To not understand the negativity about schools in England

[Desperatefornachos]

I’m British but live abroad.
My Dd is in a school where we are (she’s 6)
I’m not impressed with any of the schools, I remember schools in England being nice when I was younger and watching a series on CBeebies (time for school) the facilities and way of teaching seems so fantastic in the Early years. I would love that for my Dd and it’s the one thing that’s making me question possibly returning home.

However, all I ever hear/read is how rubbish the schools/education system is in England..why??

Children who have disabilities should have allowances made, thats the law. They just don't as schools don't have the budget. All we can do as parents is complain and many of us are reasonable human beings who know complaining to the school staff won't get anything done anyway and will just potentially make them even more likely to leave so all thats left is venting to strangers on the internet.

What do you mean virtually no SEN provision? We spent huge amounts on SEN, to the extent it’s basically the reason councils are declaring bankruptcy. The issue is the astronomical rise in demand.

Huge amount of money on few kids. Leaving others who need a bit of money spent on them with nothing. With rising SEN needs we need to open state run SEN schools.

’hot chocolate and chats with the head’ made me laugh! And it virtually never makes the disruptive child improve their behaviour (why would they when they’d had so much fun!) but always reminds the rest of the class that if they’re bored and fancy kicking off, there’s free choc on offer with no punishment involved.

I taught at the school I attended as a teen. My school experience which was great with lots of clubs and school productions and sporting opportunities and the experience of those that I taught 20 years on were like chalk and cheese, the only thing that was similar was the classrooms because they hadn't been updated. It was a leadership problem and behaviour significantly declined in the decade I worked there, as did the budgets.

To be fair DDs school a mile away is more how I remember school, it benefitted from the last lot of big school refurb funding as it was one of the first schools to become an academy, they have excellent (for a state school) sports opportunities, a big school production each year, good selection of trips, behaviour is well managed as is SEN. So it is very school dependent.

I think we need to find out why SEN is rising, spending more money is just a sticking plaster

Mainstream schools have virtually no SEN provision. The provision thats making councils bankrupt is social care and schooling for children with very complex needs who probably 30 years or more ago would not have lived very long. The head of my local council made a very smug speech blaming old people living too long and disabled people not dying for their massive budget deficit a few years ago. The way he said it wasn't nice but he probably wasn't wrong about the figures. Most mainstream schools have had to cut back significantly on support staff including TAs who in the past did a lot of the support for SEN kids.

No SEN provision for DS's classmate who has no school to start at next week while all his old classmates go to secondary school.

He coped with a 1:1 at primary, but there is no suitable specialist place in the city for him to move on to and mainstream secondaries will be unsuitable.

The standards of uk schools are nearly the lowest in Europe.

State education isn’t much good compared to everywhere else these days.

There are loads of reasons why, and exceptions, but if you think your child deserves a fair chance in the world and you’ve got a choice, I’d look at your local provision first.

Really? My state comprehensive school get better results than the local private schools!

FWIW I love teaching, if it wasn’t for Ofsted it would be the best job in the world!

DDs primary school experience went well. A few ups and downs but generally good. Teachers were great.

Secondary school has been a whole different ballgame. School closed in Y7 due to Covid. Not the schools fault, but their lack of any online provision throughout Covid was totally their fault. Kids fell behind. Y8 finally got into school and there was a mad scramble to get kids up to speed. Y9 was marred by teachers strikes. Y10 the school was impacted by RAAC/asbestos and pupils didn't get onto site (in portacabins) until January 2024. The first term of Y10 completely missed, online teaching never got up and running, with lots of excuses and ignoring parents requests for information for why not.

The school continues to be impacted by RAAC/asbestos. 70% of the building has now been closed since September 2023 and the earliest date for opening again is November 2025. DD will have left school by then.

The whole of her GCSE years will have taken place in portacabins with no access to any facilities whatsoever. For example her Food Tech GCSE practicals have involved using an air fryer in the corner of a portacabin. I can't really see how the students stand a chance of getting good grades in any subjects where facilities are needed. So science, D&T, PE (no changing rooms) art, drama, etc. are all delivered really badly.

Funnily enough morale is low for pupils and teachers. Great teachers are leaving in their droves. 25 left at the end of the summer term. Can't really blame them. How can they meet the targets the DfE sets with no facilities?

DfE is very, very quiet about how many schools are struggling in collapsing and inaccessible buildings. OFSTED have been contacted by many parents but weirdly won't act. We'd like nothing more than them to go in and do an inspection and take action to ensure pupils get the level of education they're legally entitled to, but they're not interested. It seems crazy to me that OFSTED are ignoring schools in crisis. Isn't it their job to make sure standards are met?

On top of all this, SEND pupils are being really badly let down. General behaviour seems to be far worse than ever before and the divide between selective schools
(Private and grammar) and state schools is growing wider and wider.

I have teachers in my family, have always supported DDs teachers and helped DD at home as much as I can but it's a real uphill struggle to keep her on track now. The provision at school is so poor and it's fair to say DD has lost her love of learning. An endless stream of supply teachers prevents good teacher/student relationships building and provides stilted learning. Who can blame DD for being disheartened with what she's experiencing?

