If you don’t live in the U.K., what unimportant thing does your school system obsess over?

[Flynnstone]

In the U.K. policing uniform takes up a disproportionate amount of time. What is the equivalent pointless thing where you’re from?

What an interesting thread! Thanks for starting it, OP.
Interesting comment about the French not being squeamish about pointy things. My daughter worked for as an assistant in a couple of French primary schools and was in classes with the very youngest children. One thing that struck her was that the French schools were much more lax about the behaviour of young children with scissors. DD remembered having rules about how to carry scissors being drilled into her at school. I am in my fifties and can still remember being taught in reception class how to pass scissors!

No. HTH.

Ok. Strange post though.

Although on reflection yes. It seems insane to me that just because yobs stab each other in London or Manchester or wherever, a child bringing a penknife to school in rural Dorset might be treated like a criminal.

oh, okay, the much smaller classes thing makes the enforced birthday party invites make a lot more sense too - I was thinking if the choice was between inviting 36 (or even just 18) kids to a party it would be far too expensive to take them all to the cinema/ice skating/whatever and not enough room for them in the house if the party the dc wanted was a sleepover. But 8/11 girls or boys, and assuming at least a few won't come, is (almost) manageable.

class sizes in the uk are really shocking.

That was such a jolt for me. I went to a French school from 8 to 14 and as a dyslexic before that was a recognised thing in the sixties, was made to feel very stupid. The punishment for not understanding the lesson was standing on your chair in shame while the other kids pointed and sniggered.
Of course when I got to the Uk it was so much more enlightened; ‘thickies’ we’re to sit at the back and not raise their hands for anything!

Yes, I agree school in Ireland is pretty chilled. No obsession over missing school. My kids school had a uniform which parts of could only be bought in one shop. Things like the polo shirts and trousers could be bought in M&S or wherever but there was tacksuit and cardigan/jumper that could only be bought in above shop.

Of course, me being organised, I left this until the last week or two of the summer holidays and there were always lines out the doors.

Luckily those uniforms were pretty indestructible and were passed down from kid to kid. My youngest insisted on only ever wearing the tracksuit and the school did not seem bothered at all about that.

In later years I was able to order the uniform online.

Also, school books. For my older kids we were given a list of textbooks, which were mostly one use only (ie they wrote in them). So next year had to buy the same books again. Later the school had some type of book scheme so we just paid a fee and they bought the books.

Netherlands: Graphs
The kids are tested regularly throughout each term (TBF the tests thenaelc are quite low pressure) and how well they have done for each subject is mapped on a graph which also shows how this compares to the national average, where they should be. So you can see that your child was in the top 20% for the first week after Christmas but had slipped back to the top 40% after that.
Bearing in mind this is Basis school (primary school). It's helpful to know how they are doing, but when I was in school it was just a general grade or description of how they were doing each term/parents evening. Not half an hour spent analysing graphs and discussing how they can climb higher in the national charts

This is a few years out of date though.

I have family in southern Ontario and went to both elementary and high school in Ontario as well.

Back in the early 00's school was obsessed over projects being handed in either in duo tang folders or on Bristol board.

Stationery was for high school and off the top of my head it was;
Scientific calculator
Compass set
Pens and pencils (any kind but had to have a red and black pen)
3 ring binder and lined or squares (math)
Binder separators for each subject and binder
Highlighters any colour
Pencil crayons
Pencil case again any type
Erasers and white out

We didn't have uniform but gang colours/ bandanas were forbidden. We did have a gym uniform though. It was just a t-shirt and shorts with the school logo in high school. If you did any team sports you'd had to have the uniform as well. There was also a gym fee paid yearly.

Once you were 16 you could be 'empancipated' via parental consent for school purposes - so in effect you could write tour own sick notes and late notes. I don't know if this was school specific or not as Ontario doesn't have emancipation laws.

There was also a huge push to do OAC (grade 13) you had to have 5 credits irc to go to university. Otherwise it was college.

Wait do British children have to take their shoes off in the school hall? Why?!

No school student is ever treated "like a criminal". There are due processes to protect everyone and reduce risks.
HTH.

Not in any school I've ever taught in!

