Middle class parenting more competive & sharp elbowed since the pandemic..

[Blooomingheck]

Might be just my area but many parents (interestingly the dads in our particular are the worst!) are doing whatever they possibly can to get their kids ahead.. It was bad before the pandemic but I think it's created a new breed of sharp elbowed, neurotic parent... Is this just my area (1.5 hours south of London)

In Y6, my daughter loved netball but her school club had no bibs. All very low key stuff - they also only had one net! They were due to play in a local schools tournament - again, very low key. I bought the school a set of bibs as a surprise, my daughter was so proud to bring them in! The teacher got all the kids to sign a card for me, and my child played 2.5 games - some others played 3,

I wonder if any of the other parents sniped about me buying her place on the team?

Not rtft I don't know if someone has already mentioned this...

But I've started seeing adverts for "SATS tutoring"

The SATS are purely for the pupose of ranking schools against each other. There's absolutely no advantage to s child in doing well in their SATS.

Absolutely blew my mind that parents would pay someone to tutor the child for this.

It was a private school so they just did whatever they wanted 🤷‍♀️

Well done! That was lovely thing to have done. I would have done the same. Why not if you can help your DC and the school as a whole.

Most probably 🙄

Ridiculous.

Our state primary is not publishing SATS results due to the Covid-19 disruption to education, so this should be the case for all state schools

This year, SATS results are purely being used to see where the students are. A lot of children have obviously fallen behind, so I think this is a good tool to assess where the students need help.

We didn’t encourage any revision for SATS this year. Our Yr6 DD is old enough to be aware of SATS and we didn’t mention SATS to our Yr2 DS. He came home and wanted to discuss them as his Teacher had spoken to the class about SATS a few weeks before the tests were scheduled. In the main, SATS are a performance indicator for school league tables.

Well, that was obviously wrong. Clearly, not all independent/private schools are run well.

And then they get to secondary and parents largely give up because it’s hearding grumpy cats at that point!

"Over achieving empty shells" is how I termed it in one conversation amongst parents. I'd been reading "The Gift of Failure". That caused trouble because some people related very well to the phrase.

Well it's not really helping the other children as it's well known his child rarely shows up for practice, is the weakest link yet always gets put in the first team & in the sponsorship promotional photos with his dad if the team wins... That dad is using his money to ensure his child gets a spot ahead of another more deserving child... Looks fairly pushy & sharp elbowed to me... Doesn't affect me as my child doesn't compete in that sport just highlighting an example

Y6 SATs are also used to predict performance in secondary. Progress scores will be measured from them.

The school’s results will be reported in the DofE dashboards too.

Gosh, I’m in Scotland, and where I live don’t really see any elbow pushing on academic matters.

but going to multiple sports clubs etc definately is a thing

Do you suppose it’s because you have proper school catchment areas and (I think) no grammars?

Midlands city here and have noticed the exact opposite.

Parents beginning to question past behaviour. Reflecting on their kids schedules and wondering has it all been worth it?

A lot of people I know have done a complete U turn and are encouraging their kids into trades after school. There’s one middle class young man I know who is just about to embark on a brick laying course despite his obvious academic ability.

Ive found people are starting to have a bigger focus on their child’s MH and well-being and basically just realising that the “systems” we all live by aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

@whenwillthemadnessend I hope you're right - I was just saying based on my own impressions/ experiences. But certainly I think the perception that you need academic success for a good career is more widespread than it used to be. Which might explain why parents push their children academically more than they used to?

@LittleBearPad I don’t think we’ve got any grammar schools. We do have catchment areas though... but I don’t think how well your child is doing at school would have any impact on the success of a placing request

Wow! Emailing at midnight is rude? Wtf? I work in a demanding job where I have no breaks to email, put the kids to bed, have dinner and then do my life admin/ send more work emails as needed. I’m not expecting anyone to read them at that time but they are there in the morning. It’s not evidence of me being ‘pushy’ I promise. Just knackered stressed and over committed.

Just what I was thinking. In many cultures what OP is describing would be considered the bare minimum.

Oh okay. That‘s sad. It’s Everyone knows what that Dad’s up to.

I assumed so re. YR6 SATs results being shared with Secondary Schools in order to track progress, which is good.
After SATs a few weeks ago, DD’s new secondary made contact again re. streamed groups so they must have her SATs results.

The problem is when it becomes a competition and pushy parents doing way too much.

Adult DD graduated in a creative subject the Summer before Covid hit and is still trying to get an apprentice or internship role that is related to her degree. The UK education system/Government desperately needs a shake up.

SATS are important coming into a secondary school; ours set the kids based on the sats before they’ve even arrived! And then their progress is measured on the ks2 data. So I would want mine to do as well as they can…!

You don't want to over achieve at SATs as then they can spend the whole time at
being told they are behind. (depends on the school).
It is helpful to leave primary with foundations solidly in place, but tutoring should be about that, not trying to get scores of 120.

Re late night emails - I think the reason teachers don’t much like emails sent very late is that the parents are more likely to be drunk and belligerent when they send them.

Really? I can’t say this has crossed my mind to be the case

Usually it’s because it happens to cross your mind to send whatever you had to at odd times in the day, and email is set up to be sent at your convenience and read when you’re working

I dunno I was relaxed about sats then Dd2 got put in really low sets at secondary. They use those results as a basis for assessing them all through secondary. Wish I had been more on it then tbh I believed the “they don’t matter” line when I’m actually they do...

Yy.mrs.swift, I've been asked for dd sats in few scenario's!