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’m basically FUMING that it has taken the BBC so long to spot that there might be a story here. This is not a sudden collapse of the education system, there have been concerns for years.

I mean, she says “For the first time in a while there's the beginnings of vigorous political debate about what is going on in our classrooms,”

Yes, because journalists have been sleeping on the job.

Her article misses so many of the main points and she’s going to be the one interviewing Spielman?

There is, as far as I can tell, ZERO support or expectation of parents. People can’t cook - schools can teach it. People don’t know how to swim - schools can teach it. Kids can’t use cutlery- schools can teach it. Kids don’t understand how to budget - schools can teach it. Kids don’t know how to dress properly - schools can teach it….

I think this also massively contributes. All external support services have been removed - and it all comes back to schools.

When I first started teaching classes of 30 were considered large. Now we have up to 36 in some classes.

10 years ago we had a massive pastoral team but that has been cut massively. Year groups of 240 now have a head of year who teach (nearly full timetables) and share pastoral support. Previously we had HOY, AHOY along with at least one support per year group and then some other staff with specific roles supporting across the school.

10 years ago we had plenty of support staff in our classes. My bottom y7 set was approx 15 students with me and 2/3 TAs. Now I have 30 and one TA if I’m lucky and they aren’t pulled elsewhere.

I do not understand why parents are not kicking off.

They were loud enough about poor teaching and educational inequality during covid. Why not now?

As an adult diagnosed with ADHD I have a feeling we'll eventually find out some SEN / ND goes even deeper than this.

No screens or lack of parental involvement for me. No need for sure start or anything similar to that.

I just have this gut feel that at some point we'll find out it's something like leaching from micro-plastics or the impact of some kind of substance that doesn't break down (see the Netflix documentary about Teflon for an example, called Dark Water).

I think lots of journalists think education topics are dull, unglamorous and beneath them. Most journalists are privately educated and a striking number are child free.

Unless you have several children with bigish gaps, im not sure you would pick up the changes.

Our new reception parent have no idea what we were offering a decade ago compared to now. The current children are dropped off, for the large part return home happy, having learnt some stuff.

SEND parents have been protesting. Like canaries in a mine. But this is seen as a niche issue.

The most impacted are the most vulnerable who often dont have a voice.

@wheresmymojo I've been wondering about environmental factors for a while.

Sadly, because they could see it then. Their children were at home.
What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.

My sons school is great, his teacher left before easter, they haven’t been able to replace her, so his class are having a range of supply teachers (who are also in short supply) until they are able to hire someone, so likely until September, unless they hire are able to hire an ECT who is yet to find an employer.

A friend is a teacher in a secondary school, they are currently lacking a teacher in maths, science, english, mfl, dt and computer science, these are all being covered by supply, some of these are year 10 and 11 classes. Not only does it mean children aren’t having appropriate lessons, the staff left behind to set the cover have a hugely increased workload that just isn’t fair while the HoDs are the ones getting arsey emails and calls from parents who expect them to magic a fully qualified subject specialist.

It isn’t just schools though, services that were previously supporting both children and parents via schools are either cute to the bone or no longer exist. My son is under the hearing impaired service, he is meant to be seen every term, he hasn’t been seen at all this academic year as they now have one person covering the whole borough.

Ha - I'm inclined to agree that it's something 'else'. I originally had 'microplastics' in my list in my first post, but took it out so it wasn't hijacked as a conspiracy theory.

But apparently quality first teaching is all a year 2 pupil, who is non verbal and developmentally 18 months, needs.

Quality First Teaching* was a buzz phrase invented by the Tory government as a way to excuse lack of funding for SEND pupils. It has had dire consequences for all students. Teachers with little to no SEND training are expected to teach 30 students of varying needs, some with very complex needs, in a classroom by themselves by pulling some kind of magic out of their backsides. I've been a primary teacher for 20 years and it is one of the worst things to have happened in education in that time.

