To thing school need to radically rethink their offer

[BlooDeBloop]

In lockdown everyone understood that schooling was optional. Everyone understood that missing a day or week didn't matter in the grand scheme of things

During lockdown students learned that rules could be arbitrary and not make sense

Lockdown taught parents that school was critical as childcare to enable them to work

Since then, kids are back in school. They are challenging the rules on an unprecedented scale. Parents are laughing at the SLT. Kids are cheering when they clowns are removed from class. The kids know there is no real punishment, no real consequence for deliberately, chronically disruptive behaviour.

Teachers are breaking down and leaving in droves, more than ever before. Leaving young, inexperienced colleagues in the trenches.

After having to educate their own children parents understand that Shakespeare, French, geography and more have no modern relevance in the UK. The curricula are unimaginative and disconnected from the future world of work. There is no longer home support for the suck it up attitude with which kids were once sent to school.

Once upon a time there was an understanding that the kids would go to school, get an education, leave to pursue training or higher education. Today, that understanding has broken down. Under the scrutiny and transparency that SM provides, we collectively understand this is not true. Schools are failing, not through lack of care or competency but a lack of relevance. Further, the social mores that governed acceptable behaviour have softened to such a degree a good 10% of every state secondary class will seek to destroy the locus of power in the room (teacher, SLT, whoever). To compound the issue, students are all seeing for themselves on SM how to disrupt and then go about emulating their heros.

This is a cluster fuck of gigantic proportions.

AIBU in thinking that there needs to be a big scale conversation (revolution!) around what schools offer in this new world? For starters, moving with the times to offer skills that are actually needed and valued in the workforce and in further ed (e.g. IT at all levels, from typing to programming, and not shoved into one hour a week). Real alternative curricula for non academic kids (let's not pretend these kids need Chaucer in their lives).

And when students are persistently disruptive over a long period of time, borderline encouraged by their parents, they should be sent home. Permanently. To be educated (or not) by their parents. That would sort out 90% of poor behaviour overnight.

Ahhhh. That feels better 😁. Thank you for reading if you got this far.

Not at the school my children attend

not even close to what you describe

I don't know, never been a fan of schools much myself either way, but I do love Shakespeare and find his plays and poetry have a huge significance in my daily life and have done since I was a child.
My own child loved the Shakespeare they did at primary school last term, too.
It seems very bizarre to suggest it has no significance in modern life! Certainly not how we or most people we know view his work.

After having to educate their own children parents understand that Shakespeare, French, geography and more have no modern relevance in the UK.

wtaf

please say you aren’t a teacher

I totally agree that the curriculum is largely detached from the real world. However, as a teacher, I think that drastically overhauling the curriculum will be the final nail in the coffin for teacher retention. It's also not a new idea - the spec I'm teaching at secondary was introduced in 2016.

For starters, moving with the times to offer skills that are actually needed and valued in the workforce and in further ed (e.g. IT at all levels, from typing to programming, and not shoved into one hour a week). Real alternative curricula for non academic kids (let's not pretend these kids need Chaucer in their lives).

This would be like a 21st century 'Secondary Modern' concept - interesting.

Languages and geography are of no use? With that profoundly ignorant comment your post's credibility, if it ever had any,went down the tubes.

Ditto. What a load of codswallop.

Chaucer is a bit annoying, agreed, though useful for discussions around gender essentialism, sexism and misogyny. Probably better on the primary curriculum rather than secondary, or for 11-12 year olds maybe?

Teachers are breaking down and leaving in droves, more than ever before

Have you got a link to the stats on this?

Oh do you kean school should be used for constructing workforces, rather than for education?
Not a novel idea.

when students are persistently disruptive over a long period of time, borderline encouraged by their parents, they should be sent home. Permanently. To be educated (or not) by their parents. That would sort out 90% of poor behaviour overnight.

And those kids, who are acting out more than likely because of their home life/parenting, get the one lifeline thrown to them snatched away.
Fucking hell shall we throw them down the mines with a canary whilst we are at it?

I agree we need to focus more on skills for the modern workplace - and this is largely computer science. However, we hardly have any teachers capable of teaching it.

Further, the social mores that governed acceptable behaviour have softened to such a degree a good 10% of every state secondary class will seek to destroy the locus of power in the room (teacher, SLT, whoever)

op you just do not sound all that intelligent

I don't recognise any of that from the school I work in, or any of the schools in our trust, or any of my children's schools.

