What is really going on in our schools? Well, Laura....

[noblegiraffe]

Laura Kuenssberg appears to have just discovered that schools exist. New to the concept she has written an essay discussing what might be going on in them, from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. Basic errors include "standards haven't crashed because GCSE and A-level results in 2022 were up on 2019".

She mentions the lack of funding, but doesn't mention the lack of teachers. She mentions increased pupil absence but doesn't mention the implosion of support services for children like CAMHS, or the huge waiting lists for SEN diagnosis and the cutting of TAs in schools due to lack of money. She suggests covid might have had an impact, but not that the government have done basically nothing to address this and that their covid catch-up adviser resigned in disgust.

She says a minister says that 'teachers have had a bashing since covid'. Since covid! She doesn't mention this is led by the government and has been going on for years.

So, what's really going on in our schools? Anyone want to help Laura out?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-65360168

I've started going off script completely in my classroom expectations and rules - I centre the fact that everyone has the right to learn and that the behaviours I am listing as not acceptable are listed as such because they interfere with others right to learn. They're very keen on rights so I emphasise everyone else's right not to be constantly held back and disrupted.

I'd also started explicitly saying things like imagine you send your kids off to school everyday and shell out money for uniform and buses etc and you do that because you want your children to have an education but instead your child, despite being ready and willing to learn and having a teacher ready and willing to teach them, is forced to be an unpaid audience for a few people who have zero respect for anyone else around them and zero respect for themselves?

My days are numbered anyway because the last few years have been soul destroyingly exhausting and have made me physically and mentally ill. Workload and pressure and lack of staffing and expectations of what the classroom teacher can do (eg. adapt your ks4 lessons for a child who is working at ks1 levels and we think has juvenile dementia - how and why? Surely he has bigger fish to fry like learning to read and write and basic functional skills instead of being forced to attend lessons that he has zero chance of engaging with or gaining anything from and his ehcp money would be better spent tackling those fish than a ta trailing him around the school) are ever expanding issues and the job bears no resemblance to when I started in 2002. I hope to have 2 years left in me but I suspect it will be less.

Was lunch only 40 minutes long when you were at school? In reality it's half an hour as they have to be released from the classroom and have to arrive 5 minutes early to the next class. There aren't enough toilets and they can't go during lessons so it's good if they can fit a wee into that time too and refill a water bottle. Breaks have been made ridiculously short because SLT can't manage supervision and behaviour management when they're out of class and no one wants to do paid lunch time duties anymore because they too would like to at least have a wee once a day.

Everything is crammed in.

My lunch was 30 minutes and we got a 15 min morning break.

So yes, your point backs up this thread. There's no staff, behaviour is getting worse and rather than supporting the school, parents are rolling their eyes and making excuses for their child, making it even harder for the school

I say similar to my KS1 children. I say it's not fair for you to talk and disrupt as everyone here deserves to learn and be able to listen. I tell them if they want to talk they can talk to themselves in the corridor. I don't raise my voice. It works well.

@Sherrystrull I can see the queue if complaining parents outside the office right now!

TBH, the 'filling water bottle' thing is now almost an obsession. They need the loo all the time because they are sucking on a water bottle all the time.

I'd never had any parental complaints until this year. One was because a y10 girl walked out of my lesson and disappeared for half an hour but it was my fault because I said no when she asked to go to the toilet (I'd already let someone go who was genuinely desperate seeming despite school rules and then had about 5 demanding to go too because it wasn't fair and it was obvious trying it on and attempting to screw up the lesson). The girl was also verbally abusive and massively disruptive when she returned to the lesson but Mum thought this was justified and sent a really aggressive rude email to me about it all and demanding I remove the behaviour points or else.

I just forwarded it to relevant people and said I'm not phoning Mum after being spoken to like this.

Another was for giving her angel boy warnings in my lesson which he was thoroughly disruptive and rude and defiant in every lesson. I was firm and clear in response and she moved on to another teacher for doing the same. I think by the time she'd accused about 5 different teachers of bullying her perfect angel the reality was beginning to dawn on even her lol.

I envy schools (and fondly remember the time where it was the case in all schools I worked or trained in) when parents couldn't directly contact teachers Proper teaching hoys or slt dealt with parents. Now you can have an inbox of parents demanding things because they have your email address.

Yes. Whoever suggested they needed 2 litres a day needs a slap.

They definitely don't need 2 litres between 9 and 3 or to have their bottle permanently in their mouth as if it was a dummy.

Ha ha! Never had a complaint luckily! I'm happy to explain my reasons if anyone did!!!

But miiiiiissssss I'm dehydrated.
And if you die from dehydration in the next hour, I will be sad. But no, you can't go and get a drink.

Oh goodness - the water bottles . Can I get it? Can I drink? Can I go to the loo? Drives me nuts.
I've downloaded 'Stolen Focus' - I'd like to understand more about deprivation and disrupted home life on focus.

