To wonder what has happened to my Son's school

[k2493]

Just posting for thoughts

Both my kids have gone through the same secondary school. When my daughter started, the school was lovely and new with around 750 kids.

Fast forward to 2024 and there is now 1500 kids and it's become like a dictatorship.

Due to the number of kids, the school has put lines either side of the hallway that they have to walk within otherwise they get detention.

Every hallway is a one way system.

The minute they arrive in school, they have to remove their coats or it's detention even with no heating in the middle of winter. The other day my son arrived back to school to find that there were long queues outside while they did two uniform checks at the door. By the time he got in, he was frozen. Immediately he got shouted at for still having his coat on even though he had just stepped in from the cold.

He then went around the corner and got shouted at again even though he tried to explain it's really difficult to be expected to stay warm, keep moving and remove your coat all at the same time. Nope. Threaten with detention again.

AIBU to wonder what has happened to our education system? I'm lucky in that my son is quite strong minded and just brushes it off but what about the kids who's mental health this is impacting? Surely we want our kids to remember school as being enjoyable for their education and friendships rather than for being shouted at every two minutes for not walking between lines or not taking their coats off the minute they arrive in school?

There are still decent caring schools who operate similarly to as you describe. I have a feeling they have to have really strong heads you manage to placate Ofstead while also making the right decisions for the individual school.

I really don't know about the behaviour but it definitely seems these schools are causing some of it. The kids just get so disillusioned right from Y7. I guess by the time you're Y9, you're going to be really pissed off. The DC at my DD's school are really well behaved.

I refuse to believe that parents of state school kids aren't also invested in their kids' education. And why would they be invested during primary school, but not later on? If you are trying to make a point in favour of selective schools and more specialist schools, I don't disagree with you. Comprehensives drag everyone down to the same low level.

I'm hearing more and more stories like this! I'm hoping to save enough to send my daughter to a small and nurturing independent school for secondary, if the school I'm thinking of can survive Labour's plans. I just can't imagine the idea of her being shouted at for trying to stay warm or put in isolation because she has coloured stitching on her shoes. She's only 3 so we have a while.

This sounds like my child’s school (relatively new academy known for excellent results and extremely strict)

I think your son might go to the same school as my son! In all serious though, there are a couple of academic trusts that use this system. My son is at a greenshaws learning trust school. They all seem to have this style of behaviour modification

My DD came home from school today and was telling me they were told it's important to go to the toilet if they need to and they will be allowed to go if they ask as it is a human right. Now, even though her school is very nurturing I was still surprised. But this school has created such a culture that they don't need to worry about students messing around in the toilets. And then on the other end you have the schools where the toilets are closed half the time. I think it really needs to be looked in to what is happening in the schools that struggle so much with bad behaviour.

Ex-teacher here. This regime sounds far too severe, but it is part of a zero-tolerance discipline policy, which works because it cracks down on minor infringements so that the bigger stuff doesn't take hold. In a big school - say 1200+ pupils, 8-fe - there is a need for fairly tough rules, and pupils usually say they like a strict regime because it delivers a calmer teaching environment. And the amount of teaching time wasted in lessons on adolescent intransigence is horrifying. (As indeed is the amount of time wasted on adolescent customising of school uniform, yet they all say they prefer uniform!)

Ah I hadn't realised that!
I felt so sorry for some of the excellent teachers when my kids were at an academy. Unfortunately many went off sick and left leaving the poorer/inexperienced ones.

However there were the power mad types amongst them that seemed to thrive in the new regime.

That sounds a lot my sons secondary school.
One way system, 10 minutes to get out of your PE kit. Dressed and to the next lesson, or you get a strike. 2 strikes 3rd detention.
Then you cannot go to the toilet, without tracking down the teacher who was on toilet duty. Then you can only go to the toilet in the dinner time, so think 1000 kids all wanting the toilet. 30 minutes to eat, and pee.
So my son stopped drinking. Leaving the house at 7:30 am not getting home till 4pm. With only 300ml drink in the morning, even on hot days and PE days. He is at college now, but still has issues around going to the toilet, as he struggles with the idea of not getting told off for needing to have a wee. Or asking permission to use the toilet.

