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 was a kid back then too. Children were scared and beaten onto behaving isn't quite the argument you think it is

There need to be more places at specialist schools for SEN children. All this everyone at mainstream schools doesn't work for both the SEN children & the ordinary ones, neither get the attention & teaching that they need. When ds was in primary there was a boy with severe ADHD & the number of times the whole class had to be locked either in or out of their classroom because he was going crazy throwing tables & chairs or just walked out of class & started destroying the school, this child was 6, he even managed to climb over the 10 foot wire fence & escaped which meant half of the teaching staff & the police had to go looking for him. Mainstream school is not the right place for many children with SEN but because it is cheaper than a specialist school they just get dumped there.

I feel like we have been in a lucky bubble. Our kids have just left school (private London day school) for university in the last two years. Their friends are delightful young people, polite, bright and fun. They had phenomenal teachers. In fact only a couple of poor ones in their entire lives. And the teachers seemed pretty happy; I am in touch with a couple still. There was no disruption of lessons and high quality teaching and zero violence.

Socioeconomic factors thus must surely be a huge factor. There were kids with ND but who were able academically and they thrived. There was some bullying but that was always managed assertively and there was pretty much little tolerance of bullying by peers. There were some dickhead wealthy parents around but kids didn’t tolerate showing-off. But having no real financial worries must play a part.

Our kids didn’t have phones till Y7. Neither did their friends. Maybe that helped? We both worked full time which didn’t seem to have an impact on behaviour so I am not sure that’s a huge factor here.

Is this now a reflection of poorer behaviour in society all-round. There are many revolting people around. Adults who are rude to waiting staff, who have road rage, who spout bile online etc. These people become parents who don’t instil good behaviours in their children. The kids don’t stand a chance then and neither do the schools. Schools are seeing the problems in society from an earliest stage. It’s scary. I feel sorry for the good teachers who are trying to teach and the decent kids who are trying to learn. My gut feeling is that it can’t all be down to genuine ND.

I went to school in the 70s and 80s and was quite scared of some teachers. That was not right either.

It is a shame to read this. My children had such a positive experience. My daughter is back from uni and has been into school to collect her A-Level certificates. She was sooo excited to catch up with her lovely teachers and be treated as an ‘adult’ by them. She said they were so nice and acted happy to see her. And she also admitted that she had always had a secret crush on her (young good-looking) maths teacher ;-)

Schools should not have to deal with this behaviour.

Yes, as I said earlier ignoring the structural issues (in favour of bleating on about horrible parents) is stupid.

I am halfway through the thread and rather depressed at how many women are blaming the problems on mothers working.

I was always really conscious of this (best friend is a teacher and I knew what a nightmare it was for her to have 30 sets of parents stopping to chat every day) so I never bothered the teacher, did loads of work with my daughter at home for the first 18 months but it got to the stage where she never had a reading book or any phonics sounds and so I asked why and the teacher said she's up to the required standard so she needed to focus on those who weren't. I questioned it a couple of times and they just kept saying "she's flying". But i knew something wasn't right and then my daughter was crying every evening and being sick in class and being sent home (and couldn't go back in for 48hrs)- all anxiety. At that point we made the decision to move her to a private school - after a couple of weeks I had a call from senco and she's since been diagnosed with dyslexia - throughout she was exceeding expected standard for Maths and English so it just wasn't being picked up. But obviously there was an issue. She is absolutely thriving now and so happy in her school. But it shouldn't have to be that way. I don't blame the teacher as such - she was clearly under so much pressure that she was probably just trying to survive but it shouldn't be that way.

It might be ‘better’ in some ways but that’s not the same as being harmful. Like many of our friends, both mums and dads worked full time from an early age, using nurseries. And some didn’t. Our kids are all content and thriving at university now, close to their families still and you cannot tell who used which kind of childcare. Genuinely. Something can be ‘not ideal or perfect’ but also not have a longer term negative impact.

This is rather full of cliches.

The thing is, you carefully use words like ‘caregiver’ but you mean mothers don’t you. It was always women staying home. This led often to power imbalances and unhappy mums. It’s a great thing for equality that women work. Great for the next generation too. It’s possible to have a child at nursery and still spend lots of time with them and raise lovely kids with great behaviour and aspirations.

I don’t feel defensive personally. There is nothing anyone could say to make me feel bad about nursery as my kids are doing so well as young adults and we are closer than ever.

Work can be beneficial for mental health and equality. And we cannot go back to the woman staying home as default. Our babies grow up to be adults. We need to look after them as young kids of course but also work to create an equal environment for our daughters for when they become adults.

