This government still doesn't give a shit about schools or your kids

[noblegiraffe]

I've posted before about this government's catalogue of failure when it comes to our children and schools and unfortunately it's still going on.

Sir Kevan Collins, the government- appointed schools catch-up tsar has just resigned over their complete failure to accept his recommendations and their pitiful offer of a programme worth only one tenth of what he said would be necessary to alleviate the impact of the pandemic on children's education. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558

Holland are spending £2500 per child for their catch-up programme, the US £1600. How much do you think the Tories value our children? It works out at £50 per head, and some of the proposed 1.4 billion is going on teacher training rather than tutoring initiatives so won't have an impact for years.

For the much vaunted national tutoring programme, have the government hired experts to provide this? No, according to Sam Freedman, former education advisor to Michael Gove "The DfE have also ballsed up the procurement of the National Tutoring Programme by scoring quality too low vs price so it's going to be run by a Dutch outsourcing firm called Randstad. They undercut all the orgs who actually understanding tutoring. So a lot of the high quality UK charities and organisations providing support to the tutoring programme will now likely pull out. Proper shitshow."

At the same time they have been cladding new and refurbished schools in Grenfell-style cladding www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/30/dozens-of-new-school-buildings-in-england-have-combustible-insulation, and have rejected calls from fire safety experts to install sprinklers in new school buildings. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558

In January, Johnson unexpectedly announced the cancellation of exams for Y11 and Y13. There was no plan for what would replace them and the buck was passed to Ofqual. By March, Ofqual admitted that they had no idea what to do, and so it fell to teachers and individual schools to set, mark and grade GCSEs and A-levels - tasks normally done by exam boards who are still charging exam entry fees this year for doing what appears to be very little. Scotland is paying teachers £400 each for this extra work, England is, of course, paying nothing. Parents are reportedly already gearing up to appeal teacher assessed grades while the government dodges the blame for the impending fiasco.

As I have posted about before, the government have cut Pupil Premium funding by millions, so in practical terms the most disadvantaged children now receive less per pupil than in previous years when there wasn't a pandemic. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4227538-See-how-much-the-government-has-just-cut-free-school-meal-funding-by-in-your-area

And on top of everything else...GAVIN WILLIAMSON IS STILL ED SEC. It's inexplicable, he is widely regarded as completely useless and yet while others involved in education resign around him, he gets to keep his job.

YABU: This government really cares about education and children

YANBU: This government do not give a shit. Not just incompetence, they really don't care.

I've disagreed with you before @noblegiraffe but absolutely agree with you here. School funding is far, far below what it should be and only serves to widen inequality.

I wonder if the public can do anything to help (at least before the next election). It shouldn't fall to the public and education shouldn't be a charity but like the NHS last year it looks like it's heading that way.

@Clavinova

To just about reverse the 8% cuts in spending per pupil since 2009 is a positive turn around?

Yes - I would say so.

Do you think we should run the whole country this way?

Cut cut cut all public services to the point we've failed people and then slowly return them just so we can say "well we've increased it now"?

Ita been proven time and time again this costs the country money.

Everything thats been suggested has been slated . Longer days ,working through holidays and private tutoring .

My eldest works in IT they provided hundreds off laptops and iPads in 1st LD come the second LD over half of the laptops had been broken or stole 3 off the schools now back to posting out work books .

As for funding my friend is a bursar at local school an eyewatering amount of there budget is spent basically parenting the kids instead of educating them .

Not everything is the government fault .

As for funding my friend is a bursar at local school an eyewatering amount of there budget is spent basically parenting the kids instead of educating them.

This is still the governments fault because they cut funding to all the support services that used to do this. They then nudged the responsibility for this onto schools. Safeguarding guidance has made schools increasingly responsible for young people's health and wellbeing.

Bursar is usually a title used in private, not state schools.

