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

But equally, there are lots of pointless shit in life I'd rather not have to do, lots of pointless hoops to jump through for the sake of it. I do them anyway and by teaching children they can opt out of things they don't enjoy, it's not doing them any favours in the long run. DD hates reading and loves dancing, but I don't see how dancing is a part of her academic growth, so we do that in her free time and it's my job to enable that, not school's. School is to provide an education, it's not a recreation centre.

Depressing to see the curriculum described as 'irrelevant and pointless' when there are girls in Afghanistan and elsewhere risking death to try to learn the same things.

Our DSL dealt with 450 safeguarding incidents last year with no safeguarding support staff.

I hope I am wrong but I bet the DSL had no supervision either. So who look's after the well-being of DSL?

Very informative thread. I'm not a teacher or a parent of school age children but have a lot of interest in education. This is all true.

Not often on MN that I hope a journalist is reading.

Could we inform LK of this thread?

@noblegiraffe I think that when you see students not caring about education in this country and you see the girls in Afghanistan desperately wanting to have the opportunity to go to school.

I don't know what to write really. I agree with everything you've said @noblegiraffe. It makes me extremely sad. Education has been destroyed just like the NHS. I have so much to say yet nothing at all too. It feels hopeless.

On the subject of more kids with SEN, I do wonder how much is an increase and how much is just it being recognised or teaching styles/curriculum/schools changing so it becomes more apparent.

I was at school in the 80s and 90s. Looking back, I am sure many more of the kids in my school had some kind of SEN that was just unrecognised. They were always there, but they were the naughty kid or the thick kid. Or the really quiet kid who cried a lot. And the ones who really couldn’t cope disappeared eventually. They got suspended or expelled or they just truanted. And nobody really followed up, they maybe became social services problem but the school didn’t do much, whereas that wouldn’t happen today. I went to an underfunded comprehensive secondary school in a pretty shitty area. Plenty of my classmates just drifted away from school. Teachers now are expected to also be therapists, social workers and fixers of all ills.

I don’t think all the increase in SEN is down to better awareness, but I think it’s part of it. And I think the high pressure environment is part of it. I’m not sure I’d have made it through secondary school in the current climate. I think teachers and students are in an impossible situation at the moment.

I do think we need to look at the purpose of education and at curriculum content. I would favour a curriculum which is focused on critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, problem-solving and life skills, instead of a mindless regurgitation of facts for the constant testing that children are subjected to.

The Finnish model of play-based early years education til 6 years focussing on independence, social interaction and interpersonal skills seems a positive starting point.

According to ChatGPT “some common goals of education include:

1. Developing cognitive skills: Education helps individuals to develop their thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving abilities, which are essential for success in academic, professional, and personal life.
2. Promoting personal growth: Education can help individuals to develop a sense of self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-esteem, and to cultivate positive values, attitudes, and character traits.
3. Preparing for employment: Education can provide individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary to enter the workforce and to pursue meaningful and rewarding careers.
4. Encouraging social and cultural awareness: Education can help individuals to develop an understanding and appreciation of different cultures, traditions, and beliefs, and to promote social cohesion and harmony.
5. Fostering creativity and innovation: Education can encourage individuals to think creatively and to develop new ideas and solutions to complex problems”

I think it has provided a reasonable response, but it shows the need for critical thinking if we are not going to vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation

it shows the need for critical thinking if we are not going to vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation
Interestingly, the last version of the English GCSE included a unit on Spoken Language in which we explicitly taught students about the power behind and the power of language. It didn't make the cut in the review, even though students really loved it.
Cynical, moi?

@AthenaPoster It would and it does happen. The depressing part is the recognition is there, but no money or staff to implement meaningful interventions.
There was a period of a couple of years about 10 years ago when remnants of funding was still there, alongside good advocacy for kids. This is gone now. SEN may be recognized, but support just isn't there. With all the will in the world, there just isn't the staff or money even for the EHCP kids, let alone those without.
EHCP applications are through the roof year on year and they're successful. In order to have an EHCP, the school or parents need to prove that the school has done all they can. This is normally proven by the amount of £ the school has allocated for that childs support. Generally it's the £6k. Resources are so expensive now that the bar is set very low to meet that. It used to be that when a child has an EHCP their needs are very very high. Think 1:1 full time. Now kids who would be fine on the generic SEN register 10 years ago, are getting EHCPs. Rightly so, but the increase in them should be ringing alarm bells. We don't magically have a more disabled society. It's schools not being able to provide more than very basic support without an EHCP.
Don't get me started on the EHCPs that aren't even worth the paper their written on.

