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.

I am a Governor at a large Secondary in an area with a lot of challenges.
The amount of things the teachers have to deal with before they can even consider teaching horrifies me.
Its why my DC are at/went Private, the teachers at their school don't have to be parents and social workers as well as try and teach

Home education despite the axes looming over it , will be the next bloodless revolution

I am not sending my children to toxic places. Kill me if you wish

I even can pinpoint where you live but anyway; That is not always the case and many of the types of schools you are describing have hidden bullying

How schools have been used for socialising for the home educated ?

I have read posts from parents who say that they would like to home educate but also want their kids to be able to come into schools to meet their friends.

Funding has always been an issue. There are so many institutions that are massively underfunded. It’s not going to get any better until more people pay into the system. Too many taking and paying nothing in. There’s the starting point. More people need to be in work and contributing to the society they live in.

Yes that, along with parents need to start parenting! Schools should be for educating kids in maths/english etc, parents should teach everything else. Lack of personal responsibility.

Just to add to my previous post, the average cost of private education is around £20k and upwards per annum. This is without VAT. So to me this says this is the cost of a ‘decent’ education. My point is that the government think you can educate a child for £8kish and private education is substantially more. Our government/s are doing it on the cheap and wonder why it’s in the state it is.

Its not just about money though.
The school I am involved with gets plenty of funding for SN BUT there are no staff to give the DC what they need and no Ed Psychs to come in mo matter how much the school can pay. There are not enough Social Workers in the community and parents are not doing basic parenting - I spoke to one parent whose 9 year old fell asleep at 2pm most afternoons who explained it was because he stayed up until 2 am gaming. I asked if she might be able to send him to bed and she looked at me like I was suggesting she fly. I could give you many similar examples. I sat on 7 exclusion meetings last month, 2 parents turned up

I agree, the social care side needs to be completely separate to the teaching aspect