What exactly is the strictness in English schools actually achieving?

I don't think schools have got more strict, they've always been strict. I remember getting told off if our ties were the wrong length/ our shirts weren't tucked in.

If I compare that now to the experience my children have had, their schools have been much more progressive.

Within schools, behaviour has worsened over the last few years, especially post-pandemic and there are more frequent attacks (verbal and physical) on school staff by students and parents.

The majority of students are wonderful. I absolutely adore working with them. However, there are some that are causing really severe issues around school. It impacts everyone, it disrupts lessons. For all students, they need 'minor' rules to bounce against, rebel against, a firm line. One of our previous head teachers said to us, if they are busy fighting us with the small stuff, they don't get as involved with the 'bigger' and for the most part that is true.

However, needs are so complex now. It's great because it means we are recognising those with complex SEN but it comes with its difficulties too, especially in the case of cut budgets and falling birth rates (you'd think that would mean smaller classes but in reality it means fewer teachers and bigger classes.)

Sometimes the children need to learn how to abide a simple rule. Some of them try to defy at every step and we are conscious that one day, we will send them out into the world and they need to survive and flourish but they won't be able to do that if they can't follow a simple instruction.

It's not as simple as I've articulated, there are so many complexities to consider and each student 'rebels' in their own way (as they should, as they are learning) but we hold firm boundaries as it helps them navigate the lines of society too.

Without firm boundaries and rules it would be chaos (still is, sometimes) and it's easy to say 'x' or 'y' should happen when you aren't part of a large school.

The holiday fines are nothing to do with us, they are government imposed and all heads have been told to refuse everything (unless exceptional, e.g. a funeral).

Hallelujah spot on

How many posts like "my son hit someone and he's suspended how unfair "
Or "my 7 year old said her teacher called her naughty "

And half of the replies tell the op to write to the head

Part of the problem, and I've said this on another thread recently, is that schools are under pressure to turn out a workforce. The better schools are those who turn out young adults who are ready for life, including work. E.g. if consequences for being late are not changing the outcome, then surely you have to look at the root cause and implement other strategies. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Hence we end up in cycles of misbehaviour, punishment, disengagement, further misbehaviour. We seem to think that all children are born with an innate ability to manage time, plan ahead, sit still for 2 hours and listen and write. Kids who once wouldn't have even hit the SEND radar are struggling to cope with the curriculum, the endless expectations, the relentless pursuit of performance in the major academic subjects and from a younger age than most of our European counterparts.

We turn out clever children who are good at passing exams but lack basic life skills, and children who are bad at exams but have bags and bags of untapped potential in a working world. And of course their 'education' starts at home, but the reality is that children spend so much time at school that their success depends heavily on the approach taken by their respective school.

My Scandinavian school had no uniforms or rules for hair/makeup
I have managed to work two jobs (both demanding a degree) wearing uniform without any issues in UK and Scandinavian.
How do you think it works outside England?

I don't know what the issue is, really. When my DCs were younger, I wouldn't have let the school tell me 'yes' or 'no'. I'm the parent, not the state, and I don't care what their reasons were. I'm glad I don't have to deal with it, anymore.

This in spades.
They’re blitzing symptoms with no effort to stop the cause.

On another note, a very certain type of character actively enjoys barking at kids about ties, blazers, shirts and skirts and I think they’d be better off in the army,

Entitled, permissive parenting has always existed - so too have disruptive kids.

When I was at school in the 90s, there were no behaviour points and detentions for low level things like forgetting equipment, or swinging on a chair. It does feel like we've become more draconian, but it hasn't actually materially improved anything. Indeed, quite the opposite.

Imagine being a kid from a household where there's no money and being penalised because you don't have the right PE shorts with the logo.

Not all schools are that strict. Bear in mind you only hear about the complaints on here and it is only one side of the story. The vast majority of children come to school most of the time and never have any issues with the school about being off sick. Covid and then the number of parents who now work from home did increase the number of absences a lot in the school I work in. It has gone back to normal levels now though. At my school all staff get sent a copy of the absences every day which makes it very easy to spot patterns. I used to teach a child who took nearly every Thursday off because he didn't like his timetable that day. His mother hadn't noticed it was always the same day and genuinely thought he was ill a lot. Other children get burnt out and do take quite a bit of time off. I feel a lot of sympathy for them because they are just not suited to the school environment and I really hope that when they leave school they find a job that suits them.

This is the issue. Soft touch parents who don’t like discipline.

Step inside an English classroom to find out.

Attendance at my school is currently under 90%, meaning that, on average, kids miss 19 days of school a year. So almost a whole month. On average - for some this is a lot more. 19 days is 95 hours of learning, not including tutor time and assemblies. Try catching kids up who have fallen that far behind. Kids see taking time off for their birthdays as a right. How does that prepare them for the real world?

Uniform adherence is shocking. We're not strict, but there are rules (which are regularly broken). In every classroom, you have at least two children who will not even vaguely wear what they are supposed to. As a result, in every Science class, you will have at least 4 kids who will refuse to wear basic safety gear correctly, every PE class has 1-2 persistent refusers (who do not wear PE kit), every cooking class has complaints from the parents of the child whose uniform is ruined because they wouldn't wear an apron. We are not talking about preparing kids for business wear of ties, we are talking about kids refusing to follow basic rules of dress - meaning they will end up kicked out of construction work, catering, hospitality or anywhere else later on that requires them to wear uniform if they continue their habit.

