To think something has gone wrong in schools? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz0m2x30p4eo

[RebelBabybel]

From the BBC : school exclusions have doubled in the last 10 years.

I’ve worked in schools for 30 years : KS1/Early Years.

When I first started I was expected to do : hand written, detailed plans. Assessments. Handwritten reports. I had no TA. I had a blackboard. Children had books. I had to be firm with behaviour, schools had very clear behaviour policies in place, and the head would have an overview, was visible, check classes, be the ‘go to’ person if anything was difficult to manage.

Over the years, particularly in the Early Years things have changed massively.
My latest role has involved a manager who is mostly on the computer and rarely interacts with the children. No planning, no assessment. Resources are put out, but there is an ethos that it’s ‘wrong’ to show the children how to use them. Therefore children don’t use jigsaws as puzzles, they take the pieces out and transport them round the classroom. A doctors role play is set up, but with no input as to what the resources are there are for or how to role play ‘being a doctor’.

There is an expectation, a ‘box’ of what constitutes ‘normal’ behaviour : even with very young children. Any child who is outside this box, is often labelled ‘I think they’ve got autism, I think they’ve got ADHD’ without a formal assessment. These children - rather than getting to know them, or putting clear strategies in place, are quickly labelled as difficult : and fall into a stereotype that causes a negative cycle. There seems to be little ‘fault’ addressed to the teaching style, and the ‘fault??’ is centred on the child, I’d also argue that it is NOT a fault. It’s called being a child.

Children seem to be very readily excluded from schools without the adults fully questioning their teaching style and whether that might be at fault.

To be completely honest, teaching was far easier 30 years ago. Children were better behaved, and there was far better, stronger support from senior management. It felt more like a team, rather than:

an SLT who are in meetings, on a computer, off to conferences, in the staff room, pushing ‘new’ initiatives and criticising their staff.

Children seem to be very readily excluded from schools without the adults fully questioning their teaching style and whether that might be at fault.

I have been teaching since the 90s and don’t think this is true at all. Your post seems to be blaming teachers for the situation!

Schools are bending over backwards to be inclusive (with next to no budget). 30 years ago, there were far more special school places, far fewer children with additional needs and a lot more scope for flexibility within the early years/KS1 curriculum.

Not showing the kids how too use things is shocking, are they scared they will hurt their feelings by not encouraging them to be themselves and be creative??? Wtaf. As someone above commented, both parents working and letting iPads raise their toddlers, not bothering to read bedtime stories and never eating as a family together at a table. Screen time in particular is what is ruining kids.

’2 children in wheelchairs’ is totally different to the level of SEND need in the classroom nowadays. Obviously adaptations would need to be made for the physical difficulties they face but I would argue that’s different to the 8 children on support plans for social and emotional needs (such as autism) I had in my class 2 years ago. In terms of disruption for others in the class and teachers.

@Appuskidu

That’s not true though. As I linked :

• Number of special schools
• The number of state-funded special schools has been increasing slightly in recent years. In England, the number of schools with SEN units increased from 373 in 2023 to 392 in 2024.

There are more special school places than 30 years ago. It’s increased.

I do think it’s adult decision making that is to blame.

I think there has been an over focus on progressive methods, and new initiatives.

I think there are a lot of ego driven senior managers, educational consultants etc.

Genuinely shocked that your analysis of the situation is so poor given your vast teaching experience.

30 years ago, in the whole school - no child had an autism diagnosis that I can remember. I had one child diagnosed with ADHD. She was no problem in the classroom, but difficult to manage at home,

There's an important aspect that hasn't been mentioned there. The data itself.

It's compulsory for schools to record and report every single suspension and permanent exclusion to the Local Authority. Any 'go home and we'll see them in the morning' or 'come and pick her up because she's having a bad day' or 'you'll need to collect him and take him home for lunch' is all illegal exclusion, so it's do the paperwork and notify or it's not happening - and then they'll most likely make it for longer to ensure it's 'worth it'.

By having to notify the LA, rather than possibly have some paperwork in a cupboard that goes missing at inspection, or not recording it at all, marking them down as sickness or an authorised holiday instead, that inherently increases the numbers precisely because they're actually being reported now - and as it's now also compulsory (since September) for all schools to report live attendance data to the DfE, absences are flagging up sooner - before it was optional and some schools would have 'network issues' that would prevent the Wonde link working for years, so at best, the attendance data would be reported once a term at Census after somebody had an opportunity to, um, tidy it up a bit.

Suspension and eventual exclusion are also a way of evidencing a failure to meet needs and substantiate an EHCP to avoid a referral being bounced back by the LA at every attempt. Whilst it's true that pupils cannot be suspended for having SEND, it is legal to suspend/exclude as a result of specific behaviour, such as (and of course this isn't all cases) bringing in a weapon, physical attacks, etc. With LAs being so shit with SEND provision, things end up having to come to a head before anything will happen, as there isn't suitable education available to schools, but the LA has to find something once there's a PEX, for example.

