To tell you how schools changed within 15-10 years

[HerNeighbourTotoro]

I have been a teacher (on off, contracts and lots of supply) for almost 15 years now with some other work in between. If you have a child going through the system now and no older kids, you would not know how different things were even a few years ago.
15 years ago I did my PGCE in a fantastic school, I sadly missed out on the job they had at the end of that year and moved to a different location.

The staffroom was vibrant, lots of people always working, talking, exchanging ideas, they had a core team of teachers who were in charge of teaching and learning and each specialised in a different area, and were happy to pop in and observe or be observed. So many things were just amazing. They were also able to offer both more academic and vocational subjets.The department I worked in was wonderfuly resourced and they had a budget to buy into a few subscriptions offering students additional learning opportunities, they did trips, clubs, there were cross curricular days where departments collaborated to do projects. A dream place to work.

Over the years I worked in a few different schools and each year I have been noticing a change for worse, especially if I had a break from teaching/supply.

As it happens, last year we moved back closer to town with my PGCE school and an opportunity to do supply came up. No one I remember works there anymore, which was a shame, but what was really striking to me is how many things got lost in between. The staff rotation is however huge, and some departments have failed to recruit teachers for the vacancies and have either long term or daily supply to cover for the shortage (bear in mind when I applied, there were 50 applications for the job I ended up not getting and it was a norm to have over 30 applications in most schools in the area, and a lot more for shortage subject).

My subject lost a technician who was vital and it massively increased the workload. The department is half the size (as are many others). The classes are much bigger and some have 33-34 students. They run far fewer trips because a) the cost for the school to book suply is too big b) the workload increased so much that there is little time to organise these c) they lost office staff who used to help with the admin and now the team is smaller and can't help anymore.

The Language department used to have 3 language assistants (one for each language hey offered)- they now only offer one language and have no language assistants. The amount of subjects the school offers is much smaller and there apparently have been talks of closing down their 6th form.

All of the TAs are now mostly inexperienced agency staff that come and go and the SEN team is probably half of what it used to be as well. I have not seen a TA in any of my classes so far despite quite a few students desperately needing support.
The staffroom looks like a graveyard. Most people spend their lunches in their classrooms, eating as they prepare/mark. Forget about things like replacing damaged textbooks or other resources, so many people have to bring in their own pens and glues they buy in bulk because there is no budget.

I won't even mention the behaviour, 'teaching' a class of 30 or 30+ instead of 26 feels more like controlling chaos. There used to be a behaviour team supporting teachers, but now this is also gone because the school could not afford keeping 3-4 support staff on the team.

I genuinely feel sorry for children who are getting such different experience compared to before, with a small choice of subjects, supervised by supply teachers (I won't say taught) in the absence of teachers the school didn't manage to recruit, with few resources and few extracurricural opportunities.

For the record, the school is in a relatively well of area, I can tell you I have seen much worse elsewhere. But it is such a shame to see what was once a thriving school community in such a sorry state. All as the government is saying how supposedly schools are getting so much more money than at any given point in the past.

I have been teaching for 34 years now. Things have changed but very much for the better in many ways. Pupils are listened to and their views considered and, while it takes up a lot of time, so are parents. We understand SEN so much better and, yes, it is under-resourced, but we account for learning needs. Discipline is more purposeful and less reactive and we consider all sides, including using restorative justice. We are aware of things like systemic racism, disablism, misogyny etc and build combating them into our course and our discussions, Texts are much wider (English teacher) and discussions are freer. Sadly, exam specifications still require a lot of teaching to the test, but pupils experience success and the curriculum is more tailored to different needs.

Things are not perfect. But a child now has a far better chance of being seen and heard now than ever before.

Absolutely, some things changed for the better.
The awareness around SEN has much improved- but there is not enough funding to actually improve the situation for the students. And everyone has far less time to do anything. The fact that most schools I worked in dont have enough support staff to ... well, support students and that many dont even employ qualified staff is not a good sign. My previous school had a few TAs that looked the age of A Level students (which they probably were)- I am not convinced they were able to support students with complex needs and as a matter of fact all were gone before the half-term finished.

While permanent staff are much better trained in things like SEN and child protection, I'm not convinced that children are better served because, as the OP mentions, of the lack of pastoral staff, the lack of teachers, and the constant churn of staff that means relationships aren't built.

When we talk about the attendance crisis, very little attention seems to be paid to the experience that children now have when they do attend school. Chances are at secondary they are going to have a supply teacher, and chances are, in that supply lesson behaviour will be poor and not much teaching and learning will take place.

Lots of parents are kicking off about strict behaviour policies which are also in part a reaction to the constant churn of staff. You need a system which insists that kids behave in a perfectly consistent way, for staff who do not know them.

Experienced staff are now also spending a lot of their time propping up supply teachers and inadequate teachers who previously would not have got a job but now do because it's them or no one.

