The school system isn't working, is it? Or is it?

[DilbertDoodle]

So many threads on FB about children really struggling over the return to school. It's always hard after Christmas - for adults returning to work too - but I just wonder if there is something about how the school system just isn't working for so many of our children? It feels like only a proportion of children actually make it through the school years with their mental health fully intact and for so many children - and parents - it's a battle to keep them attending. I guess I'm thinking more about secondary than primary, but it just makes me sad to see so many families struggling.

Not sure what the answer is tho. I guess proper support for teachers and school funding might be a start...

I think the whole thing is a cock up, don't know about other countries.

Students and thier parents are clients.
Schools should be very warm, cosy places that welcome people and strive to be create a nurturing environment.
Often they are just cold miserable places with a sausage factory mo.

The private schools I've had access to whilst not perfect by any means do seem cosier and have a far more personal approach to the actual student.

When I trained to become a teacher, the emphasis was on teaching children to learn. To find enjoyment in discovering and experimentation. To develop thinking skills. To focus on their strengths.

Shortly after qualifying, I began working in an exam factory. Everything I had learned was set aside and was replaced with getting all children, no matter their ability or personality, to do exactly the same. It's a conveyor belt of grades.

Vocational subjects started to disappear. The fun in the lessons went next.
Every pupil was set a minimum 'aspirational' grade, which teachers became accountable for achieving. Teachers became stressed with unrealistic workloads and targets and now pass that on to the learners who are expected to complete huge coursework projects in short periods of time and then learn reams and reams of information to sit a 90 minute examination - all to hit that minimum grade.

Pass rates are then celebrated in August by competing schools...and the exhausted staff and stressed out pupils are simply the collateral damage. Congratulations on that 76% A-C grade pass rate...because it's come at the expense of so much.

@Spendonsend

They more often than not have issues from sen /mild to severe that are not picked up.
By the fine they get together secondary it's too late to go back the foundations of what they have missed in maths and English.

@Mumof118

But that grade will also hang around thier necks for so long either helping the go ahead forward or holding them back.

My ds was bullied in yr 6 because he was a swot ie. he liked to read at lunchtime. This was in a 120 pupil rural primary. The head had a nice anti-bullying policy on the internet but it was completely ineffectual. The state school offered for yr 7 was a 1600 pupil school with a poor reputation for pastoral care.

We entered him for a scholarship at the local non-selective independent which he won, and he's been happy and growing in confidence since but....

They have a 'two strikes and you're out' approach to bullying. No exceptions.
They have experienced teachers who know their pupils, and low staff turnover.
They have small class sizes, high expectations and no disruptive pupils.
They have an absolute ban on mobile phones that parents and pupils have to sign up to before they join.

I went to a grammar school in the 8os and his school feels much the same.

But that leaves those children who already have issues, without provision. The DfE needs to come up with a greater variety of schools, a less rigid curriculum, and less absolute focus on exams.

@RamblingRosieLee

Because we have this unhealthy focus on grades. I've known children who excel practically in my subject, but fall apart in an examination, unable to remember a particular term, or who read the question incorrectly in blind panic.

And then all of their hard work comes down to a single grade. From a teacher's point of view, this is ridiculous.

I personally prefer the American grade point average system....rather than our 'you have to be able to recall years of learning' final exam system.

Yup. I've just taught a gcse to adults who loved the subject. Really enjoyed the classes and could talk to you about all the topics we did...

But a couple got 2 or 3 in the gcse as it doesn't translate to performance in an exam.

@Mumof118 i know and I agree with you