Myths about school

[imhumantoo]

This is one for education staff in particular.
What have you read or seen that is often stated on MN but is untrue in your experience.

Mine is “nothing much happens at the end of term, they just watch films”.
I’m a primary school teacher who is still very much teaching a full curriculum. It is business as usual, just like every other term. I’ll adapt when it’s hot in class because pupils (and myself) will struggle with the heat, but we’ll still be learning. I’m writing end of year reports, prepping for transition as my pupils move to the next year, updating and finalising any educational plans for SEND pupils…there is still loads to do paperwork wise as well.

Before I worked in education, I too thought the above. I now know things are different (the huge curriculum for one!) and my own school experience as a child does not reflect what currently happens in school.

That we apparently work school hours and have all these holidays! I work til 8 most weekdays as a HoD and work rather a lot of saturdays too. The PE staff work longer hours than me with all the sport practices and matches! And I have to come in during the holidays for various things too.

And also, working in an international school, that schools abroad start at age 6. Well yes they sort of do but it is expected that the child has gone to some sort of kindergarten either at the school or elsewhere and meets a minimum educational standard first. I’ve worked at a couple of international schools and never seen a child stay at home playing until 6 then suddenly start school in grade 1. A child who hadn’t already started reading would really struggle to rock up at school at 6.

A sizeable minority of SEN parents don’t engage with the school support for their child, including those with EHCP’s. Some may have SEN themselves and we try our best to find a way to engage with them but it’s an uphill battle. However, schools are a microcosm of society so while it’s sad and disappointing it is what it is and we do our very best for our most vulnerable pupils.

Not a teacher myself but a teachers daughter. 'They get weekends and loads of holidays.' Yes, they get this time not at school but a large portion of the weekends and holidays are spent doing behind the scenes work; lesson plans, lesson prep, action plans for SEN, resource building etc.. My Dad used to take my brother and I out on weekends so Mum could work, sometimes on holidays we would go into school with her and we would help her take down displays. A lot goes on that parents and pupils do not see and teachers are accused of being lazy when most are anything but.

Early years is “just playing all day” is one sadly even some school staff seem to believe

Teaching is family friendly.

It's really not.

There's certainly children that start preschool (first compulsory year of school in my country) at 6 years old unable to read at all. Most go to nursery before starting school because SAHPs aren't that common but they don't learn to read in nursery, that's definitely left for school to teach. Some will be able to read already because their parents taught them but the expectation is that they start school without any academic knowledge and the first year is spent learning the alphabet and numbers.

Both my kids spent the last two weeks of term in primary school not working - preparing for the school show, helping at various events, cleaning and organising the class room but no actual lessons as such, as confirmed by their class teachers. In high school the last week was spent watching tv while teachers did their end of year paperwork etc, or cleaning out classroom cupboards in preparation for the following term.

There’s no way my head would sanction that @Jellycatspyjamas. Many children with SEN need structure and routines, and with so many more SEND children than ever before, it would be chaos. Plus as I said, the curriculum has to be taught - we can’t just opt out (we can adapt it as needed during the heatwaves).

Putting on a school show does involve English, reading, drama, art (for props). It may not be writing in books kind of teaching, but it’s still teaching.
The last day before summer term ends is when we’ll be cleaning and tidying ready for September.
When were your kids in school / what year did they leave?

My kids are still in school, both in high school now the last week of term for both (one in mainstream and one in specialist provision) are definitely very relaxed. Certainly no new teaching happening, and a fair amount of tv watching, class room sorting while teaching staff do end of term/year paperwork.

My secondary age daughter is doing tests and still learning and then there's two days in the final week when they have sports day and then a "fun" trip.
Primary age son also still learning, they have a move up day when the Year 6 kids go to their secondary school and then the final two days are more relaxed with a Leavers Assembly and other stuff. I don't think either of my kids has just watched a film instead of doing learning towards the end of term.
The closest we've got to that was when my eldest was Year 6 when it was post -SATS and then their residential but as a mixed Year 5/6 class there was definitely work still happening

Not a teacher but former admissions officer my biggest myth is that if you just put one school on your application then they have to give you a place

Agreed, my year 6 finishes at the end of next week and they haven’t done any formal learning for a couple of weeks. They’ve spent the vast majority of it rehearsing for their leavers play.
I’m not complaining, I’m fine with it. But they definitely haven’t been doing actual lessons.

High school? Last week of term?

I’ve got another two and a half weeks, and we don’t call it high school, we call it secondary school.

Which part of the country are you in? Are these state schools?

