 100% correct. Obviously a handful of dc were not school ready down the decades but most were. I do think parents have to do the heavy lifting here. Nurseries will just put dc in disposable nappies for an easy life!

To be honest I do agree that you’re looking for something to be offended with.

In your eyes, your child is perfect and special or whatever - but his comment isn’t directly addressed to you or your family, obviously deaf people aren’t magically going to get perfect hearing and she will need adjustments to schooling etc

The issue he is referencing is that for society as a whole, generally children are further back in the development now than they were before. That wider problem, is concerning. I’m in my 20s so I’m not acting like I’ve seen children develop throughout decades, but even I can see there’s changes from the last decade when I was at school. If loads of children are starting school with lack of understanding of basic things like controlling bladder/requiring nappies it suggests there’s been changes in parenting approaches as a whole.

He doesn't need a diagnosis to get support. It's illegal to require a diagnosis. DD3 was awarded a special school (independent because she's highly academic and all the state special schools are for LD) without a single diagnosis. Her ASD, ADHD, and OCD were diagnosed later.

Yeah I do sympathise as my nephew who is six has had to wait nearly four years for an assessment and can't get into a SEN school. He is more severe on the autism spectrum as well. They live in a different part of the county. I suspect my son will be the same as your DC. Intelligent and can go to school but not autistic enough for help. I am not sure he will get the EHCP the school are after to be honest but glad it is being noticed now.

I wasn't implying no one gets flagged at 3 - and I'm sure some schools/setting are better with support than others.

My newphew who has a disgonsed dad with ADHD and who nursry flagged up and school is struggling with - been told can't get near a waiting list till 7 and waiting lists are long.

So yes it must be area dependent and possibly which conditions they have.

My DC tend to fall into intellgent and just about coping group - as do many of their friends who get ignore till they hit walls. DD1 finally got diagnosied at 19 with conditions I have been diagnosed with and have been raising concenrs about since she was 3 and which had adversly impacted her.