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 in a similar situation. I teach in a girls' grammar school in a small city in NW England, surrounded by villages, in a less wealthy general area than High Wycombe (which I happen to know very well).

We have a diverse intake, mainly due to girls coming from outside the immediate area from cultures which particularly value a single sex education. We have relatively low numbers on PP and FSM compared with other local schools. However, the grammar system is only partially in place in our county, and we are the only girls' grammar for miles and miles around. We are very, very heavily over-subscribed.

Imo the very good behaviour in our school has very little to do with the behaviour policies of the school and everything to do with the culture created largely by the nature of our intake. Behaviour problems have started to creep in a little bit (in line with a fall in behaviour across the education system in general), but they are as nothing compared with other local schools.

It is the norm in my school to work pretty hard, to value academic achievement and to look down on poor behaviour. The majority of our students arrive already with that attitude (mostly from their parents), and it rubs off to a large extent on the rest. If anything, our behaviour policies have been decidedly flimsy and vague.

But OP you say yourself that this is your experience of one setting and don't recognise it in the other schools (state included) that your others attend

It's like so many things whether schools, GPs, businesses - some are good and some are not.

Bad as things are in the education system, the school you are in (and the MAT) sound shocking.

Decent MATs give head teachers more freedom over the individual school policies, because they recognise that what works in an inner London school does not work in a Blackpool school.

If staff distrust and dislike each other, that is often a sign of too much top-down pressure with accountability being used as a stick, which pits people against each other and creates a toxic work environment where people not only compete to not get picked on, but also get stressed if their colleagues did not perform x job well enough.

Decent behaviour policies, which are backed up further up the chain, are needed to deal with difficult kids, even if there are 30 of them in one room. Decent inclusion tactics are needed to deal with those who act out because they cannot access the work, but need to be realistic in what teachers can achieve with the resources the school has.

I'm not denying that working conditions for staff and students alike have massively declined, but your school sounds like a particularly bad example.

Mystified why you think it will be any different.

Thank you very much, that's brilliant!

Dd11 with ASD has been utterly failed by her secondary school. The send manager admitted the amount of ehcp's have doubled in the last year and they can't cope. I looked round a wonderful, independent special school last week that would be ideal for my dd but only limited spaces so she will never get a place there.

I'm so pleased I can afford the pending 20% VAT increase on fees

Widening the divide even more

@Spirallingdownwards the OP says one of her DCs goes to a grammar school and that is different to the school she works at. 2 grammar school teachers have posted on here to say their schools don’t have the issues the OP’s school has. These schools will all have something in common, their demographics.

I bet if posters look at the data for their schools and compare them to others there will be a direct correlation to data and the issues schools have

It's not about whether a school is good or not though. It's that schools are so underfunded and understaffed it is impossible to provide what our young people deserve.

See my earlier comment about science practicals and cover lessons. It's not good enough schools cannot afford for children to do science practicals themselves and can only watch. It's not good enough that children are having so many cover lessons, which are mostly just 'busy work' set because you can't guarantee a qualified teacher will be covering, let alone someone able to teach that subject.

I would encourage all parents to log how many cover lessons their child has from now until Easter, and then rethink if this is an issue or not. Especially those that think they are unaffected by the current education crisis.

Lol. So did I.

My Maths teacher used to lock me in his supply cupboard for whole lessons and if we played up we got sent to the Head to be hit with a trainer!

They were VERY different times!

@fuckityfuckityfuckfuck the cover lesson problem was very obvious to us at home. I started to feel that my son could learn better at home with me and the slides, rather than being left to read them in silence without a teacher to discuss the content. Also where there are disturbing videos and gifs in the slides the kids are exposed to these without an adult to help. The cover teachers just sit and supervise.

My primary school can only refer some many children a year for free. After that they have to pay. And they can't afford to do this as their funding is so low.

The result is children who don't get referred for years because they aren't regarded as the highest priority.

COVID was a massive issue for my son's year. The referral process is observing a child in school for two terms. Except they weren't in school for four terms over reception and year one so they lost two years of referrals. By the time they returned the worst kids were off the scale in behaviour and couldn't cope but there was no additional funding for them. They still had to be observed for two terms before they went to the next stage and got onto the waiting list. By this point these kids were having a massive impact on the rest of the class. We were at after Easter in year 2 by this point.

Year 3 things exploded and was horrendous for just about everyone. We have violent behaviour to deal with as well as parents who were in denial and unsupportive about their child's behaviour. There were a number of kids who had fallen behind and a number of kids who hadn't even made the list for observation yet.

Things are more stable now in year 4. Mainly cos the child with the biggest SEN needs finally got a one to one. He's a lovely kid but obviously needed a one to one since reception - you didn't need to assess him to establish this. A blind newt could tell you within ten minutes of talking to him. The other kid with significant needs finally is on meds (his parents had been resistant). It's a night and day difference.

DS is one of the ones still on the waiting list. His issues became apparent in year2. He's an odd case as he's meeting his targets. We were told explicitly the school don't normally refer if a child is meeting their targets. The trouble is he's clearly ADHD and if you talk to him and can get him to focus, it's clear that the fact he scraped his targets isn't reflective of what comes out his mouth. There's a disconnect between paper and brain. He should be at working beyond level. But I suspect we still face a huge battle with the assessment process due to this. School have been good as they have at least recognised the scale of the issue and his behaviour has improved incredibly with the other child in the class now being on meds.

I know the class well. There's about ten with SEN needs out of 30. This is an affluent area with little pupil premium. The problem is the parents have got increasingly old and occupations have narrowed - the number of parents who work in IT is huge as they are one of the only occupations that have big enough wages to buy a house in the area. Then there's the number of parents who work - again due to house prices. Ten years ago the range of parental occupations was much broader and stay at home parents weren't uncommon. And those parents often would be available to help out at school. The attitude of parents has shifted from being involved in their child's education to expecting school to do everything. This includes discipline. The kids are shoved in front of screen as a means to manage behaviour at home and are in childcare settings most of the rest of the time. This is a HUGE issue.

