To wonder if schools are just a bit crap at the moment (not teacher bashing)

[Terribleenergy]

Added that caveat as am definitely not being deliberately provocative - it’s more to do with funding and class sizes being too big, and just too much crap than individual teachers. I’m a teacher myself and I don’t know that I’m offering the best ‘diet’ for my students - I do my best but I’m limited I suppose.

It’s similar with the NHS and dentists and so on: just seems services aren’t running brilliantly.

So we’ve bitten the bullet and paid for private healthcare and I’m just wondering if I should do the same for private education when the time comes (dc still little) or if people think there will be an improvement in years to come? I can’t see it myself but interested in thoughts and predictions.

As for reasons...10 years ago the sure start centres offered free stay and play, baby massage, baby sensory, targeted support for families in need. All gone. During the pandemic there were no early years classes or groups full stop. Toddlers missed out on social interaction, structured play opportunities and the parents missed out on peer and health visitor support.

Many of the children who arrived in year R recently had never been to a children's birthday party. They had very little, patchy preschool education. Quite possibly their parents were trying to wirk from home whilst they were parked on an ipad. We have had to teach children how to play with toys and how to hold books. Some are scared of paint and messy play. Separation anxiety. 7 year olds unable to speak in sentences let alone write them. Very poor fine motor skills.

Growing numbers of children are not going to be accessing the key stage 1 curriculum even with heavy support which is thin on the ground anyway. The knock on effect will be felt for years to come.

Yes I'd agree. I'm a TA and it's pretty crap for everyone staff and dc alike especially atm with all the covid staff shortages and catch ups needed that can't happen as there's no one to facilitate it. I'm in primary dd is at secondary school and is being taught subjects by staff with no knowledge of it. Last week was science and history delivered in broken English by her Spanish teacher. Not great

I do wonder if we have created some catch 22 situation though.

The more parents fail to do basic parenting , the more schools pick it up. The more schools pick it up the less incentive parents have to do it themselves.

Children with SN aside as that really cabt he helped obviously, we have moved on from parents who couldn't wait to ditch the cloth nappies and all the work that entails by potty training. The idea if a kid in pre school in nappies just wasn't a thing.

Now it's more a " wait til their ready" set up when some kids just wont ever show thise sigms ( neither of mine ever did) with a mad panic in July they are gonna have to start school in September and are still in nappies.

Some things were just basics .

Bit then I do feel we make life harder fir small children unnecessarily and then wonder why they "fail"

Shirts amd ties in a 4 yr old fgs....
How are kids who cant read meant to keep track.of their r stuff when everyone is in the same clothes right down to the bag. It's an unnecessary obstacle imo.

Plus obviously we live I a society where 2 parents can work and still not afford food and clothes then schools charge 2-6 hundred quid to get through the door wjtg constant reminders detentions etc if you don't replace stuff fast enough.

Its disgusting that many can't afford to live whilst always working.

And ultimately I think a huge factor may be ( imo) is the lack of value to being a stay at home parent. Whats wrong with being home and being able to do homework with your kids. Making them dinner for 5.00 and being able to shove them in bed at 7.30 rather than dragging 2 tired small children off their grandma's couch at 10pm amd hoping they will go back to bed OK when they get home.

Despite much of the loss of tax payers money being down to large corporations with the money ajd resources to enable them to avoid paying tax properly. And everyone remember the politicians expense account debacle where it turned out we'd paid for vets bills and porn?

But despite all this single mothers with their benefits are apparently the cause of all the problems. With sanctions for not working and having to take any job regardless of whether or not it even remotely fits around your child. It's no wonder kids now r so fucked. No one values looking after them any more

I totally agree @Whatwouldscullydo. Although luckily my school have a more manageable uniform- polo shirts and sweatshirts, more than half my year R class can't get themselves dressed. They stand there waiting for me to do it. I have had the conversation with parents praising the child's efforts but asking if they could encourage the child to get dressed themselves. Part of the problem is working mums rushing out of the door and it's quicker to get them dressed themselves, part if it is fine and gross motor skills and core strength being poor.

YANBU. Funding and class sizes mean it just can't be done.
My nieces school were quite certain she had SEN including Adhd in year 1. They got a tutor, by year 2, all caught up and no suspected SEN. Part of the reason she was mucking about was because she didn't understand it. Disruptive behaviour means it's harder to teach everyone. Schools have got to plod along with curriculum, more children still grasping the last topic and yet moving on.
Whilst there are genuine SEN cases, is it not possible the reason for the rise is because the system is broken, instead of fixing it we are blaming the child?

I believe smaller class sizes, additional smaller support teaching for children behind, increase in funding for resources and funded after school clubs for lower income families for enrichment are vital. I'll eat my hat if that happens though.

