If you are a teacher or parent…

[Flopsicle]

What is one thing you would improve about your school if you could - needs to be realistic (or at least semi-realistic). It can’t be “wish I had a bigger bladder” for example! What is one thing that works really well in your school and is it primary or secondary?

For me, homework - I don’t think this works well in primary (I’m not including reading, spellings, times tables in this).

Friendship benches where children can sit if they’re feeling lonely and someone will join them, older children can volunteer to organise games.

Children to be allowed squash instead of just water. My dd really doesn’t like water and often comes home dehydrated, especially in the summer.

Blooming favouritism. And it’s often really blatant .
Same families with multiple kids repeatedly getting starring roles etc, head girl/ boy/ etc etc

Girls favoured massively over boys.

Loved our primary but it was so biased

Could you send her in with flavoured water or do they sniff the bottles to check? When my DS was at nursery they banned squash but said we can send in plain or flavoured water. I'm unsure of the rules now he is in reception but he happily drinks plain water so thats what I send in with him

I’d be fuming if a teacher smelt my child’s water bottle. Not least from a hygiene perspective.

I am actually glad schools only allow water, I suppose if you really wanted them to have squash you could send them in with a bottle that is not see through. Or is that banned?

I would too, but I have seen primary school parents complain about this previously because their schools had very strict plain water only rules so drinks were being checked 😫

I used to teach secondary but have primary aged children.

In primary school I would like to see continuous provision in key stage 1 and the opal programme.

I love my sons primary school so far, he is in reception so hasn't been there for very long but I love that they are so big on reading, their library is fantastic, every class room has a reading corner and the whole school compete to see which classes & students can read the most word each week and the kids win tokens for a book vending machine and they love it

I also love that the wrap around care for his school is free so I can work my full 8-4 hours, one of my colleagues has had to reduce her work hours since sending her child to primary school in september because their school clubs are so expensive they aren't worth using

What my DDs would like is if the School Camp Yr7 get could be repeated higher up.. maybe end of Yr9 and beginning of Yr11. School camp being considered by many the best part of Yr7.

Bit they also respect the teachers have lives and probably don't want to do it multiple times each year

(And I think the teachers are awesome for taking 200 kids camping for 3 days and the range of activities they provide, all for £30)

For all schools to be like my son's SEN school.

It's for autistic kids, but a lot of kids would benefit from the way they are taught!

My nephew has autism & ADHD and goes to a fantastic SEN school, he struggled so much at mainstream school (they said they had a SEN team helping him but they were useless) and they battled for so many years to even get an EHCP done, he hated school and didn't go for a couple of years after covid because he couldn't handle it but finally he got accepted in a SEN school at 15 years old!

They are very relaxed and supportive, they teach the kids the things that they are interested in, lots of life skills - cooking, sewing etc, they adapt lessons so things like PE could be a walk to the beach for litter picking, or hide & seek in the garden. They have alot of days where people come in from places like banks, police, and other services to teach them about what they do

He has been going in every single day since he started a few months ago and the change in him is unbelievable, its so nice to see him happy! He just needed the right support from people with the right training

Yep, same for my son.

I am so happy for you and yours ❤️

We need more support staff. We are struggling to meet needs and morale is dropping all the time. Won't happen though as there's no money so may as well say bigger bladder.

@No33sounds amazing

WTF.

I was going to say more funding, but that seemed too much like wishful thinking.

Hard disagree.

Teacher and parent of 3 here!
I think homework should be banned, waste of time and energy in primary.

I'd like to see better school lunches. No need for chips and beans to be an option every day, and things like hot dogs, chicken nuggets etc should not be on the menu ever.

The thing i like is that they have special lessons where they mix the classes and do cooking on a regular basis (p3/year 2).

Edit to add... this makes me seem food obsessed...

In secondary, all departments should have access to chromes/ipads/computers so lots of them! I don’t use them much, but we have 2 wheely cupboards of chromes and it’s really useful to be able to get students to join subscription services we use and get them used to navigating the websites, plus we have the textbooks online, so extra useful.

Don't entirely disagree, grateful for children to drink and be hydrated. But you'd be surprised by the number of bottles (with perfectly secure lids) that get spilled all over the classroom carpet - Y4 and already 3 entire bottles this week. So in terms of smell, cleanliness and stickiness (our carpets don't get cleaned, only hoovered) - water makes for a more pleasant situation when accidents occur.

School fines for taking your children out in term time or if they are kept it in that the money went direct back to the school instead of the council.

Our school already has a reading bench and no homework 😍

I would like to see a better fucking communication system. Worked fine until they changed provider this year and they don’t know how to use it and now just use direct emails, paper letters and even texts. So much going missing and no one knows the preferred/best way to contact anyone! Maddening.

Oh yes. Girls are most definitely favoured in primary as staff are mostly all female and cannot cope with boys who are indeed boys (active, inquisitive, etc). In secondary, maybe staff should chill out and not work with kids that age if they can't handle the fluctuating hormones.

Maybe more focus should be on dynamic learning and teaching rather than a traditional approach. Ditch uniform for starters.

Parents,

Parents complaining and trying to micromanage things. Phoning up and asking why George wasn’t sitting next to Sam in the library session because George said he wasn’t sitting next to Sam, he was sitting next to Joe and George says that he wanted to sit next to Sam, so why wasn’t he sitting next to Sam?

Expecting us to be able to parent their children pretty much. Toilet train them, know they don’t like pears, And not doing much themselves like teaching them nursery rhymes or colours.