@LondonerCalling
Agree 100%.
DH and I both teachers, I have up to have DD and have a flexi job that fits in around limited nursery and soon school drop off and pick ups.
Meanwhile DH carries on as normal in our chosen profession and has a decent pension, whereas I don't. If I decided to go back to teaching and we need more nursery and then wraparound childcare, I'm pretty sure it's me that would be vilified for this and not him. I actually enjoy my current job but as it's WFH I'm seen as having no career (actually did exams post teaching for this too!) He agrees btw and thinks it v unfair.
As an ex primary teacher with over a decade of skin in the game, I can confidently say that even kids in nursery who parents actually you know, parent them and are involved are much better off than those who don't, or rely on screens

I don’t feel defensive personally. There is nothing anyone could say to make me feel bad about nursery as my kids are doing so well as young adults and we are closer than ever.

@LondonerCalling And quite right, you shouldn’t feel bad. Tbh from what I’ve observed of my friends kids, the working mums with kids in nursery have no less well behaved or well adjusted kids, than the ones who stayed at home and their children didn’t attend nursery.

Actually in many cases ime, the latter are less well behaved -and that’s not because their parents stayed at home of course but it’s more the fact my friends who were at home with their kids from 0 to 5, tend to be the same parents who are less educated, from poorer socio economic backgrounds, have less traditional family set ups (eg. boyfriends around young kids etc ) and were raised with less ambition which then gets passed down to the kids.

To be clear obviously many SAHM are well educated, stable families etc and I have those friends too - the ones who were supported to stay at home not by benefits but by their partner etc, but I’m just talking about what’s more common in my social circle.

And when I worked as a support worker in schools most of the parents in need of the most parenting help and intervention were actually long term unemployed/didn’t work . That’s why they were always around for the coffee mornings I organised. We had far less issues with more career oriented parents.

This is what I'm worried about with my DCs in their (state) school.

My DD is very bright and has been from a young age. She has the most amazing memory. She was exceeding in reading for the first three years, but has now gone down to expected and has made little progress this year. They're not really bothered as to find out why, though I suspect she relies too much on sight reading and not using phonics, as her spellings are the same (she remembers them visually and can remember really hard ones if she memorises them, but makes silly mistakes like 'geat' for 'great'.)

Her handwriting is also pretty bad and she has an odd pencil grip (but again, noone picked up on this, I suggested she use a rubber pencil grip not knowing if this was the right thing to do, it has seemed to help slightly and they're fine for her to use it, but it was down to me to realise).

She's definitely not reaching her potential, but because she's reaching expected levels, they don't really care.

She does likely have some ND issues which she is on the pathway for, but again, this took a lot of pushing from me; again because she's mostly 'fine' in school (aside from meltdowns going in and a few idiosyncrasies), they don't really care - they're too busy dealing with all the kids who are acting out in school.

Unfortunately we can't afford private school, but I am going to look into an educational psychologist assessment and tutoring.

And my younger DS, bless him. Likely no ND, but he is quite quiet and sensitive and in a quite ND-heavy class (including a child still in nappies, one who throws chairs due to family trauma, a few others with ASD), he just gets a bit lost.

Some of this sounds similar to our situation. I do realise we're lucky but I hope you can get some help. The school senco screened our daughter initially - don't know if you can request that? I hope you get some answers.

From a non UK perspective. The biggest thing to stand out to me when I talk to teachers working in UK is there isn’t enough staff in a UK school.

Children are entitled to two years of preschool before starting primary. They start preschool the year they turn three. They can start primary at 4 but that’s increasingly uncommon since the free preschool system began. The expectation is that children be potty trained for preschool.
Teachers job is to teach. There would have to be either a medical or SEN reason for a child not to be toilet trained. A Special Needs Assistant (SNA) would be assigned to either an individual child or group of children depending on circumstances. They take care of the care needs of children assigned to them.
Depending on how many children in school have SEN needs there will be Special Education teachers/ resource teachers in the school. The children that qualify for these resource hours might go out in a group or by themselves to work on an area they need help with. The school does have some discretion on how to use these hours as long as the children get their allocated hours.
When my eldest started school the school used to use the class teacher, an SNA and some resource teachers to break the children into small groups so the children could do their phonics and then when ready their reading. Once the teacher got to know the children they were sorted in their groups based on ability. They used to call it the power hour. The principal said that since they introduced it into the school the standard of reading within the school shot up.
Now I can assure you that we have plenty of problems within our education system but teachers aren’t expected to handle a class of 30 children including children with additional needs without help and support. In fact the cuts made during last recession were never undone.

