Why schools do this!!?

[FedUpOfYetAnotherCold]

AIBU to wonder why children in primary school are taught 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' in French, can tell the difference between metamorphic, sedimentary and ignious rocks, can trace a stone age picture, can create great models of the tower of London, and learn (and promptly forget) all about the Victorians, Romans etc... but...

Quite a few can't swim 25m by end of primary (a skill which could save their life), many barely know what the term 'mental health' means - let alone know how to manage their own or support others with MH difficulties. Most state primary kids are not given access to decent sports provision to support future athletic dreams, better manage in-school behaviour, and promote healthy lifestyle and reduce obesity, and very few kids are supported to learn key life skills. (I'm focussing on primary here - but we also need more life skills like MH and budgeting and cooking etc... taught in secondary)..

Surely we need more teaching in schools on mental health, life skills and better access to sports and teaching which will lead to physically and mentally healthy adults of the future.

When my children finish primary I'd like them to be able to read, write and do basic maths. But in terms of the rest of the teaching - surely we now need to re-evaluate how much emphasis we place on teaching less vital skills such as French (if a language is deemed important why not Chinese, Spanish or Arabic, or something more useful in this current global village) which could be learnt later if desired?

AIBU?

To be honest I am confused about what the term 'mental health' means these days and I am a bloody psychiatrist!

It used to mean not having a mental issue illness mainly psychosis, mania, depression but now I honestly don't know what it means or what primary aged kids could usefully be taught about it.

I think that having a lot of opportunities to learn about things that might be very interesting to them (I think Egyptians and Romans are interesting and judging by the popularity of Horrible Histories so do a lot of kids) and opportunities for sport, art, music etc are the things that help people's mental health. I would rather kids had positive experiences and were nurtured to discover what they enjoy and are good at than some kind of specific 'mental health' lesson

I used to teach kids like the ones you work with OP. But thanks goodness they're very much in the minority. So it's simply not right to have all pupils' timetables bitten into with subjects that their parents are willing and able to cover.

Demand more money for the disadvantage to have extra help and attention, if you want to campaign for something. But we need academics for the majority of children, and real academic time and pressure to create the doctors and other professionals that society needs.

So basically schools need a LOT more money from the government to provide the appropriate curricula for all abilities and backgrounds.

I can never understand what people have against ox bow lakes- they are what inspired me to study geography at university! Everyone should learn about ox bow lakes😀

Primary schools do teach children ways of managing their emotions, their problem is that they can’t access camhs when they need it.

You’re saying it’s about ALL children, but the majority of children have parents that will teach them the basics their limited time at school would be failing them if it didn’t teach them something different to their parents.

Schools delivering mental health programmes in primary are seeing incredible results that ripple through school communities and families. Children being taught to conquer anxiety are learning extremely valuable life skills. Just yesterday I interviewed a bunch of people about this, the outcomes are extraordinary.

50shades - this is brilliant :)

@FedUpOfYetAnotherCold

On reflection, to all those who seem to think most parents do a great job, it's the parents roll etc... and schools do enough - we still have 1 in 4, rising to 1 in 3 adults experiencing mental health problems in this country.

Perhaps less focus on ox bow lakes, and more on learning skills and strategies to manage low mood, anxiety and regulate emotion would be helpful not just for those at risk of offending, but for all kids so we can reduce the numbers of adults struggling with their mental health.

I don't think mental health problems are something that can be solved with education about mental health problems.

I'd love schools to play a roll.in teaching these things as I don't know where else kids can learn this stuff if their parents are not in a position to do so.

You focus on the parents.

Given that French, which is a relatively easy language for native English speakers, is often seen as ‘too hard’ a subject, how on earth would you expect the average kid to attain even a GCSE in Arabic or Chinese?

[quote UndertheCedartree]@DeepaBeesKit - all the schools round here have their own pools and manage to teach classes of 30. No charge to parents, either.[/quote]
Excellent news for you. Round my way, I only know of private schools who have their own pool, and in one of our two local towns the pool is about to close, which means everyone from that town will have to travel to the next town, increasing the time out of the classroom, increasing the costs involved, and increasing the competition for swimming space and time at the one remaining pool which already hosts lots of school swimming for the schools near it.

Why on Earth do you say it is only 'privileged' parents who can teach their children basic skills?
How patronising!

