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?

Even if the changes were better? I just feel like I’ve heard teachers complaining about Gove for years now. And nothing changes.

I know 🤷🏻‍♀️

Great 😆

Very little choice in the school you get so parents can’t select the one that suits their child. Schools are generally large and one size fits all (except they don’t suit most children).Very bad behaviour. School uniforms are horrible. Too much sitting and not enough interesting exercise/activity. Lack of academic challenge. Poor SEND provision.

Unless, you are one of the lucky ones who have a good time

So thinking about it I had a good time because I enjoyed learning & the sports but I made great friends who I still have today. My school was strict (catholic & academic) & Im not a huge fan of rules but I don't remember being fazed by any of the rules. Maybe they were reasonable.

The rules now are way, way stricter than most of us experienced, with sanctions for tiny things, and isolation used for relatively minor infractions.

Things will change.

But I'll be honest and say however bad things are, change is a massive additional workload and massive additional workloads are something that the teaching workforce really can't support right now.

IME it starts with yr 6 SATs cramming, which starts in yr 5 as soon as they have finished.

Starting secondary school is a nightmare. Primary tends to be nurturing. Secondary is feral.

SEN teams work very hard to make sure the needs of pupils in their care are met, but battle against teachers whose jobs appear to have become so restive/prescriptive that there’s no room for any flexibility, and children are punished for being SN.

Practical options in many schools have been taken away. Most secondaries round here are academies and focus more on academics than anything else, which means they can get good results but at a cost of dc’s mental health, and many come out of school and their results don’t match good outcomes once out of school.

There’s more pressure in schools than there was 20/30+ years ago.

Children in secondaries often seem to be nervous wrecks, I don’t understand why child experts are allowing things to “progress” the way they are. I don’t know one teacher who’s happy the way things are - why can’t they band together (via their unions?) to bring about the changes needed for the children?

OFSTED is not fit for purpose. There have been rumours of cover ups, incompetence and corruption for years now.

All in all it’s as if any knowledge previously held about child development has been thrown out of the window, teachers feel powerless to do anything different and defend the status quo because “guidelines”. Children are being failed left right and centre, whilst Labour cunts double down with suggestions that feel guaranteed to make things much worse.

It’s an unholy mess.

It needs a huge overhaul though which is pretty hard to achieve.

The Gove curriculum changes came into effect in 2014 - four years after he became education secretary. These things aren't changed overnight.

Another massive difference between when I was at school (UK) and my DC's is parents evening. Yr4 is voluntary but from Yr5 it is obligatory that the child is present. The teachers conduct the parents evening with the child and, as a parent, you're basically there as a spectator. The teachers speak directly to the child and ask for their feedback and agree what the child needs to work on in class. Right at the end, we're asked if we want to add anything!

I think that the curriculum has been hijacked. A relentless push to have more academic curriculum has meant that all the enjoyment has been sucked out of things. School used to be a mix of working hard and enjoying things. It is now just about results and working. No surprise that this is less enjoyable. Primary school is much more about engagement.

I also think the government hasn't invested in young people & children in general. Many are disillusioned

Same in Poland: there is pleeeeenty of testing — I would say more than in the UK — and it happens in many ways:

1. Testing of a large portion of material from each subject, usually 1–2 times per semester. The date is announced in advance.
2. Testing knowledge from a small portion (usually the last 3 weeks) — this can happen unannounced.
3. Something literally called an "oral answer" (not sure what the best translation is) — essentially, a teacher chooses 1–3 students to answer questions covering the material from the last 1–3 weeks. Each student answers in front of the class and receives a grade on the spot, also announced publicly. This could involve solving math problems on the blackboard or answering history questions (e.g. about the Napoleonic wars). Each teacher chooses at random who answers.

All tests, assignments, and other forms of assessment are graded, and if someone consistently fails, they may have to repeat the year.

The curriculum is also more rigid, and I would say more difficult than in the UK — at least it used to be for Maths and Chemistry. For example, there’s a list of approved textbooks that all cover essentially the same topics, and an approved list of required reading.

Everyone studies all subjects (probably around 9–12) until about half a year before our equivalent of A-levels. However, in high school students are grouped based on 'profiles' the pick — for example, math-physics or biology-chemistry — and follow an ‘extended’ or ‘advanced’ level for those subjects.
Primary school is from age 7–15, and then high school is from 15–18/19. There’s an exam at the end of primary school, and entry to high school is based on those results, but there’s no equivalent to passing a certain number of GCSEs.

