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

On the news right now.

Are they making the point that schools can't afford it because their funding it so terrible?

What I don't understand is what the long game is?

I understand wrecking the NHS - that way lies privatisation. But that's not going to be a thing for schools. Academy trusts can sweep up alleged failing schools and so on, but the state still needs to fund education for the 94% who don't go to private schools. What are they expecting will happen when there are no teachers? Crumbling buildings? Constant tribunals to finance as SEND provision is cut?

I just don't get it.

It was mentioned.

I think the complete collapse in the number of trainees has caught them by surprise. They were relying on the pandemic/post pandemic recession to boost teacher numbers and it has gone entirely the other way.

Now they're just sitting tight till it's Labour's problem.

Schools know cross curricular works. However ofsted are apparently obsessed that children know they are doing history and this recommendation from an advisor is why my school went back to subjects.

I wish the government would trust teachers to know how children learn.

Cross curricular works sometimes.
Lots of the time it's forced.

@Sherrystrull absolutely agree. Teachers know what works. They’re at ground level unlike the men in white towers in government who dictate to schools what must be taught.

I remember a short time (in primary schools anyway) back in 2005-10ish, where ‘creative curriculum’ was encouraged. When as long as you covered your ‘Numeracy and Literacy Hours’ you were encouraged to teach creatively and even to make your maths and English linked to your topic work. I loved teaching that way. It brought meaning to it all. Sadly in 2014 when Gove (ugh) redesigned the curriculum and decided to take it right back to the Victorian era in a vain attempt to raise ‘standards’, things went downhill for teachers and pupils alike and we were told to focus on single subjects and SPAG. Depressing.

‘As I said schools came into being around the time of the first Industrial Revolution, and early schools were less about improving children’s minds than producing a punctual, obedient workforce for the new factories. As a conveyor belt for sorting, training and disciplining future workers. ‘

I think this would be news to the monastic schools in medieval England, the Grammar schools which followed them , as attended by Shakespeare, and the Ragged Schools which provided a basic education to children who were often already working, in the fields as well as the factories.

The ‘purpose’ of most of these charitable Sunday schools was to promote literacy, (usually so that children could read the Bible) . Gladstone famously remarked after the extension of the franchise ‘we must educate our masters’.

I'm inclined to agree there's no end game or goal - they just didn't care, didn't prioritise and and with the help of the media stifled discussion about the reality on the ground.

Headlines about thousands of school buildings at imminent risk of collapse with unwitting students and teachers inside of them had to be leaked - I don't think they had a plan or desire for children and teachers to be killed in accidents waiting to happen - they just don't care, didn't tell anyone or do anything and assumed they'd get away with it. Which they basically have because even now barely anyone seems to have raised an eyebrow about it this still imminent risk. The information was leaked and was so outrageous that the media had to churn out a few headlines but that was about it. Anyone read anything recently about where we're at with that now? About the fact that some schools have been told they're in the potentially at risk class of buildings but that they'll have to pay a fortune for surveyors to come out and do testing across the whole school site to find out if they're at imminent risk of collapse or just fairly imminent risk? Have parents been up in arms writing to their MPs to find out if their children are in one of these buildings on a daily basis?

They haven't funded education enough for it to even be safe let alone develop and improve.

I agree they probably are caught by surprise by just how bad recruitment numbers are.

The media seems to have been complicit in stifling any real news on the state of things in the nations schools and encouraging a culture of where what teachers say is discredited and ridiculed.

Of course eventually the facts and the data become so outrageous that it's like trying to hide an elephant under the rug and people begin to have to see how messed up things are and what start to imagine what the prognosis of things continuing as they are would be.

Many though still just want to tell teachers they're lazy and greedy and complain too much. It's dystopian really.

Sorry lots of errors - too tired today for editing.

Why are we naval gazing about educational philosophies while Rome burns? Maybe that's worth a thread of it's own if you want to pontificate about the worth of education in a world in which buildings are going to fall down and we can't even guarantee subject specialists for a levels.

I've taught Reception for 15 years and in a range of settings and areas. This year's intake are just so far removed from anything I've ever experienced. Most have speech issues, most have physical development issues, there are lots who really struggle to focus for any length of time (even in play they still flit around).

I've filled in so many referrals for Speech and Language and Child Development Clinic. One child can barely be understood except by parents and me, and all they are getting is shared video therapy which is just not even touching the surface (and they waited 2 years to get even that). I know that none of my referrals will come to anything this year, and it will probably be the end of Year 1 before they get any (I'm in an infant school so they might not even get it before they leave us).

I spent one day last term teaching, calling the Pediatric team to chase referrals, trying to deliver Speech and Language support in small groups, having meetings about IEPs with parents, filling in paperwork that is for Ofsted etc... And then at the end of the day, a parent disclosed something and I spent the rest of the time until the building closed with her and the head on the phone with the MASH. I got home and wept because I can't help, I just can't do enough for these people and they all deserve more than we are able to give them. The government has stripped everything to the bone. They don't care about our state school kids. I love my job, even with all this I truly believe my job is the best job in the world, but it breaks my heart that I can't give them what they need.

My own child is refusing school due to mental health issues and it's quite frankly a shit show trying to get help. There is none. Nobody will do anything the EWO gets involved and fines me 🙄 It's everywhere and nobody is talking about it in government or even pretending that they care about it.