I meant, it is a privilege to have parents able to teach you those things. Not everyone has that privilege. I didn't.

@FedUpOfYetAnotherCold

Maybe that’s what the system needs to do, ensure all children are literate and numerate by the end of primary?

I agree :)

(I'd also add in, that all kids should understand the basics of a healthy lifestyle and know some strategies to manage low mood, anxiety and anger before they leave primary too... But..)

All of the primary schools I know of do all of this already. It's covered in RSHE, circle time and also every day general (rather than specific timetabled) stuff going on.

Take a look at things like Zones of Regulation - an initiate used in many primary schools - and similar programmes, many of which are being or are already, imbedded into primary school curriculums.

Helping children manage their own behaviour and supporting them to manage their own social, emotional and mental health is a huge part of every school I know. Every time it happens is just not always a formal timetabled lesson. Much of it happens addiction, as we go.

Following the return to school after lockdown, most schools spent a few weeks focusing on little else than mental health programmes.

Many schools also do intervention groups for children we know miss out on 'life skill' type activities at home. Believe it or not, most schools actually do know a lot about their pupils and their families and home life. We know which children need support generally. In most cases, we even know the ones where it can be a bit hidden from others.

And government spokespeople don't support it that much in general either. One has only recently commented on schools 'caring more about food parcels, than remote learning' [paraphrased] so the children's well-being doesn't seem like a huge priority to them, and schools were criticised for caring about it too much, We can't win.

But my understanding which may be totally wrong is that schools and teachers can't chose what to teach.
I agree that schools don't seem to have much sport equipment but that's not their fault. Schools don't seem to have a very big budget and they have to prioritise where the money goes.

@Puffalicious Aye, it would be nice but we can't do EVERYTHING. That's true but I've had to explain it to people in their 30s and 40s and 50s who have no idea how it all works or what it means to them.

Maybe now I'm retired I should volunteer to go and do a talk one afternoon, maybe after GCSEs. You could add a few other things, maybe someone from a bank to explain bank accounts and interest rates, someone to talk about credit cards and how they can be used wisely to build a credit history or how student loans work.

Understanding money could be a real positive.

My DC’s class take the public bus to the public swimming pool once a week. They are all quite good at swimming by now!

all the schools round here have their own pools and manage to teach classes of 30. No charge to parents, either.

One school in our city has a pool on site. It isn't owned by the school though. Infact it's where we take our year 2 children in the summer term for 6 weeks of lessons. It costs us money to do so -pool hire, instructor hire, coach to take the children. Staff have even paid themselves to have a stock of spare towels and swimwear for those who don't own them/bring them every week.

Even the private schools here haven't got their own pools!

Many years ago I taught at a leafy green secondary school in another LEA which had its own pool. It was outdoors. School couldn't afford a cover for it, or for it to be heated. It was also getting very run down, but the budgets couldn't cover the costs to maintain it. It could be used for very very few days each year as it was freezing and outside! Pointless.

I'd love to know how many schools in the UK actually have their own pools on site, or even within walking distance and didn't cost to use them.

Back in the day, many secondary schools did. But they're phenomenally expensive to run and maintain, and with the financial cuts and the curriculum squeeze, they're long gone. And no primary schools had them. My local primary had a swimming pool for man years, they lost it when the school was rebuilt.

I know another school in my town with a swimming pool. The local senior school still has it's pool as well.

Maybe it is a priority here as we are right on the coast.

Why on Earth do you say it is only 'privileged' parents who can teach their children basic skills?
How patronising!

Tbf, the poster wasn't calling the parents privileged but was talking about those children who are privileged enough to have parents with the time, money, knowledge, inclination etc to do that.

Or even simply those children who have parents or carers to care about them.

I meant another primary school not another school.

Some teaching is in the home, including many of the most important bits. MH for example. Swimming, ideally on regular family outings to the pool, bolstered by tuition. A love of books, taught at home, by reading stories: phonic decoding at school; numbers and counting skills, before they get to school, so they are ready to learn to manipulate numbers. Times tables recited endlessly by rote, ie drilled in, by age 8 or 9.

