To think the uk education system needs a complete overhaul and parents need to be more accountable ?

[Schoolscool]

I mean teachers don’t have pencils for classrooms (and that’s the least of their worries!!) why not take a few leaves from Ireland’s book and do the following to save money!

1. Each child needs to have their own resources! Yes! We do that. We have back up stuff in class but it’s not bought for “everyone”
2. Families buy the school books and workbooks themselves from an independent school shop or the school themselves or use the school rental scheme (pay a minimal amount to rent the books)
3. We pay photocopying/admin fees (varies per school) but it could be nominal 5 or 10 etc

These are just basic suggestions I suppose but surely it can’t be up to the school to provide everything!! Some of the onus must fall on parents!!

arethereanyleftatall I agree.
People to take responsibility for their choices.
I saw on a different thread in England you can apply for 12 free slimming world course too, I'm jealous of free medical and gp care but the non medical prescription service is a waste of government money.
The government provides nothing here.

@EmeraldShamrock it ridiculous the things I see being complained about on here 🙄 doctors that won’t prescribe calpol, having to buy the school jumper with the crest on etc etc

1. Each child needs to have their own resources! Yes! We do that. We have back up stuff in class but it’s not bought for “everyone”

• doenst everyone take their own pencilcase to school?

1. Families buy the school books and workbooks themselves from an independent school shop or the school themselves or use the school rental scheme (pay a minimal amount to rent the books)

• isnt everything electronic now? Any old fashioned books you have to pay a deposit for, been like this for decades

1. We pay photocopying/admin fees (varies per school) but it could be nominal 5 or 10 etc

• certainly normal in my childrens schools

I do it because I can aford it. Some parents cannot afford it. I begrudge it because that is what my tax is supposed to pay for, not a swanky board of a bloody academy take over.

I begrudge it because that is what my tax is suppose to pay for
No tax is paid to pay the teachers wages for educating your child, not for the stationary, books, and food your DC requires for a day attending school. The government should pay the teachers and utility bills.

@EmeraldShamrock
Yes that is one of the main differences teachers in Ireland are paid by the department of education not the school. So it essentially doesn’t come out of the school budget.

@PlainSpeakingStraightTalking what do you mean by electronic. We have to buy any workbooks, copybooks, scrapbooks, folders, actual school books (sometimes) but some are rented but all. Less time is taken up making resources this way as all work is done in the books and each child has their own.

The education system could start by having a school place for every child that needs one.

Really think it depends on the area. It needs to be more standard for things like pencils, books ect.
But it also depends on the area for attitude which I don't think will ever change.
Some places people will be more than happy to contribute others do have the attitude of its the schools problem.

I agree with your viewpoint completely . When you give people/ children everything for free they have no respect for it . Children turning up to school without even the most basic supplies is ridiculous. Yes, some children have chaotic lives but the majority just don’t care or assume someone will sort them out. We have become a society who expect everything handed to them .
It’s been proven by countless studies that children born into poverty have an increased chance of remaining there . It’s hardly rocket science to suggest that perhaps those families should have fewer children .

- doenst everyone take their own pencilcase to school?

Sadly no. Most don’t even take a proper bag to school.

2. Families buy the school books and workbooks themselves from an independent school shop or the school themselves or use the school rental scheme (pay a minimal amount to rent the books)

- isnt everything electronic now? Any old fashioned books you have to pay a deposit for, been like this for decades

No. Electronic still costs money and department budgets don’t cover it anymore in many schools. Also applies to hard copy text books that schools can’t even afford to hold a deposit for, sadly.

3. We pay photocopying/admin fees (varies per school) but it could be nominal 5 or 10 etc

- certainly normal in my childrens schools

Been teaching since 2004. Never had parents pay for photocopying in any school I have worked at.

I suppose the varied experiences of all the above proves OPs point that consistency, like in Ireland, would be lovely to experience in England and Wales (have no experience of Scotland, sorry) so pupils have a more equal chance.

I dread to think how many £££s I spent on topping up classroom resources over the years in order to maintain a functional working environment.

One lesson early in my career, I had a very difficult, low ability (but not lowest) class with virtually no work ethic between them. One lesson, about 5 of the 26 kids had something they could write with, not even being fussy that it should have been pen. How many hundreds of pens and pencils I gave out to that class to have them taken, snapped or chucked out of the windows, I do not know. Setting consequences was pointless in a papertrail heavy system that would have resulted in a SMT lunchtime detention 4 weeks later because the pupils did not oblige at turning up at any point along the way from an original consequence.

I once had a pupil in the final lesson of the week with SEN that affected their organisation skills. Lovely kid who I'd taught previously. They turned up, no pen; they were never going to have retained a pen by the last lesson of the week! I ended up buying a decent grippy pen to live clipped on their exercise book and it worked a treat for them as they always had a nice pen to write with. That was worth a couple of quid tacked onto that week's shopping bill.

I'm happy to assist those who genuinely forget occasionally or absolutely can not afford a cheap pack of biros, but one of the soul destroying things in teaching was the total lack of responsibility and respect from too many of the students for their behaviour and equipment needed to learn. It's the low level issues like that that cause massive disruption when there is a regular core in the class with that attitude.

Sounds like English schools could learn a lot from the Irish system . Is it any wonder your teachers are leaving in droves , when parents can’t even manage to provide their children with stationery and a school bag .