The Gulag is coming to UK, hee hee. About time!!
So many out of control kids these days😥. Teachers and good children need prorotection from feral kids (result of shitty parents who probably had shitty parents and will be the next gen of shitty parents, God, thats so depressing, isn't it!! Sorry your good kids are getting lumped in but discipline has got to start somewhere for some people.

Is the coat rule really about making it difficult to come in with weapons easily to hand?

The context was that the ruler was for underlining a title.

What was the rationale for that?!

It’s a tricky line for schools at the moment. Behaviour is unsafe. That’s just a fact. The attitudes and culture being fed through from social media is leading to serious physical and sexual violence in schools on a scale we’ve never witnessed before.

We have very little real power to affect this- parents could choose to but it is far easier to leave the kids to their devices. So the only solution is to implement strict rules to mitigate some issues.

Toilets have become the centre of much of the dangerous behaviour. We now have to monitor toilet visits so we know who has been in there at specific times in case of serious incidents. By serious I mean assaults, sexual activity and drug taking.

@LiesDoNotBecomeUs

In some schools it will be. It’s also part of breaking apart some fairly insidious gang cultures. We have a kid at the moment who we think is involved with county lines and is also selling knock off Canada Goose coats to his mates. Police are involved but the family are uncooperative.

Or the behaviour of pupils and support from parents has declined due to these schools. Not all schools feel the need to follow this fashion so what's the difference?

It sounds awful and I don't really get how being incredibly strict with things like coats and uniform has a good impact on behaviour. Surely if the teachers are constantly giving out detentions for minor things they have less time to punish actual bad behaviour and to teach.

No, it hasn't.

Guns, knives, drugs, children not give boundaries by parents so they need military style control in school. Not enough teachers and bleeding them out by the week.

Ifyou put public services at the bottom of the pile, what do you think happens?

Yes, I can't imagine some of the rules such as making students freeze outside or not allow them to use the toilet makes parents feel supportive.

1. You have never been stopped from using the toilet because you are an adult who uses the toilet as it should be used. You don’t meet up to vape, bully other people, take selfies, video or take pictures of other young people under cubicle doors, take drugs. All of which (I work in one) happen in secondary schools. Toilets HAVE to be restricted to keep everyone safe. You live in a different world if you think school staff are doing it for power trips.
2. Shortage of staff, underfunding, lack of parental support as they challenge every policy or behavioural issue, students who don’t believe they have to follow behaviour policies and quite often get away with it due to unsupportive parents, oversubscribed schools as Heads need more money to keep the school operating, more and more students with complex needs, lack of respect for teachers in general (just look at the comments on this thread- their children then repeat this). On top of that you have extremely stressed teachers who are held accountable for exam results when a lot of the time the environment is no longer suitable to teach in. I imagine this stress trickles down to students as we are only humans, not robots, so we set more homework or put on extra revision classes and for some students it’s too much so they opt out or become apathetic towards school- it’s the product of OFsted and League Table system. These are some of the reasons (not all) why schools are struggling with poor behaviour.

Completely agree with this. My Dd's school is an Academy but not part of a MAT. I'm wondering if this may be a significant reason why it is so good.

I know teachers who have definitely found kids with serious weapons (large knives) hidden in their waistband and coats obscure that. As we don't have security guards in UK schools (thank god) teachers have the daunting task of trying to keep this under control.

We also have gangs in schools and uniforms help keep that in check to some degree. I think it depends so much where schools are situated.
Some people seem to be oblivious to what is happening in society and some schools. Not to forget that older teens are basically grown adults physically. Even my own son was 6 ft at 14.
In my part of London at least kids being knifed has been going in for decades, but not usually around school. That has been changing.

There wasn't a problem with gun, knives or drugs or discipline at my daughters' school but they still brought in some ridiculous overly strict rules.

My children’s school is like this. They seem to suck the joy out of everything with over zealous rules, probably all down to trying to please Ofsted! My daughter has also complained about coat/one-way corridor rules . She’s not even allowed to get her water bottle out with teachers threatening punishment. Even simple things like going to the loo have been made over complicated and stressful. Toilets are locked most of the time and only unlocked briefly at breaktime leading to long queues. They are also ‘unisex’ which many of the children are uncomfortable with. I wouldn’t want to be at secondary school these days. And don’t even get me started on the overpriced ‘junk’ they sell in the canteen ! (Moany menopausal mum rant over!) 🙈