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.

@DiggetyDog I pointed that out to the poster.

I also pointed out the poster doesn't know the number of adults in the home.

Then again I know a few ND individuals of different ages including children. They have anything from 1 to 4 adults in the home plus other adults they have regular contact with.

All of this, absolutely. But just to add that this approach is IMO even failing the more able kids who can jump through those hoops. DC like my very academic, inquisitive daughter, who thrive on questioning things and veering off-topic because they're so interested in a topic, get immediately get shut down because of the obsession with 'pace'. I see it all the time in the Year 5 class I currently volunteer in - no time to answer the children's often very interesting questions, or to follow interests, and make connections between topics. It's so different from my own time at school, or even a decade ago when I was teaching primary myself and there was that bit more space in the curriculum.

The same Year 5 class also has about 6/7 boys with ADHD and autism (one also with Tourette's) who are constantly acting out and whose needs are completely unmet - no TA support, just 'Quality First Teaching', hours of sitting down staring at 36-slide PowerPoints and the other children sitting patiently, arms folded, while these boys shout out, roll around on the floor or throw their sensory toys around the classroom.

The system really is failing everyone atm.

Parents cannot help it if they cannot afford a decent place to live.

Have you missed the issue with social housing and how councils and HA treat their tenants?

It has taken a 2 year old to die and about a dozen reporters to showcase what councils and HA, with their overpaid bosses, get up to or rather don't when it comes to making their homes fit for human habitation.

DC like my very academic, inquisitive daughter, who thrive on questioning things and veering off-topic because they're so interested in a topic, get immediately get shut down because of the obsession with 'pace'. I see it all the time in the Year 5 class I currently volunteer in - no time to answer the children's often very interesting questions, or to follow interests, and make connections between topics.

My kids have had this as well - it doesn't help then later in education where they are expected to do research and make connections.

A PP mention secondary uniform -and none consistent approaches my well behaved kids being told off despite having correct uniform - office agrees- being told of next to kids blatantly in wrong but much harder to tell off. Every one of our kids fed up with entire school so last 12 - 6 month is us just ride it out you'll do A-level elsewhere.

That secondary blames the intake - but fail to mention decade before same intake did much better academically - they blame parents never their systems - will I think it's probably both.

One thing I remember when I first started teaching was that the school was open plan. Open classrooms with a central area.

The heads office nearby, with one head for the infant school.

The head could hear straight away if anything was disruptive, and would be there : not only supporting the children, but managing the teachers if they were basically - being a bit shit.
And there wasn’t this overload of forms, emails, reams of paper streaming out the photocopier…twinkl signs, lamination etc etc
I think we had a Banda machine. Didn’t use it much although it smelt great!

And we had to mark and check work. The head would check this, and we’d have to hand in our planning/evaluation every week to be checked. All hand written.

This seems really weird and against a lot of the current advice, which is always mentioning that you should be 'explicit'.

Explicit explanations of vocabulary, thought processes, feelings etc. to help children understand and apply. I would have thought that your play-stations would also need 'explicit' instructions about how to use them, for them to be effective.

I used to work in Montessori and children could only use pieces of apparatus once they'd been 'presented' to them by a practitioner a few times.

Ohhhhh the lovely Banda machine! Banda Purple! The colour of my veins!

We had actual blackboards too. Then one day a GREEN board appeared. On a sort of roll, that you pulled and around it went. Took weeks to come to terms with that sort of a tech-upgrade!

Well <controversial and light hearted> internet dating! If there hadn’t been internet dating, I would have just married the local lads, had hefty rugby type kids and they’d have got jobs at the local Massive Employer or worked in a family firm and had their needs met like that.

Instead the internet meant I married a fellow ND type and we spawned our own tribe of little ND sprogs with double the ND genes.

Yes I'm glad I'm not the only one stating this - I am 100% seeing more children who are being diagnosed with neurodiversity when they instead have trauma, neglect or both.

I'm ND myself and have ND DC. I can absolutely see the difference. Some parents are VERY good at pulling the wool over the eyes of HCPs, especially the ones who aren't familiar with ND first hand.

I could write a book on the matter but in short:

• Schools are too big, too noisy, and kids, especially teenagers are treated as a group, not individuals
• They have all adapted the system of growing the pig by weighing it - constant testing from a young age
• There is a lot more pressure on schools to get good academic results - and teachers pass this on to the students
• Further education budgets have been slashed at the same time as kids being expected to remain in education until 18
• There are no second chances with GCSEs, except for Maths and English- this is ridiculous in my view
• There is a one size fits all approach and zero tolerance of very minor and unintentional errors in behaviour- more suited to crowd control and the prison system than a school
• Poverty has proliferated and there are many long term health needs unaddressed and social problems
• Schools are out of touch and outdated with the rest of society- hardly anyone wears smart clothing for work let alone a uniform
• They have become highly intolerant, socially conservative places when the rest of society is generally more relaxed and tolerant
• There are very few places at special schools for those who need them
• They are not fit for purpose for a huge number of pupils- at least a fifth. Not all of those actually have SEN or would need a place at a special school but just want a smaller, kinder, more tolerant environment where people respect who they are as an individual. As they are at home.
• Schools and pupils were promised that they would be able to catch up after Covid. In most cases nothing at all was offered.

Schools and pupils were promised that they would be able to catch up after Covid. In most cases nothing at all was offered.