In addition to those previous periods off that are regarded as illegal exclusions, there would also be illegal offrolling. A child might refuse school - fine, it's 20 days, they're offroll, find somewhere else. Or 'you need to find a new school'/'He can't come in because we can't guarantee his safety or anybody else's, so the best thing to do to avoid it going on his record is to home educate him for a bit'. Whilst that still does happen with some schools, it's known that it's illegal, so it's less common now.

The millions of 'missing children' that turned out to be far fewer after lockdowns was a combination of private education, home education, unreported home education (as some parents do not want the LA to know that their child exists/is being EHE), illegal exclusion, neglect and abuse, leaving the country, just not being reported, some genuinely missing and some who had been illegally offrolled by their schools - but when there wasn't ever centralised recordkeeping, all they had to go on would be comparing child benefit payments against state school places occupied as notified by census.

The devil is in the detail. How much of this data is an artefact of having to make it official, having to report it immediately, being live monitored, is due to a failure of SEND provision and how much is due to schools being unsuitable for children, difficulties in terms of health, social issues affecting engagement, attendance, parenting and the ability to behave within the structure of a school's behaviour policy or the government policy for education over the last 15-20 years? A ominous-sounding news report doesn't look at all of those factors and neither do people reading it.

I don't think poverty is that much of an issue tbh

Frank McCourt was as poor as they come and went to school shoeless every day

Why??

Because his parents expected him to. There was no other option.

It's what children did.

Compare the curriculum from 30 years ago with today's. Look at what children were asked to do year 5 or year 6 then and now.

I’m not saying the diagnosis is the problem - more the behaviour? Unless you are saying the children are behaving in a certain way because they have a diagnosis? Which I think is unlikely aged 7.

I disagree about behaviour. In the school I work at over the years there have been numerous policies for dealing with poor behaviour. At the heart of most of them there was the implication that if your lesson was a little more exciting then you would not have poor behaviour. Didn't matter what the content was.

The current policy my school has is so much better. I am expected to be able to teach. Poor behaviour is not tolerated. If a student talks over me multiple times then they get removed and a detention. The standard of behaviour is much improved.

Our major issues are around attendance, SEN provision and mental health of students.

When I started teaching many TAs were actually qualified teachers or had at least some qualifications. These days most of our TAs only just left school themselves. They have minimal training and don't necessarily even have GCSEs in maths and English.

I teach classes of 18-20 students where many of them are SEN and it's just me. Students with EHCPs end up sharing a TA even though they should both have their own. Students who qualify for a TA are deliberately kept in lower sets so the TA can support other weak students in the group.

Support for mental health issues is minimal and so hard to access that students need to be suicidal to qualify.

Attendance is abysmal. I have a form and I haven't seen some of my students this academic year. Then there are about 5 others in the form who rarely manage an entire week in school.

These issues need addressing but most of them require money. I can't see it happening any time soon.

She was no problem in the classroom, but difficult to manage at home,
^

This is hugely important. Why could she be managed in the classroom, but not at home??

I'm thinking that the adult in charge has something to do with it

Not my experience (secondary) planning has got ever more constricting. I’ve retired early. Paperwork is mostly the reason (also having had burnout due to…you guessed it. And a bullying head).

Exclusions are incredibly difficult to achieve too. I recognise nothing in your post other than the worsening behaviour.

I agree. I have 3 children ranging from age 6 - 27 so I have seen a lot of differences in education. My one in the middle is now late teens. I thank my lucky stars that my youngest is at a small, relatively 'old school' primary. The part in your op that said about children being pigeon holed if they are failing would certainly be happening to him if he was at a different school. As it is they see him as an individual and work with him, and us, to help him achieve. Not write him off as ADHD etc .

@cansu

My experience is with Early Years/KS1. But from my DC in Year 6 : I don’t really see the curriculum as the problem. It seems quite fun, with BBC bitesize, clips etc.

The problem is more getting her to do it. She has the ability, but needs the self discipline to do something that may not be immediately fun.
These are the skills I focus on more so with her.

I don't recognise the kind of school you're describing. The idea of not modelling to children is ridiculous. And your SENCO sounds very rude and unsupportive.

I work in a mainstream primary with extremely high levels of SEND in EYFS. They are children who struggle to engage with adults, who struggle to interact with peers, or even notice peers, they are children who are on such extremely high alert that they injure themselves and others. They are shown how to play. They are making such minute but definite steps of progress every single day. They cannot be told to behave because they've no idea how to do that. There simply were no children like this in our school 10 years ago. Now they make up 8% of our reception cohort. Why? I've no idea. But it's not because we're teaching badly.

The number of SEN children has grown astronomically

But schools haven’t been able to grow their capacity accordingly

Of course perhaps there was always the same % of children with SEN but in the past they went undiagnosed and just put up and got on with it as best they could, and maybe took less academic avenues?

I have been teaching for over 20 years.

