Aibu to agree completely with this teacher? Teaching should not just be trusted to the teachers?

[Bláthannabuí]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10367349/Parents-children-lessons-DAY-school-says-Superhead-Katharine-Birbalsingh.html

Article is from last year. But I agree that parents should not just rely on schools to teach their children. Also she's right that many parents do extra at home but don't tell.

To be honest I know from my dc both in classes of 30 that a good chunk of the teachers day is managing behavior, upset children, there's some nd kids who need extra emotional support.. It's very hard to seemingly get a lot done in class

Katharine Birbalsingh is a fairly extreme figure. She runs the Michaela School - she likes the tagline of "Britain's strictest school" or "the UK's strictest headteacher". You may have come across articles about how pupils get detentions if they forget one item of pencil case equipment like if they don't turn up with a second spare pencil, there's no talking as they move between lessons, they have to constantly "track" the teacher with their eyes while the teacher is talking and stand up whenever an adult comes into the room.

"There is a "zero tolerance" policy regarding poor behaviour; a "boot camp" week at the start of the year teaches the children the rules and the consequences of breaking them. A strict uniform code and no group work; children sit in rows and learn by rote, and walk in single file between classrooms."

She argues that a no excuses approach produces high standards. Others say, but at what cost, as 11 year olds are forbidden from speaking to their friends and have to sit and move around the school in silence, being punished for not making eye contact with teachers or forgetting a second pencil.

Also she recently invited Jordan Peterson to the school to talk to the kids, which I wouldn't be thrilled by. https://twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1570814999114977281

The problem with that is many parents are not up to date on how to teach things effectively or use the correct terminology.

The amount of times I've had to tell my class it's not "would of" or that when multiplying by 10 you don't just add a zero on!

If parents do know what the passive is, or a relative clause, numerator/denominator in fractions etc, then by all means teach your child.

The best thing a parent can do is encourage and support their child: show interest in their school day; model reading and read with and to their child; get them to help shop (weighing things, adding up prices, estimating/rounding); talk about the world around them and ask them questions about it.

or that when multiplying by 10 you don't just add a zero on!

I used to loathe this lie! One girl who was the Padre's daughter in a military school came in and smugly said 'My father says you just add a nought to multiply by ten' so I asked her to apply that principal to £2.50 x 10 !
Adding a zero leaves any number unchanged.

Well, I taught my kids fractions when they weren't getting it at school, but I wouldn't get anywhere teaching them the upper end of GCSE maths. Many parents don't have the knowledge and skills to do any significant teaching at secondary level and very few can do it across the board - I could help with secondary French and English, support research for geography and history, offer some help with the sciences, but not much more.

I also think it's unrealistic to demand parents do this. Parents have jobs - many lower paid parents work unsocial hours and aren't available to teach. Children alerady have homework to do on top of a long school day; Ms Birbalsingh's idea lands children with a working day that is longer than that of many adults.

Finally I hate the idea of her school and would have home schooled my kids rather than send them to a school like that. Schools like this one operate on the principle that kids are inherently bad and must be managed with extreme measures as a preventive. It's a horrible way to view the world.

So it's mostly a hard no from me.

I am happy to support the school’s teaching - extra practice, testing spellings, regular reading etc, but no I am not going to teach my child myself. I don’t need to, they’re doing fine at school and the pushy approach wouldn’t suit them.

But then my children wouldn’t fit that ghastly woman’s education model anyway, they’re neurodivergent and would cope in her awful school for about 3 seconds. (One might wonder if her ridiculous school rules were in fact invented in part to manage out any children with SN, emotional issues etc….)

I’ve met parents who didn’t bother to teach their child any reading at all before they started school because “that’s the school’s job.” Their kids are now bottom of the class by a long way. It’s bloody sad (and very hard work for the teacher).

Schools are childcare with some free learning thrown in, but most real learning happens outside school.

The more support you can give your children at home, the better they will do at school. I mean, that's obvious. And support might be you showing how to do maths, or it might be you providing time and space for homework, asking your child yo explain what happens when they multiply 2.50 x 10. What is the answer and why? Can they explain? If they seem confused, encourage them to ask for help. You don't have to demonstrate how to do it, to be helpful and encouraging.