I won't have water bottles on tables because spillages/condensation rings etc. They're kept in a crate by the sink and they can go and get a quick swig during lessons as long as I'm not imparting nuggets of gold.
First sign of pissing about and the privilege is withdrawn.
They're 9.
They're not going to disintegrate into a pile of dust during the course of one lesson.

They're not going to disintegrate into a pile of dust during the course of one lesson
🤣

See we automatically get sort of better humoured when we're talking about kids in general and the usual maddening but sort of amusing aspects.

I won't be leaving because of the kids personally - teenagers can be maddening but also funny and stimulating (clearly I'm not talking about the kids who really shouldn't be in mainstream because their behaviour issues are just way beyond what can be dealt with in that context and sometimes they actually present a real danger to their peers and staff) but the system, the workload, the unrealistic expectations and total lack of recognition that there are only so many hours in a week and only so many things you can do at once and you can't do the job of 5 different professionals simultaneously for hundreds of kids. In my case also the callousness of management and utter disregard for teacher's health and sanity or the equality impacts of their bonkers policies and decisions.

I miss autonomy, I miss being respected as a professional with high expectations of me but also a high level of trust and very little interference or dictates on how I meet those expectations and not constantly having the expectations changed completely on a biannual basis. I was better off and I genuinely believe my students were better off and got the best of me.

Our utility bills are so high that next year we will have to cut down on TA hours as can't afford both.

We are kicking off. The LA don't do anything. We all have to go through tribunals with over a year wait and even then I know parents who need to do judicial reviews to get the LA to provide what the kids need.

I have a high needs SEN kiddo. Essentially expelled from reception because he just cannot cope in mainstream. LA forcing a new mainstream to take him. He has a considerable amount of support in EHCP no mainstream can provide that. All mainstreams said no. I've done a SAR. the EHCP coordinator didn't consider my sons needs or the other pupils just straight to legal and forced school to take him.

I've already lost my job my relationship and most of my friends with my son how he is so I refuse to send him. But if I had to work I would have no choice but to send him. He's autistic and ADHD, high sensory needs and sensitivity,violent to himself other children and staff. Destroys property and his and others work. Elopes. Gets off school grounds gets into the roof. Constantly needs restraining due to these behaviours. But as a pp said the APs say too extreme and they full anyway so it's mainstream only. Who don't have the staff for 1:1 and it's a serious incident waiting to happen.

I'm in many support groups and home Ed groups. My story is common not unusual. We all have complaints upheld with LA but they do nothing to change it

That got taken out of our hands by loads resigning and really struggling to recruit and then retain any new ones Teas

The reality is they earn more in virtually any job at all so I don't blame them at all.

So sorry for your situation Purple

The madness of just forcing a school to take him when both they and you are saying there's no way his needs can be met and it isn't safe

Wish I had something useful to suggest.

@PurpleBugz that's monumentally shit. Im
so sorry it's happening to you.

Hear, hear. @PurpleBugz

Yes, this. Parents with SEND kids are stuck in year long waits for tribunals. I put in our appeal Feb 2023 and our date is Jan 2024. The LA have zero legal grounds. They have engaged a solicitor against me. Meanwhile the school are dealing with the consequences.

I complained to my MP, got told its normal for LAs to contest appeals.

I hear of kids getting detentions for not tucking in their shirts (why? - it seems such an overreaction)

Because this sort of thing is generally about routine and expectations.

I said upthread about the huge amount of work that goes on in schools to simply get the kids to do the work. Routine and expectations form a massive part of that in terms of setting a culture.

No, that doesn't have to be done by enforcing uniform, but it can be done that way.

Sorry to hear stories of parents and children struggling with the system. The idea that AP can't cope with a particular child so they have to go back to mainstream who definitely can't cope is insane. Schools really are left holding the baby in so many circumstances.

No SEN/AP placement? School will take them. No NHS time for diagnoses or SEN support? School will deal with it. Mental health team have all quit because the job's too emotionally demanding? School will mop up.

This Guardian article is getting very close to suggesting that there might be an issue in schools.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/23/rise-in-school-absences-since-covid-driven-by-anxiety-and-lack-of-support-say-english-councils

"Increased anxiety and lack of mental health support are driving a steep increase in children missing school since the Covid pandemic"
"Local authorities are also highlighting budget pressures that have forced cuts in school support staff"
"The Local Government Association (LGA) said schools had been forced to make cuts in pastoral support, making it harder to encourage vulnerable children to attend."
"The LGA said there were “increasing numbers of children in the mainstream school system with additional needs that can cause barriers to school attendance”, including trauma, deprivation and poverty.
"Councils have consistently fed back to us that they fundamentally lack the capacity and resources within their school attendance teams to fulfil the new duties given the increase in the number of schools they will be working with,” the LGA said."

I mean, how fucking ridiculous is it that we are post pandemic, with a crisis in mental health in children and the government has set budgets so low that vital support staff are being cut instead of increased?

I wonder if that's having an impact on areas other than attendance....