@Michaelmonstera The Finnish model is failing and is crap. Kids in the UK are taught all those skills. There's actually not that much regurgitation of facts. We have a very broad and intense curriculum that relies heavily on application of knowledge and is actually quite good. If it was just regurgitation of facts, most SEN kids wouldn't be struggling with it as much as they are.
The problem is really not the curriculum. We had a very child led curriculum under labour and attainment was at an all time low on the backdrop of insanely high spending.

@Dodgeitornot you're right. I worded that badly because I personally know so many kids who are not in school now and nothing is being done for them. But quite often their needs are known, they just aren't being met. I was really just trying to get across that idea that the kids with SEN have always been there. Sadly we've also always been failing a lot of them.

I teach in an independent school, where the issues can sometimes be different to the state sector. But there are massive shifts in student behaviour compared to normal at my place, especially in Year 8 and 9 (the cohorts which didn't have a normal primary/secondary transition). Everything is an argument. The parents are, however, generally supportive of the teachers (at least about behaviour!)

@Dodgeitornot I disagree. Children in Reception are expected to learn phonics, form recognisable letters, read and write sentences - before many are ready. Lots of children do not know how to play cooperatively, have poor speech and language and lack personal independence skills. These are foundation skills for successful education and another year would allow time for children to develop these core skills. In Secondary schools many subjects have a specification that is a mile wide and an inch deep. Children are often taught how to pass the exam rather than to understand a subject and that is seen as success. Other than EYFS, I am not suggesting a child led curriculum but we do need to consider content and purpose.

Your comment about SEN children suggests a complete lack of knowledge: many sen children find memorising, retaining and regurgitating facts very difficult due to problems such as poor working memory, slow processing etc. They need to be taught for understanding as this supports memory. For instance, if maths is merely taught as algorithms which need to be memorised , as seems to happen in some schools due to the breadth of the maths curriculum, then you are setting SEN children up to fail before they have even started.

Doesn't Finland have the highest number of books per capita or something similar? Too many children in this country don't have access to books outside school, Finnish is also simpler in phonetic terms. Is that why we teach it earlier?

I think comparing the situation here with the situation in Afghanistan is like comparing apples and pears. Our societies are completely different. No one on here would dispute that it is wrong on every level that Afghan girls are denied an education.
I stand by my comment that the UK curriculum is largely meaningless to children today. It’s still overly focused on passing tests and regurgitating facts based on an antiquated system.
Yes there are some good skills taught in schools such as basic cooking and woodworking, how to read and write but fundamentally our modern world has outpaced the national Curriculum. And it’s only going to get more disparate with the pace that technology moves at in our society.

Can't really compare to anywhere else. Finnish comparisons are unhelpful for example. Massive investment in education since the 50s for a start, but also a very simple phonetic language. On average it takes 10 weeks for a Finnish child to learn to read.

@Michaelmonstera We'll agree to disagree.

Screens.

I do have some rather compelling anecdotal evidence, but can't really share it without identifying my school.

Suffice to say that there has been an exodus of staff and I have withdrawn my own DC from the school.

Finnish is more phonetically regular than English; however, most children in the UK would benefit from another year developing pre-literacy skills such as phonological awareness (in readiness for phonics), vocabulary development, and fine motor skills for writing. Another year would allow them the maturity for the attention and listening required to learn.

Our struggling NHS Trust have reformed their overwhelmed services by getting schools to do more and therefore require less specialist input. These reforms have just been launched. I can't wait to see how this goes when schools haven't actually got the capacity to fill these gaps.

What things have been pushed onto schools?

But the national curriculum for many subjects in secondary isn't really a thing, there's a few vague bullet points stating the obvious, but it's not a prescriptive list of things to include and therefore schools are pretty much left to their own devices. And what is useful to one student is not to another. I did cooking at school, but this was not useful to me at all because I hate cooking so if it doesn't go in the airfryer or boiled in the pan, it doesn't get made in this household. Woodwork similarly, I've never used in my life. In fact, I'm so horrendously bad at DIY that I outsource it all except painting which I accept will just look shit. I'm sure for some students those subjects are very useful, however.

