What is going on with our schools??

[Rory786]

When children and young people misbehave they are expelled or sent home.

Absences from school make them at risk to gang grooming and or has an impact on their education. It leads to a downward spiral.

What can be done, local authorities talk about holistic helping, support for children at school but schools are stretched and teachers shouldn't have to deal with severe or violent behaviour....similarly children with toxic stresses and are not helped.

It feels like such a mess...education is the way out for many but a British education is failing the majority of our children.

Things aren't going wrong in schools, they're going wrong in homes.

Poverty, lack of early intervention, cuts in policing, cuts in social work.

Education can't solve all of that.

Shit parents. Unless the children are boarding the school is very limited in what it can achieve. It’s ewslly not the schools responsibility to raise children. That’s what parents are for.

What spaghetti said. Why are schools always blamed?

The problem is without the right support and message from home it becomes hard for school to have any power. If they know whatever is done their parents won’t care then their is little deterrent.

What we need is better early intervention and support for families to change attitudes before it becomes an issue

@Sirzy this is my area of expertise. More often that not, the families who are most in need of help with their parenting strategies think that there isn't a problem and that everybody else is in the wrong.

More often that not, the families who are most in need of help with their parenting strategies think that there isn't a problem and that everybody else is in the wrong.

I strongly disagree- most families absolutely know that there is a problem but it takes a lot of relationship building with a key worker or trusted member of staff before they will admit it.

Exactly. A kid going into school with the right attitude receives a pretty damn good education in Britain. A kid going in with the attitude that they can flaunt all the rules, and disrupt the learning of others, won't. That attitude is present due to upbringing and poor parental involvement. These kids are given a great opportunity, and don't appreciate it one bit.
Obviously it's slightly different in the case of undiagnosed dyslexia and other issues, for example, but there have been concerned staff and intervention strategies at every place I/my DC have been to.
You get out what you put in, really. It's a massive privilege to have access to free education. Some of the biggest problems are caused by those who don't appreciate this, and this had an expensive knock on effect for others.
Don't blame the schools, blame those who are misbehaving.

Central government cuts to all services, leaving schools to pick up many pieces that would have been supported. ( children's centers, speech and language, portage, family support workers)

This government is responsible for:
~Lack of funding for schools.
~Lack of Local Authority money to provide support schools to improve.
~Lack of Local Authority money to support pupils with SEN.

Parenting skills appear to be poor; social media and the Internet. Family breakdown (lack of support)

Academy system which has and is a waste of money and has been key to 'off loading' pupils. A system with no democratic accountability.

An education system which prioritizes testing. A curriculum that is narrow, pupils are disengaged.

I could go on....Michael Gove especially has a lot to answer for!

I agree with a lot of what has already been said but there is also a big gap in terms of things for children of secondary age to be doing outside of school in the evenings and the holidays in particular when all the adults in the house are working. That is a time when gangs and trouble can get their claws in relatively unnoticed. There is very little available and what there is needs transport and/or is expensive.

I think more pupil referral units are needed. A bog standard school with 8 classes per year and dozens of different teachers can only do so much.

Students are very rarely expelled these days, as too many expulsions trigger an Ofsted visit.

Nor are they sent home much anymore. A student can’t be sent home unless there is someone to collect them, because I’d safeguarding.

Been teaching 23 years. Lowest ever expulsions at the moment

I completely agree with those who said the problem lies at home, but what can be done about that either?

Social services are stretched already, I think society is on the decline...

If you look at other countries like India, China, Sweden the list could go on...they don't have the behavioural problems our children have.

I have connections to a local alternative provision school which provides education to exactly the types of children you are writing about - those who are frequently excluded, vulnerable to gangs etc. The whole provision is geared around dealing with these young people's complex needs, trying to keep them in education, providing relevant mentoring etc while supporting them to get some qualifications.

