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

My experience of Sure Start was similar. I also work with an ex health visitor who says it was the mix which was important, everyone rubbing shoulders with each other. The advantages of sure start 20 years on is quite remarkable.

Why has this suddenly become a problem? I'm 'ancient' but everyone in my primary school in '65 left with the ability to read and write; some better than others, of course, and the 11+ placed kids in secondary school into CSEs and the grammar stream. Mine was an inner London school from a predominantly working class background, with most in council housing (we didn't even have a bathroom!). But everyone was potty-trained. Came to school in clean clothes. No 'special needs'. No school breakfasts (some had free school meals). Sorry, but I simply don't understand the situation today.

I'm not saying it's their defending, I'm saying I'm sick of the narrative they are putting out there. I'm also fed up of everything being about potty training which is ONE area they are going on about. The main difference is the expectation within the classroom in the other areas which drastically changed in 2014 after Gove's new national curriculum came in and creativity, play and socialising went out in place of sitting still. And yes I am a teacher.

I used it in my area, I went to three different ones in total.

The two which were in deprived areas within walking distance of council estates were frequented mostly by the population that they were "designed for" although not exclusively. There was also a woman who used to visit frequently who was the very picture of a stereotypical MNer down to the well-cut hair and Boden coat. It actually didn't matter - nobody gave a shit who you were, I loved it there, it was a total lifeline for me and I was definitely "in the demographic" as a 20yo single mum (though in many ways I wasn't their target audience at all - I already followed safe sleep, breastfed until he was 4, car seat guidelines, talked to my baby, didn't smoke around him, tried to feed him healthily and not have too much screen time.)

The one slightly further from me was more mixed because it was on the site of the local primary school and the services were advertised to all parents at the school. Again great centre, brilliant staff, great community in general. The BF advice at that one was a load of rubbish but you can't have it all really.

I went to one a couple of times which was in a much more leafy/middle class area in the area that I lived before I split up with my son's father and that one was almost exclusively MC and felt more cliquey.

But TBH I think this focus on demographics is unhelpful. Parents can need advice regardless of their background. All the SS centres had breastfeeding advice, many of them had HV weighing clinics, they all had coffee mornings for getting to know other mums, the "leafy" one had a toy library.

The thing is I had a child at 20 and another at 30 and someone making a random judgement would put me in a totally different box each time. But I'm still the same person, I have much the same attitude. I didn't have as much access to money and support at 20 as I did at 30 and I obviously have more life experience now I'm older but I'm not fundamentally a different person.

In fact the baby I had at 20 took to school like a duck to water whereas the baby I had at 30 is struggling massively even though we are in one of those mystical countries where he's started at just turned 7. There's absolutely no way he would have been ready at just 4. (My youngest is that age and probably would be thriving/living his best life.) I am so thankful that he did have the extra time to grow and develop even though he is still having a hard time.

I did see this and was sure he was referring to the increase in non SEND children starting school in nappies and not being able to use cutlery etc purely because they haven’t been taught at home. Sure Start used to be really good at assisting parents with this sort of stuff; really wish it could be reinstated .

I'm not misquoting him at all - the words I've posted are what he said verbatim. Yesterday's Kuenssberg is on the BBC iplayer - go and watch it and confirm for yourself.

Please don’t worry, any SEND needs she might have will be taken on board seriously by any school. I think he’s talking about children who haven’t been toilet trained, no idea how to use cutlery etc. Becoming so much more prevalent in school. I get depressed by parents (minority) who don’t invest in these very important early years.

This. Assuming all other aspects (disability etc) absent, it’s down to parents to make sure their kids are “school ready”

You are being ridiculous. You know he will not have been referring to children with extra needs.

When people talk about children not being school-ready they are generally talking about typically developing children. There will always be a small number of children who have difficulties or have had adverse experiences and are going to need a bit more time to catch up.

He probably means the children of crap parents who don’t toilet-train their children. They don’t prepare their children at all: routine, stories, basic manners etc etc. I have several relatives and friends in nursery education and social work. They see these irresponsible losers on a daily basis.

The problem with Sure Start is that it never attracted the people its service was chiefly targeted toward. People like me used it. Some of the demographics who would most have benefited from it were not being reached.

The answer is quite simple then: don't send them to school at the ridiculously early age of four.

In Finland, children don't start school until age 7. There is still early years support up to the age of 5. They do not subscribe to the falsehood that quantity of time spent in the classroom translates into quality of education (I am an educator). Unlike British education, which is predicated on metrics, Finnish education emphasises creativity and hands-on learning. Finland has exceptionally high literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem-solving skills; likewise Japan. Both outstrip standards in Britain.