I agree with you that schools are too exams focused but that's largely because we have a high-stakes culture in schools around league tables, performance related pay, and parents choosing schools based on results, which ultimately leads to funding. The only way we will ever create a learning culture that is not teach-to-the-test is by adopting a system in which the teacher creates the exams and marks for their own classes. This would ultimately result in more testing as the only way the tertiary education sector would be able to get a reliable understanding of a child's knowledge is by setting their own entrance exams.

Our speech and language therapy service have completely reformed to a new system. This system entirely built upon schools supporting speech and language needs more so there is less need for input from SALTs. Parents of preschool aged children now can't access any therapy, it is drop in group sessions and nursery/preschool to provide.

CAMHs are pushing schools to provide a higher level of MH support as part of their reforms here too.

Working parents mean that children are now in care settings for very long hours. Many of these childcare settings are not an ideal environment. Working parents mean that children are often eating fast food and are allowed to spend all their time on screens to keep them quiet. The whole concept of both parents working with school-aged children is seriously flawed. To thrive, children need active, happy, healthy and unstressed parents – these days most are anything but!

This may be controversial, but I am not a fan of inclusive education. There are far too many disruptive pupils in the classroom that should be taken out of mainstream. We need to accept that not all children have the same abilities and schools shouldn’t be trying to teach all children the same curriculum. We need a huge shift in our judgement. An ability in music, art or sport for example is often valued highly in adult life, but in school, if you can’t concentrate in maths, you are branded a failure. We need schools that encourage children in all spheres and value other talents. Let children shine at what they can do and don’t force them to do what they can’t. Stop valuing maths and science above the arts. We need creatives as much as we need engineers. There should be a choice of school curriculums at an earlier age, say 14 (not later as suggested by some). The old technical schools were a good example. Let children study sports, cookery, arts and crafts, woodwork, horticulture, mechanics and music, all practical subjects, alongside more useful very basic business maths and English classes rather than forcing languages and sciences on them and trying to give everyone the opportunity to go to university. Stop making children feel like they are a failure if they didn’t get GCSEs in maths, English and science. So much of the GCSE curriculum is now irrelevant for real life that I can understand why so many pupils are switching off.

SATs put too much focus on exams, not enough on enjoyment of learning. Ofsted focuses on the wrong aspects; nobody should value academic performance over a child’s quality of life.

Social media and screen time do cause reduced concentration. Why are so many children spending so much time on screens? It is because they are so restricted in modern society. The lack of everyday outdoor play after school is regrettable but unsurprising. We need safer places for children to play outside after school (supervised in all weathers) rather than sending them to indoor childcare settings after school. In Finland, school finished after lunch but there are plenty of outdoor activities available in the afternoons.

Parent attitude is very poor and teachers are often not supported. Manners are made at home, and I think this is a much wider a problem than just education. NHS and other services are also facing a crisis of adult and child behavioural issues. As a society, a lack of respect for others has now become very evident. Another PP suggested that we are seeing many more anxious pupils due to modern parenting styles, and I think this is true. Too many children are allowed to ‘get away’ with poor behaviour and are not developing the resilience they need to deal with school or life in general.

I don’t think increases in poor behaviour are due to an increase in pre-term survival rates, or an environmental issue. There are not more ASD or ADHD children, just more being diagnosed. What once was considered a poor behaviour issue has become a mental health issue. This is not necessarily wrong, but a diagnosis does not negate the need for strong discipline. Too often I see these issues being used as an excuse for poor behaviour and so there are no consequences, and the behaviour is repeated.

The lack of teachers has reached the extent that I think learning may have to move online within a decade unless this is rectified. There are no longer enough teachers and despite lower birth rates in recent years, I still don’t think there are ever going to be enough. Moving to a system of morning only school (like Finland) may help with teacher retention. Teachers would then have more time for lesson planning and marking.

The lack of funding – where to start with this one! However, I don’t think schools need the extensive equipment that is sometimes suggested. We all did ok with blackboards and a few shared textbooks. Teachers are demanding more money because of the appalling conditions and the long hours required. My suggestions of morning only school hours, with afternoons free for planning, marking and admin would hopefully make teaching a desirable occupation once again without the need for huge wage increases.