Schools used to be biting our hand off for referral places. However, they have to pay a certain amount of the funding per pupil with the LEA funding the rest. The problem is that both school and LEA budgets are so tight that they can't afford to send pupils there anymore. Instead, there are lots of "managed moves", with these pupils just being shuffled from school to school then eventually often dropping out of the system altogether. It's so frustrating that there are places available to help these students, but nobody willing to pay for them.

TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

That is part of the problem too. Children know they won't get expelled so there are no consequences. My neighbour's daughter was photographed when changing for P.E, it was splashed all over the school via social media and the school are reluctant to expel because the bully is in her GCSE year, never mind the torment and mental wellbeing of the victim.

That’s just awful!

Rory that’s a police matter. Were they informed?

A very small view of the problem, that does not begin to address the issue...
In the inner city area in which I live, very few children are from families which do not have English as an additional language. This disempowers parents. They do not know how to help children although they try incredibly hard. There are extremely high numbers of newly arrived families with older children, who have had little to no schooling. When coupled with no English, puts them at a total disadvantage within the school system - it takes a very motivated child to apply themselves sufficiently to learn adequate English to access a secondary school curriculum. When then faced with the normal secondary age wishes to fit in and assimilate, who do you go with? Those who are high achieving with lots of language or those with a similar language profile with whom you most identify? Add in children with difficulties, learning, mh or or otherwise, and you have a huge tranche of disenfranchised young people who see life as being something that aspiration is never going to be sufficient to reach. I can only speak for the area I work in - many areas experience their own, very specific issues. These are not a school failure, they are societal issues.

HyperboleHamster

The police were involved and even though there is zero tolerance for this in the school policy the Head was reluctant to expel...

Nnnnnineteen

Children with no English but with parents willing to work hard to help them is nothing compared to loutish kids who openly flout the rules, know they won't get expelled, have parents who don't care and exhaust teachers to the end of their tether.

Its a serious problem, there needs to a zero tolerance and parents need to be more accountable with their parenting.

I went to a child protection seminar where a Professor said social workers need to be compassionate AND also need to speak up when something is unacceptable. She said all to often social workers either pander to much to the parents and ignore the children thus leading to serious case reviews OR they are too authoritarian.

It seems to me schools are the same there needs to be a balance. Yes we should have kindness and be nurturing to children and young people in schools but we have to think about society's future and how these young people will contribute if they are not guided.

When children and young people misbehave they are expelled or sent home
Children know they won't get expelled so there are no consequences
So which is it Rory?
You can’t have it both ways. And you are quite wrong to say the majority of children are failed.
There is a lot wrong with state education in Britain, but it’s mostly to do with heavy handed political interference and underfunding.

cardibach

As I said in my previous post:

Its a serious problem, there needs to a zero tolerance and parents need to be more accountable with their parenting.

But Rory you started by saying children misbehave and get excluded which means they are vulnerable to gangs. Now you are saying we need zero tolerance because behaviour is bad. What are you most worried about? Excluded pupils getting in trouble, or behaviour in schools because we don’t exclude? If you can’t identify the issue, what can anyone do?

Rory you appear to misquote for your own purposes, whatever they are. Parents who are newly arrived in our area want to be supportive, but their children are unleashed into a society they (parents) neither understand or can access easily. School cannot work easily with the parents and have few options. As I said (and stand by) this is not just a school issue.

cardibach

I'm not saying I have all the answers, just a very deep concern for what is happening in our country.

What I meant by my previous post was that exclusion needs to be thought about, for some children a suspension is a big kick up the backside and it will make them reconsider their behaviour.

For other children, it won't make the tiniest bit of difference, which is why parents need to be engaged and to get to the root of the problem. No point excluding them and they get in more trouble.

But it is too much for schools to deal with and....it affects other children, teachers morale, the list goes on.

Im not claiming to have the solution, I just want to engage and discuss with others who care about the education system too.

Nnnnnineteen

I don't think I have misquoted you. I'm just stating my opinion.

I fully agree with Alondonleerie that children don't appreciate the free education they are getting in this country, and whats worse is that their parents don't either.