1 Missing a day is ok: I taught science, if you miss a lesson we’re not going to teach that again. If you miss it in KS3 you’re going to find the lesson in KS4 hard. If you miss it in KS4 you’re going to have to study it yourself. Because there’s so much content to get through, we haven’t got time to teach it twice. And no magic 30 min after school revision session for 3 weeks will change the effort/attention given to the 5+ hours of lessons/homework over 2 years.

Of course, if you’re sick, you’re sick, there’s not much to be done. But holidays or days off because you don’t really fancy it will have a massive impact on your ability to pass. We also taught content up until (and on) the last day of term.

2 Holding magic SEN/supportive strategies in reserve: unfortunately if there’s anything at all that will make learning easier (in mainstream) we’re already doing it. If your child has a diagnosis there’s only so much a teacher can do. There’s no magic solution that they can roll out for your child. Learning is hard, and unfortunately a learning disability means it’s going to be harder. Yes, there are ways of teaching that can help, but only where the wider school setup facilitates this. Sometimes we had school leaders who would allow some students to take a more appropriate course or be taught in a more appropriate way. But most of the time it was GCSE content at the same speed and in the same way as the rest of the year group.

Which I suppose means there’s a 3 - most of the time teachers are only doing their best inside whatever ideology the management have at the time. Your older, more experienced teachers aren’t being difficult, they’ve just seen this fad before, they know what actually does work and what doesn’t.

Well that wasn’t aimed at me but I’m in Leicestershire. It’s the last week of our term, and we call it high school/secondary school interchangeably. State school.

Year 6 is a bit different as they have done their SATs and English moderation by mid June.

Leavers play is learning - it’s English, reading comprehension, drama, dance/singing, art for props. In year 6, we also do fundraising/enterprise so they can apply maths and learn marketing and business strategies (very basic but it’s still learning). There’s lots of transition meetings between the different secondary schools are primaries. So the perception of doing nothing isn’t accurate. It isn’t necessarily a sit at a desk and write in a book learning, but it is still learning. FWIW our year 6s are also still having formal afternoon lessons. And behaviour in year 6 is notoriously challenging at this time of year on top.

If a school was due an OFSTED visit, watching TV and cleaning the classroom would not be what inspectors would wish to see.

I didn’t say they’re doing nothing though, I said they’re doing no formal lessons.

@HedgeWitchOfTheWest
Agreed. I see the impact that days off have on learners in primary. We try and run interventions for catch up purposes but the class teaching will have moved on with the rest of the class so interventions may help in some cases but not all.

That as an early years teaching assistant I just ‘help the teacher’. I don’t even touch the photocopier or do displays. I do the reading, I prep the books, I do handwriting and literacy, I set the classroom up and shut it down, first aid needed? Yep that’s me too. I basically have to try and 1-1 for all of the behavioural children and the SEN ones. If a child’s disregulated, I’m the one taking the punches, bites and chairs thrown.

I get 30 minutes for lunch and the teacher gets an hour. She teaches the class for 20 minutes per lesson of phonics, writing and maths. An hour of actual teaching a day. I’m paid more than £10k less.

You agreed with jellycatspyjamas post about no new teaching, fair amount of TV watching and class room sorting. Hence my post going beyond the formal lessons.

My dc have a week off work experience then trip to Thorpe park, colour run fun day and sports day. Not much academic stuff but school memory making stuff that embeds friendships. I’m all for balance.

It’s a disgrace how much TAs get paid because schools couldn’t operate without them. We will be sharing TAs next year due to budget constraints - teaching staff are unhappy with this as we value our colleagues experience and expertise greatly.

@Natsku don’t children try and read before 6 themselves. DS was trying to work out what letters meant before he was 3 (funnily enough trying to read car number plates whilst on the nursery run and is now working in car industry) starting to read simple books at 3 in nursery and free reader by end of reception year. This interest in reading was led by him and he would have been so frustrated if hadn’t been part of his early years in education

You can easily take a term time holiday when they're in the early years as it won't matter.

Secondary teachers are better teachers than primary because they have to put pupils through exams.

Yes, I do agree with @Jellycatspyjamaspost. Interspersed with rehearsals for the end of year show they’ve been watching films and helping to sort the classroom for next year. My daughter spent an afternoon sticking new name tags on to the drawers and pegs for next year’s year 6s.
I also said I don’t have a problem with it personally, but that’s what they’re doing.

Some do but others don't, when DD started there was only one child in her class that could read when they started, when DS started there were several so it has been changing. DD couldn't read a thing before she started school (perhaps not helped by the fact that I only read to her in English rather than the local language) while DS was reading fluently in both languages before he started, the local one he taught himself. In nursery they were just so busy playing, they did some work on using pencils in the last year of nursery and introducing the concept of maths and of course they read to the children throughout but there was no trying to teach them to read, they were quite surprised when DS picked it up.