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

(The OP and many others who've posted here will be currently watching the Kuenssberg prog - BBC2 9-10!)

What staggers me is how quickly things have unraveled. 15 years ago i spent some time in schools in poor areas and they were oases of calm, happiness and learning for the kids.

What's really worrying is how there was a definite decline over the period to 2019. Then we obviously had covid, the lockdowns and everything was a total shitshow. That shitshow continued for a long time after kids returned to school, but was mostly unreported on. Even in Jan 2022 there was a call for an army of volunteer supply teachers to keep schools open as teacher sickness absence (and pupil absence) soared to the point where kids were being sent home or being supervised in large groups in the hall.

Since kids returned to school in March 2021, things have got worse far more rapidly. The number of people training to be a teacher has basically collapsed. This year our local uni has less than a quarter of maths trainees they usually have. Recruitment for September relies on these so it's really worrying. Next year looks similar. I've heard of another uni that has had no applications to train to be a maths teacher from September.

The future is really bleak. One thing schools and children really need are a consistent, stable, qualified teaching workforce. We don't have anything approaching that, we've probably got a warm body in front of each class, and that's the best we can claim.

Spielman was asked whether schools are in crisis and totally avoided the question, merely referencing lots of bad feeling in the sector, that Ofsted is acting as a lightning rod for.

What does she think is causing that bad feeling?

But who would supply the live streamed classes? Their teachers need to be focussed on supporting the pupils who are actually in their lesson in front of them not wasting time sorting out IT issues for pupils logging in remotely. And who sorts it out when the pupil fails to log in or logs off half way through the lesson for some reason?

Can try attend live streamed classes instead? Would that help them?

That is the great, failed education experiment of lockdown.

Laura said that the programme received more emails on this subject than any other topic they've discussed.

People have clearly been waiting for an outlet to discuss this. Like I said, journalists have been asleep at the wheel if they haven't spotted it.

Do you think they will discuss funding. staff retention. recruitment later on in the programme?

I think even if more funding is thrown at schools it is going to take a lot more to sort out the problems in education, and it is going to take years but in the meantime children and school staff suffer

I'm assuming they're going to ask Mary Bousted for a response to Spielman? I don't know the format of the show.

Mary Bousted from the NEU is on later so yes I think they'll discuss those issues!

And here she is...

It's all down to funding at the end of the day. Sure start cut. Early years cut. SEN provision cut. Every school budget in tatters.
But yes, some, not all, MATs seem to have marketing departments & other things as well as very highly paid CEO's . Unless a very big MAT this will suck money.

Schools also have business mgrs now on up to £50-70k

@tadpolecity It's often more efficient to have a business manager specialising in running the business side of the school, than having it done bit part by SLT who would have to include more people to cover the job.

Our business manager isn't on half of that! She also cleans the toilets when we can't find cleaners, opens and closes the school for after school events because we can't afford overtime for the caretaker/cleaner, does all the HR jobs that county used to do, ditto the maintenance, safety, budgeting etc. Heck, she even supports in the classroom when we have no staff available!

I see both sides and there is frustration for all parties involved. From an AP view - an AP is not a dumping ground. The staff equally are overwhelmed (and underpaid), under resourced, under staffed and at times struggling. There is not specialist teacher training to be an AP/SEN teacher. All teachers in my circles have a 'traditional' teaching degree.

The point I am making is the whole education system (including training and CPD) needs an overhaul.

What a sorry state the education system is in. What these posts have convinced me of even more though is that the underlying issues will not be solved simply by throwing money at it. We need to be looking at why we have these issues.

Why is there such an increase in children with increased needs? Why is behaviour so much worse? Why have we got such huge numbers of children unable to sit still and concentrate? These problems have nothing to do with funding. Is it any wonder people don’t want to train as teachers when these problems are so bad?

Real terms state education funding has doubled since the 1980s. This IFS graph shows this. The situation in the average classroom hasn’t improved two fold though; it’s got worse.

We need be looking at the causes of the issues, not just dealing with the symptoms. What are the differences with our children compared with a generation ago? We should be looking at diet, environmental issues, screen time, social media, the fact that most families now have no choice but for every adult in the family to work full time. Pre school children spend a much higher percentage of their time in a childcare setting than they used to. I‘m not saying that any of these things have necessarily caused the issues we now have, but surely we need to be looking into everything to see where the problems start.

One of the biggest problems with live streamed lessons, is that it assumes that learning takes place just by a teacher speaking and the children taking in the information passively. Children learn through engaging with knowledge and through working with each other. Effective teachers provide opportunities for this in the classroom and support children as they do so, which is very difficult to recreate online. Only a very small amount of the lesson focuses on 'input' from the teacher.

Oh my goodness. This is how I feel.

Only my 3 rd year teaching (am 50, trained as teacher, worked outside education, then as TA , then back as teacher), and everyone said ‘it gets easier’.

But is hasn’t.

I thought perhaps it was my age? Menopause? But a colleague has come back from maternity leave and said she’s really not enjoying it, she can’t ever remember this level of need, and how much we have to push little 6 and 7 year olds to ‘evidence’.

For my own 3 children: the older 2 have had a revolving door of different maths and science teachers.

The system is broken.

@spanieleyes that is why many schools can’t recruit staff for roles like that with the level of pay individual schools can offer.

Many of the staff that worked in LA are employed by MATS

Behavioural problems in Yr 7 etc…is it the impact of Covid? Or the unfettered access to internet and screens/phones that many of them now have? I notice my own inability to concentrate on books etc during periods when I’m glued to my phone a lot, so what is it doing to childrens’ brains?

I’ve posted a chart above showing how real terms funding per child has pretty much doubled since the early 80s. We need to look at how this money is being spent, because the situation in the average classroom is certainly not reflective of the funding changes over the last generation or two. We can’t just continue to throw money at the system and expect standards to magically improve.

62 HEIs have recently had their ITT accreditation quietly removed by the government, which will also massively reduce the number of trainee teachers in the coming years.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/itt-review-dfe-rejects-all-accreditation-appeals/

I think addiction to phones is a MASSIVE issue (and vaping a growing one). The number of children who ask to go to the toilet compared to 4 years ago is vast. They don't need the loo (hardly). They want to check their phones or vape.

All power to your elbow, OP. At least journalists seem to have started noticing the issues in education, though are often misinformed about the causes and write, "No shit, Sherlock", misleading or just plain wrong articles.

1993 was the year that inclusive education was introduced following vigorous campaigning by parent groups. Was that the turning point? Be careful what you wish for? Without the proper planning and support in place in mainstream it was always going to be a disaster, and also the unforseen increase on SEN.

What happens in other countries? There seems to be less SEN, and more exclusive provision for those that are. It doesn't seem to depend on wealth or poverty.