That was a failure of government. The Covid catch-up tsar resigned over it.

I have so many friends with children who have not coped well with school to a greater or lesser degree and can say for sure that there is no neglect or severe issues at home. The kids are very happy at home and thrived when they found the right environment for learning whether that was home school, another school private school, online school, college, special school or university.

THE ISSUE IS WITH SCHOOL. I cannot type in large enough font as I'm so fed up for decent parents being blamed and threatened with fines for absence instead of helped as if they are absolute deadbeats who can't be arsed.

I'm not saying that there are parents out there who could not do a lot better- but school is supposed to intervene and break the chain of poverty/abuse/social problems etc. The last government turned them into a prosecutor instead and they see abuse everywhere instead of where the true fault lies.

I'm almost out the other side of the system now but I wish parents and likeminded teachers could get together and rise up to create a better system - but I suspect both parties (and some of course fall into two camps) are far too knackered.

Oh it's nearly all a failure of government.

A failure of GOVE-rnment, specifically. It all turned to shit rapidly after he was education secretary.

I remember this. He came up with a comprehensive plan and the goverment came back and said you can have a very small % of how much your plan will cost. He resigned saying it wasn’t enough and the need to catch up was forgotten about. It’s an issue of 4 year governents, there is no concern about what will happen in the next 15/20 years.

I’m a teacher. We saw a big uptick in issues after Covid- I think parents and children’s attitudes to education changed- seen as even less important and became less respected. Taking time off- they felt like they didn’t miss much for some reason. Everyone thinks they are an expert these days so children and parents will challenge teachers all the time. I had a year 10 come to my office door the other day with three of her friends shouting at me to remark her test and I had marked it wrong with all her friends shouting “ go (girls name) . I got my head of department to remark it then and there ( eventhough I should have told them no) guess what same grade! I would never have dreamt of doing that to my teachers!! The audacity

I can think of numerous kids with speech impediments, learning difficulties and ADHD in my class at primary school.

The difference was that they were punished, sure, for being very disruptive or violent, but also with kindness and with high but realistic expectations and as individuals and they were understood and included, not sent to isolation or expelled.

Right bunch of leftie hippies teachers were back then. Gove hated that.

@RebelBabybel
What do you do now?
and how long is it since you were 'just' a teacher in a classroom?

I agree. Started teaching over 10 years ago in a deprived area of south London - it wasn't easy but was doable. Our planning was tight and we had specialist intervention teachers for reading and maths to help those behind. Now I teach in a rural village school and it is far harder. My workload is lighter and we follow a lot of schemes but it has to be because so much time and effort is now on behaviour and SEN. I've gone from maybe up to 5 children in a class working a long way behind or with significant behaviour issues, to more like 10 of them per class. It makes me fearful for the future.

I don't know what's caused it. Screens definitely play a part. Also a line that is getting more and more blurred between gentle and permissive, both for parenting and teaching. All children need clear boundaries.

I agree with all your points apart from being socially conservative. The whole trans issue is like walking on a tight rope at our school, terrified to say anything deemed as wrong

Also reading some of the comments about inclusion, yes inclusion is absolutely important. However, when a child (or indeed multiple children as is now often the case) are spending their days out of the classroom with a TA because they can't cope with or access the learning in the classroom, and spend their playtimes distressed, that is not inclusion. Budgets have been stripped to pieces and their is not adequate provision to be truly inclusive. We are not helping children such as these, or their peers, by keeping them in an environment where we are not meeting anything but the most basic of their needs.

My niece was excluded because she was forced into a mainstream school she couldn't cope in. There have been no problems at all since she moved to ASD primary and then ASD secondary.

Unfortunately it took a permanent exclusion, a year out of school aged 7 and a sendist Tribunal to get this.

She is at a LA ASD special school so didn't even need an expensive independent special school to get her needs met

And she diagnosed with ASD before she started school so it wasn't that her needs weren't known about.

I taught in Scotland so I realise things aren't quite the same.

I had a challenging class of 26 P2s of whom there were behaviour issues, a couple of ASN pupils and no help apart from a PSA for an hour, twice a week. After Christmas there was a reorganisation of the classes and I got 3 more pupils, then the HT came to my door saying (absolutely no prior warning) that I was getting 2 Romanian children who had no English. We got EAL teacher one morning a week for a school of 360 pupils. As they couldn't understand anything and I didn't have much time to spend with them, they wreaked havoc. That was the year that made me decided I needed to retire.

We've had parents complain that their children find lessons boring because they're used to all singing all dancing nonsense on Tik Tok etc.

Unfortunately Play Based Learning is very much the fad of the moment. In our early years, our pupils were taught quite traditionally but now activities have to be laid out and children engage in whatever takes their fancy. If they want to play with lego all day, that's fine - the teacher is not allowed to intervene and guide them to something more academic. We had 2 very experienced infant teachers leave since this started as they couldn't do something they didn't believe in. It's currently being done up to P3 but some schools do it all the way through to P7.

I expect in about 10 years the powers that be will be wringing their hands as Scotland slips further down the rankings - but will no doubt blame the teachers as thy always do.

Their safe space is at home. They cope at school but once they are home they have run out of spoons and they melt down. They don't feel able to show their true feelings at school. It shows that they aren't actually supported enough in school or cannot cope with the school environment.