I can't wait for her to finish secondary school and hopefully get a better experience at college (if she gets in!).

The system is so, so broken. It's really sad to watch. Before anyone asks, there is no other school to move her to.

I think the play-led curriculum across EYFS and also the phonics scheme are the two biggest strengths of the English primary school system.

It started to fall apart a bit for my kids in about year 2 or 3, when the focus shifted quite suddenly and dramatically onto fronted adverbials and all that bullshit that's in the SATS.

I was mostly educated abroad and the standards were really low so I am really impressed with my DC's (British ) school. The teaching has been very inventive, topics broad and engaging, teachers enthusiastic and going above and beyond. Perhaps it was even better in the past, hence people's views.

Perfect summary 👌🏾

This will not go down well but.., I've been teaching 20 years. Children haven't changed - they're amazing, bonkers, hilarious and wonderful. They are all different. They need firm boundaries and to know that you love them no matter how far they push you. What has changed, is what parents expect of us. Parents want difference to be recognised but expect outcomes to be the same for all. They want adjustments but only when they benefit their child. They want strict punishment for other children but slack for their own. There are children with significant SEN who are set adrift and need a provision they are not getting but others who are needlessly creating a backlog in the system.

Phonics weren't great for my DD. She learned to read by sight. Some children do. Phonics meant nothing to her and she failed the phonics test. So marked as a failure at a very young age when she could actually read perfectly well - and better than her age.

It's a big problem pushing all children down one route... but that's the DfE for you 🤷🏼‍♀️

Fortunately DD had a fantastic teacher who knew that DD could read and apologied for having to put 'fail' on her record.

IME primary is great, nurturing, child-centric etc. and (state) secondary is shit. But probably depends on the area...

In schools where the senior leadership are ballsy and protect and support staff, there can still be great learning and school experience. However, most SLT are greasy pole-climbing hirelings. And that wrecks everything. Find a school with a human headteacher who has common sense, courage and people skills, and you've struck gold. It's not always the most popular or prestigious schools who have these heads.

Nothing to do with the shite education system (not teachers - I was one and quit - teaches are doing the best they can in the circumstances) 🤔

What a stupid statement. Do you know anything at all about the narrow prescriptive curriculum, the absurd testing and assessments, the one size fits all curriculum/system, the underfunding, the lack of send support and places, the bullying leadership teams (often) and on and on.

I’m from another european country but honestly I think it is the same everywhere, 30y ago state schools were good, motivated teachers, well behaved children (the ones who weren’t were expelled), parents who were working with the school.
School was mainly there to teach children, academically brilliant ones were celebrated.

Fast forward to now, children misbehave, teachers/schools are not allowed to punish, parents don’t believe they should do anything about it.
Making sure children reach their highest academic potential is not the priority anymore, bright kids are dragged down and are told they will benefit from working with lower achieving ones. Sports day is a greater deal than academic achievements.

It seems crazy to me that OFSTED are ignoring schools in crisis. Isn't it their job to make sure standards are met?

No. OFSTED have been very clear that it absolutely is not their job. Their job is to go in and grill the staff to within an inch of their lives (or more - RIP Ruth Perry) and make a judgement. They do NOT have anything to do with trying to help schools meet standards or improve. So in most schools they will go in, fault find in everything they can to justify their existence, deliver a single word overall judgement (reports are more detailed of the different areas, but parents and press just see the overall judgement and don't tend to look any further), then swan off leaving physically and emotionally drained staff (and children) behind them.

They are very clear improving schools is not their remit, they just judge. It would be better if they were attached to the school for a period in order to actually work on areas they identify and make a meaningful difference.

I think a lot has changed in recent years.

My DS went to a small village primary with only 120 children across 7 years. The teachers were generally good, the environment was happy, safe and friendly (2012-2019).

However the secondary school offered (2019) 'required improvement', bullying was rife, teaching was generally poor and even Ofsted said it wasn't safe.

Under-investment over the last 10 years, soaring SN with insufficient support, and behaviour that has deteriorated since covid, mean a lot of secondary schools are barely coping.

This!! Classes too big and not enough support staff.

IME lots of British schools are riven with totally unchecked bullying & violence (under the guise of ‘rough and tumble play’ and ‘fostering resilience’) underpinned by a culture of casual sadism from adults. Also the obsession with enforcing total compliance in the wearing of uncomfortable and impractical uniform.

@Lancrelady80 I completely appreciate what you're saying about how appallingly the Ofsted inspectors behave, but how do we raise concerns? When it's glaringly obvious that there's a big problem with a
school, who can we speak to? When the school won't engage, the governors don't reply to letters, and the DfE and
LA have washed their hands of any concerns as the school is a stand alone academy what can you do? At the moment, nothing. Great teachers leave, pupils let down and there's nothing we can do. That's the problem with education. No one is listening. The teachers have said over and over and over again what the problems are and get slated for jt. Parents who try to support the teachers get slated for it. I don't know what else to do. I can understand why teachers are leaving in their droves.

But schools vary so much. Let’s be honest - it’s a lottery. Just like everything else. Some children have access to a good school, some people can access an NHS dentist, etc.