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’.

I saw a video the other day about a school doing core muscle building activities - 'tummy time' - every day in their reception class, because so many of the children didn't have the necessary muscle strength to sit properly in school.

There were a couple of statistics near the end - approximately 1/4 of children aren't toilet trained when they start school, 1/3 can't eat/drink independently, 1/2 can't sit still - and something I found shocking was 1/4 of children starting school do not know how to use a book, trying to touch it as they would an electronic device or swipe on it...they didn't know how to turn pages in a book!!

How?? Why?! Bookstart provides books for all children, including pre-school, so how do so many 4/5 year olds not know how to look at a book??

Agree. Parents on screens too; not interacting with or socialising their children, not encouraging or enabling their children to participate in activities and clubs etc.

Screens. Think about it. Even 10 years ago, tablets weren’t in every house, only Apple fanatics and IT lovers owned them. Netflix was up and running but again, nowhere near as common, now it’s in every house. Phones weren’t anything like they are now - remember BlackBerrys, the phone of the moment in 2012, and their capabilities? The screen usage now is enormous compared to even 8,9 years ago.

And this has a twofold effect - kids on screens ignoring the world around them, and parents on screens ignoring the kids.

There’s no comparison to how we grew up in the 90s - tiny TVs about 30cm across, with CBeebies on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Soft programs with a gentle pace, like Come Outside or Oakey Doke. Now TVs are enormous, they dominate the room, you can stream whatever they want 24/7 and the programs are dopamine central. Flashing bright colours and loud music.

I also wonder about kids toys, again they’re so fancy and distracting - I deliberately didn’t put pram toys on our pram as I wanted the babies to be looking around them not constantly fiddling.

This study shows how even minimal screen time at a very young age increases sensory issues MASSIVELY

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240109/Study-links-early-screen-time-to-atypical-sensory-processing-in-toddlers.aspx

At 12 months, any screen exposure compared to no screen viewing was associated with a 105% greater likelihood of exhibiting "high" sensory behaviors instead of "typical" sensory behaviors related to low registration at 33 months
At 18 months, each additional hour of daily screen time was associated with 23% increased odds of exhibiting "high" sensory behaviors related to later sensation avoiding and low registration.
At 24 months, each additional hour of daily screen time was associated with a 20% increased odds of "high" sensation seeking, sensory sensitivity, and sensation avoiding at 33 months.

This is so true, the year 6 I work with constantly talk about Snapchat and tik tok. The amount of issues arising from these apps are ridiculous, they’re losing their social skills because they WhatsApp each other and bombard each with messages yet wouldn’t say those things in a normal conversation.
Children no longer know how to communicate with each other or how to resolve simple friendship issues, let alone communicate with adults. There’s also unrealistic expectations of what reality is because social media is creating this fiction that they buy into. Parents need to either stop them using these apps or supervise and have time limits on them.

I’m pretty sure a lot this down to phones and social media. Some (not all) parents are spending hours scrolling instead of parenting.

GoodnightAdeline - so we'd expect to see this in all countries across the EU unless we have evidence of lower phone use in those places?

And the reason you don't see this in private schools is because well off people are better, less neglectful parents?

"No one is saying that. For the most part this thread is filled with people saying social media and phones are the problem. Parents letting screens raise their kids from extremely young ages (under 2)."

But this seems to be a fairly new complaint - that kids starting reception & year 7 are now feral, but weren't before lockdown?

I can only speak for my own children's school but the reason you don't see phone usage there is that phones are banned!!

I’m going to risk some wrath by saying this but the U.K. has a massive problem with what I will call ‘deprivation culture’. We have swathes and swathes of people who are uneducated, addicted to one substance or another, have grown up in a house where neither parent worked and basically incapable of living anything like a responsible life.

Comparable EU countries simply don’t have this issue on the level that we do.

The problems have increased at a rate that perfectly correlates with screen use in under 2s. Maybe it is just correlation but given some worrying studies I expect there’s some truth to it.

Lockdown saw an incredible increase in people blaming everything but them for their woes. It's not a single problem, rather a pile on.

Just fyi I saw your comment by chance, you need to @ people if you're replying.

I do not think it is common at all! My eldest DGS is in year 9 and has never seen any violence towards staff in any school he has attended. His young brother is in reception at school and there are no issues like this in his year either.

