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’.

Nail on the head. Schools simply havn't moved on at all in the last 40 years. A fair bit of re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic with lots of reorganisations and minor changes, but it's not touched the sides as to the real changes needed.

When we did secondary school open days just over a decade ago, I couldn't believe how schools seemed to be stuck in a time warp as they were so similar to our secondary schools back in the last 70s and early 80s, even down to the range of subjects taught. When he started school, the content of the subjects was virtually the same as we experienced 40 years earlier. School classrooms looked the same, the woodwork/metalwork labs looked the same, even some of the teachers looked the same, one in particular with elbow patches on his sports jacket!

Yet the world has changed so much over that time, yet the subjects, the content, school procedures, the form system, the years system, the setting system, etc., etc., hasn't. They're still doing the sodding "line of shame" where the favoured pupils good at games get to choose their team from their classmates - that should have been banned years ago!

Forgiveme
I remember those days from my own childhood. . Huge classroom with lots of play and mums and grans came into help with reading groups. Kids drew and wrote stories that didn't need.a fronted adverbial.
Your teacher and a few parents could take an ad hoc autumn leaf walk . You could bring your cat and her new kittens in for show and tell which took up most of a morning.
We could make sandwiches without someone being deathly allergic to gluten, butter or jam.
I picked and brought the teacher a bunch of daffodils to say thank you.
We all wanted to be teachers.

Yes a change is desperately needed . I’m a teacher and I feel like it’s so difficult to teach with behaviour how it is and the mixture of - lack of support for staff , the element of blame on staff and how much our hands are tied that is having a massive impact on education.

I teach year 3 at the moment. A class full of mixed needs - some very clear additional needs that aren’t diagnosed therefore no funding for extra support - behaviour issues and quite frankly children who are extremely low ability . There are so many working at reception or y1 level . I am spending my day feeling like I’m running a marathon just trying to get work in books , whilst dealing with awful behaviour issues . TAs are so over worked - mine is barely ever in class . I have children that can’t do anything independently so I have to spend the lesson guiding them through every single word they write , meaning those who are capable are not getting pushed at all . They pretty much have to just carry on whilst I deal with the lower ability pupils or if I deal with the highers I know there will be no work done in books. Then you have the children who aren’t being pushed then exhibiting negative behaviour ( probably as they are just so bored ! ) which impacts the whole class . It ends up that the lowers are pretty much copying work from the board - it’s so heavily modelled and guided that they aren’t doing anything independently which is clear when last term we did assessments and most of them scored 0 . I can’t see how they will progress like this , it actually makes me feel like a failure as a teacher ! For example a lesson today. I had about 8 children who I had to guide , the noise level in the classroom was horrendous as I had to choose between addressing it every 2 minutes or getting some kind of teaching done for the lowers . I had one child hit another , one screaming because he said he couldn’t do the work when I knew he could , I had 3 children accusing each other of saying things that needed reporting, I had to do these reports . I had one child do no work at all as I hadn’t jad chance to get around the whole class and another spent the whole lesson writing 3 words . It’s impossible and it’s me who will be accountable when they don’t meet targets - when there is absolutely no differentiation in the school and children who are of the lowest ability are doing exactly the same work and expected to be able to , as children who are working at way above the expected standard .

I have children who point blank refuse to do anything I ask, I have children who will just started drawing in their books and who hit others and nothing happens at all except they miss their break - which then in turn means I miss my break .

It’s impossible and this is why teachers are leaving the profession .

There's a minor issue going on at my DCs school at the moment. Basically something hasn't been handled well but nobody is hurt or injured, it's just a bit of a let down.

Several parents first reaction is to go straight to ofsted (pretty sure it's not an ofsted mattter but hey ho). It's this attitude that must make teachers second guess themselves all the time, want to quit, get defensive etc.

Society is more challenging and our children are products of this and can't regulate themselves (neither can adults it seems).

@waterrat I suppose that depends on the school. Writing is also a big part of my role but we don’t have that huge focus on grammar. Our writing is focused on audience and purpose and closely linked to reading. They achieve well in writing - maybe not so well in grammar SATs but if they can write well and enjoy writing, then that is a win in my eyes.

Totally agree with all of your points!

@LanaL I could have written this post! Y3 too and it’s exactly the same. Throw in a few chairs being thrown, parents telling us we are lying because we are telling them about their children’s behaviour and the children say it’s not true we are accused of lying, door slamming, kicking etc and it’s all accurate.

Although we make scaffolds for different children and then differentiate and make more scaffolds for the most struggling learners so they focus on their needs- but that adds more work. That’s all normal, but in the past I’d have 1 or 2 really struggling learners, now there are a lot more.

My child (10) told me they hadn’t learned anything new in maths for 2.5 years. When I complained to the school they said they couldn’t spend time on the brightest as they were fine. They had to work on the weakest instead.

