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?

Unfortunately, I think it’s more a reflection of the state of our children and their behaviour rather than the school. These sorts of draconian measures seem to be commonplace in our state secondary schools and I think it’s desperate measures to try to keep behaviour under control. It’s very sad for the children who are well behaved as they also have to be treated this way. I know it seems bonkers but I’m a primary school teacher and experience the decline in behaviour every day, even amongst 5 year olds.

Or….are those 5 year olds having way too much asked of them?

Yes, I'm sure teachers would prefer to have a more relaxed regime and would do so if they had an intake like private or grammar schools.

What evidence is there that being ridiculously strict with minor things like uniform improve behaviour?

@Araminta1003 However, as a Londoner we are also sick and tired of having to pay for the rest of the “kind” country. Pushing ourselves and our kids in an over competitive way because parts of the rest of the country are financially unproductive. It is a toxic model for all.

Well, just stop then. Stop being so stressy and paranoid about grades, stop caring about how rich people are and valuing them solely on that basis. Start behaving like your local area is a community, chat to people in the street, take interest in the lives and well-being of children who are not yours. Volunteer to help in a youth club, take part in making meals for elderly people. You know, like us inhabitants of “kind but unproductive” parts of the country do. Community doesn’t happen by magic, it’s the result of people getting stuck in and getting their hands dirty.

I worked for a while in the London-influenced south-east. I moved home to the westcountry as soon as I had kids because the culture of “achievement” - ie chasing wealth at the expense of everything else - is awful and destructive. There is a lot more to life than how rich you are / how much your house is worth.

Also, please don’t get me started about blaming “the regions” for the structural economic inequality they suffer…..

But this is a massive thread derail. Apologies!

“Well, just stop then. Stop being so stressy and paranoid about grades, stop caring about how rich people are and valuing them solely on that basis. Start behaving like your local area is a community, chat to people in the street, take interest in the lives and well-being of children who are not yours. Volunteer to help in a youth club, take part in making meals for elderly people. You know, like us inhabitants of “kind but unproductive” parts of the country do. Community doesn’t happen by magic, it’s the result of people getting stuck in and getting their hands dirty.”

Personally I do all that and there is a strong community where I live.

Regarding the culture of achievement, look at our public finances, where the spending goes and how much debt we are in and how much the debt is now costing us as a country. Unfortunately we have no choice at this point. Who is going to support the health needs of our elderly etc? Especially now that we live in a post Covid world, but very much with Covid and flu wreaking havoc. As well as all the waiting lists.

This is precisely why both colours in Government are productivity/education driven and want high PISA rankings. So there is some hope for our country in the future. We are not the only ones in Europe suffering with all of this. But maybe we should all move to the regions, chill out, be kind and just keep importing high skilled immigrants to do the hard work. I mean we have been doing it for centuries, our colonial model is tried and tested.

I live in the south west and don't recognise this kind and caring place. Quite the opposite in fact.

And when I say “education driven” for Conservative/Labour they mean high expectations and a focus on results, but they want to achieve that for “Free” - they think ambition itself is free and just dogma. Culture of fear and achievement should lead to that? That is what they seem to believe. Happiness is not valued. Just productivity.

My eldest is only 6 but thread's like this make me so concerned about when my children have to start secondary school. It sounds horrible these days! :(

I absolutely recognise this in the SLT of my DDs' school (which coincidentally was OBSESSED with PE - if you weren't sporty you were invisible).

The obsession with rules for the sake of them. The particular obsession with girls' clothing. The do as I say, not do as I do attitude. The casual acceptance of racism, homophobia and misogyny. I could go on.

It was an appalling place and, as someone else said, the "best" school in the area. Both of my DDs hated it. So did I.

I have enormous sympathy for teaching staff. But I do believe some of these ''rules" can be counter productive. In the last heatwave students at my dcs school were not permitted to remove blazers between lessons, despite many obviously struggling with the heat.

Don't they do shirt sleeve order any more? When I was at school during hot spells we would go to shirt sleeve order i.e. no blazers. Same at the school my eldest went to. Both were schools that were strict about uniform but simple to adjust for hot weather.

No. I had thought that too. Most teachers let them remove blazers in classes but the Dep Head with responsibility for uniform insisted they were worn between lessons and break/lunch. It is dehumanising.

That was a rule at DD's secondary school. Impossible to see how making students hot and uncomfortable would improve behaviour. Easy to see how it could make behaviour worse.

I can't work out if you genuinely mean this or if you're being sarcastic?
I don't want my children to be blindly obedient to authority, I see no upside in that

The teachers aren't given a choice. The focus on strict adherence to detailed rules are set possibly at the Academy Trust level or by SLT. Teaching staff are compelled to enforce these rules by SLT.

This creates an antagonistic atmosphere for teaching staff and students. I doubt either want or benefit from it. It gets in the way of teaching and learning.

Unfortunately highly prescriptive uniform, deferential silence etc etc all look good in brochures or when inspectors or prospective parents are in.

It also makes it easy to hide away anyone who doesn't suit the preferred optics.

This generation of students will include the parents and teachers of the future.

You reap what you sow.

Exactly! Teaching children to say yes no matter what is a safeguarding fail!
If they don’t feel they can question authority at times when they’re in danger/at risk, they will letting themself become a potential victim of abuse.

Being emotionally well equipped to say no is important for life but also for the things others have mentioned with regards to being able to remove blazers when they’re about to pass out in the heat.
They’re school children, not infantry guards who have chosen to be there.

Army boot camp seems to be the model. Kids in flight and fright all day. Emerging with PTSD rather than resilience.

It should be the teachers who advocate for the children. They should go to the SLT and higher and say they refuse to install cruel rules that have negative health implications. School bleat on about ‘healthy’ eating but then let the poor kids swelter or freeze because of bat shit crazy uniform rules!

Teachers are supposed to be their protectors (in loco parentis)…not prison wardens. Currently there isn’t much in loco parentis being seen other than literally being responsible for them during the long school day.

All the great teachers leave unfortunately.

Probably not because of the kids but more the school mangers.

Yes, I am reminded a bit of Pink Floyd's "another brick in the wall". As a child in the 70s and early 80s, I remember finding it quite weird as teachers seemed generally quite nice by then but it looks like things are going backwards. Ultimately those children will be the unsupportive parents of the future as they will assume teachers are being unreasonable and always take the children's side.

The teachers I know who have left say it is the parents.

I have a yr6 starting high school in September and some of the policies and practices are ridiculous. We’ve had the coat removing rule in our local high school for a while but the one way system was introduced this year and now my friend’s child has had weekly comments about being late to one particular class because the route is too long. This year they brought in someone to focus on behaviour and have started physically restraining YP at the first sign of any kind of frustration and are telling all kids not to struggle and submit. It’s shocking!

Probably, I have no doubt that the highly prescriptive FIFO (fit in or fuck off) model is applied to teachers just as much as it is applied to students.

Very easy to use the rules to performance manage out any member of staff who doesn't comply. Not ensuring shirts are tucked in/ties straight can then be used as evidence of not maintaining classroom discipline.