I think this is much more the case in the last year. Our school seems to have an extraordinarily rapid turnover of teaching staff this year.

This is ridiculous,we need discipline,and consequences for bad behaviour.I hear this all the time,out of country children ruining school

I'd add that nowadays with content on tab 24/7 and parents including SAHMs interacting with screens signifiant amounts of time rather than being in the 'here and now' interacting with the actual things around them and the actual people .e.g. their dc around them it is probably better for kids to be at day care as that is largely screen free time.

The more screen free time the better for the child's development. Times have changed, staying at home until 5 means a huge risk of adverse effects of family screen time, this includes parents and children. These children will largely also be less socialised.

On holiday abroad this summer, in a culture where large, extended families traditionally socialise I saw 1 year olds propped up at the dinner table at restaurants with phones and tablets in front of them to shut them up. The village that raises the kids is no more, it's been replaced by screens.

I'm sorry, what exactly do you mean by "out of country children ruining school"?

I wondered this but guessed then it was meant to be “out of control “

Am quite shocked to read these posts hadn't realised it was so bad, i do not believe it is all SEN, government should govern, schools should be given a guide line, kids start school able to use a toilet, feed themselves, know that no means no, also can not hit /hurt other people. If they do, then theres consequences, i grew up in the era of the cane, whilst i do not support its return there was a fear if you did wrong.
No wonder some kids are out of control nowadays, if schools can not punish in some form for bad behaviour.
Had a neighbour, 3 children, husband went to work wife chucked kids in back garden to play during school holidays, aged around 5-9 yrs old, kids would play on the garage roof throwing stuff over into neighbours including mine gardens. One neighbour was hit on the head with a space hopper, i went round and said its dangerous there playing on the roof, cushions balls toys everything being thrown over, mum said well what do you want me to do? I replied parent them.
That night husband knocked on my door very threatening and angry, very aggressive, this is where the children learn behaviour.

If they do, then theres consequences, i grew up in the era of the cane, whilst i do not support its return there was a fear if you did wrong.
No wonder some kids are out of control nowadays, if schools can not punish in some form for bad behaviour.

WTH?

My dd has high anxiety in school. School said she's never a 7/10.

Yet no ones ever spoken to camhs. My gp told me to ask school. Who are still sitting on it.

She's fine at home.

They send the well behaved kids to a therapy farm. But my dd gets no help and blocked from seeing camhs.

It's the cost cutting everywhere and no joined up thinking.

What actually is camhs remit I keep wondering?

If your a good engaged parent you still can't prevent everything nor can you get help. I'm going private for mental health support for my 9 year old. But what do you do if your poor? Why is a 9 year old so distressed at school? School just keep on saying what happened at home. Nothing happened at home.

This is nothing to do with what is going on today in schools. Perhaps a tiny tiny percentage of families are like this but a much bigger issue is that the system itself is totally out of step with the modern world and is unsuitable for our children.

Add to that the lack of funding, teachers leaving in droves due to the issues, crumbling buildings, no SEND provision, post pandemic issues and the super academic, highly pressured environment which suits a minority of kids. Not to mention the attendance farce.

Schools will/can never admit that THEY are the problem. They will gaslight families into feeling that it’s them always. As an ex teacher myself I know that school staff are usually very institutionalised and cannot see the madness of the very systems and structures they work in. It’s very sad for all involved.

Im sorry your DD is going through this. It’s shocking that she’s only 9.

I work in a secondary school. The other day, a teacher told a 15 year old that she couldn't go to the toilet at a given time. This was the right shout, as this girl is known for vaping in the toilets ... and encouraging others to do it too.
The girl phoned her mother from the classroom and the mother phoned the school.
This is the shit we're dealing with on a daily basis, and that is far from the worst of it.
Many, many entitled people out there (and this mother has never worked a day in her life, hence being able to take the call. All she does is churn out more badly behaved kids).

The pressure has got insane though. This is an excerpt from an email sent to year 10 parents in our school:

"As you can see from the above [The above being a breakdown of the grades required in year 10 mocks in order to be entered for higher level exams/further maths/single sciences], the importance of the Year 10 summer examinations will be even greater now as these will determine your child's path in Year 11. Pupils must begin a revision schedule when they return after Easter as the summer examinations, beginning on 17 June 2024, will impact which tier your child will be entered for in Year 11. A pupil response of 'they're only mocks, so I didn't bother to revise' could have huge repercussions for their Year 11 sets and courses. I am keen to ensure that all parents/carers are made aware of this now."

So they're putting the pressure on from Easter of year 10 for the year 11 exams.