Discipline is even worse. I maintain order in my classroom. As a result, I am not a popular teacher. It does not suit every child - those without any discipline at home end up hating me and refusing to work. But my results are, on average, much higher, because most kids cannot work in an environment in which there is not calm, order and consistent rules. Most SEND kids learn better that way, too. Sometimes, I get told to watch so-and-so, who has a really good relationship with one of the children who hate me. In the vast majority of cases, they achieve that by being matey with those kids - to the detriment of the rest of the class. Kids in my classroom learn that they do well when they follow my rules. Just like in work places, which will also not tolerate lack of work, swearing, throwing items or wilful destruction of materials.

Parents need to start backing schools. I have been teaching a long time. I have seen the shift from being able to ring home and getting parental backing to the persistent backlash we are facing now. I used to be able to phone a parent to tell them that their child had been throwing food at another child/ set fire to their work/ told me to fuck off and I knew that the parent would ensure it wasn't happening again. Or they'd try, at least. Nowadays, 50% of the time I ring home only to get a mouthful of abuse and have my skills questioned.

Children used to come back from a holiday ready to learn. The first week back in school used to be the quietest; a Monday morning used to be a lovely lesson to have with a generally unruly class. I now find Mondays the worst - because kids are often left to do as they please at home and they come back to school dysregulated. So now I spend my Mondays laying down the law again in order to be able to teach properly the rest of the week.

I do use common sense. Blazers in 30 degrees heat are not a must. Hair colour does not influence outcomes. Total silence is not always a good thing. Kids who have just come out of a 2 hour exam will not be in a state to learn about kinetic energy the next lesson.

Strictness has its place, though.

I totally agree with you. The overly keen discipline and bullying teaching style at my kids school seems to have two main effects, first it freaks the hell out of the 'good' kids inducing levels of fear and anxiety to the point that they all 'need' sen diagnosis and 'quiet space' during school time or just go full school refusal. Or makes the 'naughty' kids, the ones dealing with issues at home, to f-about in school requiring sen diagnosis for ADHD...
I guess it's a bit like big Pharma causing a problem so it can fix it. The school system creates all these problems within the kids that then need to be fixed externally for a huge amount of profit.

Irish students get significantly more summer holiday time than English students do too, fyi.

Could it be that noses constantly to the grindstone just results in sore noses?

She's saying don't drag the children along and dump them at the resort childcare facility.

Bring them with you to include them in all the location has to offer in terms of activities and interesting stuff. This broadens their horizons. Dumping them with babysitters does not.

If you look at the stats, you'll see that certain non white British ethnic groups do far better than white British, especially working class white British boys.

What Ireland has achieved has nothing to do with homogeneity. It is all to do with a culture of mutual respect between schools and parents, and a perception of equality across society. Everyone does the same curriculum. Everyone does the same major exams. The curriculum has been tweaked in the last couple of decades to make it more relevant to varied learning styles and to encourage wide engagement with education to age 18.

The British education 'system' is a hodge podge designed to create an elite and to make sure the rest 'know their place'. It's amusing for me, living in the US, to see the disbelief of Britons who are contemplating a move to the US, and US residents here on MN advise them to look into the public (i.e. state) schools and forget everything they know about how education works. It is so difficult for them to imagine publicly funded schools with state of the art facilities and annual budgets in the $$$$$millions. And no uniforms!!! How could a school possibly function if students pull on whatever is on the top of the bedroom pile on any given morning and sally forth...

The vast majority of Irish schools are publicly funded, non fee paying, and while facilities couldn't hold a candle to the average suburban American school, the perception of an egalitarian system makes a huge difference.

I suspect there's far less sex/drugs/vaping in the toilets at primary school. Odd to compare the two.

It is ridiculous. I'm a primary school teacher and we would be hauled over the coals if we treated children in the way they do at secondary school. Ridiculous restrictions on toilet use, uniform policies that are far stricter than any workplace, isolation rooms for forgetting a pen. My DD's cohort this week have been made to continuously line up and walk backwards and forwards from.the playground to the classroom in complete silence because a few kids dared to talk in the line - spectacularly poor behaviour management to punish everyone for the misdemeanours of the few.

The punitive environment caused my very well-behaved autistic teen so much fear she ended up unable to attend. The good kids are terrified - hardly a conducive state to learn in - yet a minority of badly-behaved kids continue to disrupt lessons. Detentions and isolation are so frequent that they become meaningless and ineffective for kids like this.

We have very few options for schools in my area unfortunately.

Yes but I found that interesting. We were considering an autumn holiday for us all this Oct. Our son will have just started reception.

This teacher sounds reasonable so now considering whether that’s a good idea with the socialisation aspect.

I think schools should be more open about when is a good time and bad time to go away. Saying never go away in term time I obviously don’t agree with.

Huh, I don’t think she’s saying don’t visit Crete. I think she’s saying don’t just lie by a pool in Crete.

Denmark 0th grade? Look up plans? It's a glorified nursery. The school will be "It's fine - happy holiday" to any week requested if the child is an avarage pupil. Even if you go to Crete.

Well this, theres very little cultural enrichment going in is there? Mine in primary only cares about the pool and orange slushies which is fine but I wouldn’t pretend that missing school is ok. In a few weeks in primary you can miss an introduction to fractions or how to subtract or add by carrying over. DD is ahead and she would probably be fine missing school for a few weeks but we would never do it because it sends the message that we can just opt out if something more fun comes up. Our holidays are according to our budget and thats fine.

This, DD is a handful but she knows how to behave when required. This is a direct response to the deteriorating behaviour in schools, the only way to keep the majority safe is to impose order to deal with the minority. The majority of kids are fine but we seem to have an increasing minority of children who have no ability to self regulate and their parents have no interest in helping them either.

I’m a primary teacher in Dublin and we are seeing a lot more school refusal these days !

Everything I have said is googleable.

For IQ specifically you can search the Flynn effect.

For the first time in history it has reversed. Gen Z still high attains, but have broken the trend.

If you worked closely with TUSLA welfare officers you would probably call it by its correct name.