To think the British educational system is all wrong?

[CookiePlough]

It seems like the aim is to make adults out of children as soon as possible rather than allowing them enough time to just be kids.

My main issues are that 1. kids start school way too early and 2. spend way too much time in school.

What is the purpose of a 4 year old child learning to read and write and do addition and subtraction? How does this help the child either in the present or in the future when they are an adult? I can see that 4 year olds are clearly capable of learning these things and of course being able to read or do simple arithmetic is not a problem. The problem is what are they missing out on in order to learn these skills? In my opinion they are missing out on playing. Unstructured, self determined playing. You can learn academics at a later age but you can't really make up for not getting enough playtime as a child. However, this wouldn't be a problem if the school day wasn't so ridiculously long. There just isn't enough time to play after school. There is no time to go anywhere after school (eg the park), for playdates, for any play that takes longer than an hour, to do extra curricular activities (without missing out on Unstructured play time) or anything else. Everything has to be done on the weekend but then when do you have time to do things as a family?

I understand most kids have 2 parents working full time so kids need to be in some sort of childcare setting but even nursery is preferable at thst age to school as there is more unstructured play and more adult supervision. School requires much more in terms of social skills, resilience etc. Which kids,should learn but not by suddenly being dropped in it.

I'm just ranting because I'm tired and upset rather than explaining my points properly. And it's not like I can change the system. I just feel so sad that kids are missing out on being kids. It's not the worst childhood obviously but it's also not as good as it could be.

Our school system isn't to educate kids to teach them useful things or become well rounded, happy adults. It's to condition them to be workers. That, perhaps along with being childcare so their parents can be workers, is the only aim.

While it might seem that starting school early takes away from childhood, there are reasons behind it. Early education focuses on building foundational skills like reading and math, which help children succeed later. Many schools also use play-based methods to teach, blending learning with fun. I do agree that unstructured play is vital for creativity and emotional growth. A long school day can make it harder to fit in play, family time, and other activities. The key might be finding a balance ensuring kids get both the learning they need and the freedom to just be kids.

You are not wrong

This as a Head Teacher of many years. This 100% our education system is all about compliance and a curriculum that is not fit for purpose.

4/5 year olds in reception very much learn through play and don’t tend to do formal learning until year 1. I think American children start quite late at 6 to be honest.

my current issue with the educational system is that it doesn’t really cater for children who have autism but who are extremely able. My 13 year old has been home from school for over a year now as she couldn’t cope with the changes going to a huge high school, severe anxiety etc but top set. The SEN school’s available in our borough don’t even offer GCSE’s. It’s hard trying to do what’s best for her because she’s missing so much academically but she’s much happier and settled at home.

@Agix is right. If you wanted to truly educate your kids then you’d home educate rather than send your kids to school but people need to work and it’s time consuming and costly to devise an actual well rounded curriculum as even the most educated parents can’t teach every subject and need to buy in some help.

Great post @CookiePlough
Work in schools and absolutely agree. Most of my year 6 kids cannot dress themselves, tie shoelaces or look after their stuff.

@Zoflorabore definitely. My 10 year old has autism, is extremely academically able in maths, about average in all other subjects, defeats writing and is socially and emotionally like a toddler. The special needs schools in my area are for either severe/profound learning disabilities or severe mental health or behaviour issues. None of which my ds has.

I understand Finland’s education results consistently outperform other countries’ systems. Finland don’t start formal education until the year they turn 7. I don’t have any detailed knowledge on the curriculum as such, but there would appear to be no disadvantage on starting later.

God I’d have been bored rigid if I couldn’t read as a young child.

Agix
Our school system isn't to educate kids to teach them useful things or become well rounded, happy adults. It's to condition them to be workers. That, perhaps along with being childcare so their parents can be workers, is the only aim.

This as a Head Teacher of many years. This 100% our education system is all about compliance and a curriculum that is not fit for purpose.

Couldn't agree more. Kids know it, parents know it teachers know it, head teachers know it. All powerless to change it.

Unpopular opinion incoming:

Reset the economy by restricting mortgage lending to three times a single salary, so that it becomes economically viable for most families not to need two incomes. Free nursery places means tested, only for those families where both parents do need to work. Make it normal for parents to do their own childcare pre-school and wraparound care for school aged kids. Move school age up to five or even six, and encourage schools to be flexible about part-time school in the first couple of years.

At the moment we have a system driven by maximising tax revenue: paying staff to look after other people’s children means two taxable incomes. Not paying parents to look after their own children generates no tax, but results in worse outcomes for children who are in long hours of inflexible childcare and school from very early ages. It’s bonkers.

Teacher of 25 years. The education system exists to push kids through an exam to form a statistic. The exams and curriculum were designed by people who were either at private school or in top sets. They have no clue how children learn and how bloody ridiculous it is.

I have a bottom set year 10 who are lively but I like them! Is Shakespeare, learning 15 poems or writing a comparative essay ever going to be of use to them? No. So many better things to do with their time that would improve their literacy skills.