I agree about the " everything is now down to schools". In my authority, we now have to do referrals for ASD/ADHD assessments because GPS are " too busy". So we now have a 32 page referral document we need to complete to even get to " triage". We have to refer for sight tests, apparently we now have to refer for hearing tests- although schools haven't been informed how, but GPS insist it's our responsibility. Speech and language support now consists of a 20 minute video" consult" and then a photocopied package of support we have to provide in school. CAHMS referrals are a joke, as is any other form of mental health support. Home tuition for children who are unable to attend school ( which used to be available for children with medical needs missing school following operations etc) is now school's responsibility. And don't get me started on specialist provision for children with additional needs, even if agreed by the LA that it is necessary, there is NONE available at primary level, children are having to wait until year 7 before there is even a sniff of a place.

I was trying to explain it today. For the billionth time. To fellow parents who are pissed off about the strikes.

To summarise:

• GCSE classes of 35 students, not enough chairs/desks.

• run out of exercise books/board pens/lined paper/glue sticks/etc etc etc so we have to buy them ourselves.

• students with severe additional needs with ZERO support in huge classes.

• being forced to teach subjects outside of my specialism (currently teaching four, yes FOUR, subjects) with no time for the additional planning/researching subject knowledge/marking etc required for huge subjects (humanities). Guess I'll be doing that every evening when I've put my own child to bed, and at the weekends as well.

• my classroom has broken windows that have been taped up, the ceiling tiles disintergrate and fall down during heavy rain, and you can only see the whiteboard if the blinds are closed (finally got blinds after five years of begging for them), now only two out of four of them work. There is asbestos in the building and we are told to avoid a corridor rather than go through it, which leads to mayhem in the useable corridors, fights etc.

• so far, seven (experienced and fantastic) colleagues have handed in their resignation for the end of term, four have nothing to go to. I would bet my life that the school will replace maybe two? And the other five's jobs will be heaped onto the remaining teachers, which mean more will resign around Christmas due to workload and then who will then take on their workload?

• shoving two year groups into one at A-level, and being expected to just 'make it work', again with no time for planning/resourcing how this will work with one year group already having done half the course and the other, no prior knowledge of the subject. Guess I'll be doing that at home as well then, when meetings have finished, other planning/chasing up emails/speaking to parents/marking allllllll of the other work for my classes etc, is done, oh and eating, washing and looking after my own child.

• standards of PGCE students have been declining drastically and frankly, the ones we have currently are woeful. Because no-one with half a brain would willingly sign up to this. And none of them stick with it, after realising what they are actually getting in to.

• checked my payslip to see how much pay would be deducted for the strike day, and after pension etc, I am doing all this for less than £100 a day. I've been teaching for 18 years... and I am a good teacher, I get great results, I work my arse off, and my students (for the most part) like me and do what I ask them to do!

• this is by no means limited to my school, all of my teacher friends in other schools, and across the country are experiencing the same.

• people shouldn't be pissed off with the teachers, they should be horrified at the fact that the government have let it get to this point, and we can only strike 'for better pay', which is only about a third of what this is about. The government don't give a shit, otherwise they would have done something about it, and stopped them from happening.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I went on maternity leave in Feb 2021 mid lockdown and returned in Feb 2022. The change in behaviour was astounding. It has been getting progressively worse for years but our current students across all year groups and abilities just cannot function in a classroom. There is constant (I mean constant) off topic chatting and a complete lack of ability to emotionally regulate. Lovely, bright, congenial young adults who want to achieve literally cannot focus for more than 10 minutes on a task and have absolutely no group work skills. They also don't seem to have any accountability. The NTP is a joke and the catch up curriculum seems more concerned with content than basic core learning and social skills - which is actually what has been lost.

Sorry that was long. Also forgot to mention that my primary school dd has had four different teachers already this year. In less than three terms. I am so scared of what it will be like when she gets to secondary...

And one more rant, on Friday alone, I made two CPOMs referrals, sat with a crying child trying to offer advise because some other students were being mean to her during my only break and had to chase that up, had to deal with a kid having a severe nose bleed as the nurse had three other kids with her so couldn't have him in the office with her as there was no space, and referee a fight at lunch time with no support because no SLT were available to support. On a five lesson day.

I have several children with large gaps 5 between 25 and 4 the difference is shocking and I am very upset with the difference in the education and facilities also equipment available. I am very concerned and we are trying to fill gaps at home time allowing, who should we complain too I feel bad complaining to the school it’s already stretched my son has told me there are buckets when it rains, at a recent parents evening there was not even a suggestion of what we could do to help bring our children along and reception teacher didn’t even know youngest was summer born they didn’t seem to care about them at all. We are currently on a waiting list to change schools to one my older children attended but I’m concerned that they’re all the same now.

