Our education system is an utter shit show

[Noonelikesasloppytrifle]

I don't think people outside of education realise what an utter mess our education system is in and how bad it actually is.

I have 4 DC with one still in primary and the rest at secondary or 6th form. I have worked in various educational settings and have been a Governor. I am currently working in a large secondary ( 1500 students) in a pastoral role having moved from another area of the public sector which is also in a mess. My DC all attended state primaries. Two of them are now privately educated with the other 2 attending state grammars and one moving to a sixth form college.

I have been really shocked by how bad it is in the school I work at. It has clearly been managed badly for a number of years (former head went on long-term sick, followed by maternity, followed by sick leave) so they were rudderless for a while. They have just joined a MAT who all want the same behaviour policies with a blanket discipline regime and no regard to the individual needs of the kids. There are a mix of behavioural problems but they are all lumped together so those kids who have SEMH issues are punished for not attending lessons when the classroom environment is so toxic for them that they can't cope. There is no resource for it to be dealt with in any other way.

The curriculum and assessment schedule has completely disenfranchised a whole raft of kids. At the start of year seven they're already aware that scraping a 4 in most subjects would be their best outcome but they're forced to sit in classes where the only attainment measure is an exam at the end and we wonder why we see so many challenging behaviours in lessons. There are barely any TA's so often 30 students with one teacher and some very difficult kids to deal with.

This week at my school they had so many staff off sick that for three days we had 5 classes put together in the main hall. It was either that or close the school.

The staff all appear to dislike each other. Teachers don't like SLT or pastoral but also exhibit a sense of entitlement. It's certainly not an "we're all in it together" type of attitude.

School are expected to solve all the ills of society. On a daily basis we're dealing with the impact of poor parenting, lack of boundaries, the poor diet and social media etc etc. There is so little resource to deal with this properly

I know that not all schools are like this. My 16 yr old DC (at Grammar) does not report the same issues at their school that I do at mine. However, I do know that our other nearest secondary is experiencing the same thing as us and they have a similar demographic (rural county).

I feel so sad for the kids coming out of this system, particularly those without the network around them to provide support and direction.

Thank you for posting this. I took my son out of his state secondary three months ago to home school, and I am sitting here kind of in shock at the situation. My own secondary experience was so good and his has been so dire.

I think you're right. People have no idea how bad it has become in the schools.

I'm fortunate because we do have the ability to home school secondary if necessary, but it shouldn't have to be this way. My son wanted to be in school and we wanted him to be there, but the situation was just untennable.

I'm not even sure that a general election would fix it. Things just seem to be such a mess just now.

I also volunteer in the NHS and see how hard things are there. I really feel quite shocked at how our society has slipped into this state.

Mainstream education in this country has always been a shit show, that’s why a lot of people dislike teachers as they’ve been indoctrinated into thinking one size fits all (for children). Schools really struggle with children who don’t fit the mould and rather than trying to tailor their needs, they find it easier to dismiss them. Hence why so many parents are removing their children in favour of home schooling. I can only imagine how much worse it’s got since COVID.

Funding levels are horrific. Schools c

Sorry! Schools can't afford experienced staff and if they can't get them on the cheap they appoint ECTs. I had to take a large pay cut at my new job which is over £6000 a year.

Teacher turnover is huge and leads to staff rooms being empty and the feeling of being a team is not there as it used to be. Regular staff changes does not make for team development.

Schools are closing in primary due to falling numbers. Which reduces budgets and this will hit secondaries in the next few years so these problems will not be going away any time soon.

Schools thirty years ago did not have to deal with mental health and safeguarding issues to anything like the degree they do now. There were also very few students with complex send. Curriculum demands were lower. Children had more respect for adults in general. Parents were more respectful about their kids' education. Schools today are completely different so saying that they have gone downhill etc is ridiculous without recognising the changed context and society we live in.

Op thank you for posting this. I withdrew my 15 year old from school last year due to his mental health declining. Asked his head of year if he could just do the main GCSEs (maths and English) as he was panicking about the forthcoming exams. Was told in no uncertain terms he had to be there for all the subjects. He came home with 150 pages of homework in the October half-term and had a breakdown. Currently on the waiting list for a place on a 14-19 year old study programme. One size does not fit all children despite what the schools and powers that be may think.

I wish we could get something like hybrid schools set up. I would gladly teach my kid at home four days a week and if he could go in one day a week just to see other teens it would be great. I think they could do one day a week much better for the same funding rather than trying to provide five days a week.

Well this makes me feel brilliant about my year 6 starting secondary in a September 🤦🏻‍♀️

@cansu I do agree. The whole world of school has changed out of all recognition. I had two good friends who came out of school with no qualifications at all, but there was never any suggestion that they shouldn't be there. League tables weren't a thing in those day.

I think the arrival of the internet and screens everywhere has really messed things up too. The kids are batch-processed at school by online games and powerpoint files now and it's terrible for their heads. Five hours a day of constant screen use when the kids have no control at all of what they are looking at is really not good. I think the medics call it "death by powerpoint" and for good reason.

I agree the secondary education is in an awful state. The primaries in my city seem to be doing much better (IME as a parent and a governor). The secondaries with a purely middle-class intake seem to be doing ok, as the children have a lot of support at home and are coming in with good achievement. But the secondaries with a more mixed intake are massively struggling.