But yes, having a parent, not necessarily the mother, who has time and inclination fo sing nursery rhymes with them, make a healthy dinner eaten at the table, read them a story, bath them and put them to bed at 7pm is something a lot of children don't have.

This might sound basic and it is. Rhymes are essential for learning basic reading skills. A story a day builds vocabulary at a huge rate. Sitting on an actual chair rather than a sofa builds back and stomach muscles so the child can actually sit up and start holding a pen. A decent bedtime routine means they are actually ready to play and learn in the morning. Someone needs to be there to do all this though.

Parents failing to do basic things has been a complaint since I started teaching in 2003.I have just googled and there are articles about children starting school in nappies from 2018-2021 but I remember a lengthy (and heated!) discussion on the TES website of old about a daily mail article from around 2004.

It does become a bit of a bingo game - feral children, feckless parents, teachers not social workers. I’m not really wanting to spend ages pontificating about how crap some parents are. Some are crap. Some are doing their best in difficult circumstances. Many won’t parent in the way I would personally choose to but it’s a long way from neglect and the downturn of society.

What does concern me is that my child may not reach his potential. To me, this is because despite the system changing so that children should not be encouraged to get a 5, they are. Or at the top, a 6. I have no children targeted above a 6 in my mixed ability Y11 class.

I also do want him to benefit from sporting and musical opportunities and to (for example) be able to study a foreign language other than Spanish, and really to benefit from being an individual I suppose.

So we have 2 at private school and one at an "outstanding" state secondary.

It is not outstanding and is significantly inferior in every respect to the private schools.

Disruptive behaviour means it's harder to teach everyone. Schools have got to plod along with curriculum, more children still grasping the last topic and yet moving on.

Absolutely and we are seeing more and more learnt behaviours. Eg child A who has perfectly valid reasons, tricky home situation, genuine SEN etc is so disruptive day to day that SLT recommend a reward time system. Child A earns 10 smiley faces a day for making the right choices then gets to choose a fun activity that the rest of the class don't do, because they 'don't need it'. Child B who is neurotypical and able notices this and decides to fling themselves around and shout all day because then they might get a treat too.

Whilst there are genuine SEN cases, is it not possible the reason for the rise is because the system is broken, instead of fixing it we are blaming the child?

I do have a theory. Unsure as to the validity etc of it but I do wonder if thr area males a difference. Not so much the demographic of the area but the schools themselves in said areas. There are obviously still areas with a grammar school system. So if you had a town/ area with say 7 schools , by the time you remove the ones that most have no hope of accessing ie the grammar school , the faith school and the tiny little school on the outskirts of the town that fills up purely from the tiny village feeder schools where most peope cant afford to live , well that just leaves the actual population of said town divided between the 2/3 schools left. So all the kids with SNs and other issues , ones living in.poverty etc are all crammed into the same 2 schools.instead of being evenly distributed over them all.

Teachers then have 6/7 in a class instead of just 1 or 2

Absolutely the system is broken.

The teachers and support staff are working incredibly hard in spite of this and because of this.

I think a child benefit increase, perhaps similar amount to Ireland would be for the benefit of society.
Help to afford toddler classes, tutoring when needed, after school clubs for enrichment. However I don't believe the benefit of society is in the government's interest, only the benefit of the elite.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

Disruptive behaviour means it's harder to teach everyone. Schools have got to plod along with curriculum, more children still grasping the last topic and yet moving on.

Absolutely and we are seeing more and more learnt behaviours. Eg child A who has perfectly valid reasons, tricky home situation, genuine SEN etc is so disruptive day to day that SLT recommend a reward time system. Child A earns 10 smiley faces a day for making the right choices then gets to choose a fun activity that the rest of the class don't do, because they 'don't need it'. Child B who is neurotypical and able notices this and decides to fling themselves around and shout all day because then they might get a treat too.

That is a very good point.

I see it happening all the time.