Some differences between now and then:

• Class sizes: Stick 32 people (it used to be 25) into a small room and emotions will run VERY high for some. I was in a middle leaders meeting today where we were in a cramped room; I had people sitting very closely to me, both to the side and back, and I felt VERY uncomfortable the whole meeting. Now imagine you're a teen with needs, who hasn't managed to regulate their emotions yet. These environments provoke fight or flight responses.
• SEND and behavioural needs. Contrary to the OP, who only took into account one single year, I have seen the decline of SEND provision in my area, coupled with a huge population increase. Some counties have no specialist behaviour units, very little specialist SEND provision. Everyone gets dumped into mainstream and is expected to cope.
• Children's trauma, and expectations. This links in with my previous point. Children with huge trauma are expected to concentrate on work, when they barely get into school each day, let alone cope with lessons. Which leads to...
• Parenting is a huge issue. Permissive parenting is on the rise, as is raising kids mainly with screens. 1 in 4 children starts school not nappy trained, we see a few on here who decide it's too hard and expect school to do it. in My child's school, there is a reading challenge we can track - fewer than 1 in 4 children actually read at home. I come across more and more parents who implement no consequences, scared of their children's upset.
• Lack of relevance: The curriculum has become purely academic even for bottom sets, who would benefit from functional skills and much more education on the job, though hands-on training. Give got rid of most of that.
• Lack of time: There is still a hangover from the time OFSTED randomly decided that GCSEs cannot start in Y9, leaving far too little time to complete, let alone embed, some courses, leading to more frustration on all sides.
• Lack of teacher time. I used to be able to seek kids out to have conversations outside the classroom. Nowadays I can't even pee during the day, let alone spare 5mins to talk to a kid unless it's in an official meeting, which everyone loathes. So resentment builds up.
• Restorative schools. They lead to extreme behaviours. So, incidentally, do schools which are unreasonable about irrelevant stuff like uniform, especially if they only pick on Y7 or the less argumentative kids.
• Exclusions get you OFSTEDed, and leaders fear them rather than see them as an opportunity for growth. This leads to worse behaviours, which eventually snowball and you end up with even more exclusions.

So much has changed, it's like I work in a completely different job compared to 20 years ago.

These are specialist classes that are joined to mainstream. They work well for some children who fit in between a mainstream and specialist education. I have recently got a place for my son in specialist and there is a huge waiting list. You have to go to a tribunal as a matter of procedure now, not because the LA necessarily disagrees the child should be in a specialist school. Just not enough places. I know as i have lived through that problem. The number of places are increasing, yes, but demand is soaring past that.

I agree about inclusivity, but we have to be careful what this means. My son's mainstream was amazing, but he was far to delayed to fit in. He can't mask because he functions well below where he should be and although he wasn't aggressive, he would not sit still, shout and would not have been able to learn. He has severe LD probably and us non verbal. Not every child can fit into a mainstream and it annoys me that inclusivity in mainstreams is the only solution being proposed. Some children will thrive much better away from a mainstream environment.

I think our current model of education needs to adapt fast. We have more SEN and a rapidly changing world/growth in AI. Simply training kids to pass tests is not going to cut it. We have a shortage of so many skills in this country and we should be teaching with a view to making sure we can fill this shortage as that will lead to better youth employment one the use of AI becomes more common.

Screen time is a huge problem. And I say this as a mum who is currently on mumsnet, not interacting with my DS who is happily playing in the bath.

How many special schools were there 30 years ago?

Indeed. Op has only quoted an increase from last year.

The reason I left my role of Reception Class TA after 20 years.
So many activities put out for the children with no guidance as to how to use them.
We had a dozen story sacks with all the components to act out the story. Two children went to empty them all out in a big pile on the floor. The teacher encouraged such "creative play".you can guess whose job it was to sort that mess out and find the missing pieces!
Art- I would take a small group, we would talk about what effect we hoped to achieve, the technique used, discuss colours, textures etc. but now the
art supplies are left on the table. Top set girls (not being stereotypical but purely my experience) would use them sensibly but most would rush past, put a couple of spoldges of paint on the paper and leave it at that. Such a waste of resources and the opportunity to teach new skills.
I sadly left as I felt that my only contribution to the class was clearing up mess rather than help children to learn.

There may be a few more places in special schools, but there are exponentially more pupils requiring a place in a different educational environment. Whether that is the result of more diagnoses, more children with SEND, more self diagnoses or whatever else, there are still too few places for the children requiring them.

It was always a mistake to expect that children who have struggled to access the curriculum would suddenly be able to make the same level of progress as their peers who don’t have a particular need, but that was the situation we found ourselves in.

Thirty years ago, of course things were different. I don’t recognise the scenario that the OP describes.

Thirty years ago it was rare to find a child in Early Years who was unable to use the toilet more or less independently, or a child who had not been toilet trained. Thats more frequent now.

I think few people would disagree that behaviour has deteriorated in schools. The reasons for that are complex and include more neuro diversity, more diagnosis of a range of SEND, but also very different parenting and sometimes, very little parenting at all.