I really think the government need to build more factories for these hopeless people to work in. How will they manage in the real world of work if carrying a pencil to school every day is too big an ask ?

I know for schools the problem is financial (first hand!) and that money is one element within complex socio-economic problems that probably require a huge shift in many areas of how our society works.
My (very) vague point was that it is not straightforwardly just an economic issue. My school is in a very deprived area, v high levels of pupil premium, but you can see the difference made through family ‘values’ and ‘structure’ in behaviour, attendance, engagement and ultimately attainment in pupils - who are all from similarly deprived backgrounds. As in- parental engagement makes such a difference and it is quite depressing when many children are just not getting the support they need at home. And all the parents are facing challenges of one sort or another ! Sorry waffley post, I know no two situations are the same and my God people have difficult lives. But small things like regular reading or even talking lots make such a profound difference.

The Irish system is very textbook and workbook orientated and the English system in my experience is not. I know that many parents complain about the costs of the Irish system both books and uniforms. In an English primary the only actual books my DC had at school was a reading book and then a SATs workbook in Y6. They had A4 copybooks for maths, literacy, RE and science which they wrote in or worksheets were glued in. So the costs in the UK are not comparable to Ireland because the schools here simply do not use textbooks as much.

In DCs primary pencil cases were discouraged due to ‘pencil case envy’ and kids trying to outdo one another with expensive tat from Smiggle, not to mention the many arguments about who had taken who’s unicorn pen.

They had A4 copybooks for maths, literacy, RE and science which they wrote in or worksheets were glued in
It is similar in Ireland, it is mainly worksheets and copies, the books are mostly rented so there is no writing allowed in the book. We pay for worksheets, copies, stationary along side rental of books.
I think if the schools are finding it costly to supply continuous pencils, pencil case envy should be the least of their worries, why not sell a standard school pencil kit ftom the school shop.

In DCs primary pencil cases were discouraged due to ‘pencil case envy’ and kids trying to outdo one another with expensive tat from Smiggle, not to mention the many arguments about who had taken who’s unicorn pen

THIS!! This is one of those stupid “let’s protect the children from disappointment/competition” theories that I LOATHE!! This is just creating and feeding a society that cannot identify and manage emotions!! It’s utterly ridiculous! They need to learn that others will have more, others will have less, others will have different and be able to Deal with any emotions that brings up for them. Not dealing with and learning about this as a child just leads to fucked up adulthood! No wonder ppl nowadays expect to have the same as everyone else around them 🙄

@EmeraldShamrock that’s funny both the school I work in and my children’s school use workbooks for nearly every subject. Not a whole lot of worksheets. Except for homework (one double sided sheet once. Week)

I thought that poem was sad. Funny how people see things differently.

Schoolscool
Afaik in junior school the DC used work books junior infants to 2nd but in primary senior the reading zone, mathletics are book rental, they get transferred in their copies.
Most days Teacher emails work sheets and it is written into the copy for hw.

Discouraging pencil cases because someone might be jealous ? Dear god . I think realising that some people have more than you is one of the most valuable lessons a child can learn . The world is not fair, it never will be . We need to teach our children resilience.
Btw I never had the nice belongings at school - made me work damn hard at school to make sure my children do .

@Purpletigers I know and then ppl wonder why teenagers are having mental breakdowns over random shit! Protection from feeling emotions as a child and not learning how to deal with them are having a huge impact on the adolescents of today!!

For those who asked for information, Joshua t Dickerson's twitter profile

twitter.com/joshtdickerson?lang=en

Yeah the poem shows that some kids have to go through a lot. Not the kids fault that their parent might not care or be working multiple jobs to put food on the table. And the kids cares enough about their sibling to help her too - much better character attribute than remembering to bring a pencil.

Honestly kids should bring their own stationary but there should be free pencils at school because it is cheaper for them to be bulk bought on an industrial scale and it will waste less time for the teacher to just get one out than to tell everyone without one off.

I homeschool but I would think having special places for disruptive students might be more useful than making people pay for materials? I use a mini whiteboard for sums and got a special printed one from propellor education which get them to do different tasks (eg double, add 5 etc) with the number of the day. Will probably save money in the long term.

Totally agree with @WilsonAndNoodles - it's the wilful or careless destruction of property that irks. I lent out pens yesterday and one boy took great delight in stamping on them one at a time, completely breaking them. Kids love destroying glue sticks, defacing/ ripping library books and textbooks and using highlighters to colour in a whole page of their exercise book so the pen runs out in one lesson. I dread to think the damage they do to PE equipment and science equipment and so on. And this is in a "nice" rural area in Good/Outstanding rated schools.

I remember once (uk) a boy snapped a pencil in half right in front of my face...turned out it belonged to the girl beside him and she was upset. When I asked him why he did it he said “I thought it belonged to the school” 🙄 I was so annoyed, i then had to spend the next few minutes explaining to him that the school doesn’t pluck pencils out of thin air for him to break “because he felt like it” @Namenic no buying in bulk doesn’t always prove to be the best way. As children don’t really seem to care about what the school buys, they seem to think the school doesn’t need to budget (wonder where they get that idea from)🙄 I’ll leave you to imagine what his mothers response was when we informed her he broke the girls pencil! Long story short, she didn’t replace it! I know it’s only a pencil but it’s the principle!!

The thing is though. Parents have no choice but to send their kids to schoo, so. How is it fair that they're out of pocket for it