Having a disproportionate average number of sen kids for your socioeconomic group, a referral process which works on number per year rather than need and a low pupil premium rate is a disaster in its own right because the problems stack up and become compounded. The system isn't fit for purpose.

When they started school few had learned to sit still. Missing so much school due to COVID, delayed that. When kids behaviour then isn't up to scratch, the parents kick back against the school 'defending' their child rather than working with the school to resolve behavioural issues. The parents take the issue personally and are offended by it and want someone to blame, rather than seeing the issue as a joint problem to be resolved between parents and schools. Teachers become enemies rather than allies. We've found the head to be defensive because she's battling against all this, and can't provide what is required and is used to parents being combative. She's warmed to us when she realised that we were one of the exceptions to the rule and 'got' the nature of problems. She's leaving at the end of the year, taking early retirement. I can't say I blame her.

It's awful. I know I'm an experienced and very successful teacher. I pride myself on great results and relationships. I know I'm failing children as my class is too big, the needs are massive and diverse and I have no support. It breaks my heart.

It's not about whether a school is good or not though. It's that schools are so underfunded and understaffed it is impossible to provide what our young people deserve.

Agreed. The response to the general shitshow should not be to point out that a few schools are 'getting it right'. If so few schools are capable of getting it right with the resources they have and in the system that exists, then the problem is the poor resources and the system we have.

It's like SLT looking at the appalling behaviour in their school and saying 'Well, (terrifying) Mr Brown in P.E. and (rare genius superteacher) Mrs Edwards in History don't seem to have many behaviour issues, so the problem is clearly that literally everyone else is shit at behaviour management. It's definitely nothing to do with our intake, the social problems in our area, or our policies. Everyone just needs to be more like Mr Brown and Mrs Edwards.'

What worries me is that threads like this get so little attention and yet many posters on MN have DC in or going to enter the state school system. Yet threads on the latest gossip get filled up so quickly

For all those posting - What would be your wishlist to fix this? If we could literally give a list of demands to the shadow education secretary, what would be on it?

This is the current labour plan for education.

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Mission-breaking-down-barriers.pdf

What needs to change in it to get things right?

Proper funding for all schools. Needs significantly increasing.
Quick identification and support for children with SEND.
Class sizes capped at 24.
Major reform for the curriculum and ofsted.

Get Sure Start centres back so parents can get support with little ones so will help when they start school.

more funding for outside agencies so schools don’t have to fix all societies problems

I'd like to see meaningful medical NHS help for the health problems of ASD kids.

This would have huge knock-on effects for schools.

• Bring back developmental checks for pre-school children.

Kids that are showing up at school non-verbal and not potty trained need a bit of help. My son was like this and we got nothing but judgement and accusations from medics.

• Continuity of care in GP surgeries, so patients always see the same GP.,

Proper funding of schools and ensuring school buildings and grounds are in a good state.
Proper funding of SEND based on actual need of the individual child. This must include quicker assessments, access to specialist advisors and appropriate support, funded by actual need within the school. Also, adequate access to specialist schools when it is clear mainstream cannot meet need.
Funding for schools to have an in house counselling service. CAMHS is not fit for purpose at the moment (the staff are great, but it cannot cope with demand). If schools have in house services, ready to work with and support families, this can be done so much quicker and effectively than our current model without the ridiculous waiting times. If we can support children/families early they often require less support.
A move away from generic national targets and Ofsted. Instead a more regular, individual school-centred oversight which is tailored to the needs within the school and is supportive of raising standards by working together.

I would like to see medical and school bosses being able to be honest about the problems, both with parents and the government. If they have to pretend everything is fine then nothing ever gets solved.

More mid range specialist schools for Sen so the class sizes are smaller, resources are more effective and staff are better trained.

Inclusion from reception just doesn't work. But if you have early proper intervention some of those children will be better supported to later transfer to mainstream education.

At the moment you have kids who fairly obviously are just going to drain a teachers time, but because they haven't got the formal diagnosis, there's zero resources whatsoever for them.

And the unmet Sen needs of one child are catastrophic for the rest of the class - many of whom will also have their own SEN needs which CAN be met by the school.

The issue is largely centred on this group of mid range needs who are deemed not severe enough for special schools but for whom a class of 30 is never ever going to work for.

That means you don't have to drop mainstream class sizes either.

Funding.
Especially funding for SEN.
Reduced curriculum (in primary at least), personally I think the primary curriculum was at its peak when we had the topic project curriculums. We used to use scrap books and each child was really proud of their project.

Funding for SS so schools aren't responsible for that.
Funding for MH so schools aren't responsible for that.
Funding for SaLT and OT so schools aren't responsible for that.
Funding for diagnosis so schools aren't prioritising children that need assessments.
Funding for food banks and uniform banks so schools aren't responsible for that (or even better, universal income but I know that's not going to happen)

That's from the government.

From parents:
Take responsibility for your child. School teaches your child. You still have to practice at home (reading/times tables).
You still have to teach your child how to behave. And support the school when your child misbehaves.
You still have to teach your child manners.
You still have to teach your child basic skills like getting dressed, how to use cutlery, singing nursery rhymes, telling stories.
You need to let your child take responsibility for their belongings, pack their own bag, remember their own water bottle, look after equipment in their pencil case.
Model respect.
Model responsibility.
Model enthusiasm for learning.

That would be my wishlist. In reality, all I'm asking is to return to how it was in the 90s/early 00s.