As a small child years ago in primary school in England I got shouted at for having a paperclip that I'd unbent because it could have been used as a weapon. Granted I think the teacher was a bit mad. But yeah, while obviously knives aren't a good idea the "anything sharp" rule can be a bit OTT

That said kids in Dorset can also stab each other. It's a beautiful area but with quite high levels of underemployment/poverty/housing issues and the problems that come with that for kids including misbehaviour, exclusion rates etc. Not that knife crime is a common occurrence there but it's not a common occurrence per capita in inner city London either. I think I can understand why all schools would ban pen knives.

ETA to say Dorset not Devon.

You do when you do gymnastics, not for usual sports.

We get free school books now in Ireland. Its a delight but a tiny part of me misses the back to school bookshop trip.

Germany - very formal elections for PTA rep at the first whole-class parents evening of the year. The class teachers leave the room, parents pick an election overseer and nobody can go home until two parents are elected. I was once at a parents evening where nobody volunteered and it took half an hour until two people cracked.

That's just brilliant. I love Germany.

It’s getting slightly better with a younger generation of teachers, but is still way behind the UK. While more children are being diagnosed with the various dys and neurodivergence, it’s still very very hit or miss in schools. Teachers are not required to have any special training, and even if a psychologist or orthophoniste makes recommendations of how teaching should be adjusted for an individual student, it’s up to the individual teacher to choose to implement it or not. Many don’t know how, many do not want to - and there is no follow up. It’s pretty dire.

My primary school teacher was very nice but my school in USSR was obsessed with presentation. E.g. every time you do home work you should first write a date exactly 5 cm from the left and 2 cm below the last entry, then write Homework on a separate line , then write the problem and solution in a specific order, always keep 2 cm margins free etc. Every 2 corrections are considered as 1 error, every 2 errors reduce your mark by 1. So I often had to take a whole page out and re-do it because of 1 spelling mistake or going over a margin.

@Decembersunset

I had similar rules in my primary school in Ireland in the 70s.

In the US, my DCs were required to present drafts of papers they were working on if a long term project was handed out as homework, in elementary school and even in some subjects in high school.

First came the rough outline that was to include the thesis statement, then the first draft, then another one, then the final "best work" was handed in. There were deadlines for each stage along the way. The teacher would correct spelling and punctuation in the drafts and leave comments about the content. The "best work" was supposed to reflect the corrections and improvements.

Teaching the nuts and bolts of writing and editing was definitely emphasized, along with time management.

I remember queueing up outside Greenes on Nassau St and handing my secondary school booklist to the harried book finder, then getting a number and waiting to be handed a pile of textbooks or told the bad news that I had left it too late and they were all or nearly all out of stock. Paid my cash and lugged them all home on the bus. The textbooks in Irish and English were anthologies and the poetry or prose changed for each LC year, so my younger siblings were able to use the books I was sent to buy for both the Inter and LC. We did have to buy a new copy of Peig for my youngest sibling as the one that had carried me and middle sibling through was in bits. New Shakespeare plays all round too. The maths books went unmarked in the main, so they were passed on. Other subjects lasted well too, for both Inter and LC

Whilst I think not being abek to take I na pencil sharpener is ott, I think not bring able to take in knives is a positive step. Not 12 year old needs to be walking around school or on the bus home carrying a pocket knife

I’m a teacher in Queensland, Australia. Independent P-12 school.

We are quite chill compared to other schools when it comes to uniform expectations, unless it’s a formal day (2-3 days per term). Attendance; obviously we’d love and recommend all students coming to school every day unless they’re unwell, but if a family are going on holiday etc, then all good, we wish them a lovely time away and there’s no fines or anything like that.

However, technology…. Trying to incorporate IT into the curriculum across all subjects, is just my biggest bugbear. I teach middle school, and they have allocated laptops upon enrolment. It’s the expectation that they’re used for all lessons. I hate it. Of course they can be a useful tool, but I’m finding essential skills are being eradicated due to over reliance on technology. So of course I’m a little rebel and I do limit use of laptops in my classroom. I love reading about other schools across the world so thanks for this thread OP

No hat, no play. They are only out for like 20 minutes at a time.

In Finland they make knives in school! In 7th grade wood/metalwork (which everyone does) they can choose what they make from a list of options and one of them is a knife, like a hunting knife style. They also use knives like that in woodwork classes from the early years of primary school (the woodwork room in my local primary school is better kitted out with power tools and big machinery than the carpenter section in a factory I worked in!). They are really keen on practical subjects in Finland.