Why do our kids hate secondary school?

[noblegiraffe]

Together with the news from PISA that our teens are the unhappiest in Europe, new research shows that engagement and enjoyment of school falls off a cliff once kids leave primary and start secondary.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-the-school-pupils-who-disengage-during-year-7-dip/

https://www.thedeveloperlive.co.uk/opinion/opinion/why-do-uk-teens-have-among-the-lowest-life-satisfaction-in-the-oecd

"It found that while engagement declines through school “in almost every country”, the magnitude “is more pronounced in England”, suggesting disengagement is not just a symptom of age “but something atypical” that is happening in England.

There has been lots and lots of discussion about the impact that social media is having on teen mental health - what about the impact of having to go to secondary schools that they clearly don't like?

A large part of the problem is that measures brought in to standardise, raise achievement, create greater accountability etc can have both good and bad effects. So it may be true that when teachers were less accountable and had more autonomy, poor teachers could more easily get away with being below par.

But the flip side of that is that the more accountable and data driven schools are, the more pressure and stress there is for both students and teachers, and the more we prioritise those things which can be measured (and not always even very accurately measured, especially on an individual student level). And forcing teachers to teach in a more uniform way can also make teaching and learning a lot less fun.

I’m not sure why people are blaming particular political parties. Each successive government, whichever party, has made massive fuck ups.

The school were more or less forced into becoming an academy in order to access funding for upgrading their buildings. Some were in an almost unsafe state and cost a fortune to heat in the winter. Yes this was due to tories systematically starving grant maintained schools of funding.

I haven’t read the whole thread but could it be due to sudden exposure to social media? A lot of children get smartphones after leaving primary school/start of secondary school and this could play a part in a nosedive of their mental health. I’m currently ready the anxious generation which talks about this. Very interesting read.

The education system wasn’t exactly fine and dandy before 2010 though. The current government are not doing anything to improve the situation either. Unfunded pay rises are causing staff cuts. Never mind though, the kids might not have enough teachers, but at least they’ll have half a “free” breakfast muffin. I dread to think what the situation will be like in 4 years time.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/10/england-secondary-schools-staff-budget-cuts

This is the problem with education system. Each government blames the previous one for the problems and does nothing to improve it. It’s getting worse and worse as the years go by. We need an entire overhaul, not minor tinkering around the edges.

The phones and social media haven’t helped. The book, The Anxious Generation, is an interesting read. I passed a bus stop full of school children waiting today. The majority of the kids were on their phones not speaking to anyone near them, even though they were surrounded by children of roughly the same age and from the same school. That can’t be good for mental health.

Nail on the head.

Same with other public services such as the NHS, judiciary, etc. All heading in the wrong direction and it really isn't only about money!

Exactly. It really isn’t a case of just throwing more money at the situation. The wastage of public funds is ridiculous. The PFI initiative has caused no end of problems. Schools and the NHS have layers and layers of unnecessary and expensive management. Successive governments need to stop pretending that the problems are entirely solvable with more funding.

Some of them would certainly be solvable with more funding though.

When I've shown videos of the state of my school buildings to people who don't work there, they've been shocked.

Yes, mostly. DD goes to a non-uniform school and the vast majority of them are in sports kit if they have PE that day, and otherwise they mainly wear jeans/tracksuit bottoms, T-shirts and hoodies. There are always a few who initially get over-excited but because there is no interest from staff in what the kids wear and nothing to push back against this soon wears off.

DD went to a non-uniform primary and most of the kids just wore T shirts and hoodies with jeans/joggers/leggings/shorts.

When you don’t make clothing a thing, it cease to be a thing, but and large.

But British heads simply can’t cope with the notion of no uniform, despite most of the western world doing pretty well (if not better than us) without it.

There was a thread a while back with those who’d experienced both uniform and non-uniform for their DC, and virtually all of them said no uniform was better.

Things my children have disliked - constant substitute teachers even at GCSE level so teaching is repetitive or inconsistent. Disruptive or aggressive peers who then get all the attention while the rest try to learn something from a two hour lesson without direct teacher engagement. Boring or outdated content. Uncomfortable uniform. Petty rules. Nowhere to buy a decent lunch.
Being taught about trans and identifying as random stuff as a big agenda in PSE rather than something that might be useful - adult life skills such as paying bills, getting a job etc.

Also, GCSE’s used to be the end of school and those who disliked education could get a full time job now they are still looking at two years more study when they don’t necessarily have a goal yet.

The idea that kids will be enthralled and engaged in classes on personal finance or careers whatever is pretty funny.

We put exactly those classes on for our sixth form and they 'don't see the point' and bunk off or spend the whole time chatting and not engaging.