This tbh. Which is why it is so ill-equiped to deal with children with additional needs and cater to the diversity in our society these days. The model is very outdated from a time where this aim was a bit more transparent. It's quite a task to overhaul it and with our economy I don't think the government wants to due to the financial impact. Also now we need dual income households and more workers not sure how they will get around it, but it is become glaringinly obvious it's not working currently.

Finnish kindergartens are systematically implemented learning as part of play in the children's everyday lives.
Educators work purposefully with the children on language and writing. The children don't wait to school (7yo) with formal education.

The difference betwwen UK and Finland is discipline.
Finnish schools have a very high level of discipline and a low level of parental involvement.
Teachers are also better trained than in the UK.

I'm in Finland, preschool is mandatory now so formal education starts the year they turn 6 (so some will be 5 but most will be 6) but its a very gentle start to education, they just do a little formal learning each day and the rest is play. A very gentle slow start, they literally learn the alphabet and the numbers up to 20, they're not expected to be able to read at all before they start but these days more children do start being able to read so thankfully my DS's school has a flexible start where they mix preschoolers and 1st and 2nd graders in ability groups for a few hours a week so my son can do things more on his level. New thing though, didn't have it when my DD was in preschool but only a couple of children in her class could read then so it was alright, they all learnt at the same pace. Short days, just 4 hours to begin with, increasing up to 6 by the end of primary school (but variable, some days might be only 3 hours, others 6)

But the curriculum starts getting a lot tougher from 3rd grade (9 years old), that's when my DD realised she needed to study for exams, and its very intense in upper school - my 13 year old had over 50 exams and tests in the autumn term, and a lot of homework every day. But at least they do a lot of practical subjects so its not all academic slog.

Agree that the education system is essentially about producing worker bees. Piling around £70k of debt on at age 21 thanks to uni fees and acommodation costs also helps with compliance in the system- just incase the lack of a mortgage makes the kids go rogue.

I remember my son's teacher taking me aside and saying in a very concerned voice that she was worried about his writing. He was in year 1! What a joke. No ideas about how to help him at school or at home. He never really got any help with this.

I worked out in end it was a physical dexterity issue and sorted it out with my sister helping. He would have benefitted in lots of physical exercises but what they actually did was make him practise the same thing over and over again that wasn''t working. Targeted physical play for fine motor skills would have been much better for him.YANBU!

Other countries don't do reading and writing until six or even seven.

When my son was in nursery he was put in an occupational therapy group where they spent a lot of time climbing, especially climbing in ways that made them cross over the midline (so right hand moving to the left side and vice versa), they told me this kind of exercise would help prepare him for school, because its this kind of action that helps prepare the brain and body for reading and writing.
And his preschool does a lot of fine motor work, they spent a lot of time creating things with hama beads, or with rowen berries and little sticks or metal wire. Things that really help, while also being fun for the children.

Seems logical to me that school as the precursor to work would teach us how to be worker bees.

What do ypu think education should do? And what do you think parents / carers should do?

I actually think the EYFS in England is pretty good and that Reception year is lovely for many children. It's Y1 where it all starts to go wrong. Spreading Reception across two years and starting Y1 work at Y2 age would make such a difference. Why am I teaching the present perfect tense to Y3s age 7? I honestly don't know how anyone wrote and published a curriculum with that in if they'd ever met small children.

YANBU and I’m an ex primary teacher.

We rob children of the opportunity to learn at their own pace and to read and write on their own natural timeline. So unfair. Whilst some may be ready at that age I can assure you that many (most) are not. We also rob children of the work of childhood which is deep play.

We are one of the only countries in the world to start formal education at age 4. Take Denmark for example, they start formal school at age 7 despite having a sort of kindergarten prior to that. They don’t start any formal reading or writing until age 7.

Our governments will justify it though as they think it’s the only way to ‘compete’ in the international league tables 🙄

So what about single parents? What about people who can only do their jobs in locations where housing is sky high? No poor people or single parents in London for example.
I think it would be unpopular given the cost of living, house prices and many people not having the luxury of choice about having one parent stay at home. And not all jobs can be flexible enough to let you do your own wraparound care. None of that would work. Your ideas would absolutely ruin my family.

Agree! The curriculum is ridiculous especially in primary. Im a Senco and have said for years, that schools and the curriculum are not fit for purpose. Teachers are as frustrated as parents. Both my children's GCSE teachers told me they were creative and thought outside the box and that they wouldn't get the grades they were capable of if they didn't learn how to answer exam questions the expected way, it's sad that children's natural curiosity and creativity isn't nurtured.

Danish children start their education at 6 yo - 0th grade. 0th grade is now mandatory in Denmark.
In the current goals for 0th grade pupils must have knowledge of the name, shape and sound of letters and experiment with reading small texts. The expectations are that children will be able to read already in 0th grade.

Most Danish children go to kindergarden before attending school. Kindergarten will start the formal work with letters and numbers the year before children start school. However, kindergarten is not mandatory.