There is a huge problem in public funded schools and I fear it is getting worse each year.
Unless steps are taken by government huge amounts if talented and dedicated teachers and staff will leave, will it only be then something is done?
I am a TA (ex teacher sick of overwork) as a TA I do not have the salary of a teacher, but also none of the responsibility.
Attitude to learning and staff is the most disheartening factor.
Most of the teachers look truly broken each lesson, those close to retirement just sucking it up to hang on.
Such apalling behaviour, endless back chat refusing to do tasks, non stop disrupting the decent kids.
As the badly behaved kids have no consequences its every single day.
I get paid by government (tax payers) to work one to one in am with non engagers. 4 days out of 5 they do not even come in at all. No phone call. They tell me mum didnt get up.
A lot of parents pushing for SEN diagnosis for the DLA money, when in actual fact they are just horrible kids from horrible families.
I feel parents should be fined if they have a child that is severely bad at school. As that seems to be a route to get them to understand the seriousness of the effect on others.
Sorry to sound defeated, but we are not social workers, we are educators, more funding in toddlers and early years needed to fund low income areas to support families that education does matter.
But something has changed. There is zero concentration, motivation, the kids are lazy with poor social skills, not a lot of sense of right or wrong. In the worse classes maybe 2 could actually stay in employment. So on top of that we will have huge amounts of people on benefits.
Why should we all work until we are 75 because of feral, violent and uneducated kids that will be unemployable?
I work in a good rated school, no barriers to speaking English. God only knows what it is like in inner city areas with high poverty.
At least in places like India education is sacred. But with a cushy welfare system there is no need to learn anything now.

@Whatwouldscullydo I have worked in very different demographics but only ever in state comprehensives and in every single one of them, I never once had a class with only 1 or 2 SEN kids. Maybe 1 or 2 SEN needs e.g. a few different kids having dyslexia and a few others have SEMH etc. but the lowest I've ever had was 4 and that was in a specialist class for gifted and talented. My average, mixed ability classes usually have about 5-8 and my bottom sets can have as many as 20. I once had a class with 25 out of 30 kids with an SEN.

Set up to fail from the get go then really.

I mean there must he countless conflicting needs. One kid who cant deal with loud noise . Another who has trouble hearing etc

Would it help do you think of schools were to take their " for share " so to speak? The ability to exclude certain kids from your cohort either through faith or 11 plus or uniform rules inaccessible to many with sensory issues and academies being avoided to set their own admissions criteria meaning u could live in the basement akd not qualify for admission. It really must almost concentrate the kids I to far fewer schools?

Certainly I live somewhere where I'm.basicalky surrounded by schools I can't access . My catchment schools are actually further away than most the others

I'm not sure how anyone could look at the impact of increasing child poverty in schools, spiralling use of foodbanks etc and blame it on the 'cushy welfare system'.

No, indeed, although I do think there were different types of problems in the 2000s, certainly.

What does concern me from a selfish stance is that I just don’t see children encouraged to meet their potential. They come out of school having done reasonably well but not brilliantly.

@noblegiraffe yes I agree the system is truly broken! But in countries where there is no welfare system education is valued as a way out of poverty.
We have a welfare system that is abused in many cases.
Can we blame every badly behaved dragged up kid on ADHD when in actual fact its just bad behaviour?
Its a disservice to kids who actually have ADHD and need support.
Should we give even more money to families who dont value education so they can never work, but its ok for us to?
I see it every day and its very sad and hard to see what is coming.
Maybe more funding given to low income families who really support their kids at school as bonuses.
While those that abuse it get penalties.
More funding for poorer families to get kids in univesities.
School is not just lessons, kids learn how to be healthy, sex ed and life skills. We cant blame everything on covid or special needs.

@Whatwouldscullydo honestly? I think there are too many strands to unpick:
Social services need more funding - they are massively understaffed (our local council only has 2 safeguarding SS employed permanently and they've been advertising the jobs for about 5 years, no one wants to do the job because the pay is peanuts and there's very little value added). Because SS are so stretched, schools (and the police tbf) are having to pick up the pieces for free. More time spent dealing with stuff we are ultimately not qualified to do means less time to do the stuff we should be actually doing e.g. in my RQT year I was sent to do a home visit on a neglected child because SS couldn't get there for a while as everyone was working on a full caseload. My classes for that afternoon had to have a non-specialist babysit them whilst they did cover work.

Outside agencies e.g. CAMHS need more funding and we need to be in a position where we can give students outside support. The number of kids with SEN is going up and up but funding is going down, so they are not getting what will help them thrive. Again, this is coming down to the classroom teacher who then has, as you say, many conflicting needs in one classroom (I regularly teach classes with student with ADHD whose parents claim I need to stimulate their child more to "control" them, alongside a student on the autism spectrum, for whom too much stimulation makes them have a meltdown.) The level of differentiation I have to do to help my students achieve, which I want them to do, is like a full-time job now on its own.

For the reasons above, and as per PP, we need to be paying TAs more to make them even apply for the job in the first place, before we even think of retention, because again, you can't give a student 1-on-1 support that their plan asks for, if no one is applying for the job.

Get rid of the uniforms and have a blanket dress code like most 6th forms and European schools do e.g. no crop tops, no logos, no references to guns etc. It does not avoid bullying because they still know who the poor kids are and find something to bully them about e.g. shoes, bag, the faded school jumper because it's 2nd hand, and I've dealt with several cases of bullying because they have a stitched on logo on their blazer rather than the usual school one. This will help parents make school clothes more affordable which means they will have more money to put into affording living cost price hikes, school equipment and revision materials.

