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.

We have a dress code where I work, not too strict. If someone turned up for a job looking like they don't want the job they won't get offered it.

Bog standard lawyers in regional firms are very poorly paid. Yes, partners and high flyers in City firms are highly paid, but they're a minority. We keep hearing how "top" accountants and lawyers are paid hundreds of thousands per year, but they really are the minority at the top of their profession. Such professionals working in smaller regional firms doing the bread and butter work are highly unlikely to be even earning enough to be in the higher rate tax band! So, yes, for the majority of bog standard professionals, their wages really are comparable with teachers in the areas where they're working. A bog standard solicitor in a run down place like Morecambe really does earn a comparable salary to a teacher in Morecambe as adjusted for holidays, pensions etc.

Whilst agreeing with the OP about the education system being wrong in the UK, it's not the earlier years where I feel things most need change. Leaving at 16 and going into work should be an option available to everyone, far too many are doing university degrees of little value, and for GCSE it is more an exam factory than learning skills needed for the workplace and life in general.

The issue about limited post-school time each day would partly be solved by having BST all year round, so the number of weeks when it is dark at or shortly after getting home would be reduced.

What a strange notion. If someone doesn't normally wear what you're regard as "acceptable" clothing, why would you think they should go out and spend good money on something they'll probably never wear again? Jeans and T shirts can still be "smart" especially given the cost of the designer stuff.

Completely different if someone turned up in stained supermarket £5 jeans and £2.50 T shirt.

I'd look at the overall presentation rather than obsess about the clothes. But even more important than that is their qualifications, experience, aptitude, ability, etc., which is really what matters.

I was able to take two years off after ds was born. He went to a child minder at 2yrs & 2 months but outside of working hours I spent all my time with him, and all of every weekend.

By his third birthday he was fully toilet trained and by 4 when he started primary, he could fully dress himself (slowly).

His primary was rural with a large field and plenty of outdoor activities.The first four years were great. The stress and unpleasantness started in year 4.

If more mothers could spend more time with their dcs, not be forced back to work after 12 months, and if schools scrapped SATs, I think our children would be a lot happier.

There's an important point that many people are missing, that for young children learning (done properly) is genuinely fun. I think our education system is far from perfect but am getting the impression some people on here think the whole thing should be overhauled so that the thick kids can doss about.

Meant to comment on this yesterday but got distracted by work.
A small population in a bigger country than the UK actually makes it quite difficult, because in many areas the population is very spread out which means either having many many tiny schools, at a huge cost, or transporting children long distances to bigger schools, at another big cost. There is also the issue of providing education to indigenous children that protects their language and cultural rights, which is not easy, especially as most Sámi young people live outside of Sápmi.

Of course its wise to dress according to the expectations of the workplace, its just less and less workplaces expect suits these days, and even if they all did, children don't need to dress like mini-workers in school in order to dress like them as adults. Its not like learning how to wear a suit or dress requires years of practice.

I agree strongly with your first point, and it is true across the spectrum of learners.

The Estonians who do play based learning from age 5-7 aren’t dumbing anything down. They lead Europe in two subjects measured and do awfully well in the third. I am particularly impressed by the accomplishments of the lower centile students in Estonia on the PISA.

However it is clear that the Estonians are also doing a great job with all students, including the highly able ones. Two years of play based learning initially is serving them well.

There is no dichotomy between play and learning. After all, we learn more, through play, from 0-24 months than for the rest of our lives.

Even those of us who loved reading (and in my case maths and science) in the early years can learn effectively through play. It is more demanding of the teacher, however.

@CookiePlough A KS1 poster shouldn't be taking half a day to do and 5 minutes on TT Rockstars would be more than enough daily. Just because the school encourages daily apps doesn't mean you have to do them.

A 45 minute commute is long for primary - do you live rurally or is it a private school - that seems a big catchment. Is there no school closer to home?

@Natsku those are very reasonable points but I feel means the Finnish case is even less relevant to England? Totally different set of issues.

Different issues to deal with for sure, but there are basic aspects that improve education that aren't dependent on different issues and could be transferable, like frequent breaks, free healthy lunch for every student (both of these improve focus), more streamlined curriculum (but the English language definitely makes part of that more difficult - the complexity requires so much more teaching time than Finnish does but probably doesn't need as much detail as its currently getting).
Other things can't be so easily transferred, like smaller class sizes, because there's already so many overcrowded schools in Britain. That would need more schools and a lot more teachers, no way would the government budget for that. Or requiring teachers to have a masters degree, as teacher recruitment is already such an issue so making it more difficult would be a non-starter. The general level of respect for education - to change that would mean changing society.
So yeah, different situations can't use all the same tools.

I can't imagine that anyone doesn't own 1 shirt and 1 smartish pair of trousers for interviews, weddings,funerals etc.
I have no interest in whether it's designer or not, where is comes from and what it costs, but they need to look quite smart. Along with turning up on time, bringing relevant documents as evidence of qualifications, having prepared for the interview, making good eye contact and good manners, these are all basics I would look for.

