To be shocked at ‘school readiness’

In some ways I understand this but my husband and I worked hard when my DD was small and I took a week off work to arrange potty training. I took two off - first time was a disaster and second time we cracked it (almost). It wasn’t the most fun two weeks annual leave but I knew as a Mum it was my responsibility (not the nursery) to train her. The nursery helped when she was back and she was fully potty trained when she was 2. I’m by no means a perfect mum but I ensured every night we read a story and on my weekend we went out - I’d go to the park, fed the ducks or similar. It wasn’t difficult or expensive but not overly exciting. Most parents were like this and all the children at nursery were ready for school.
I personally don’t think we can blame working on school readiness but I don’t know what the answer is.

Lifestyles have changed which will have an obvious knock on impact on dc, both positive & negative. I can fully see how dc aren’t as adept with cutlery, different foods at home, school lunches are shorter etc.

Well if more parents are aware (via online forums) that many people whilst saying nothing in person are definitely thinking you are a lazy adult who is allowing your child to be useless and rude you might in your real life start to step up.

We can live in hope.

Is this really true? We have German family friends and they were shocked how early reading and writing is introduced into the UK curriculum

90%? Of a class of I’m guessing 30? I don’t believe this for one second.

Children have been going to school at rising 5 for a very long time in England (not sure about Scotland/Wales/Ireland) and I can promise you, the issues OP is talking about were confined to just one or two children per class 20 years ago.
I agree with PP, it's phones and lack of parenting that are the causes.

Please please don't suggest starting school at age 7 - it will be the same children who will lose out and be even further behind their peers.

I call BS on this post. No teacher would not know that a child responding to their own name is a natural instinct, so those who don't are highly likely to be autistic. Unless they have been severely neglected, but you say no development delays which wouldn't be the case with a severely neglected child. This is definitely a rage bait post from someone who has no clue about child development.

Completely agree.

I know several people who I wonder why they bothered having them in the first place. Can’t be arsed to parent them properly, clearly resent their impact on their ability to have a full unimpeded kid-free social life, moan about them constantly.

Then you dont work in education!!!

20 years in and I’m shocked annually at the decline in ability year on year.

I do think we start school and formal education too young however 4yo should be able to hang their coats up and put their shoes on regardless.

Not at all surprised. When I first started teaching Year R back in the nineties their language skills were more advanced than many children I teach in Year R. This is an inner city school on a social housing estate. Year on year it gets worse and as teachers we are expected to perform miracles. I’m not sure what the answer is but the government need to be so much more proactive than they are and start making parents responsible for their children. Many I come across just can’t be bothered to make an effort.

Which part is silly?

By 1940 literacy, measured as the ability to write a simple statement was up to 99%. Before then it was significantly lower. There is no data for 1926 that I could find but amount the criminal class it's 20%.

The amount of grandparent’s and the much maligned boomers who are filling the void for shit adulting terrifies me for the future. As this current inept phone addicted parents and pad addict kids . Will be the grandparents of the future.

It seems the answer is bigger and bigger state. More and more burden of public services ,free school breakfast and teary brushing lessons to name only two. This in turn means more and more tax when their is a genuinely new issue to solve at the other end with people living longer and medical science improving with AI that potentially increasing exponentially faster than ever before.

Until someone is prepared to draw a hard line of pushing back to a create a future which coverts individual responsibility and personal autonomy then we are on a very dark pathway.

Again though, I didn't say it was most of them. I very clearly said that OP doesn't know for sure that none of them are SEND because she has only been teaching them for 2 weeks and they are only 4.

Not many 4 year olds go straight to a SEND school. More and more SEND children are in mainstream.

Again, I'm not saying that every single child has SEND. I'm saying that OP can't be sure after just 2 weeks that none of them are.

Genuine question that all sounds lovely but what’s your point? Are you saying you taught your child to these basic things at home anyway - or not?

I mentioned upthread that I was not at nursery or reception age 4-5, but I was still able to recognise my name, read, hang up a coat, pull my pants up etc by the time I started P1 at age 5. In fact I was able to do all that by age 4 which are where most of my earliest memories start.

I'm on the other side of the fence now, and I cant believe the volume of parents that cant say good morning when greeted in the morning. Is there something in the water?

It's definitely phone related and just shit parenting. I'm a childminder and over the years there has been a proportion of parents who make me think omg! Literally babies who are given phones. The worst example was 1 family who said their under 1yr old would not sit in your arms and take a bottle unless you had Miss Rachel on your phone at the same time. Another family recently told me during the settling visits that their toddler cries alot so give them any toys and if still upset an ipad. Other parents are not at that low level but I would definitely say that their children struggle with independent play. Obviously adult led interaction is important but I strongly believe that child led is too. Some children are incapable of playing without an adult next to them interacting 1 to 1. They just don't know how or what to do. It's sad to see. Obviously my staff and me do our best to promote independence and skills to make sure children are school ready but sometimes it's like banging your head against a brick wall!

Also I don’t believe the OPs example is truly representative plus shit parenting is not a new phenomenon

We see it a lot too. It’s baffling. Last years cohort were worse. This years are pretty self sufficient so far and much better listeners. Last years were terrible.

Kids should know how to say please and thank you and put on their own coat by age 4 / 5 regardless of what age they start school though. Plus isn't reception basically the same as nursery? Learning through play and listening to stories etc?

I’ve worked in a private prep school and although the children come into reception pretty academically able, (can already write their name, blend sounds, understand numbers and basic number bonds) many cannot put on their coat/jumper, use a knife and fork, remember their manners, answer back to staff, can’t walk around the school without shouting and running, can’t be bothered to tidy up the classroom after activities, etc. There has definitely been a steady decline over the last 10 years. And yes they are still young, but unless there are specific SEN needs, children are capable of doing these things.

I can believe it - I used to work in health visiting and lots of parents were just absolutely clueless about bringing up kids.

Not even in a way of "well, it's their first one and they are learning" - like literally being afraid to upset them by ever saying no, giving phones to 2 yr olds for hours on end who then have no idea how to play with toys, barely speaking to them but then wondering why they weren't learning to talk ..... It was actually depressing!

So I can well imagine those kids arriving at school just as the OP says!

And it wasn't lack of time - majority I saw were SAHM/P. In all honesty it was often the parents just weren't very bright themselves or they made constant excuses as to why it was "too difficult" to actually parent their kids.

@frozendaisyjudging others parenting on MNs is not a new thing! How does it change anything though?

I cannot understand this, the vast majority of children in the uk are in a formal childcare setting for at least some of the week since about age 1.

A lot of these routines that school has are a natural follow on from how many childcare providers do things (eg hang coats on a named peg, wouldn’t be able to walk out the toilet without pulling their pants up etc).

That said from a parents point of view I can see my extremely capable eldest might have done some of these things. As a parent, I’ve spent his whole life telling him not to lock the toilet cubicle door in case he gets stuck. I did explain that at school he needed to shut and lock the cubicle door as his nursery had a partition set up so he wasn’t familiar with this and let him practice in public toilets beforehand. But I can easily picture him forgetting at first.

Also despite having our own named pegs at child height at home and me being super hot on them taking responsibility for hanging their things up, at the end of the day they’re still little and sometimes just scatter their stuff everywhere and need reminding. So I can picture him doing that too despite having the same expectations at both home and nursery.

Some of the kids in reception have literally just turned 4 years old. I think ten days into the term when they’re in a brand new environment with different expectations is too early to write them all off as completely unprepared.

But it shouldn’t be just down to schools. This is the point.