However, while there is focus on discipline and behaviour is not the best, teachers absolutely don't focus on trivial thing like forgetting a pencil or tie or wearing boots in winter. It blows my mind that in the UK a student can be detained because of such trivial things - it looks to me more like a power trip than actual way to instill self-discipline.

I don’t know one teacher who’s happy the way things are - why can’t they band together (via their unions?) to bring about the changes needed for the children?

Unions are for teacher pay and conditions- there is no mechanism for teachere to effect changes to the education system.

Everything is online. If you don’t have access to a laptop (which many don’t) the phone is the only way to access anything. Having said that, at DDs school all mobiles are locked away in a Yonder pouch as they go in. So no access to a phone throughout the day. It should be rolled out in every school.

Expensive and, from what I hear, both a pain in the arse to administrate, and ineffective.

Because the culture fostered by successive governments is to get every scrap of energy out of everybody and then demand more.

Kids are constantly told they aren't good enough - it may be couched in terms of forcing them to demolish their own work to write 'Even Better If' or as 'Reflection', the impossible two grades over their average ability as 'it's an aspirational target' (not mentioning that it's based upon what the top 5% of schools in the country get, not your crumbling comp in an area with massive disparity in incomes). They don't get breaks, they get twenty minutes here and there to go from a classroom to a scramble for food, to stand up to cram some food in before joining a thousand other kids to try and get to another classroom before they're marked in late.

Staff are constantly told they aren't good enough - it may be 'why are they not making progress two grades above their general capability when this is absolutely nothing like a top 5% in the country school?', 'you need to offer intervention before and after school to get their results up', 'you need to offer weekend and holiday revision sessions' or 'we've changed the policy and now you need to find out from nowhere how to do this particular thing (because we don't pay for Support to have training) and then complete this counterintuitive spreadsheet that's being treated as a text list, then make computer systems do things they aren't capable of doing and then the two hours you say it will take is actually going to be ten minutes because anybody could do it in that time/you're making it up that you've got too high a workload'. And then they're told 'Oh, no, no appraisals this year, we're too busy/there's no money/you've failed to meet the impossible targets, so have yet another paycut in real terms and here's another five massive tasks added onto your workload now because Going Above and Beyond is the bare minimum here'.

Nobody ever gets a chance to breathe.

You are still relying on the pupils to hand over their phones.

And if not done would become another of "those" rules.

Fun fact - guess who has just joined the Yondr company to help flog that expensive edtech solution to UK schools?

Nick Gibb.

It'll be like interactive whiteboards all over again.

yes and no.

It can be restrictive and certain countries are worse than others in Germany (education is the responsibility of the state, not federal) but the post-16 education is a lot more broad.

You can gain university qualification if you have a Mittlere Reife (GSCE) plus an apprenticeship or Mittlere Reife plus college.

What is missing in the UK is a decent apprenticeship outside the trade which can open so many more options.

Definitely,had I forgotten a pen either teacher would lend me one or I'd borrow one from a friend no issue. Dd was expected to have three black pens , a red and green pen and much more that was checked repeatedly and detentions for anything missing. So much time wasted for something so minor.
Likewise with uniform her friend got a detention because her black socks had coloured heel and toe and a teacher spotted a sliver of colour on a uniform check where they had to lift their trousers to see the socks.Little wonder the kids are miserable.
Read on the local boards that there is now a 3 minute limit to move between classrooms, it's a huge school 2500 pupils, there is a one way system getting from one area to another at the other side of the school in 3 minutes is a big ask. Doors are locked once the 3 minutes are up all those not in class are sent to reset. It's almost as if the learning comes secondary to the compliance.
How can the kids focus on learning when they are pre occupied with trying not to fall foul of breaking the rules?

The curriculum is really really boring in places. There's a lot less space given over to practical lessons. In most schools the choice of GCSE subjects has shrunk massively.

Just to add to the levels of barmy.

As a teacher we were allowed to let pupils out three minutes early and pupils could arrive up to three minutes "late".

It is a middle sized school and very do able.

However, lessons still had to be 1 hour long.
All pupils had to be met at the door.
If observed to not have had a lesson that was 1 hr long, the teacher would be reprimanded.
If the pupils were let out early the teacher would be reprimanded.
If a pupil was late. You get the idea.

My point is that the rot starts from the top down.

Horrible, overcrowded buildings that stink of too many teenagers and communicate that you’re just another brick in the wall.