I could write a book in answer to this question. (Maybe I should).
Hence this is difficult to condense into a short thread post…
However, some of my opinion and a bit of history.
In 2014 Gove in his infinite wisdom turned the National Curriculum upside down. His aim was to return education to its Victorian roots based on the 3 R/s. I’m guessing to recreate his 1960s Eton school days 🤔 So overnight went what little creativity was left in schools (not saying things were perfect before this mind but they were infinitely better) and in came lots of totally outdated grammar structures (fronted adverbials for 7 year olds, the subjunctive tense for 10 year olds and so on), in came learning objectives that were originally in Year 6 moved down to Year 4 and those form Year 4 moved down to Year 2 and so on. At the same time the SATs were altered to reflect this and suddenly the pressure was on. In my experience as a teacher all this achieved was the commencement of putting most children off learning/school and a curriculum which was dry, boring and outdated. Schools were under (& continue to be) so much pressure to get these children to a certain level. And so schools have become all about teaching to the test. There is SO much focus on Maths and English purely because of the SATs that other subjects are now demoted to occasional add-ons. Children who are not academic are miserable. I absolutely hated having to jump though these hoops to teach the most pointless shit to them. And yet schools continue to pile on the pressure (they are so beholden to ofsted they have not much choice) & it’s miserable for all concerned. Tough luck if you didn’t understand modal verbs we’re onto the subjunctive tense today. Tough luck if you don’t under how to calculate the area of a parallelogram, we’re onto algebra today. They have become exam factories and the students are just a statistic on a graph to be measured for the schools results table.
Obviously tests have been a part of school for a long time, but unless you have seen the things children are expected to know today you have no idea how harmful this situation is. I’ve seen 5 year olds who think they’re stupid because they’re being expected to learn spellings such as ‘muscle, hustle, bustle, castle, thistle’ yet are at the level of just about being able to spell CVC words (cat, mug, pan etc). The curriculum is over full and ridiculous. It probably meets the needs of about 10-20% of children at best.
Combine this with lack of funding all round, lack of support for send, lack of places for send children, lack of nhs funding which impacts on everyone, poverty, crumbling buildings, toilets locked, draconian uniform and attendance requirements, ofsted pressures, overcrowding, teachers that are burnt out and yes I will add the pandemic to this. This has all been discussed before but on some level it changed things. As has been said on here ‘the contract was terminated’ for many.
I have more philosophical views on what is wrong with school in its modern iteration but they’re often too radical for MN. I’m a true unschooler these days. I’ve done a full 360 from being the good student, the hard working teacher, the mother who dutifully sent her children off to school age 4 to someone who has no time for any of that. It was toxic for me and was toxic for my children. It was also toxic for the students I taught and I couldn’t be part of it any longer. It saddens me as I do fundamentally think school could be a good place. I’m a big believer in education and learning. It just all needs an overhaul for the 21st century and modern society.