..to be thinking yes obviously , I've thought this for years - about Ofsted saying " teachers can't make up for parents"

[Foxy333]

Ofsted top person has announced that teachers cannot tackle life crime, lack of toilet trainer, obesity, provide social services and generally make up for poor parenting .
I have thought this for years and found it incredibly irritating. Except for reporting child abuse or clear dangers ...teachers should teach.

For example when my three dc where at primary ..There was all these iniatives about eating right, about Exercise about walking to school, all if which my children and 99% in school were fine ( and for the 1% the initiatives made no difference) BUT my children were not taught maths properly, the English was poor, science was woeful and they broke rules by doing no IT despite it being on national curriculum. ( actually they faked school reports to make it look like they had)
Teachers would be more motivated to stay in the job if they were not expected to solve all of societies ills. It's always been unrealistic, and unfair to try this.

I am not saying these issues are not serious or minimising them. But I have always felt school is for learning and not the place to punish children with no shiny "walk to school badge " on one random day. ..because their parents both work and to get there in time car is essential. All this pressure should never have been put on them at the expense of getting basic teaching done right.

Yes I absolutely agree. No harm in covering healthy eating and exercise in the curriculum, but at the end of the day parents are responsible for their child’s health and welfare. If parents aren’t taking their responsibilities seriously then that needs to be addressed- but not by passing the buck to teachers!

I'm generally in agreement with you.

If these messages (eg healthy eating) can be incorporated in to good quality literacy and numeracy teaching then great - but a continual bugbear in primary for me was seeing mediocre quality lessons/visitors/events/topic work on something like this, while core English and Maths were neglected.

The problem is that Teaching became about 'the whole child', so Child Protection up to the second level can be carried out by Schools.

Likewise the should have Pastoral Care etc.

As for Sport, School used to be the starting point and often offered after school opportunities.

They do have to make up for poor parenting because it's a duty to the child, to do so.

Perhaps Ofstead and education isn't for that person who made these comments.

Agree. People have such lovely intentions about what they think should happen in schools, but really schools can't do everything.
Lately there's been a lot of 'gardening should be taught in schools or 'life skills' such as writing a cheque!
Lovely lovely ideas, but where is the time?

I think you are right in that schools and teachers can only do so much- if parents don't set boundaries for children behaviour, teach them manners and show them the value of education and encourage their children (as a few examples" , then the school can only paper over the cracks to some extent.

That is why one good predictor of a child's life chances is parental attitude to education- if they don't value it, why should their child? Some children will enjoy school or be gifted or talented academically or in sport, or be inspired by a brilliant teacher and stick in, achieving their full potential despite lack of parental encouragement (or sometimes despite their active discouragement). Many won't.

Teachers are there to educate children, and that does include more than just academics or sports coaching- it is also about nurturing the whole person. But it really shouldn't be about instilling the very basics of proper behaviour in a classroom, or even more basic life skills such as toilet training and table manners. I feel that some teachers are simply trying to contain the children and have no hope of teaching anything constructive due to poor behaviour in class, much of which stems from lack of discipline and expectations at home.

I feel all this in the past was good intentions but even good diet advice can be done badly and actually be harmful.

My first daughter always ate well, big mix of foods, no hang ups and normal weight. One day at school they taught her A rule cakes and chocolate are bad ". You mustn't eat them" . Only found out at her birthday party a couple of days later when she said she couldn't have any cake , it was naughty! She was really worried. It's not good to be so simplistic. Some children in her class were too slim, they needed more calories. Teaching some foods as forbidden actually can start bad attitudes. To have cakes and treats as part of a varied diet is fine but they hadn't explained that.

Teachers with little time trying to pass on quick rules to make of for general parenting or cultural failings of society don't work , irritate and in this case caused harm. I loved the fact that my daughter ate when hungry and didn't view apple's, cakes and hearty main meals any differently . She had no bad ideas that needed correcting.

One of the biggest issues is that people expect these skills to be taught as lessons. So, once a fortnight, I get to teach a life skill, such as dealing with self-esteem. This is structured activitiy in favour of allowing children time during form time, say, to just actually talk to each other and help them develop those life skills themselves. It achieves very little.

I also teach a subject, which could include many life skills, but the curriculum is such that I neither have the time to include these life skills, nor would it be valued if I did in lessons as they would not relate to what we examine the students on. I would be seen to be failing those children if I actually taught them something useful.

That's in addition to trying to contain year 11s who still have not learned that you don't throw models across the room or deliberately break pencils on a daily basis...

Schooling, as well as attitudes to it, need an overhaul.

As Birdsgottafly says, it's difficult to get out of the conundrum - yes parents should do this stuff. But what about the children whose parents don't? The system can't punish them - there needs to be something that catches them. But then it descends to a lowest-common-denominator approach (for want of a nicer phrase).

Unfortunately if you layer this with the level of inclusivity of children with SEN in to mainstream classrooms, plus the level of resource available, you find that the experience of a non-SEN child who is academically motivated (and has strong parental support) is that there is just not enough focus on the "meat" of education in their class experience.

I wish that wasn't the case, and of course there ought to be some individual vs societal trade-off. But I have become jaded by experience.

I think a big attraction of private schooling is to escape the conundrum.

LtGreggs

I very much agree with your post, though some schools do seem better than others at providing the "meat" of the education as is the way with all things.

Also agree re private education. Our local state chools, especially senior schools are mediocre (at best)- I remember walking round one in particular and wondering how any teaching could be done given the slightly chaotic classrooms. They also did not seem to have a well developed curriculum, from what the head could/was willing to outline.

We were only in catchment for one school and could apply to be considered for a place at another, although neither were particularly good. Senior schools are dire (one has asked parents who have maths/science knowledge to come in and help, for example). We chose to go privately as a result. I am aware there are many excellent state schools and some awful and mediocre private ones, before someone points it out- and perhaps if we had lived anywhere near one of these excellent schools we would have made a different choice.

Having seen the education my nephew receives, I can't help but think the teachers in his school are doing little more than containing and teaching some basic life skills than actual academic education. It's really quite tragic. There are 2 years between him and my daughter, academically more like 3.5, quite possibly more. She is bright, but he is supposed to be in all the "top groups" so theoretically comparable abilities. The education they have received is like night and day.