What do you think needs to change? Lots of suggestions on this thread as to why we scored so low on life happiness amongst our young people, most to do with the outdated education system. We all know that poverty and social media aren’t helping too. Curious as to what you think?

Not taking away from other people's experiences but I'm not sure about boring lessons. I also remember getting bored in some lessons at primary so I don't think that this is just a secondary school thing. I was mostly quite keen to learn and if anything by year 6 I quite looked forward to going into more depth at different subjects. My negative experiences at secondary weren't really to do with what was taught in lessons.

Maybe you could make a case for it being indirectly if others were so turned off by the curriculum that it made them behave in a disruptive and bullying way.

Of course, there is the disruption/bullying aspect which schools have failed to deal with for decades.

But to prevent boredom etc., the pupils need to be doing work that is actually accessible for them. Anyone will get bored and frustrated if they don't understand or can't do the work asked of them. That's why it's important to set/stream pupils and give them work appropriate to their abilities so that they have a fighting chance of understanding it and being able to do it. And also to not force them through the school year by year doing more complex levels/subjects they can't do, just because they're a year older!

We should do a lot more of pupils being able to re-take a year to catch up if they've struggled for any reason. I know it's possible, but it's very rare and schools tend not to advise/encourage it.

My OH re-sat a year when his family moved in the old second year and he missed a few months because there was no second year place in the new town area. When he started year 3 in the new school, it was clear he was way out of his depth having only done a few months in year 2 there. Luckily his parents were on top of things and after the first week or two of struggling, they "firmly" insisted on him moving back into year 2 to sit the year in full, which was the making of him and he went on the thrive a year behind his true age group.

My two - 14 and 17 - love school. They go to a bog standard city comp with its fair share of anti social behaviour which they only observe and find highly entertaining, they like learning, they have good friends who seem absolutely lovely. The teachers are generally fair, no stupid rules. They have lots of freedom within the limits. I’m under no illusions that we could have bought them a better education but both seem to be smashing It in terms of grades despite the disruption and are receiving valuable life lessons as they do so.

To add - we were / are strict on phone use and social media. DD17 in particular barely uses it. And clearly they have a supportive and academically able family who support them and see it as our role to do so. So many parents check out of parenting and that is a disaster for schools.

Exactly! Kids like to say that stuff they are taught isn't 'relevant', but a) quite a bit of it can be and b) they don't seem to realise that relevant doesn't actually mean interesting. A girl trotted out the usual petulant 'Miss, why don't we learn things in French which would actually be useful if we were on holiday in France?'. So I listed all the things we learn which would be useful in that context. She said 'Oh' and at least had the decency to lok a bit embarrassed.

Doing away with setting and streaming (the case in both of the schools I taught in) was a huge mistake. I get that it has noble intentions of all pupils achieving the same goals with different scaffolding, and the less able pupils benefiting from the more able pupils, but it's a nightmare and yet another reason why DD isn't going to secondary school.

What actually happens is that subtly scaffolding is incredibly difficult without alerting pupils to the differences, the less able pupils disrupt the class because the work is inaccessible, the more able switch off because they're bored and no one wins.

Agree that uniform is awful! I’m not sure what wearing a polyester blazer, stiff shirt and shiny clip-on tie at my comprehensive school taught me? 🤢 Just that it’s horribly uncomfortable and ugly. I don’t know what’s wrong with just having comfy polo tops and sweatshirts as a uniform, one or two secondaries near me do but they are the minority.

For all that I’ve talked about the good things about the French educational sure it has many faults and one is exactly the same as the UK: ‘forced learning and compliance’ as someone said above. The curriculum is dull as ditchwater and very repetitive / circular: DS1 must have been taught the French Revolution at least five times by now 🙄

Another is a total absence of any kind of streaming, a result of the supposed egalitarian principles. But it’s even worse because there is no scaffolding or any attempt to differentiate work. The teacher teaches at the level / speed they deem appropriate, and the students sink or swim. It’s equality of opportunity only - everyone gets the same lesson. Same result though - less able kids are disruptive, more able plough on and do the best they can - but it’s miserable.

Race to the bottom so every one is equal. Political dogma on steroids!

Well France still aims for and achieves ‘excellence’ of a short but it’s achieved by putting every child through the same experience and seeing who sinks and who swims up to success 🙄 . It’s my least favourite thing about living here.

Education should be taken out of government hands. There should be an education board made up of teachers, parents, governors and employers. All decisions need to be evidence based. The government provide the money and that’s it. After working in education for decades I can see we need to stop using education as a political football where education secretaries have their own personal agenda. They change things then a few years later it changes again.