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.

Primary: continuous provision until at least the end of year 3, then much less emphasis on sitting still and quiet regurgitating facts and much more emphasis on skills that will be needed long term EG independence, judgement, reasoning, interpersonal skills, creativity. Also, a wider range of seating types.

Secondary: greater emphasis on relationships and understanding the children and less emphasis on nit picky rules and detentions for dropping pencils.
Also, more spaces/opportunities for learners who learn differently EG practical subjects or independent study. Although in fairness most schools are getting better at this.

sorry I realise this was supposed to be realistic and I’m not sure this is 😆

so how about Schools (both primary and secondary) recognising that the vast majority of parents work and can’t just collect play tickets/come to a meeting/attend a stay and play session on a Wednesday at 2pm with less than 24 hours notice.

Our secondary needs more staff, more classrooms, better IT provision, more money to spend on resources, air con in the summer. All the usuals.....

Work on inclusivity and understanding Sen from the start. My son’s school waited until he was getting bullied and it was too late.

greater emphasis on relationships and understanding the children

Ime there's too much time spent trying to understand teens, and not enough time spent building resilience in them. In the nicest way, teachers aren't there to become friends, we're there to teach. Part of that does involve forming positive relationships with young people, but the issues in schools aren't down to staff not making relationships. Teens (and parents) have unrealistic expectations of teachers here.

I don't think i would change anything (at the minute!). My daughter goes to a lovely all girls prep school and her teacher this year is amazing. We went to the parent teacher meeting the other day and she was so passionate and excited to tell us how our daughter was doing. Teachers get a lot of nonsense thrown at them but our daughter has been so enthusiastic this year and her teacher has clearly put enormous amounts of effort into her lesson plans. We couldn't be happier.

For more SEND schools and places in them.

I do get how much is expected of teachers, yes. How about instead then…more money available to spend on pastoral support, counselling and bespoke interventions for those who need it.
so schools can still be inclusive and welcoming but teachers are free to actually teach.

Agree with more funding.

We have more pastoral staff than ever ime, yet more MH issues.

Perhaps school isn't the only problem? We need a societal overhaul.

💰💰💰

Girls only class for GCSE Computer Science. I'm sure take up would be more if the few girls choosing it were not used to police boys and never sat with another girl.

Also, but less practical, every pupil should have a Jamaican grandmother.

Yeah it shouldn't be up to the teachers to do all that. My children's schools have really good support - school counsellor, psychologist assigned to the school, social worker assigned to the school, school nurse that is actually on site and holds drop in sessions as well as appointments, school doctor assigned (nurse refers students), special ed teacher has drop in sessions if a student is struggling with their school work or (at least in the primary school in 1st and 2nd grades) would rather do their work in a quieter room.

Something I can't get my head around as a parent, is lack of text books.
Teachers must be spending hours on twinkl etc finding resources, photocopying effectively creating their own 'course' for the class.

Which is slightly easier for secondary teachers who'll do the same stuff year after year.
But it must be an absolute nightmare for primary teachers. Who'll end up with a different year group every year.

Yes I get different classes, different children might need extra practice at different things but surely following a text book and supplementing where necessary has to be a whole lot less time consuming than thousands of teachers creating the same stuff every year?

There's not much I dislike about DS's primary school but I wish they had a breakfast club. Its not really a problem for us at the moment because OH has so little work at the moment that he can be home with DS in the mornings (I leave for work long before school starts) but many of his classmates have to be home alone in the mornings for a bit.

I really like the 'flexible start to education' thing they have, where they mix up preschool, 1st grade and 2nd grade for a few hours each week, sometimes in ability groups and sometimes mixed groups, and they learn together based around different themes (e.g. one theme was media and they made their own newspapers) and play together. Made moving from preschool to 1st grade easier for DS as he had already got to know the 1st grade staff and classrooms, and he made friends in the other year groups.

As many have said here -
More funding
More support for SEND
No homework in primary

I wish we could adopt the models that other countries have eg very strong vocational pathways that aren't seen as inferior to academics, more creativity, more practical learning. For teachers to have much more autonomy. The current system just seems so cruel and it's no wonder that the UK is ranked as one of the worst countries for human rights.

Sorry that should say children's rights!

Op my DD was similar in regards to water and she used to take in water with a tiny bit of lime cordial in it, it didn’t look any different. No-one ever noticed, or if they did, they turned a blind eye

I wasn’t going to comment anything, as DS has only just started at a new school (Y7) but now I’d like to add “I’d like our school camps to be £30” 😭 or anything closer to that than the £££ it actually was.

Every GCSE exam should have a final page where they ask ‘Is there anything you have learned for this paper that you haven’t been asked but would like to share?’

It should be worth up to 5 marks or so.

Gives students the opportunity to show off knowledge they revised but didn’t happen to get tested on.

To get rid of things like star of the week - totally pointless and makes one child feel special and the rest feel rubbish.
often given to poorly behaved, I mean ‘spirited’ children as an incentive and makes the other children upset and confused.

• teachers who are more interested in the child as a person and have been trained in child psychology. They’ve got huge impact on them at developmentally important stages, yet many seem to be only doing the bare minimum.

• more outdoor, on your feet learning

• shorter school days

I think the addition to that would be... all schools having sufficient outdoor space, even if not connected to the school, to enable outdoor activities such as camping. Or even centrally held outdoor space with a council area.

If she's so thirsty that she becomes dehydrated, I'm sure she can cope with sipping water.

The UK is not "one of the worst countries for human rights".

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/human_rights_rule_law_index/
Here you go, @Thekidsarefightingagain .

Strongly disagree.

I've seen parents give their kids full sugar squash like ribena or vimto made up in a basically 50/50 ratio. Definitely not what kids need at school.

I think parents do their children a disservice when they don't have them drink water.