It explains why so much effort goes into trying to support children at school who are considered disadvantaged. Schools are trying to level the playing field.

I am surprised that this is controversial advice.

'Teaching' covers a lot of ground.

I taught my ds to read, to ride a bike, to swim, to tie his shoes laces. I expect the school to teach him quadratic equations and french verbs, which I can then reinforce with him at home, through homework and exam revision.

I teach him table manners, personal hygiene, money management, to be kind & tolerant and how to cook. In time I will teach him to drive. It's not my job to teach him photosynthesis or how to test for CO2.

It was my job to get DS into a school that provides good quality academic teaching. Which wouldn't include the institution run by the lady in question !

@Broadbeachshallow it's controversial because she uses the word 'teach' rather than 'support'. Of course we do teach our children - but home is not school. As parents we should teach our children good social skills and manners, hygiene, resilience, persistence - basically how to be good human beings. The kind of teaching schools provide is a specialist skill and it is unrealistic to expect it from parents. Of course we should read with and to our children, help them with their homework etc. But I can't teach circle theorems for toffee.

school has only ever been part of education ALL children need home education too

I have two issues with this.

1. Terminology and methods have changed massively. Not only do parents need to find the time to teach and support their kids(in a way that works) but also the time to familiarise with and learn new/different concepts themselves.

1. It completely ignores a whole section of parents that aren't able to do this for various reasons. We had parents that struggled with y2 homework, how would they be able to support a y6 child?

She's not entirely wrong in her statement, but the solution is to put pressure on the government to ensure appropriate support and funding so that all schools are great schools, rather than luck or expect parents to pick up the slack.

I don't like this teachers style in running a school but I definitely assist my youngest DC in year 7 as the noise of school life means she doesn't always understand the work in the classroom. She has so much homework that I have to help her, spent 2 hrs last week on a Shakespeare project for example. I have a Masters and English Literature graduate so I don't find this hard to assist with. The problem I have is more with the way Shakespeare is being taught to an 11 year old.

My eldest is in top group for all subjects and is pretty self sufficient but I will help him with revision of past papers in English Literature and History. I would not be able to help him With Maths but he is at 8 grade so he doesn't need my help.

My DC go to a state school in an affluent area and I would imagine most DC get some kind of help. Where they don't they are definitely behind. I think it is very unfair in that regard as it is about luck of home life rather than the child's fault.

Teacher's style not 'teachers'.

Perhaps she means along the lines of regular reading, encouraging maths by comparing supermarket prices or other price comparisons, or just giving them experiences and pointing things out, as you are out for a walk, or in town or on holiday. Anything really. Perhaps she just wants more interaction, rather than families in their own bubbles with screens.

Having said that, I’m not a fan of her style of teaching or staff management. I’d hate to work for her. And it would be ‘for’ and not ‘with’.

I naively thought that this was going to be about schools teaching stuff that parents should eg using cutlery or teaching them stuff that the school curriculum doesn't cover.
If parents of secondary school kids could teach all subjects then I'd expect all teachers to be able to do the same but obviously that's not realistic or accurate of real life. While she's right about there being a massive element of luck to the teaching that children get, parents also don't know how modern teaching explains things. For example my kids kids learned long division in primary but I found the method very different to what I learned.

I'm no fan of hers and I don't think this is the way things should be, but I do agree with this.

My youngest DC struggled with KS1 maths. There were 31 children in her good natured but boisterous and high-needs class and realistically no way that a quiet child who was working hard but increasingly struggling to stay within 'expected level' would get picked up on and given the additional help she needed.

I worked out that she'd completely missed the basics and hired a tutor to go back over them until those basic concepts were embedded. After that she caught up by herself and has needed no help since.

She's Year 8 now, top-set maths and, according to her maths teacher, a 'natural mathematician'. There is no way she would have realised her potential without that help from outside school and no way her amazing but over stretched teachers could have provided it.

Being taught well at school is not 'lucky', it's a fundamental requirement.

Expecting parents to bridge the gap entrenches inequality.

No one bothered to help me at home. The teachers simply didn't have the time for 30 kids at school. I was crap at maths, because I never took the time myself as a kid to try and teach myself (I prefered reading), and no one bothered to help me at home.