@mumtola Same in lots of places. Non/semi/partly verbal EY children. I'm sure covid will be blamed, but how and why specifically?

Covid can't be blamed for the ones who are now in ks4 and have barely moved on from that point though Rule. Imagine that child just being dragged along through mainstream and every lesson on the curriculum till the age of 16? Such a waste of their time (and frankly teachers having to try and differentiate over an ever widening gulf of a gap).

I guess we could look at the impact of closing surestart centres, virtually getting rid of the kind of HV services we had when my son was a baby (now in year 11) and all manner of other things that allowed for even earlier interventions.

It seems far more like institutionalised neglect than inclusion to me.

Covid absolutely has a huge part in it: these children were between 1-2 and baby groups weren't on, parks were shut, parents were stressed and anxious, they didn't see people mouths move under masks and that impacted speech, etc. The impact of not socialising and not being physically adventurous at that young age can't be underestimated. But the government don't care, they just expect us to carry on, business as usual, nothing to see here, why are children not meeting targets?

Yes. In the building is not inclusion.

What's the answer?

It's really not that unusual for babies to only interact with their family for significant chunks of their first year or so of life in many cultures and times though.

That's true. It's not necessarily the case that families are in that unusual, stressful, working from home/key worker at work situation though. Certainly in our catchment it's the norm for tiny ones to be much more socialised (on the school run, at baby groups, in the shops, at the library, at the park). And I'm struggling to understand why speech and language would be as impacted in this year compared to other years otherwise.

Give us services we can access without a two year wait (S&LT, OT, more EP visits etc). Funding for more support staff to be in classes so that effective interactions can take place and effective interventions can be led.

WRT some points on this thread. Early on, some parents ask what they should do.

I'd say, step one is contact your MP and telling them to put pressure on Gillian Keegan to come back to the negotiating table. If they are Tories, tell them that schools and education are a top priority for you, and you will not vote for them (even if you never would) if the situation in schools does not improve. If they're not in a very safe seat, it might make them think.

In terms of services schools are expected to provide- I do think we are providing way more social support, way more mental health support, supporting students who can't get a diagnosis of SEN, supporting those with significant SEN or health needs who would have had more specialist input in the past. And yes, increasingly, effectively being asked to do the job of the police by dealing with incidents, up to and including sexual assault, which happened outside of school time. Our local police are very often not interested.

The thing about schools is that we see (most) students on a regular basis. We are the one service that won't allow students to fall through the cracks, because they are always here, and if they are hungry, if they don't know where they are going to sleep tonight, if they are in trouble, if they are struggling with their mental health... they come to us, because they know we won't turn them away- even when all other services are ignoring them. The increase in social problems, due to the CoL crisis is picked up by schools, and so many other services have been cut to the bone.

Finally, in terms of behaviour-

It is worse than when I started teaching, and so much worse than when I left school (00s). The school I teach in now is very similar to the school I went to- arguably a "nicer" catchment in some ways. When I was at school, the idea of swearing at a member of staff was pretty extreme- it happened, but it was rare. Completely refusing to do what a teacher asked was rare. Fights were rare. Assaults against staff were unheard of. There was one serious assault between students the whole time I was at school. All of these things happened in my school in the last half term- some multiple times.

I am not against the idea that good relationships between staff and students improve behaviour. I believe it's true (but it needs to be alongside consistent boundaries and a clear behaviour system)- BUT what I don't believe is that there is any shortcut to forming relationships, particularly with students who have difficult home lives etc. It takes time. At my previous school, I had good relationships with some really tricky Y11 boys - but it took teaching them from Y9 to get there. I don't believe there was a shortcut.

When staff turnover is high, these relationships can't form, and then your only option is punative behaviour systems, because they're the only thing that keeps the majority of students safe and able to learn.

But when behaviour is poor, staff turnover will be high. So it's a vicious cycle.

To answer the question of what is going on in my school:

-We are advertising for support staff roles, and cannot recruit. These roles are pretty essential to the smooth running of the school, and if we can't recruit, it will negatively impact on staff and students. The pay we are offer is reasonable for what the roles are, but it's pro-rata, so really the jobs are only appealing to people who need the holidays off.

-We are looking at having to increase class sizes next year solely for funding reasons. We are going to be over PAN, but there's no budget to recruit more staff.

-We are having to turn away students at post-16 (in an area with limited post-16 provision) because we can't staff/timetable two classes of certain subjects, and they are expensive to run. We are also limiting KS4 options for similar reasons.

-Behaviour is okay-pretty good really, but we have a very high number of students who need pastoral support, or who have low attendance, or both. We have a limited number of support staff to do this, so when students "don't engage" for all the reasons young people with poor mental health or difficult home lives don't engage, they get bumped off the list or to the back of the queue. And things get worse.

-Attendance is a major issue. Part of this is that we are rural, so students who miss the bus just can't get to us. And we are going to have to scale back our bus service next year, which is a concern.

I don't know what the answer is. I know we are so much better off than a lot of schools locally, in terms of staffing, but I don't think that will last. I think staff feel increasingly stretched thin, and the whole thing feels close to falling apart. This is an improvement on my last school, where things had already fallen apart.

I agree with @Easterbunnywashere
One size fits all education isn't working. Whilst I am not a fan of grammars & 11+ (favours wealthy & tutoring industry) I think middle schools then a range of high schools or streams would allow kids to opt for academic or vocational routes around age 14