We've got this backwards and standards are in decline. I see it with every new cohort of undergraduate students, at which point, in my discipline at least, rather than building on what's gone before - the whole point of higher education - I have to go back and undo the damage done at both GCSE and A' Level.

IMO, the British pre-16 education system has long been unfit for purpose. Not content with that, we've now started on HE and ruined that as well - and done it in record time. My one-time passion and absolute commitment to my profession is now well and truly dimmed. What's happened to our once world-class system is an utter travesty.

Except the age at which children start school hasn't changed for decades - I started two months before my fifth birthday in 1965. I and all my classmates were toilet-trained and I only remember one accident at school - a poor little boy in Assembly one morning (they poured a bucket of sand over the 'puddle' and took him away to get changed, but the reason I remember it is because it was so unusual as to be remarkable). So, what's changed in recent years?
And it was the Tories who absolutely decimated funding for programs like SureStart as soon as they came to power in 2010, which is a great pity as it provided significant support to families with children under five, improving educational outcomes and reducing hospitalisations for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Tories spent 14 years destroying our public services and now a Labour Govt, that's only been in power for 14 months, gets criticised for saying it's not good enough, we need to do better and they plan to make it happen. I have no idea why some people find wanting to stop the backward slide in standards so controversial.

As a retired reception class teacher, the Headteacher would not accept any child that was not toilet trained, so that had to rapidly take place before admission if not there already. Seems you can't say that now! SEND apart. Why is this not a priority for some parents?

Not on the toileting issue. A quick google suggests Scandinavians typically potty train by age 3-3.5 which is long before children start school in the UK. They may do less formal education between 4 and 6 but they are not neglecting to teach their children basic life skills.

He’s not talking about children with additional needs but I fear with how things are, HOW will we know when a child has additional needs? It’s a battle for children to receive a diagnosis and much of it is focused on missed milestones. How are they going to be able to tell the difference between children with actual additional needs and children who can’t use a toilet and can’t talk because they’ve never been taught how to?

I fear all that’s going to happen is that they are going to make the age of diagnosis older meaning children cannot access support until a much older age.

All children unless they’re special needs should be able to use the toilet, count to ten and write their full name….. at the very very least.

I know people love to jump to the idea that more children starting school not toilet trained is because their parents are on tiktok all day, but a bigger factor is most likely that more households these days will have two full time working parents, doing long hours at that, compared to when many of us were younger. Toilet training takes a lot of hands on work with toddlers.

We have never adapted to changes in family working dynamics. Parents have been left to get on with it and many who have been successful prefer to wield it as a flex on others rather to collectively call for better work-life balances for all.

Literacy rates are going down, and this is concerning, but I don't personally think it's necessary for all children to be reading before they start school. Ideally, they would know the phonic alphabet and have some introduction, but learning to read can take time for children. I know parents who said they have 2-3 kids where one learned to read at 3 yo and the others at 6 yo, yet all of them read at a high level. What should be happening though is children being read to frequently, which is going down, not only because of competing tech but many adults who struggled when they were young having children now.

Your kid isn’t who he’s talking about. It’s the children whose health and development needs are neglected by lazy, selfish parents. That is the hard honest truth whether we like it or not.

😮

I'm no fan of Starmer but he is right. The standard of parenting seems to have plummeted - I can only think it's to do with screens.

It definitely is true! I have two friends who have left the teaching profession after teaching for years because they were sick of changing nappies of five year olds and spoon feeding children at lunchtime. Children who cannot sit still or stay in the classroom, won’t do as they are told and who scream and cry because they can’t have their own way all the time.
Im not including children that have real problems, but ones that are coming from home with parents who clearly can’t be bothered to teach their children anything!
It’s having a huge impact on the education that other children are getting and on the mental health of teachers. So yes, the op is totally unreasonable to suggest that it’s unreasonable for people to complain about it. It’s very different being in her situation and no one will judge her for her child being a bit behind.

YABU.

1. He’s not the only one sick and tired of it, I’m sure the teachers are as well.
2. He’s not saying all the children “have to be in the same place”, he’s saying they (and their parents) have to meet minimum standards. That’s different.

And finally you’re pulling the exact same trick left wing people do to shut off any sensible discussion of curbing the benefits bill. We get a parade of genuinely disabled people to illustrate how cruel and inhuman it would be. Whereas in fact, they - and in this situation your daughter - are wholly unrepresentative of the people we are talking about.

The vast majority of kids not ready for school have no excuse (other than they have terrible parents).

I'm sick and tired of Kier Starmer and this Labour shambles. Period.