My son, due to a variety of reasons (one of youngest in year, covid etc), was utterly behind in maths. School offers a once weekly after-school maths lesson for an hour to kids like him - it was useless (literally, LITERALLY, asking a class of 8 year olds "what is 2 plus 2?"...I wish I were joking). Nothing was changing. The teachers would focus most attention and teaching input on the "smart" kids, and kids like my son were kind of just left to the wayside. So, my husband took charge of maths at home (I am not clever. I am not bright at all. DH however knows advanced maths and is a very good natural teacher whereas I can't see outside of straight line thinking) and boy, did he personally tutor our son. It was a hard, hard daily slog, but after half a year ds FINALLY knew all the times table, and then dh started to teach him more and more maths...ds went on to win the "most improved in maths" award at the school, is now in the top set and it was everything to do with taking AND having the time to teach him.

THAT'S the crux of it - not everyone has the luxury of time at home. But I absolutely agree, IF you can, IF you are able, giving them extra personal tuition yourselves at home can be a massive help, for the child's own confidence also.

I 100% agree with the sentiment of this.

However, inequality is happening right now regardless. Actively managing your DC's education is one of those unwritten rich/poor rules (sorry, I know that's a clumsy way to word it). The rich can circumvent it to some extent by outsourcing it (private schools/catchment areas/tutors) but believe me they all make sure it is happening.

It should be the case that a child from a very poor, very chaotic or very dysfunctional family can turn up at their nearest school and be guaranteed an educational experience equivalent to other children of the same age. Sadly, this is not the case.

Wealthier parents or more likely to have experienced an extensive education, they will likely impart that love of learning to their DC, it is not wholly about buying those services to circumvent the issues raised in the article. This has always been the case, you won't be able to stop parents doing that with their children, the focus should be on how those who aren't in that position are afforded equal chances via the education system. In the 60's for example, many people from working class backgrounds had the opportunity for further education which totally changed the outcomes for their offspring and future generations. My Dad came from what would be considered a working class background, went to university and got a job as an Economist in a prestigious company in central London. He had grown up in the south Midlands so this was a big change to his upbringing. There were many like him. My parents like many of that generation were politically active and fought for those changes to the stuffy institutions and the way of life that was accepted prior to the 60s. They demanded an education and opportunities, I suppose you just don't see that anymore, hence the class divide is bigger than ever.

YABU for sharing an old article from that rag.

My mother in the 80s refused to read to me, hear me read or help me learn spellings / handwriting. She was unique - everyone else had parental help. I was aware from age 6 when everyone did better in their spellings.

Every parent I know from my DC school helps their DC learn at home. Thank God. 😂 we're in a deprived area.

I don't like her at all, and I think the way she runs her school is insane. I am very much unconvinced by their model of science teaching, and think their students will come unstuck at A-level/uni.

BUT

I do think she has a point about luck.

If you've got a secondary age child, do you know if they're being taught by a permanent teacher (not long term supply) in all their subjects? Do you know if that teacher is a subject specialist? Do you know if they're qualified?

If you've got a primary age child, do you know how much of their week they spend in the classroom being led by a TA?

It is, in some cases, luck as to the quality of teaching your child will get. And it is true at secondary there will be a number of children where their parents are helping them at home or paying for a tutor.

BUT I also agree with those on the thread who say that parents don't have the skillset to do this. For sciences, at GCSE, you could teach your child factually correct science to the required level, and they'd lose out on marks because of the way the markscheme works, in places- for example. AQA (the exam board I'm most familiar with) are extremely specific about the language used in some places, and if you're not also familiar with that, students can lose a lot of marks (no, I don't think this is ideal, either).

And, to be honest, many parents wouldn't have the subject knowledge either. Or if they have it in science, they don't have it in English (me) or music (also me) or art (also me) etc.

What we need is for all schools to be able to ensure students get a certain standard (not necessarily style) of teaching, from a qualified, consistent subject specialist AND for schools to have funding to provide intervention for those falling behind. Smaller class sizes would also help.

You can watch YouTube videos on almost any maths problem.

I've done it a few times with my children.