Sort out the way staff are performance managed and what kids are being examined on, so that teachers don't carry the whole blame for students failing. If a student with poor attendance, lots of SEMH issues etc. is failing, it's probably not for lack of the teacher trying. If teachers know their ability to pay the mortgage next year is based on needing 80% of their GCSE class to get their predicted grade, based on exams they took under very different circumstances when they were 10 years old, then the only thing that will matter will be dragging that grade out of that kid, which is when you get parents complaining about lack of focus on mental well-being. You also have the dreaded parent saying "I'm making my child concentrate on the subjects they need to get onto their course at college" - which is reasonable, except that will impact whether I get a pay rise next year and whether I can afford to eat 3 meals a day. Equally, the exams are very skewed to certain demographics. One paper talked about a winter sports holiday, in the school I was in at the time, the kids' version of a holiday was if they got to go to a caravan over the bank holiday weekend, they couldn't ask questions to the ski instructor because they had no idea what that would look like. So they weren't being examined on the subject being taught, they had the added disadvantage of being too poor to understand the context to draw experience.

And this is just the tip of the ice-berg. We haven't even got to schools funding meaning staff are being let go, classes made bigger and timetables stretched with more cover. The amount of admin needed to "prove" what we are doing just in case Ofsted come, which has no benefit to the students. And I'm sure there are also many other layers that I can't think of just yet.

What does concern me from a selfish stance is that I just don’t see children encouraged to meet their potential. They come out of school having done reasonably well but not brilliantly.

I feel this happened to DD1 - though her college thankfully is better and I fear it's even worse for DS Y10 - having a sucession of supply teachers often not qualified in that subject - its particulary bad with English and Welsh.

There does come across as a total lack of ambition for the kids - with few a departments and teachers fighting the good fight but increasingly just leaving.

We do what we can at home but we can afford the guides and are well educated enough to help - but it often feels like we have to fight the lack of ambition as the school instills as well.

I thought it was just becase this school does seem to be in decline - but DN has similar in her English State secondary and that's considered a good secondary - though she is in lower sets.

I have no idea what the answers are - but I agree there do seem to be huge problems.

I hate to say it but secondary teachers, watch out for the current primary cohort coming up in the next few years. I teach in an infant school and the junior teachers next door are in for a shock. Speech and language issues have exploded. Many children with social and behavioural difficulties. Much higher incidence of SEN but no hope of getting an EHCP. We are offering parental classes as so many children have no structure or boundaries at home. 4 year olds on YouTube all night watching inappropriate content and playing 18 rated games on consoles. Stressed out parents struggling to make ends meet who are emotionally unavailable in some circumstances due to domestic violence, poverty, addiction. Far more children arriving in year R in nappies unable to communicate effectively and far more mental health issues

Hearing this more and more from the many teachers I know irl. Every single school we viewed for DD mentioned the impact of the pandemic on their Reception/KS1 cohort, especially an uptick in speech and language issues. I’m actually considering retraining in SALT myself as it’s clearly going to be a huge area of need in the future (albeit probably without the necessary government funding to accompany it).

I’m slightly dreading DD starting Reception in September tbh. Due to our highly fortunate position (comfortable home life, two highly educated parents, masses of attention from an ex primary teacher mother with a Master’s in child development/psychology and who is currently a SAHM, two days a week at a very good nursery), she is extremely school ready. She is naturally inquisitive, loves learning, received a good grounding in basic phonics and number work from me while we were bored over lockdown, has a decent level of independence etc. We have bypassed the local community school and gone for a slightly more middle class church school precisely because I saw these problems coming down the line and wanted her to be in a setting whose intake was that bit better resourced and more shielded from the pandemic fallout. But we live in a mixed area and I’m under no illusions about the fact that her teachers will be faced with many of the issues mentioned upthread. I just hope her start to school isn’t too disrupted, and that she doesn’t lose her early enthusiasm for learning.

A few years ago I would have been implacably opposed to the idea of private education for DD, and we can’t comfortably afford the fees anyway - but with the state system as it currently is I’m starting to have a nagging sense that this is where we might end up.

Our DCs go to supposedly one of the best states in the area and I've been so disappointed with it. Huge churn of teachers, constant supply teachers, awful communications, just not pushing the more able students - happy to let them coast along, very poor (and bizarre!) Selection of gcse subjects on offer, lack of career guidance and extra curricular etc. At parents eves the teachers hardly seem to know who the pupils are. Of course I know covid has taken its toll....but if this is one of the best, I hate to think what others are like!