To think change is desperately needed in schools?

[GibberingPeck]

I work with young children. Today I was hit twice and scratched on the face so hard it drew blood. This has not happened to me before and I’ve worked in schools for many years. I was trying to stop a child hurting another child. The school’s stance seems to be that I shouldn’t have intervened or somehow dealt with the situation badly. I think they saw I was bleeding, but ignored it as they have so much to deal with. This year, I think I’ve seen more violent and aggressive behaviour from children than I’ve ever seen. And no way of dealing with it - it seems to have become acceptable or ‘the norm’.

While I absolutely agree with the OP that the current lack of discipline is dreadful, I'm very glad that the cane and belt are long-gone. We know so much more about child abuse now. I guarantee some of the teachers who delighted in caning children were nonces. When I was at school in the 00s, one of our teachers was completely unhinged - wasted most of the lesson screaming, would throw things across the room, made pervy comments to the girls, etc. The other teachers would even occasionally tell us they were amazed he hadn't been sacked yet, but no one did anything. I read in the paper after I left school that he'd been disciplined for being particularly aggressive to one girl, and there was actually a statement from the school saying that this was out-of-character for him!

Another teacher was very "odd" (with retrospect, I think he had autism) and a lot of the kids took the mick out of him in class. He was clearly too scared to stand up to them, so instead, he would single out quiet, well-behaved children and bully them in front of the class - it seemed to give him a sense of power. The thought of it being legal for either of those men to cane or belt children fills me with horror.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. 100% agree, there are lots of reasons for the general downturn of behavior from the children. I would like to add to your list - early support such as sure start centers closing down, overwhelmed schools too many children per class lack of staffing, more entitlement from some parents thinking their child can’t do no wrong, lack of support for parents with SEN children, no respect, the list probably goes on further but I can’t think of anything more to add to your list.

Get the military in. That'll sort it out.

This is from the Royal College of Obstreticians. I'm not saying that steroid use causes all the problems, it seems like only a small minority are possibly affected, I'm more saying there is probably loads of things in the environment and in food and medicines etc affecting us and we are none the wiser until someone does probably v expensive longitudinal cohort studies.

I know I'm going to be called "judgy" but I do think kids being put in nursery from a very young age is a factor. The fact is that nursery staff have a lot of children to keep track of and aren't being paid much. Many of them just aren't that engaged. And obviously, they don't have the same investment in how a child "turns out" as a parent does.

We have not yet fully witnessed the consequences of locking up our children during COVID. I foresee a steep increase of MH issues that stem from the abuse we as a society subjected to our children.

What do you call a very young age? It's very subjective and I bet there are few stats that back it up. In fact didn't the government give 'sahp' extra nursery time for free from age 2-3 because it would help the child's development?

The JAMA study is a retrospective cohort study. As they themselves note, you cannot determine causation from such observational studies, in order to do that you would need a randomised controlled trial.

A longitudinal cohort study can only identify associations not causation.

My point being observational studies are unable to rule out that children with conditions that lead to mental and behavioural disorders may be more likely to receive steroids than other children.

I think there are a few left here and there, mainly in the cities and the odd major town.

There are none in my town or at all for a 30 miles radius - and we're a fairly deprived area.

Just to add to my previous post about a specialist place not being available for my DD. She actually had a CAMHs assessment today in the hope we might be able to access medication for her ADHD. Her severe ADHD that her mainstream school have to deal with everyday because she's never been medicated. Yeah, she isn't eligible for medication as CAMHs have said she isn't in the right setting (I know this..) and if she were then she wouldn't need medication.

So, that means her school will be continuing to deal with her unmedicated ADHD indefinitely, because there isn't a suitable setting for her and she doesn't deserve any support she can get to help her manage where she is.

@Mumma2024 That's incorrect, they shouldn't have done that. It's against NICE guidelines. If she's got a diagnosis from NHS and the money, reach out to a private psychiatrist. We managed to get a medicine review with one on zoom for £300 as we had a diagnosis already. It was about £100 a month in private prescriptions until titration was done, so about 3 months, than our GP took over on a shared care agreement. Eventually CAMHS agreed to take it over as they said she's been on medication with a positive effect 🙄

I have to wait for the formal letter but I plan to challenge it. It's a NHS diagnosis.

The issue is - and I hate to say it in a way - there is an enormous cohort of people in the country who simply don’t give a fuck about their own lives, their children’s lives, or the lives of the people around them. Their lives are chaos, their minds are almost unable to display the reasoning/emotional intelligence of other people, and they could have all the support in the world and not change.

I think the profile of society has changed. Back in the day a very low earning or lower working class person would have a hard daily manual job, their time was filled and the only intoxicant available to them was alcohol. Now you don’t HAVE to work - plenty of people spend their life on benefits, there’s a huge array of intoxicants available to them some very cheaply, their brains are addled and they spend their lives in the company of other people who are basically unable to function properly either. As far as their kids go there is now cheap junk food and screens to babysit them and the rise of ‘permissive parenting’ makes it socially acceptable to let them have whatever they want where before they would’ve been smacked and put to bed early (not saying that’s great but it’s discipline).

I think the level of help people need is now far beyond what we as a country can provide and afford. The level of intensive input every one of these people would need is staggering.

There are alternatives but they would be found unpalatable by the public and seen as a violation of human rights.

@shearwater2
Seriously?
DH is a secondary teacher, DSis is a family liaison officer in a secondary school and I'm an educational psychologist..the majority of the problems all three of us see are DIRECTLY caused by the obsessive use of phones by teenagers, social media and the constant ability to be in touch with hundreds of people (many harmful) any minute of the day.
I'd ban all phones in schools, ignore the parents who insist their kids need them for 'safety' and ban all under 16 from any form of social media.
And schools have only changed in the last 15 years due to high needs being placed in schools that cannot cope with them because that is not what mainstream school is for, DH school is far from Draconian, more over accommodating for the gentle parenting that is destroying most kids.

Social media is breaking children and breaking democracy but makes a few men extraordinarily wealthy.

This. As the saying goes. If it's free, you are probably the product.

@DrBlackbird
Yes exactly. DH is lucky to work in a nurturing supportive outstanding secondary school with a good catchment and yet he still spend a lot of his lesson times asking kids to put away phones or dealing with social media based arguments etc etc. boils my blood

Stop expecting everyone else to be your child’s parent, get off screens, take kids out for 10 minutes to the park or wherever, instead of buying the latest gadgets invest in spending time with your kids doing things with them, teaching them how to brush their hair/teeth, how to count, how to behave.
It’s not easy, it’s a pain repeating yourself to teach them basic skills, but as a parent you have to do it, not rely on others to teach your child basic skills before they start school.

^

This with bells on. Accountability from parents.

MNHQ said that if we would like a dedicated place for brainstorming changes that are needed nationally then we should go to site stuff and open a thread to request it. If a lot of people post to say that they agree then they would make a new place for discussing.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff

I work in a secondary school and a male student called one of my female colleagues a "slut" and actually hit another female colleague. Our (female) manager just laughed about it. There is ZERO safeguarding for staff, in our case especially female staff.

Agree

True.

Just today we've had female staff kicked in the face, bitten, stamped on, pushed, sworn at.

Just a normal day in a normal mainstream primary school.

All of this 100%
Thank you @shearwater2