Almost everybody I know with a teenager (including me) is dealing with school-related MH problems.

I think it's a mixture of:

• the social crisis created by austerity and Covid
• mental health crisis affecting parents and children
• the National Curriculum which is not fit for purpose
• the proliferation of large academy chains where everything is centralised and teachers don't have professional autonomy

I would say that the teachers in my DC's school are largely fantastic but they are being asked to do an impossible job.

*cansu*I never said they have gone downhill. I'm not comparing them to what they were just stating what they're like now. I do however think the curriculum change has had a hugely negative impact

That is utter conjecture. You have no idea of my personal situation.

Clearly earning enough between them to send 2 kids to private secondary school though so I guess saving the state money there ?

I don't recognise this description, so it isn't across the board.

That's a helpful comment.

Op can have some of my spare allocation of children. I have one. Many parents now only have one.

Precisely because the system and costs of having two are so hard now.

Our birthrate is declining massively and this will only ADD to problems, not resolved them because schools will end up not filling classrooms whilst still having the same overheads.

We are already seeing this starting to happen in our area and it will be a trend that will inevitably continue.

I've started volunteering at my son's school to help with this issue. But I'm not a substitute for a trained TA as I'm all too aware of when thrown in the deep end with it.

I have seen the staffing levels go down drastically since my eldest was in primary. I don't think classes of 30 with no TA helps.

What doesn't help as a governor in a sen school is decimation of sen funding. This can only get much, much worse. We are a SLD school so that's kids who are totally unsuited to mainstream from the off. There are hundreds of reception age kids eithout SEN places every year. They have to go somewhere.

Also dd has ASD right at the cut off for diagnosis in mainstream juniors. I feel very confident to say they that is treated with distain at school. She should be the easiest of kids with sen to deal with. But as I had to appeal to get her assessed then appeal the contents of her ehcp while people told me she is just suborn, rude and strong willed, she seems to be developing a personality disorder. She has a IQ of 135 and should be a doddle

It’s a perfect storm of:

• children with more and more complex needs being put in mainstream schools who can’t support them.
• children with SEMH issues due to poor parenting and crap home lives.
• Increasing hostility and lack of support from parents.
• lack of funding.
• increased accountability, inspection, standards and expectations on class teachers.
• more soul-destroying whip cracking on the pupils to try and achieve any learning in these conditions which in turn makes pupils anxious and unhappy and creates a vicious cycle.
• experienced teachers disillusioned and burnout and leaving the profession in droves.
• Fewer young trainee teachers wanting all that for a lark thank you very much (who could blame them).

Something’s got to give. We are failing whole generations of kids.

Part of the issue KeepWalking123 is the expectation that schools perform the duties of GPS, counsellors and social workers. Schools should not be used also as a source of socialising for teens who are home educated! They need to be allowed to concentrate on teaching kids. Parents need to concentrate on teaching their kids how to behave and attend to the learning.

All of our public services have been decimated under the current government. It started with austerity. They hate the public sector, they always have.

This isn't a description I recognise at all. We have 2 dcs in our local primary and they have had fantastic teachers, plenty of enrichment, an imaginative curriculum, lots of visiting speakers and workshops and great facilities and sports. All the schools in our area are good or outstanding and many families can afford private school but see it as a waste of money with such great state schools. Many dcs go on to highly selective schools. Our nearest state secondary has huge grounds and some of the best results for a non-selective schools in the country.

Some schools might have additional challenges but really a bright child will do well anywhere and support from home is a better predictor of their academic performance, so there is little point worrying about things like staffing and SEN issues.

Which other educational systems would you prefer, OP?

With my first child, the gp was who we went to to get on a waiting list for a neurodiversity. Still waiting! By the time we asked a couple of years for the next one, it was school we had to go through. I can't imagine they have been allocated any extra funding despite the increase in work.

They are currently trying to start the process for ehcp, but we have been told that the council have moved the goalposts, so despite what I consider to be high needs children, we have a battle on to get any support. Again, the mainstream school have to deal with the outbursts, self harming, inability for my kids to concentrate, or take in the information. They also still have 30 other kids per class to try and teach. Kids, teachers and support staff are all being let down.

School funding, or lack of it is part of the issue. The school DD attends has seen an large increase in pupil numbers, to the point where the majority of classes are now full and there is a waiting list for places.

However as it will be around a year until we get the extra funding ( around £100k) the school can't recruit extra staff.

And staffing is another issue... TA's get paid peanuts, teachers are burnt out, and as a governor I know the school and staff very well and I am concerned for the mental wellbeing of all the children and staff, but also the parents and carers.

We are a good school, we have a brilliant and dedicated staff team, it's taken a long time and a lot of incredibly hard work to get to this point.

Every child deserves an education, so many children are being failed by the system and it is a disgrace.

One thing that cant help is that there isnt a system really. Looking at england, there are church schools of two different denominations, non religious schools, schools of other faiths, infant school, junior schools, primary schools, free schools, independent schools, academies, maintained, special, grammars, other typrs of selection, comprehensives, areas with sixth forms at school others with colleges.

Funding is variable too.

The only thing is most are working towards the gcse eventually. Which doesnt work for a number of students.