And sometimes there is a correlation between this and attitude. The people who have turned up looking scruffy, had clearly not bothered preparing for the interview and scored very poorly, looked like they didn't really want to be there. And before you call 'bias', the panel always consists of 3 people scoring independently, we have to put our scores into system before we can discuss them.

I don't think the biggest problem is from parents who work not spending the time with their children; Id think more the parents who spend more time on their socials ignoring their children that is doing more damage to children's development. The parents who are just too busy putting their own interests first instead of actually parenting.

There was a study a few weeks ago which concluded that fathers who spend 10 minutes a week supporting their child's schoolwork can make a child thrive much better. Ten minutes so little effort but could help a child thrive and how many fathers do?
And here we are on a mostly female website pointing and, blaming working mothers for not spending enough time with their children.
Screens are changing human evolution and a lot of it is not good.

@Meadowfinch absolutely agree with you.
My mum was a SAHM until I was about 7, then she worked school hours only until I was 12. My brother and I could both fluently read and write before we started school at 4, could tie shoe laces and a standard tie. Now I encounter 7/8 year olds still asking an adult to help with their shoe laces!
It's not all on mums to stay at home, can be a Dad, a grandparent etc. But having that focused 1 to 1 time early on is so important for developing basic skills, emotional resilience and security.
My mum tells me about how every child went into school happily on their first day, no tears, to clinging to parents. But on my daughters first day, there were several children who had to be coaxed away from their parents, taking valuable teacher time. They are into childcare at under 1 in many cases, this is the real issue, no the starting school at 4. Maternity/paternity pay should be better so people can delay returning to work, but the challenge is covering this cosy when there are already so many demands on the public purse

@Luddite26 You misunderstand me.

I am absolutely NOT blaming mums. The only reason I was able to spend two years at home with my ds, was that I was 'made redundant' first morning back after maternity leave and spent a year fighting unfair dismissal (which I won).

I didn't plan to be at home, nor could I have afforded it under any other circumstances. But it was definitely of benefit to my ds.

I blame the UK system that offers no tax breaks to couples so one parent can stay at home longer. The UK does not value parenting, and yet I am sure many of our social problems would be reduced by enabling one parent to be at home for longer.

OP can they not do apps in the car?

They only need to do TTRS until they know whatever they need to know - x3, x4 and x8 in Y3 and the rest in under 6 secs by end Y4. If they are on track they don't need to do as much, if they're behind they perhaps need to do a little more. Re the other poster saying you'd tell the school you're not doing it, I honestly mind very little as a teacher whether children do it or not but ultimately it is their child who either will or won't achieve age expectations in maths. Parents need to make a judgment about what works for their families, what their priorities are and what support their children do or don't need. A child who knows all their times tables should indeed be playing in the park not sitting on an app. If you prefer to practise them in others ways, also fine.

The half day on a poster will just not be expected. Do 30 mins of decent work and call it quits. I very much doubt the majority of the class are devoting much more time to it than that.

One day, everyone will have a chip interface in their brain that will give them instant access to all knowledge. Most jobs will disappear due to AI. The education system will need a radical overhaul.

Does having knowledge mean you know what to do with it?

No

No, of course not.

I am a teacher. I spend some time imparting knowledge but a lot more showing what to do with it.

Actually even more time trying to get learners to the stage where they are in a position to do something with it: motivation, organisation, equipment, critical thinking...

Sometimes I wonder whether the AI of the future will want to bother with humans at all...!

Paragraphs are there to group ideas. In an essay you might have say six of them - an introduction, then a few different angles of exploring a subject each in its own paragraph, then some kind of summary or conclusion. It makes an argument or logic easier to follow for the reader.

In a news report, paragraphs might be just two sentences long because the report is covering lots of different pieces of information.

In a novel, a paragraph might be much lengthier because the narrative is detailed and doesn't need as much grouping by idea to follow.

Paragraphs are a relatively new invention though in English. In mediaeval texts ideas were presented as one long sentence only coming to an end with a full stop but weren't started with a new line (must have saved expensive paper?)

You need a quite clear idea of what you're going to write in order to structure it into paragraphs - or to go back and edit at length. But the whole purpose should be to make it clearer for the reader to follow your thinking. It's an aid to communication.

The thing that really impresses me in medieval texts is the music without key signatures, time signatures and bar lines! Either there was lots of flexibility in performance and/or everyone knew how things should be.

Communication is even more important nowadays because that person reading the BBC article (for instance) could be entirely unfamiliar with the content of the story.

Paragraphs also help the reader physically as it's easier to process dense writing with white space.

They spend 1140 a year at school, based on 6 hours a day, 5 days a week and 38 weeks a year.
They sleep for 11 hours a day on average, which over a year is about 4000 hours.

Out of a total of 8760 hours in a year

So you have over 3000 waking hours with them per year, or an average of 8 waking hours per day when that number is divided by 365