To cry at the level of demand asked of children/ young people?

[SophieWantsABlokeyBloke]

I'm just catching up on the Grammar school programme via BBC iPlayer.

Just the level of demand overall, and the sheer amount of pressure that seems to be of these children.

It takes me back to the pressures of vomiting in the hallway during my 'SATS' before the end of infants (before going up to Year 4, I think). My mum wasn't even pushy.

I remember crying. And I was a tough cookie usually.

It also reminds me GCSEs are getting harder. And everything in general is just more selective.

Childhood and young adulthood is just so full of pressure.

I'll get my coat, I suppose

Sprinkles I’m not saying we should copy exactly to the letter the way that Finland is doing it, but clearly when 10% of the child population of the UK has a diagnosed mental health condition (see Lancet article) then we need to make some drastic changes and fast!

I speak as someone who has gone though crappy comprehensive school education and then managed to get degree/postgrad degrees from 3x “Top 8” (in league tables) red brick unis - so I’m certainly not against working hard, academic achievement and exam pressure.

I dont believe the 10% of MH is all down to exam pressure tbh. Social media, the press, presssures of all sorts (looking good, looking cool etc etc being in the top tbh)

I do think that any test in the U.K. is made out to be the end of it all, incl the ones done in class and aren’t exams as such.
Evaluation is treated as the worst thing ever when it should be only an evaluation that tells what or where you need to concentrate your efforts in. What you need more work on and what you do ok. (But it’s never treated as such. It’s only there because the child needs to be evaluated and actually because the teacher needs to be evaluated)
It’s at the point now that my dcs reports contains their level, the level they are supposed to attain but NOTHING about what is consider average, well above or well below expectations for that age group.
It hasn’t been helped by the fact they’ve scrapped the old system with the levels and schools have had to reinvent the wheel. So now there is no way to compare and know how well the children are doing.
Reports say nothing and I’ve seen teachers saying to a parent whose child was struggling ‘oh he is doing good. No problem at all’.....
And then, after being left in the dark about how well or not the child is doing, they wonder why teenagers are stressed because they realise they aren’t doing so well after all

The issue isn’t with the tests ... it’s with the way the school system is set up and with this idea that any test is going to destroy the self esteem of the child (and that it needs to be protected at all cost).
All the whilst, ther is nothing about learning from mistakes, resilience or learning to ok indépendantly

I thought you meant modelling as in copying what somebody else is doing, ie they are modelling best practice. I thought that was daft at 6 months, but the idea that he’s learning something positive from being a child model...

I don’t believe the 10% of MH is all down to exam pressure tbh.

Oh no just just purely down to exams. It’s the whole “toxic” environment that average UK children grow up in these days. Hardly any time outdoors (see the book: last child in the woods), limited time for free unstructured play, over stimulation with screens/noise/advertising/consumerism/excessive amounts of “stuff”, restrictive and instructional (rather than child led) school curriculum (particularly damaging in the early years settings), poor diet/junk food etc etc etc. Unfortunately I think the UK system makes this situation worse at present

In all seriousness, let's just go back to straightforward weekly tests, marked in percentages with the results pinned on the wall, so the outcome is transparent, and kids know where the goalposts are. No fluffy softeners.

It would have wakened up my DS a whole lot sooner if there was a yardstick to see where he ranked.

I did laugh over the 6 month old st language class.

I think there’s s lot of bollocks talked about kids today and remember it was ever thus.

You go to any pub garden or any park on any sunny Saturday and the kids are not on tablets but tearing around doing cartwheels or chasing each other or playing games.

Of my many children now teens, yes they knew others who had issues but some of these kids realised that ‘seeing the school councillor’ meant getting out of maths. My one dd did just this until I stamped on it.

Parents need to stop angsting and helecoptering kids. Life can be tough! School can be tough. You have to study and pass exams. No one owes you. Get a part time job at 16 and juggle your studies. Ours did.

We are in danger of allowing a generation of kids with no resilience because we fuss fuss fuss over their every problem.

Do you honestly think that the kids in the WW2 blitz were less stressed than this generation?

Teachers are the best they have ever been. Mine hit you with a slipper or cane.

Get a grip.

Great post ohmydays