It’s really sad . The brightest need to be challenged as much as the lower ability need support . We are heading to a generation of children that have higher scores but no knowledge retained or capable of more but disillusioned and given up x

I wondered if the teachers on the thread have any views on flexi-schooling? My DS and I really loved lockdown school and would have liked to carry on doing it. I could then have given him the extra attention that he needs to differentiate the learning, without the teachers being overwhelmed with work. We're now out of school entirely, but it's a bit lonely without the school community and contact with the teachers.

btw, I'm finding the teachers' views of parenting very interesting and informative on here. I've never heard a lot of these views before. I was only aware that they wanted sky high academic achievement and constant test performance because of the Gove curriulum. Tbh it's been so hard keeping up with the sky-high demands. I wish that stuff would all go away.

I think if the demands of the curriulum were reduced then we parents might have time to parent the kids and teach them the skills of independence that you want. There just isn't time to manage both. So much of the evening is spent trying to reduce the distress that has built up during such hard lessons during the day. I can't discipline a chronically distressed child.

Do you think there is any chance that the curriulum could be changed to be less demanding, especially in primary school, and with more science, music and art? My son especially missed the music in primary. Music was cancelled entirely when he was in year 5 and he gave up learning the horn, and musical composition, as it bought him no credibility in the playground at all.

You only need to read the posts on here from stepmoms to see why so many children are hurting and angry! Apparently it’s ok to intrude on a family dynamic, dislike the kid, add new kids to their family, exclude them from family life, resent their presence in their own DF’s house and hope the new kids replace the original DC in their father’s affections. Add to that adults taking issue with young children and you have your answer to why young children feel entitled to fight back with adults.

P.S respect to all the step parents who treat their DSC as equals in the family and shower them with love ❤️

Oh, I agree! I don't think it's anything to do with the teachers. I do think a lot has to do with parenting (or lack of).

I'm not sure that parenting was that great in the past though.

When I was a child we all played out for hours on end and nobody was parenting us then. We used to go through people's gardens and into abandoned land, and into abandoned houses. We played on building sites, and kicked footballs hard against people's garage doors, making a tremendous noise. We also played on building sites, and occassionally got seriously injured. We skip-dived after dark. Nobody was parenting us then.

At the same time, I remember clearly in the 70s and 80s that children were regularly beaten in the street, just for being too tired. It was a common occurrence to hear the following interaction in the shopping street in my home town:

Child: Tired and grumbling "Mum, I want [indecipherable mumbling]"
Mum: Shut it! [thump - Mum clumps child on side of head with hand.]
Child: Wahhhhhh!!!!!!!! child wails and then sobs inconsolably, and at length.

I'm not sure that this was "good" parenting but it did get us a lot of exercise, and the kids with the thick ears certainly learned to express emotion articulately.

"Do you think there is any chance that the curriculum could be changed to be less demanding, especially in primary school, and with more science, music and art? "

@WhenIsTheGeneralElection This is on the curriculum at the primary I'm in every week: Reading, Maths, English, RE, Science, PSHE, MFL (French/Spanish), Music, PE, Computing, Art & DT, History & Geography.

For those lessons it's not just bums on seats and endless powerpoints either. Yes there's input but that's about 20mins and then there's, for example, investigating using mixed resources, discussion on tables, collaborative learning, experiments, short videos and then the last 20 mins or so is writing up in books. However, even 20mins focus is too much for some pupils in UKS2 - we've got a large 5 min timer on the wall as that's all some kids can manage before they need a movement break (a run around on the playground). Even with movement breaks they are still dysregulated and disrupting learning in class, in some cases purposely taking other people's water bottles and hiding them ("it's a joke, can't you take a joke") or yelling out swear words to get a reaction from anyone (and children being kids react and laugh, so job done!), or just walking out of class shouting "I'm not doing that!".

And this is every day. In every lesson.

[Meanwhile I have other kids with SEN who are trying to focus and get their work done, trying to manage the regular disruption.]

To say the problems with the education system is nothing to do with teachers- the very people who make up half of that system, is just daft.

It can not be an army of wonderful, unfailing teachers struggling against a sea of horrible children and parents- the world just doesn’t work like that.

Students and teachers have a symbiotic relationship where each impacts and relies on the other, it is not as simple as one being good and the other bad.

No improvement is possible while people are wedded to that idea.

Yes, I totally agree.

My DD, although not yet diagnosed, is on the pathway for ASD diagnosis. She has huge struggles with changes to routine and sensory issues. She sometimes gets distressed about going to school, behaviour which she does exhibit in the school office. She does not however hit or swear at teachers or other children. She is perfectly compliant in class. In the office the other day, a year one child was screaming at a TA and calling them a *ing c**. That child is obviously just modelling behaviour they have seen at home. I bet the parents are going to be claiming SEN in a couple of years.

@dontthinkicantakethisanymore Blimey, that's awful. I'm so sorry to hear it.

How on earth are you meant to fit all that stuff into the week though? It sounds superhuman.

