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.

Could we at least remove the screens from schools and use textbooks again?

What does this even mean? I mean, my dept doesn't have any laptops or whatever so work is always done on paper. But we have projectors and use PowerPoints.

One problem with textbooks is that we can't afford them. Another problem is that they are all terrible. Third problem is that governments keep insisting on curriculum changes so the textbooks are out of date before they've been published.

Could we at least remove the screens from schools and use textbooks again?

Screens are pretty efficient though, my dc have laptops & obviously apps removes some of the marking pressure

& logically going forward many workplaces are paperless

If we remove screen how do you think our young people will cope in the outside world? DH’s business is now virtually paperless whereas a few years ago half of one of the floors of the office was taken up by files, reams and reams of paper.

Much of school records are now paperless too

DS is at university he has no textbooks, he is doing a STEM degree

In that case could we remove the gamification of the learning apps and make the powerpoint slides less overloaded with gifs and textboxes and videos?

I think teacher need to know about the phenomenon called "death by powerpoint".

The constant over-stimulation of kids is a real problem I think.

I think that the powerpoint slides should only be used where there is an essential picture to show, and not as a crutch for under-prepared teaching, or totally unsupervised teaching.

For example, a geography teacher showing a picture of an ordinance survey maps is fine. But a whole massive slide deck that has three gifs on loop on every slide is really not.

The Dr Frost thing where every success is met with an explosion of a firework is too much, and having textboxes constantly sliding around the place when people are trying to concentrate really doesn't help.

The worst are blooket and kahoot where the kids are doing tasks against the clock with no time to think, and then weird gambling elements added in. These can results in them getting housepoints or losing them for no more reason than total randomness.

Teachers would love to 'tailor to' your child's individual needs! But they have..29 other children with individual needs in the classroom. Often completely opposing needs. Last year I had a child whose SEN needs meant they needed to be in a calm, quiet, low arousal environment with clear and consistent boundaries. And another child with ODD who had to be allowed to make noise and have every boundary negotiated. Riddle me that!

Certainly in London a huge issue is the falling birth rates & the subsequent impact to funding.

I wonder if more schools could set up as private exam centres, then the home ed kids could sit their exams locally?

It would bring in money and allow the kids who can't cope in the school environment to learn in a safer place and still access exams.

Not RTFT, so forgive me if I go over old ground.

My DD is in Year 12 now, and attends the sixth form attached to her old secondary school.

I have had arguments with a teacher in the past but I had grounds. My daughter simply wasn't taught anything in Y5 and once she completed her (not very challenging) tasks she was sent to the library to read. 🙄 I did ask the HT why she wasn't given further work but he snapped back that it was hard enough to hire teachers without parents moaning about the kids not being stretched enough. I asked if he'd seen the children's work and he hadn't! When this teacher was eventually put on gardening leave because some of the kids went to the assistant HT to say that they didn't feel safe (my DD said this teacher shouted at them constantly and threatened them) their temporary replacement teacher discovered the class was very very behind and they had to do a lot of catching up in Y6.

Now, this was a teacher problem, but bigger than that this is a supervision and management problem. I think that's key: some HTs are simply unsuited to management. But they continue to get away with it.

My DD went on to a girl's school which was quite strict. No mobile phones were allowed to be seen on school property. The uniform standards were insane. Bullying wasn't tolerated, and each girl was expected to do the best of their ability. Although discipline was tight and every girl knew what was expected of them, I did find the pressure from the teachers was intolerable at times. I did consider pulling DD out but she had made some excellent friends and she's quite introvert and shy so the group turned out to be a great support system for her. She weathered the regime and came out with excellent GCSE results. So again, the management was detrimental, and I thought the pastoral care along with the lack of extracurriculars was damaging, but she was mentally tough enough to bear it. I don't think the HT should have put do much pressure on her staff to meet her high expectations. My daughter is bright, but is left with some anxiety as well. So, a mixed bag.

Her sixth form is shared with a local boys school and although she's doing A levels and expected to put the work in, she seems happier because she's learning about the specific topics she's interested in now. I wonder if 16 might be a bit late to specialise in certain subjects.

Schools do a lot for their students on little more than a handful of beans and I think they take on far too much. They shouldn't be replacing the parent. They shouldn't be feeding kids for free or even providing school supplies for them. That should be a social services issue. It's time schools said, enough now. We will teach the kids. We will provide extra assistance for kids with SEN. But... that's it. Time to move the social care aspect away from schools and onto SS.

I definitely think education isn't just learning in the conventional sense but also that it can occur anywhere. I found the GCSE syllabus to be very narrow indeed. DD would go over old ground constantly...teaching to test. Why not add value to learning by broadening it? Why not have more forest schools, or more learning outside in general? Why not teach gardening as part of science for example?