I'm not discounting environmental factors either. Microplastics is an interesting hypothesis. Are other countries seeing similar issues?

Being ND isn't due to excessive screen time or low parental interaction. Our LA have hypothesised that higher pre term birth survival is linked with neuro diversity increasing in the population. They said they had research but didn't actually cite it.

What about older parents? Particularly older fathers?

What is going on in schools is that there is an extreme range of need being pushed into mainstream.

So much, and mostly undiagnosed at primary level. In my Year class of 32 I have (diagnosed) one child with ASD and SPD, and another with severe ADHD. There are eight others that we are fighting through GPs/CAMHS etc to get diagnosed.

Four further children have EHKWs (finally, after two years of pushing) involved due to serious child protection issues.

One child spends most of his day hiding under a desk. Another eats paper, stabs people with pencils and throws chairs unless directly supervised 1:1, which obviously isn’t possible. Another regularly exposes himself to others in the toilets.

And we are a ‘lucky’ school in a leafy middle class village. I’ve been teaching for over a decade and the current issues we have are so far removed from the average cohort even five years ago it’s staggering.

I have fought to get DD1 into reception at our school next year because at least I know our SLT are doing everything they can to keep everyone safe and learning. But I fear for who her teacher will be; current EYFS teacher is on mat leave and we had no applicants for her cover, so reception have had a stream of supply, patched up with whoever is free when supply runs dry.

Writing all this down makes me realise just how tough this year has been as a teacher. And in the meantime DH and are horribly overdrawn and drowning in childcare/fuel/food bills.

Crikey.

I do think a change in parenting styles also contributes to pupils' behaviour. They seem shocked to be told no about anything they want to do and will constantly question teachers' instructions. Don't get me wrong, we want young people who can question things that aren't right and stand up for themselves but, sometimes, in a class of 30, you just need to follow a simple instruction like 'stop talking' so that the lesson can progress and everyone can learn.

And yes, buildings are in terrible state and more and more initiatives are piled on teachers without anything ever being taken away.

Wait till they get to uni - they're no better. Don't turn up, get arsey when we say we'll terminate them, argue with lecturers, expect to be passed despite not doing work to the required level. (Not all obvs, but more than there used to be.)

I'm increasingly linking early exposure to iPads etc to this in some way.

There's a thread earlier where a 5/6 year old has unsupervised iPad time from 6.30am - 8am every single morning then hours and hours after school and at the weekend.

Children just aren't given the time or opportunity to grow up

This post terrifies me - my dc are primary age and I count myself extremely lucky with the education experience they are currently getting. But I can see the signs that the seams are coming apart and I'm dreading the secondary decision. So as a parent what actually can I do - I can worry about it, moan about it and look out for my own (e.g. extra tutoring if / when the time comes) but other than not vote Conservative, what should I be doing? Because I'm happy to do it, I just don't know where to start

Doing lots of proving we’re doing stuff we’re already doing in a pretence it isn’t for OFSTED when it clearly is. This, very definitely this. I am CoG at a primary school and so fed up with our dedicated and enthusiastic staff wasting time on all this unnecessary data, when they have skills and ideas going to waste because they do not have time to put them into action.

Society is crumbling and it impacts schools:

• NHS deficits mean that children with special needs and mental health problems become the responsibility of the underfunded education service because teachers actually get to see the children, which the other "services" do not because they never get to the top of the waiting list.
• Families are poor - schools have to pick up that slack, making sure children get clothes and food.
• The destruction by this government of the Sure Start programme and LA family centres that helped to give disadvantaged children a bit of a start means that children arrive at school with no attempts having been made to redress their deficits, and families struggle to support their children's education.
• Support for cultural activity in society is crumbling - no funding for e.g. music in schools in spite of the massive evidence of how involvement in music-making vastly improves academic performance ... never mind that it can be fun - heaven help us that anyone should have fun!

God it's all so depressing. I take my hats off to all you teachers - thank you for not giving up on our children.

Can we just all send a link to this thread to our MP’s? It is the most perfectly written list of all the terrible things happening in education and it’s certainly been eye opening for me