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.

Weird to apply that principle to exclude some pupils.

But quite right, all these problems arise from State involvement in education.

Schools would have reformed years ago if they were a proper service industry. Restaurants, playgrounds, shops, cars, moving pictures are unrecognisable from 100 years ago.

Because all Govt services are imposed. Parents and children should be customers.

People feel helpless when dealing with Govt because they are. There was a fashion for not letting kids or parents now the distribution of marks in tests. It was incredibly frustrating having teachers deliberately withholding info from kids about their progress.

Well at some point laws are so bad they should be disobeyed. But yes, generally agree with you.

Having a population learning to follow rule is good for a State. So teaching obedience as a virtue, and rewarding it is good for Govt.

Learning to question bad rules is good for the citizens.

There is a conflict of interest between the two.

I had bugger all respect for your comments on this point in your waffle of an op

now trading your justification - I have less than bugger all. If that’s even possible

That is where the rot begins. Make up pointless rules then spend vast amounts of learning time enforcing them.

The kids have clocked it. Parents too. Both know there is nothing schools can do to enforce the mad uniform rules.

Adichie can't be on the Lit curriculum (although does crop up on the IGCSE - Purple Hibiscus is sometime available). The Govian reform of the curriculum meant that the Lit had to be British English getting rid of the international authors (although most stuck with not great Of Mice and Men). She did, however, turn up on a Language paper a year or so ago as that doesn't have the same rules.
While I disagree with the Shakespeare hate. I fully agree with that it is nonsense that the most taught 'modern' text was first performed in the 1940s. For commercial reasons (it's popularity with schools) none of the boards are prepared to drop it.
Since the last reforms the number of Lit students at A Level in my school as halved.

This makes no sense. 19th Century Literature is compulsory. And there is no non-British Literature on the GCSE specification. Do you have children in secondary?

This would be amazing. I would love schools to devote good time to social skills. Proper cooperative games. Honing skills such as critical thinking and rational problem solving. Remember when they used to bring in business leaders and project manage something for a day? (On a side note, they've removed the idea of project work from primary, deciding instead to hammer home metaphors and dangling modifiers). They were great learning experiences, sadly so rare the students couldn't really get out of them what they should have done.

At the moment, kids learn to follow (or break) rules. They rub alongside other kids rather than having quality social learning.

Don't get me started on the politics 🙄🙄

Sorry my messages don't make sense without quoting the posts - I thought pressing rely on a post on the app was enough - alas not. Sorry. I hope that makes sense

I didn't know this and it makes me sad. So many wonderful books from across the world. We're living in a golden age for literature. I'm not surprised about the A level dropping off.

@Livinginanotherworld

I looked it up in the end. Never studied it at my school. Teacher must have chosen other options.

@BlooDeBloop yes. When I started teaching there was more variety on the specs and they were refreshed and changed about every 3-5 years which kept things fresh and interesting. It's been this way so long now that the skill to change and plan so regularly has gone in some areas. Planning new texts is a joy. We seek in our curriculum to balance the canon with adding to it where we can (KS3 and A Level coursework). Newer texts we teach include: A Monster Calls, The Black Flamingo and Prima Facie.

The schools you're talking about do exist (although they thankfully provide Shakespeare and French for pupils who want it) unfortunately they're private and many families stretch themselves very thinly to send children there (and even then it is of course a huge privilege to be able to). If you look up democratic schools in the UK you should get a clearer idea. There's no pointless rules, the focus is on what's best for the school community, everything is voted for (outside of safeguarding concerns) with pupils and staff all having an equal vote (at secondary level), this also includes deciding if pupils who consistently refuse to follow the rules set by their peers are allowed another chance or asked to leave. The result is a loving school that the children adore and feel a real sense of pride, where children and adults feel valued and a genuine love of learning is fostered rather than pressure to pass exams.

I should also say the teachers have freedom to teach their subject as they see fit and don't always stick to mainstream curriculum as they don't have to, some of the subjects offer a 'gcse equivalent' instead if they feel it's a better, more enjoyable or more fulfilling way to learn. Generally they get great results, even with pupils who have been previously told they won't get any qualifications.

The OP on another thread she started

Kids are in secondary so the time feels right to branch out but I'm mid 40s with sod all experience in anything.

my work experience is

• *Decade+ in bitty work - teaching English as foreign language, hospitality, translation work (fluent in a second language), secretarial work. The longest I last is 10 months before the novelty wears off and I get pissed off for a variety of reasons.*

So you see end your days pulling apart the educations systems and making enormous sweeping generalisations. Oh and slating Shakespeare! 😂

Does this feel very personal to you? Why are you snooping at someone’s history rather than addressing their concerns/points.

Why would I address the concerns of someone who thinks Shakespeare, geography and french isn’t relevant

who refers to “kids” and “teachers” as homogenous groups

@RebelHarry you new here?

People have long looked up PP’s. Often gives a lot of illuminating background…

And searching an OP takes all of a minute and I generally do for an OP

if they want to take to the soapbox, then I want to know more about the speaker

@RebelHarry

how sweet. You joined mumsnet minutes after the Op started this thread just to stick up for her. Not a coincidence at all

You sound bitter - shame we can’t debate education on here in a civilised way - it always seems to descend into a bun fight. I hope you are not a teacher.

Why would I be bitter when I am very happy with my children’s school and education? 😐

Good grief no I’m not a teacher OP

I’d be a diabolical teacher!

I'm sorry but in what alternate universe is geography not relevant in the modern world?