As DS was a reader aged 4, they whizzed him through the school reading scheme.

One of the final books he was given was about the slave trade. Intended audience aged 9/10.

I was not happy.

They shouldn't be replacing the parent. They shouldn't be feeding kids for free or even providing school supplies for them. That should be a social services issue. It's time schools said, enough now. We will teach the kids.

Very idealistic @VenetiaHallisWellPosh

Ever tried teaching a hungry child? Don't bother. It's impossible.

We feed because we care. And so we CAN teach them.

There's no hope of getting them out of the life situation they are in if they're unable to learn due to hunger pangs. They will have done so well already getting themselves into school. We want them to have the best shot we can give them.

This is absolutely true. My DS struggles to get food in school because of food intolerance problems and he does so much better at home where I can feed him properly. I can't begin to imagine what it's like for families to who can't afford to feed their kids.

Interesting read. This stands out;

“Under the Conservatives, young people have experienced a narrowing of the curriculum. Across primary and secondary schools, Ofsted has repeatedly warned against ‘teaching to the test’ but this is exactly what the Conservatives have prioritised. Creative and vocational subjects are too often being squeezed out, while at the same time too many children are going through their whole school career without developing core English or maths skills, while employers report too many young people lack communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills.”

and this;

“From this strong platform, we must build a broad education that enables children to thrive. Subjects like music, art, sport or drama, that build confidence and skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork, must be available to all our children not just some.13 These are skills employers value and which parents know help their children to achieve, while creative and vocational subjects can also boost young people’s engagement in their education. Yet our curriculum has failed to keep up with the pace of change. The teaching of digital skills and navigating online platforms is out of step with the reality of young people’s lives. Parents report concerns about the absence of teaching of basic life skills such as budgeting or interview skills.16
Employers report that too many young people leaving education do not have the basic skills – communication, teamwork, problem solving – needed to thrive in the workplace. There are also immense gaps in the technical skills needed to thrive in some sectors such as green technology, life sciences, digital and creative industries, where there are huge numbers of vacancies that can’t be filled, holding back our economy.”

It all sounds good. Whether Labour can and will actually deliver is a different matter.

If Labour come in and say ‘ooh now we need to abandon knowledge and be all about skills instead’ a fuckton of teachers will just say ‘I can’t be arsed with this anymore’.

Stop pissing about with the curriculum and leave us alone for a bit.

I 100% agree that the last thing any teacher needs is extra workload or a new curriculum to (yet again) adapt to.

However that doesn’t change the fact that the curriculum in its current iteration is unfit for the young people of today and is overly focused on passing tests/the academics.

Knowledge is important of course as are basic literacy and numeracy skills but I know as an ex primary teacher that most of what is taught in primary at least is pointless. And then this just disengages children from lifelong learning sadly.

@noblegiraffe - you have made some very valid points on this thread, and sound like someone who takes no nonsense. With that is mind....any chance you can mobilise us all into some kind of teacher/parent movement, we'll be behind you waving banners, etc, and can collectively take on government? 🫡🫡....wouldn't this be amazing! ....I'm actually sort of serious....😅😅

@noblegiraffe I'd join too. I'm a parent, not a teacher.

I wrote to my MP to ask if he would pass on this thread to the shadow education secretary.

@KeepWalking123 - just done the same. I live in 'true blue' territory, and our MP is usually MIA, but we'll see.

Primary school for my child was amazing. Secondary has been horrendous. I had a dreadful experience of secondary in the 80s and I really didn’t expect it to be so damaging . I wish I could home ed but I can’t.

This is an unusual thread, @noblegiraffe often gets a pounding here.

Maybe people are finally realising how shit schools/education have got

I'm glad this thread happened today. I really needed this discussion and so did my DS. He has been reading along, and nodding emphatically.

Overall, Primary education was great for my DC. They were taught a lot that was useful and they gained a love of learning. Year 6 not so much as I felt too much learning was lost to preparing for Sats but that was not the school's fault but the pressure of the league tables that underpin the UK education system.

It comes as no surprise to me that a number of children lose their love of learning and check out of the system during the Secondary years. The curriculum is outdated and naff for vocational training.
The intense pressure of GCSEs sends normal children into a stressed state.
The increasing SEN in secondary schools with the reduction of funding is a recipe for disaster.
On top of all this the comprehensive system in schools is struggling. The good schools keep getting better and the schools lower down the list never get the chance to improve because school preference and the type of school available means that parents interested in their children will always seek out the best schools and use whatever resources they have to gain entry.

Lack of parental responsibility/accountability has led to children who do not know how to behave (non SEN related) and low level disruption is at its highest. The burnout/leaving the profession rate in teachers is scary.

My worry is that the change in regime will lead to more curriculum changes, more stress for teachers and more children failed by the system who come out and stagnate in their young adult lives.