Education doesn't have to be relevant or solely about preparing pupils for work and adult life - it is about exposing kids to a broad curriculum, that they can choose to gradually narrow to suit their talents and preferences.

Our SLT are supportive, behaviour is good and most pupils seem to enjoy their school experience.

Some kids, some parents, can be arses but it was ever thus.

You're right about some things, for sure. But... what will those permanently excluded kids get up to, at a loose end? The ones whose parents can't or won't educate them at home? Who decides who 'needs Chaucer in their lives'? Do we just stop teaching all purely academic stuff? Or do we only teach it to middle class kids of highly educated parents, who are already primed to take an interest (and not bother teaching it to kids with no cultural capital who have the mind for it and could have had a career as an academic)?

You might be keen on a world where education is just creating slaves for the machine, but not everyone would be. There is more to the world of work than I.T. Also, what do you mean by a breakdown in the understanding that kids will leave to pursue higher education or training? They still do.

Teaching is never going to come near the sort of salary people with those skills can get in industry, so that doesn't surprise me at all.

Well you've clearly been ruminating about this too much.

But I do agree it should be easier for schools to permanently exclude pupils who disrupt their class - effectively to select on the basis of adequate behaviour.

I think the main issues in our schools are:
Children who have complex send being inappropriately placed. Many need specialist schooling which does not exist or there are too few places
Children with SEND who need more support from TAs - lack of funding for TA support is a massive problem
Parents who do not support high standards of behaviour
Constant change and new systems that take teachers away from their core task of teaching
Lack of pastoral staff which means teachers are trying to deal with pastoral issues when they should be focused on learning
Low levels of basic literacy. The KS2 SATS are in my view not helpful. We teach kids to pass the tests. This is not necessarily the same as ensuring they have the skills for further studies.

The solution is not to mess around with the curriculum again. I would also say that getting rid of NC levels was a huge mistake.

The school system is very problematic but I disagree with a lot of what you say. We need the system to create musicians and artists as well as engineers and lawyers.
I would argue that geography is very relevant - both human geography (we have an ageing population ) and it's good to understand stuff like erosion and climate change. Ia found it very interesting learning about different biomes like jungles and deserts. Being able to speak French is cool if your child wants to live overseas and we need the people who can analyse literature so that they can hone their skills to be the next researchers and lawyers.
My kids and I didn't study English at A-level but I think that knowing the plot of certain books like Romeo and Juliet should be general knowledge.

Nope - OP you really need a bit more education and life experience yourself - French not being useful in the modern UK - well it depends- are you raising a child with the expectation they’ll never leave the UK? Never need to speak to a client or supplier overseas? Are you aiming for a little insular “Britain only matters” person who works for small companies with no international presence? Speaking any other language makes learning additional languages easier as an adult. When deciding which other language to teach in British schools, our nearest neighbour is the most logical one to start with.

I'm a teacher and we are suffering from a recruitment crisis, especially in areas like maths and science. We have posts that don't get filled, and something like half of teachers quit in the first 5 years https://schoolsweek.co.uk/five-key-findings-from-nfers-teacher-retention-and-recruitment-dashboard/

"After having to educate their own children parents understand that Shakespeare, French, geography and more have no modern relevance in the UK"

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Yes, because no-one uses geography at all ever.... nope not a single person. Nobody studies population, no body is interested in migrants, not a sole uses a GPS or mapping technology, and good LORD the British aren't at all interested in the weather....

And yes, shakespeare, get rid in one fell swoop. Good riddance. He's absolutely not all of any interest to anyone in the UK. Theres definitely no theatre that solely exists to put on these world famous plays with world class actors taking part. Nope... not relevant at all.

Pretty sure that French is a dying language, it's hardly the creme de la creme of languages

Just read @cansu post and agree with the points made.

The parents are the problem. I wouldn't start messing about with the curriculum, I'd just allow schools to kick out the disruptive/rude ones. It'd be tough shit and theyd be the parents problem.

It might get the trouble put if the classroom but staying at home with parents who dont give a shit leads to adults that dont give a shit.

An ideal world has 100% funding, 100% SEN funding, and funding to effectively manage the chaos.

I agree with teaching more non academic stuff to non academic kids but kids do need to learn the value if disciplining themselves to do shit they dont want to do. Plenty of jobs have pointless tasks, you cant simply not do those tasks of your boss asks you to do them without consequences.