The causes of what most people classify as 'mental health problems' these days (ie not schizophrenia or manic depression) are social

Abuse and trauma in early life
Poor literacy and basic education
Poverty
Chronic illness
Abusive relationships
Addiction
Etc etc

I'd rather the government invested in support for families in the early years to prevent cycles of abuse and neglect and tackled poverty. Sure start was a good idea that was of course dismantled by the Tory government

Tackle the causes of crime and poor mental health rather than trying to somehow teach people to 'cope' with them

Society has a parenting problem not a school/teaching problem. I work in a primary school and the difference in children now vs when my children were in primary (same school) is massive. Reception children still in nappies, not able to put on a coat or undress/dress themselves, expecting you to feed them at lunchtime because they have never been shown how to use a knife and fork. Children not knowing how to look at a book and which way the pages turn, not able to hold a pencil or know what scissors are let alone use them. The list just goes on and on. These are all children that do not have any Sen, they just have parents who can’t or won’t teach them but expect schools to do it for them. This is life in every primary school, every day. I work at lunchtimes and my aim this week was to target year 1 children who can’t use a knife and fork. It has taken just 3 days and all but 1 are now using a knife and fork to cut up food themselves. They were all so proud of themselves and rightly so. At the beginning of the week I had 1 child tell me she wasn’t allowed to cut food up herself because mummy won’t let her. She was happily doing it herself today. This is the reality.

But figures obtained by Schools Week from the amateur swimming organisation ASA show that state schools, colleges and universities in England have around 900 pools between them (about 4 per cent).

And that includes universities. Pretty much all of which will have one. 599 schools do, which is probably nearer 2-3% @DeepaBeesKit So yes, I'd love to know where you live.

schoolsweek.co.uk/sport-takes-up-more-time-in-independent-schools/

You're making a massive generalisation there.
All schools have swimming on the curriculum. How they do it might differ for various reasons but it is done.
All schools have healthy eating as part of the curriculum.
All schools have PHSE (which includes things like relationships, personal hygiene ,keeping safe etc on the curriculum)
Early years assess children's ability to look after themselves .
A lot of the schools have some form of mental health board, strategies to use, how to recognise feelings , days dedicated to mental health etc.

You are expecting schools to fix and eradicate years and years of systemic poverty and discrimination and when there's a few kids like that, a great school can indeed make a difference. However, when the entire cohort is like that you're pissing in the wind, not without additional support and intervention from well funded services like police,social services, mental healthcare, sure start /children's centres/youth centres, OTs etc.

Would you expect a GP to be able to do surgery or prescribe a chemo plan or fix a broken bone? Then why are you expecting school staff to be everything for children?

That's what the family is for? What else do you want the state/teachers tondo for your children?

I do understand @FedUpOfYetAnotherCold , I work in a YOI, and I completely recognise the problems you’re referring to. It’s incredibly sad, and I think the government need to work harder to find a solution.

HOWEVER, I think you’re being incredibly idealistic. Schools can only do so much. We need to get to the root of the problem, and that starts at home. We had a young lad released a couple of weeks ago. I asked what his plans were, and he wants to go for a drink with his dad, ‘before he gets sentenced’ (his brother is also in prison, before Covid we were arranging joint visits). That lad is going back into the exact world that got him in trouble, because that’s all he knows. The fact that nobody taught him how to pay rent, is not the problem.

Teaching primary aged children to deal their emotions anxiety/sadness/anger etc sounds wonderful in theory. I’m sure that alongside a loving supportive home life it has real benefits. But spending an hour a week teaching a child to regulate their anger, is going to have very little impact if they then go home to a household filled with shouting and aggression.

Last half term my 4 year old was learning about Harvest Festival. They came home telling me all about different healthy foods, and things you can make with food from the ground. That’s lovely, and important. But they’re 4, teaching the importance of a healthy diet is useless to a child who can only eat what I provide. SureStart Centres, things along those lines that can catch families when the children are very young would I think, be far more helpful. Children spend far more time at home than at school, if we can change what happens there, I think we’ll have far better outcomes.

You also mention ‘privileged’ parents already providing these things for their children, and I wonder do you not worry about further widening the divide? These children will spend more time focusing on academics, further increasing their chances of gaining degrees and meaningful employment. Those less privileged will have less access to these opportunities. We risk a situation where those from (predominantly) low income households have their educational opportunities limited. This will directly impact their employment choices/opportunities. We run the risk of assuming that children who come from these backgrounds can never hope for more than just getting by.