Question/suggestion for primary school teachers

[Lovelybitofsquirrel3]

I’m not a teacher and I’m not interested in becoming one.
behavioural issues can be partly caused by diet, sleep, or stress. If children filled in a diary daily to record bits of information about their week each day, it could reveal a lot about that child. I’m not sure why it isn’t routinely done in schools, or if there’s some kind of rule that doesn’t allow it?

Causing an even bigger rift between parents and schools? We need to be building relationships with parents, not giving them more reasons to hate the system.

Exactly. My 14 year old went on an excursion last year to the Tower of London. When I asked him what the day was like he said he really enjoyed seeing the ravens. And he lost his water bottle and his bus pass.

He's 14. (He also has autism and is developmentally around the age of 12 but even so. At primary? Forget about anything useful).

In cases of major child abuse that hit the news its almost always the case that professionals like teachers had raised the alarm several times, but that social services had not taken action, or the child was simply removed from the school.
I can't think of any recent child abuse case where supposedly not a single teacher/nursery worker had noticed anything.
The problem doesn't lie in teachers not managing to find this stuff out. It's pretty common when kids return from school holidays for teachers to gather kids on the carpet and talk to them about what they did over the break from school. Of course they will clock the kid who comes back thinner and says they really missed their school lunch because they kept running out at home. Or says they felt a bit lonely on their own at home while dad was at work...
They don't need kids to fill in a diary they find this stuff out they are remarkably good at asking subtle questions and noticing how children respond.

In my school, kids have the option of breakfast when they come into school so, if anyone didn't have anything at home, they have something in their tummy to keep them going until lunch. Many of the kids tell me they haven't slept well, I often get reports of bedtimes up to midnight etc (not surprising for the age of my class). Anything said, written or actioned of any concern is uploaded onto cpoms for the safeguarding lead and DSLs to review. Cpoms acts as a chronology of evidence to support the implementation of CIN plans and other structures to support families or document cases of abuse which ultimately lead to the removal of the child from the family.

There are procedures in place to help the children that need the help OP, we can't fix diets or sleeping patterns and things like that, that's the responsibility of the parents. What we can help to fix is abuse or neglect etc to keep children as safe and happy as possible

Also to add my oldest doesn’t sleep well. I talked to senco about it who told us about a course early helps run, of course I said yes to it but after 8 years with a child who struggles to sleep there was nothing they suggested that we don’t already do. She is has suspected austism and ADHD. Sleep issues is common for nurodiverse children.

And as an ex teacher my self (secondary) I list count of the number of concerns I would raise. I had one class on a Monday morning and I would always have a list of concerns afterward to raise. Nothing happens, there is no money for the kind of support some families need.

In a recent science lesson, my Year 2 clsss were asked to draw shat they had eaten the previous day. Most of them could only remember about two things.

I hope you’re not a HT ? Ours is so unbelievably supportive and kind. She has been a rock to so many parents - going well over and beyond her job role .

Unsure if this has been mentioned, but in the school I work in we have CPOMS, Child Protection On-line Management System.

It is used to identify and trends or patterns.

All staff use it to record incidents such as abuse, harm welfare, child disclosures, behaviour that cause concern, SEN, bullying etc etc

Trouble is, a lot if children who need support will still say they are fine and a lot of children who are perfectly fine will say they are not, just because it then gets them a nice cosy little chat with an adult, preferably out of the classroom.
It doesn't work.
It us far better for us to concentrate on the child's body language, facial expressions and attitudes. This tells us a lot more useful stuff that we can then follow up on.

I agree. And it is the parents job. We are just lucky to have such a supportive HT. Not that it makes any difference but we are in a very small school.

The thing is who would monitor this, act on it, decide what's important and what's not?
Schools have so much to squeeze in as it is.

I know children in my class go to bed late, eat poorly, on screens a lot but that's a parenting choice and not something we can do a lot about. We can tell a parent their child is tired but they won't do anything about it.

Writing in a journal, reading it, deciding who needs help is a massive job. Children also lie so then you're directing resources where it's not needed.

FFS teachers are there to teach, they aren’t social workers. If parents can’t offer children a reasonable home life, that’s on them. Schools shouldn’t have to deal with the effects of shit parenting, and it should be easier for schools to push back. They need less to do, not more.

Not to derail the thread but CPOMS has been mentioned a few times but what actually is it? My understanding is teachers record small and large concerns about children and if there are lots of entries, or an obvious pattern, this will be flagged up and dealt with? If my understanding is correct it seems like a really good tool schools have. Do all/most schools use this system?

Ridiculous idea, sorry.

You will largely be able to spot the children who don’t get enough sleep
and eat crap food etc. You will eventually meet the parents and it will all make sense!

I've got a really good idea, how about parents take responsibility for their children and make sure they are school ready including being able to go to the toilet themselves, brush their teeth, eat with a knife and fork etc. How about when they don't do this they are phoned and asked to come to school to clean up their child etc.

Teachers are there to teach, not parent. I agree that flagging where there seems to be an issue but otherwise no, it's too intrusive.

What do you think would practically happen if some of the kids do write they're up all night on their xbox and only eat nuggets and chips?

As a child with an alcoholic parent who had custody of me at the weekends, I used to complete my 'weekend diary' with a massive sprinkling of imagination. Children will write what they think people would want / expect to read.

How are you choosing which children will fill this diary in? The whole class ‘first thing' (haha) or just those with ‘behaviour’ issues - does that mean the loud destructive ones? Or the loud angry ones? Or maybe the quiet withdrawn ones? Or maybe the one who is late every day then refuses to work? Or maybe the one who is fine at school then disregulated at home? Or…… And if its only a selection of children where are they doing it? In the classroom when everyone else is doing phonics maybe? Or are they all whisked off to another room for everyone to wonder where they are going? When do they catch up on phonics? Who is the adult with them? When does a teacher have time to read it all? What about the children who cant write it all? So EYFS and much of KS1 will struggle. Probably a fair few in other year groups as well. Im sure you are well meaning but this would be impossible.

There's no time for this OP. In an ideal world children would have a 30 minute slow start every morning, with toast at the door for those who are hungry. This would ideally leave time for a chat, finishing off anything left from the day before, time to wake up. But we are a hundred million miles from ever being able to do that.

And what would the head do? Email the parents?

The issue isn't that parents don't know the right thing to do, it's that they don't do it.

Schools would need to employ people specifically to read through all this information every day. It's a massive amount of extra work and there is no way that a class teacher has the time to 'look over' it all.

If children filled in a diary daily to record bits of information about their week each day, it could reveal a lot about that child. I’m not sure why it isn’t routinely done in schools

You're not sure why this doesn't routinely happen? Have a think about it maybe.

Yes that's absolutely it. We log any safeguarding concerns so you can see patterns over time.
But for your standard safeguarding concern logged on cpoms, the response is to speak to the child and then speak to the parents. There isn't a magic wand of fixing the situation, I think this is misunderstood even by many teachers, who think something more will happen when concerns are logged.