You're actually showing your own stereotypes here. The thread was started by someone working in a private school and many teachers on here comment on the middle class and wealthier parents being a bigger problem.

So, the experience of two children?

Oh come on Foxesandsquirrels - 'better behaviour' and 'smaller class sizes are the reasons most commonly stated by parents who choose fee paying schools. It's not a stereotype when it's true!

When I was 8 or 9, we all spent most of the day sat in classrooms and certainly weren't spending hours running around. We weren't disruptive, aggressive etc! We need to stop making excuses. The fact is that parents aren't "parenting" and are far too keen/happy to abdicate responsibility to schools. That wasn't the case a few decades ago. But hardly surprising when todays' kids are being brought up by parents who weren't "properly" brought up back 20/30 years ago. It's just self perpetuating and getting worse with each generation.

Yep absolutely 2 of the reasons we opted for the school we did (amongst others). I loved the behaviour and values I witnessed. It seems we can't admit we opted for private for any reason on here! The reality is if we didn't think there was something we preferred, we wouldn't do it would we?!

I'm not saying private schools have better behaviour (clearly not given that OP is at a private school) but the values and behaviours at the particular school we choose are great. I can't say if that's the parents or the school but something is causing it.

Oh and most of the parents work...absolutely crazy talk I know!

But not all MC and wealthy people send their DC to private schools.
IMO it is more due to the fact that parents who pay school fees have skin in the game. I wonder if the patents who don't engage with schools had to pay for education, whether they would become more invested.
Class sizes 18-20 Vs 30+ makes a massive difference too as teachers really get to know their pupils and can build positive relationships. Very mutually respectful culture throughout the school with staff at all levels. Kids and teachers are friendly and polite towards each other so none of the Us V Them combative relationships you read about on many posts.
SEN kids have 1-2-1 support in all lessons.

I work in CAMHS and I’m shocked at the lack of boundaries parents are putting in place to keep their children healthy and safe. They can do what they want when they want with little to no consequences of it. Parents are scared to do anything that might cause their child any sort of upset or distress. Children are spending far too much time on screens and doing this well into the night. When you advise cutting this down you’re met with “Oh No I can’t take his phone off him because he’ll have a meltdown” meanwhile their 10 year old is being groomed online because they have unlimited access to all areas of the internet. I often ask children to tell me what their screen-time average is and I’m now not shocked to hear of teenagers spending 10-14 hours a day on their phones. Children have phones and iPads shoved in front of them to keep them quiet and easy to manage from a few months old whilst parents sit on their own phones ignoring their children (real life still face experiment in action!). I honestly feel that this is having such a detrimental impact on children’s concentration levels, social skills etc and then a few years down the line the parents want an autism/adhd assessment.
Obviously there are a load of other factors as well and the bottom line is that these are genuinely very distressed, dysregulated and unhappy children who have been let down by those around them.
Anyway, that’s my view. I realise that might come across judgemental and I know that parents are under a lot of pressure themselves but it is just depressing. It’s been a long day..

I agree. Kids need boundaries and rules. It isn't healthy to never say no to your child but I see so many parents who are scared of saying no (including my in-laws!).

No clue what your point is. The OP works in a private school. Lol private schools do not give 1:1 to all SEN kids. If anything SEN kids are screwed over in private schools and they are full of entitled parents that are very difficult to deal with.

This with bells on.
DD best friend is four and her overly permissive parents let her doom scroll Facebook for whatever videos she's interested in, quite literally all day, zero supervision. They have just carried on their covid parenting even tho it's years since any kind of lockdown.
I have had to cut contact with them as I just can't deal. Of course they think she has ADHD. She doesn't, she has lack of boundaries and no sleep/too much screen time.

No, it was happening before.

So many kids are on medication now for conditions like ADHD, it’s mind boggling. I honestly don’t mean to sound judgemental, but don’t you worry about the long term effects? My kids are grown up now (thank God, because I wouldn’t want them to be in a school like the ones described on here), but I could never have put them on medication like that - I wouldn’t have dared. Twenty, thirty years ago, no one would. Now it’s the norm.

It makes you wonder, honestly.

I am saying in DDs school SEN have 1'-2-1 support that is an additional cost.
And you call other people prejudiced when you come out with "they are full of entitled parents that are very difficult to deal with"
Maybe check your own prejudices, inverted snobbery exists!