Everything thats been suggested has been slated . Longer days ,working through holidays and private tutoring
Because none of it is going to be adequately funded, and because any additional tutoring (which some students may need) is best done by people who know the ins and outs of what that child needs, in a very small group or 1:1, and for a short period of time. Outsourcing it is not the solution.
My school offers interventions which do work but we can no longer afford to staff them. Now we're losing PP funding, we've had to cut staffing... but we'll get bunged some money to spend with a company we don't know on something we don't want. That's a terrible use of public money.

My eldest works in IT they provided hundreds off laptops and iPads in 1st LD come the second LD over half of the laptops had been broken or stole 3 off the schools now back to posting out work books

Yes. That happens. We spent a lot of money on laptops when the government singularly failed to deliver. Unfortunately, people don't always value what they get for nothing.

@rwalker

Everything thats been suggested has been slated . Longer days ,working through holidays and private tutoring .

My eldest works in IT they provided hundreds off laptops and iPads in 1st LD come the second LD over half of the laptops had been broken or stole 3 off the schools now back to posting out work books .

As for funding my friend is a bursar at local school an eyewatering amount of there budget is spent basically parenting the kids instead of educating them .

Not everything is the government fault .

The kids that need the school to parent them are the ones that need this money the most and the ones that will potentially cost society more in the future. Whose children may cost more in the future.

Whilst it’s not the governments fault, our social support should be there to not just go “sod it, its not our child”, because that child will be affecting you if it goes on to need extra state support due to its poor education.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

As for funding my friend is a bursar at local school an eyewatering amount of there budget is spent basically parenting the kids instead of educating them.

This is still the governments fault because they cut funding to all the support services that used to do this. They then nudged the responsibility for this onto schools. Safeguarding guidance has made schools increasingly responsible for young people's health and wellbeing.

Bursar is usually a title used in private, not state schools.

I read that comment @HercwasanEnemyofEducation and was just about to say the same thing!

I for one haven’t seen an academic dip in my pupils (we taught live from Lockdown 1 March 2020 Day 1) and my own DC are ‘not behind’ with the work they were provided and the input I gave. I have seen a huge dip in social skills and behaviour. It has flagged to me how much ‘parenting’ schools do. I don’t blame parents though - where do you to when you need help? My son has been on the Autism Outreach waiting list for 2 years. Luckily his school provided him with a TA without a diagnosis as we pushed for him to be seen by ED Physc. We could do this though. DH and I have been teaching 20+ years each. We know who to approach and how. Not sure the parents on our local council estate know the means to ‘be in the know’. Sure Start centres were a lifeline to many. Tories not interested in ‘levelling up’ at all.

This story has been widely reported everywhere so when this week's polls come out and the Tories are still well ahead we'll know only does the government not give a shit about our kids but most people don't either. Feel desperate about the state of this country now and can't really see any hope that things will improve any time soon.

@WrongKindOfFace

Did anyone actually expect them to do better? They've proved time and time again they don’t give a shit.

This. The tories are known for not caring about anyone but the rich, and yet I bet at least half of people on mumsnet voted for them.

Gosh it’s depressing to be right @noblegiraffe but right you’ve been for years.

Someone asked me yesterday if I was wanting to earn extra money as a tutor now the govt are handing loads out.

Oh how I laughed. 😂

The going rate for a tutor in this area is £40-50 ph (not that I actually do it anyway). So an hour for each kid with a tutor (who won’t be an employed tutor because we’re bloody busy sorting out the other govt. mess ups at the moment). Yep I’m sure that will sort it.

*employed teacher

Everything thats been suggested has been slated . Longer days ,working through holidays and private tutoring

Longer days has been 'slated' because 'let's extend the school day by half an hour' generates a shit-ton of questions, doesn't it? To do what? With who? And how will this help? Teachers, entirely reasonably, went 'if this is going to be dumped on teachers, we'd better be paid for it' - as would anyone who was being told to work an extra 2.5 hours a week. And the government has now kicked it into the long grass because they probably thought they could do it without spending any money.

