Are we asking too much of schools?

[Radio4Rocks]

When my grandfather was a teacher at the turn of the 20th C the job was to teach children to read, write and add up. A little music and a foreign language thrown in was a bonus.

The list of things schools are expected to do has expanded considerably.

Many subjects in enough detail to pass exams.

Plus all these extras -
Road Safety
Cycling proficiency
Basic cooking
Nutrition
Swimming
Water safety
Comparative religion
Safeguarding
Staying safe online
Anti bullying
Managing money
Birth control

There are lots more but these are just off the top of my head.

It used to be that parents sent their children (non SEN) ready for school.

Toilet trained
Able to dress and undress themselves for PE
Able to fasten shoes and clothing
Use a knife and fork
Sit still and listen
Have basic manners
Be able to use basic tools, like pencils
Know their letter sounds
Count to 10.

Now some parents expect the school to do that last list.

Is it right or should teachers be able to go back to basics instead of trying to wear so many hats?

parents who expect to be treated like customers
This is a major change

I learnt to swim at school. I think some people on MN are so middle class they forget that other people are actually poor, too poor to afford £60+ a month for swimming lessons per child. There’s no shame in learning to swim through the free lessons provided by school, it’s really expensive.

I made the point that I thought few people would use the school swimming lessons as their child's only lessons, not because there was any shame in it but simply because the scope for it is very limited. In my primary school we used to get a minibus to the nearby pool, and I imagine there was a cost to it. Our secondary school had it's own frezing horrible outdoor pool which could only be used in the summer term.

My own DC had lessons "at school" which were paid for (cheaper than out of school providers, but not free) This involved walking to a nearby private school to use their pool, having the lesson and walking back. It took most of the morning but the actual time in the pool was about 25 min.
My own children's swimming lessons were nowhere near £60/month - I couldnt afford that either.

I'm surprised that no-one has commented on the societal change over the last century, whereby nowadays it is hard for a family to get by on one income. A hundred years ago, most children had two-parent families and the mother stayed at home looking after her children until they went to school.

Most preschools don't focus on formal literacy and numeracy (focusing on social skills instead and other skills like manual dexterity), which is fine... but does mean it can take some children longer to develop certain skills.

Yes we ask way too much of schools. The curriculum is groaning under the weight of new things being added. Nothing is ever taken away..its a huge problem !

We ask too much of teachers. I don’t see why schools couldn’t be a community hub, offering eg cooking lessons to parents, food bank, extracurricular stuff for children, and indeed one of my local schools does this, but it’s done by a dedicated family support worker, not a teaching member of staff. Ditto the providing breakfast to vulnerable kids, washing clothes, helping with benefits assessment etc. I’d like to see such workers in all schools, properly funded and resourced - I suspect at present it’s funded through the teaching budget.

Swimming and cycling ought to be a (free, with free transport) local authority provided summer scheme thing, not done through schools.

@AliceMcK as a school governor do you think teachers have too many other responsibilities on top of teaching? Yes they should be looking out for safeguarding issues and reporting where necessary. But then so should everyone else, although on MN that appears to be called being a busybody!

I know at one of the local schools they are teaching children how to brush their teeth on a regular basis. I can remember when I was at Primary School a dentist came into school for a talk on cleaning teeth etc, but that was a one off visit and the teachers certainly didn't do anything like that.

Teachers definitely seem to have a much greater responsibility for the welfare of children than they used to, especially with budget cuts elsewhere.

The curriculum has also expanded so a much greater range of topics are being taught, and I am sure the paperwork has increased tenfold. Interventions and differentiation have also increased.

Also when I was at Primary school inclusion was definitely not a thing, and children with very obvious needs were very rarely in mainstream school. Other children, who would now be on the SEND register, were labelled naughty and weren't given the help they needed.

For the resources they're given, absolutely.

Having most if not all the pastoral team also being teachers baffles me, but it's what many schools are needing to do to cover all the bases for the money they have.

Schools can be a great way for children to gain access to resources they need -- but they need the resources and additional staff to do so properly. I come from a part of the States where counselors are common in school, even in elementary. I was able to access therapy through school in elementary and middle schools in separate districts. In high school, I knew I could arrange an appointment on my own whenever I needed - I half lived in the counselors' office at my last school.

It would be great if some aspects had other ways to help children to access some of these, such as community cycling, rather than it all being in schools, and I do think some re-prioritization is needed - but I'm not sure the practicals in the first list would be what I would automatically put on the chopping block. I mean, I doubt your grandfather was teaching fronted adverbials either...

My grandfather was a teacher in the early part of the 20th century, when all he was required to do was teach.

If I remember right, primary had become compulsory a few decades before that and secondary education wasn't compulsory at the start of the 20th century. Between that, quite a few of those things either not existing or not existing enough to impact many, and a very different idea of what education is and much of the care not really on record, I don't think we can make a fair comparison.

I mean, kids like I was would probably just be kicked out, if not institutionalized.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@AliceMcK as a school governor do you think teachers have too many other responsibilities on top of teaching? Yes they should be looking out for safeguarding issues and reporting where necessary. But then so should everyone else, although on MN that appears to be called being a busybody!

I know at one of the local schools they are teaching children how to brush their teeth on a regular basis. I can remember when I was at Primary School a dentist came into school for a talk on cleaning teeth etc, but that was a one off visit and the teachers certainly didn't do anything like that.

Teachers definitely seem to have a much greater responsibility for the welfare of children than they used to, especially with budget cuts elsewhere.

The curriculum has also expanded so a much greater range of topics are being taught, and I am sure the paperwork has increased tenfold. Interventions and differentiation have also increased.

Also when I was at Primary school inclusion was definitely not a thing, and children with very obvious needs were very rarely in mainstream school. Other children, who would now be on the SEND register, were labelled naughty and weren't given the help they needed.[/quote]
Given when I was a school we had one teacher for 30+ kids and no TAs, no school counsellor, no pastoral care, no child physiologist or extra one on one support for sen children, I don’t think so. I know not every school is the same, but at my DCs school teachers are not expected to teach children to brush their teeth. There were some children who had very bad teeth, this was flagged for someone to work with the family, initially school counsellor and safe gauging officer then whoever it needed to be felt with by, definitely not the teachers. I’ve only known 1 child who wasn’t fully toilet trained and given she started school 2 days after turning 4 I don’t think this is an issue at all.

When I was at school if we did any music or anything else then the teachers did it, now outside resources come in (in our local schools anyway), the same with PE and other sports, the majority is done by a football club and their community outreach team that covers all the primary schools in the area.

I know the curriculum has greatly changed and evolved but so has the types of roles and positions available in school for staff to support teachers.

At primary school I was called stupid and lazy because I couldn’t write or spell. I was shoved on a desk at the back of the classroom and ignored. It was only my parents getting me tested that I was diagnosed with dyslexia. No teacher was interested in me even though I could tell all my friends the answers to the questions, the teachers simply didn’t see it as their problem to find out why I knew how to work the answers out but couldn’t spell my name. At high school I was lucky to have a teacher who helped me and other children like me, we were stuck in a cupboard behind the stage but it was some help. I was an adult before I was able to actually read a full book. That would not happen now because education has evolved so much and schools get far more support for children like me.

I know not all schools are great and that there are a lot of schools and teachers struggling, but that is more to do with government funding and how individual schools are run than what teachers are expected to teach.

My mum was a teacher. They used to have a nit nurse that checked all the kids and taught the parents how to check and treat too. I wish my kids' school had a bit nurse!