When I was in KS2 we had this brilliant teacher and he used to give us a little bit of maths and English in the morning and then lots of free time to work with Cuisinaire rods and whatever we needed to do to work on our own difficulties.

The slow readers were allowed a good book, and the slow counters had the rods. Those of us who finished early got a piece of newsprint to do a drawing on, and if we finished that then we got a little electric motor and a battery to make into a helicopter with our ruler.

In the afternoon he told us a story, jackanory-style, about volcanoes or something like that. Once a week we went to the head master and he taught us recorder.

There wasn't anything like the amount of structured stuff that you are trying to do with your class and we had loads of time to just think and work out stuff.

I really 100% agree with this. When my son started school I thought it would be a collaborative effort between parents and children, with shared plans and team work, but I was treated like an inconvenience from the start. They couldn't get rid of me fast enough and there was no sense of me being involved or wanted at all. I really found it bizarre. No teacher has every suggested that I parent diferently and if they are thinking it then they are definitely not saying it.

Okay, fair enough. There are definitely some awful teachers.

However, has the overall quality of teaching declined to as much as standards of parenting?

However, I think as previously discussed, the demands placed on the curriculum, so as to put so much academic pressure on children has definitely had an effect.

It is a multi-faceted issue.

And actually, I think in many ways, the standards of parenting have increased. Many parents are more involved, more nurturing, more hands-on and loving than previous generations.

However, I also think many other parents are much lazier nowadays and want to blame anything other than themselves for their children's behaviour. I think there's also less shame about their children's development and behaviour.

I'm also uncertain about this idea that SEN is to do with lack of discipline from parents.

I am an ASD adult, but I was brought up by my (very lovely and caring) school teacher Mum to look NT.

The result was that I got fantastic grades in school and university, and then crashed totally when I left home. I had the skills to pass exams like a pro, but the life skills were not there.

However, I think the overly fast curriculum also has a huge amount to answer for these days. My son was on the ropes all through primary school and it was so hard to teach him any real life stuff when he was constantly exhausted and strung out in the evenings and at weekends.

It’s not even that some teachers are awful (although obviously there are poor performers and wankers in every profession), it’s that the culture in teaching has become so toxic. It’s a constant mixture of defensive and combative which makes schools a horrible place to work and learn, and makes collaboration between home and school impossible.

Parenting has changed. Values have shifted. That is 100% normal, and largely neutral. Things get ‘better’ in some ways and ‘worse’ in others, and it’s subjective- my improvement will be someone else’s degeneration.

Society doesn’t stand still- how things were even 10 years ago has little relevance, and what it was like when adults were at school is completely obsolete.

Our culture is not automatically deferential anymore, and teachers are not looked up to (for a whole host of reasons).

Obviously a system with 1 adult to 30 kids relies on automatic deferral to the authority figure to function- and that simply isn’t as strong a trait in any area of society now

For example, if a police officer stops someone in the street the person is more likely to start filming and demand their badge number than they are to remove their hat and say yes officer no officer, if a doctor in a long white coat gives his opinion, the patient is quite likely to trot off and get an opinion they prefer elsewhere, if a train conductor wants someone off a train they will likely need backup and force, because telling someone isn’t going to cut it-

Teaching will have to change to reflect this because you can’t force society back into a value position it has moved on from, and grumbling and complaining about who’s to blame is a waste of time.

@WhenIsTheGeneralElection

They couldn't get rid of me fast enough and there was no sense of me being involved or wanted at all

I don't think there is time to include parents - 30ish kids arriving, lesson to prepare, stuff to do after school for the following day. I rarely spoke to primary school class teachers. What were you wanting to get involved in?

I feel.so bad for school staff. As a parent, I've noticed behaviour deteriorate. I have an 11 year old in y6 and 8 year old in y3. The difference in behaviour between their years is astonishing.

My 8 year old comes home frequently upset about the behaviour in her class. Two tea hers have left after periods of sickness now the current one is off a lot. I don't blame him! The stories she tells me. She says she tries to tell children what they're doing us wrong... Just today she said kids always say back they always say we don't get told off for it so we're not doing wrong. an 8 year old figured it out! They do it because they're allowed to Mostly at home.

One of her friends who is quite posh broke stuff at our house. Her mum let her off. She hit my daughter and stole her stuff round her house. Her mum let her off. So many times this mum refuses to discipline her daughter.

The boys in her class are physically violent, cheeky and rude.

And the children two years below her look even worse. I witnessed three, 5 or 6, physically attack another boy relentlessly in the school play area after school.

I don't know how teachers cope.

I agree It's not just SEN diagnosis. Our school is excellent and very understanding at diagnosising Sen and helping children. Despite this there are still huge behavioural issues from children of all backgrounds

I also agree that the awful curriculum has a lot to answer for. It does not engage children to learn at all

Education isn't just about teachers though.its also a restrictive, archaic curriculum and the pressure of Ofsted. Teachers aren't free to be the teachers they want to be.

I guess some parents are stressed and overworked too and not always free to be the parents they want to be.