Summer schools are happening. Private tutoring is also happening. Didn't you know?

The real problem I have with all of this is that schools have had their budgets slashed for years and are in a really bad way. Over the last decade we've had to make teachers and TAs redundant, reduce GCSE and A-level options, make class sizes bigger. I've also mentioned the critical shortage of qualified teachers in subjects like maths, physics, computing, MFL. I've been posting about this on MN for years. SEN budgets have been cut to the bone. Mental health services have been cut to the bone. Most recently they have cut funding for the most disadvantaged children during a pandemic.

We don't need 'catch-up funding', we need proper funding. What is the point in taking a kid out to do a few hours of maths tutoring when they then go back to a massive maths class which has a different non-maths supply teacher every week?
What is the point of some catch-up funding to engage them in the arts when the school cut Art GCSE years ago due to lack of funding? (Not that the government is funding the art catch-up which is one of the reasons Sir Kevan resigned).
What is the point in offering after-school tutoring to a pupil who due to cuts in mental health and pastoral services can't even make it into school?
What about the child with SEN who doesn't need a longer school day, they need a TA in class to support them?

One thing that really made me angry was Gavin Williamson having the gall to say that schools should be forced to open for the full week, as some close early on a Friday and this is unacceptable. Do you know why they shut early, Gav? BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO STAY OPEN. Jess Phillips must be absolutely fuming, her boy has been out of school for years on a Friday afternoon due to school funding cuts, she has even left him on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street on a Friday to protest this, and now the government are suggesting that it's a problem with schools?

It's not a schools problem, it's a government problem. And it has been for over a decade.

What made me so sick yesterday was Gav laughing on the radio and saying 'as a Yorkshireman 1.5 billion (or whatever it is) sounds like a lot...' Cock - treating it like a joke, implying we should be grateful for whatever we get, implying we're too thick to realise the sums involved in government spending....

With regard to teacher trainees. I trained as a teacher only a year ago (currently an NQT).

I was shocked at the poor quality of some of the teacher trainees from university. Some were blatantly just there for the bursary (maths / physics). They openly planned to leave the second something else came up and they were actively looking).

Others were just utterly unsuited to teaching. They were quite lazy, had no connection with the kids at all and were totally unprofessional.

The language of catch up buys into the narrative that children are constantly racing in order not to be ‘behind’ rather than being guided and shaped and taught to be the best versions of themselves. I have no issue with end of school qualifications (although the constant messing with them for decades is a joke!) but before that, they serve no purpose other than to bash schools, bash head teachers who in turn stress-manage staff who in turn stress-panic teach children who in turn have mental health problems (along with many of their teachers!). It really does have to be this way.
School staff need to band together and strike against this whole overpressured system until pointless testing is removed. Even though it would be massively inconvient to me I would 100% support my child’s school in this. If you’re a parent who thought the home learning your child was set was ridiculous and soul destroying, WRITE to other parents and the headteacher. Teachers might act if they knew they had parental support.

Couldn’t agree more with that noble.

When my kid tells me that they have to wait their turn to use the whiteboard pens on their mini whiteboards, while they are doing a writing or maths task because they don’t have enough whiteboard pens that work properly, something is very wrong. Needless to say, I put 33 whiteboard pens in the school bag to donate the next day.

I also used to work in the Tory run borough of Bexley who did and still do, take £600 off the per pupil funding before giving the rest to schools, so they can use that on their budgets. Lots of other boroughs do this too. That’s right folks. They take, legally, the money earmarked for your child.

Schools need funding. Properly.

On the issue of schools closing early, my children loved it when their school shut early on a Friday. Working parents could send in proof and there was a free club provided.

There is this constant assumption that parents want ‘more rigour, longer days etc’. We dont! We want our children to have a happy childhood and learn to read without it giving them a breakdown.

School staff need to band together and strike against this whole overpressured system

We can't. We're only allowed to strike about pay and conditions.

Last time we went on national strike (about pensions) we tried to be clear that the whole system was falling apart (the Standing up for Standards strike) and that was what we really wanted to strike about, but we were totally slaughtered in the press (and on here) for being lazy, feckless money-grabbers.

I was just going to mention the “Standing up for Standards” strike as we can’t strike on behalf of the pupils, onto for own pay and conditions. Then it’s sickening that U4T have gained popularity stating they’re campaigning for children’s welfare by disparaging us as “lazy, mask muzzlers” when actually it is we, on the frontline of education, that hold it together on a shoestring.

Thank you @noblegiraffe

@Clavinova you must be a Tory MP, married to a Tory MP or somehow connected to the Tories. I always see you pop up on Noble’s posts with ridiculous points in favour of the Tories’ indefensible decisions or inactions!

The Tories are now trying to blame the teaching unions for their pathetic catch-up offering and the resignation of Sir Kevan Collins.

Mary Bousted of the NEU has responded on Twitter: twitter.com/maryboustedneu/status/1400184658571182080?s=21

"Kevan Collin’s education recovery plan was strongly supported by the @NEUnion and other unions because of its emphasis on a broad and balanced curriculum with enrichment activities - music, drama, sport and tutoring for those with learning gaps - organised by the school....He was clear that an extended school day, or school year, would have to be staffed by professionals who volunteered to do this work, and who would be paid for it. He said that the teachers’ contract of 1265 hours of directed time and 195 days a year would be respected.....Kevan Collins kept the unions informed of his thinking and plans. The unions reacted positively to them, clear that he did not intend to compel longer working hours for teachers. We applauded the scale of his ambition and we remembered the extended schools programme......So - blaming the unions for killing Kevan Collin’s plan is absurd - for a government which lies repeatedly this is a whopper which is easily disproved. It’s such a clumsy hit on their usual whipping post - the education unions - but this time it won’t wash. Kevan Collins always knew that his plans would make or. break on the Treasury’s reaction. The Treasury do not rate the DfE as a department and are unconvinced by the case for education recovery to underpin economic recovery. The Treasury is wrong."

So there you go, it was the Tories who killed the recovery programme for children. They don't think that education or children matter when it comes to the economy.

Everything thats been suggested has been slated . Longer days ,working through holidays and private tutoring

Yes Sunak is not having it

They were: extending the school day by 30 minutes for 3 years, extra tutoring in small groups, and extra teaching hours through the day. The Treasury would only agree to the second, tutoring. Extending the school day was the main bulk of Collins' £15bn spending ask (2)
But the Chancellor argued 1. the evidence it works is "pretty thin" so far, 2. unclear it has buy in from teachers/parents, 3. no means to pay for it. Sunak instead pushed the decision into the Autumn, for more work and for it to be paid for in the Govt-wide Spending Review (3)

twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1400198872346107906?s=19

Some parents have no idea what actually happens in schools

Can we stop with the parent bashing. None of this has been a bed of roses for parents trying to home school either.

The Daily Mail stepped in and sorted laptops for disadvantaged kids because even the Daily Mail realised that the government effort was a shitshow.

Yes, putting more pressure on Local Authorities to order, set up and distribute these devices with very little support. It has cost our LA an eye watering amount of money to get the appropriate IT support to try and roll out these devices. Because nobody thought it would be a good idea to ensure the devices were usable and provide support for that. Daily Mail thinks the disadvantaged families these were going to could just easily install and activate licences etc. A classic example of an organisation trying to win public favour with a virtue signalling charity drive, without thinking through the implications.

You know the government-provided laptops had the same problems, Minty. Locked, unusable, and memorably virus-ridden?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55749959

"The malware, which they said appeared to be contacting Russian servers, is believed to have been found on laptops given to a handful of schools. The Department for Education said it was aware and urgently investigating."