Sadly this is the case @noblegiraffe
Your last paragraph rang so true.
My current department has 5 members of staff, I am on long term supply replacing a person who is off because of stress and they have one more unfilled job on top of that. The HoD had to take over some exam classes from the absent teacher and has to effectively plan cover for her own classes that now dont have a teacher.
There are a few (mostly KS3 classes) who have not had a teacher since September. One of the departments has a HoD who is in their second year of teaching and is still an ECT with no experience of managing anything.
Teachers who struggle also get no support to improve, because no one has time nor effort to train/observe, and there is no budget for external training- so they continue to not be good and no one challenges that.
10 years ago it was a norml to have many applications and it was a struggle to pick 5 for interview out of many. Now you struggle to even get 5 in total and most are unsuitable.

I’ve been teaching for 21 years, mostly on permanent contract with two recent years of long term supply. In one school on supply I was the only person in the department for six weeks, with two day to day supply staff. I’m now working on a contract again, but there’s so much scrutiny and micromanaging. You’ll always get the people saying that teachers have it easy, but none of them know how to respond when you bring up the recruitment and retention issue.

What can we do as parents?

Maybe you're in a crap area? Because I can honestly say my now 25 year old had a much worse experience at school than my now 16 year old, the education system has got a lot better at recognising students mental health needs.

You may be aware of systemic racism but the system as a whole isn’t nor sexism. I’ve looked at many schools and they perpetuate systemic racism in their choice of hire into senior positions and sometimes in their governance, having been a governor the voices that were listened to were not surprising.

I’m an ex teacher and friends with many current teachers. A teacher friend of mine has had no end of issues with racism and also with her DC’s school insisting that she must be eligible for free school meals as she is single.

CAMHS provision has collapsed within the last decade, there are children out there who desperately need professional help who are on long waiting lists or who don't even meet the criteria to get on the waiting list.

Schools are trying desperately to pick up the slack but we are NOT mental health professionals.

Hold the government to account for a start. Don't let Labour get away with the same kind of shit that the Tories pulled. They promised 6500 extra teachers yet school funding is looking really bad for September and schools are having to cut even more staff.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-warn-of-staff-cuts-as-reeves-snubs-sector/

If you want to write to your MP it's easy through https://www.writetothem.com
If you ask for your email to be forwarded by your MP to the Department for Education or the Treasury (who control school funding) you should get a response from them.

While there my be more awareness of SEN this isn't actually beneficial to the children with SEN whose needs are not being met due to lack of TAs, too large class sizes and too much pressure on exam results.

I went to school and the SEN support then was better. Kids that struggled were taken out for extra support. Now we have thousands of SEN children not able to attend school due to unmet needs. My own child has managed less than 3 weeks of school in the last 2 years and we are still at point of LA insisting needs can be met in mainstream. It's taken 6 years to even get the LA to admit there is SEN despite high school child being. Assessed at approx primary yr 1 level

Schools are a mess

Completely agree.

I’m quite surprised that anyone believes that the school system has improved.

As others have said SEN and mental health issues have become more recognised, but that doesn’t mean the correct provisions have been put in place to support these children.

I don’t think I have ever spoken to a happy teacher, only ones that are drowning.

That’s the reason why even with VAT ppl who can afford it go to the independent sector. I know families not going on holiday, never eating out etc to afford independent school fees. But the government does not seem to see that. They are getting further punished but no further provision for state schools with all this extra VAT now received.

Yes, let’s pause from discussing the state of state education to reflect on how bad things are for private school parents.

I've been teaching for nearly 30 years and think things have got so much worse-mainly in the last 15 years. Our class sizes are bigger, we have very little TA support, huge increase in SEN and medical need with woefully insignificant funding (eg a y1 class with 2 non-verbal pupils in nappies with ASD, 3/4 awaiting ADHD assessments, 3/4 further awaiting ASD assessments and 2 severe medical needs (one needing hoisting). 3 have an EHCP with about 10 hours support each. It feels like crowd control much of the time. Mental health problems and school refusal is through the roof (this is primary), teachers aren't staying and horrendous proposed changes to Ofsted are the final straw for many of those left in post.

The main issue at our school is inclusion of all children (who aren't getting a place at special school despite parents and all professionals wanting this) but with no additional money.

As a parent whose eldest child will be moving up to secondary in the next few years, this is really useful, thank you @HerNeighbourTotoro

We live in a relatively affluent area where all schools seem to be classed as 'outstanding' or 'good', but all oversubscribed. And yet when I look around, they seem overcrowded (tiny corridors, hundreds of kids), homework isn't marked (except maths by computer), and teachers moving in and out all the time. The results might be good but the experience doesn't look like one of flourishing children. It looks hurried, underfunded, overstimulated, with whole classes being cleared on a weekly basis because single children have meltdowns and can't be moved, etc.

Whenever I ask people about the difference between education now and when we were kids in the 90s, they always tell me how there is better awareness of SEN now, as well as a racism, misogyny in STEM, etc. And I can see that this is where this thread has quickly headed. But as the mother of children (girls and boys) who are all relatively bright (by no means super clever - just pretty average and hard-ish working), well-balanced and attached, all-rounders with no immediate mental health issues, I really just want to know about the experience for the neurotypical median, not those with SEN. I'm not saying that SEN children don't matter; I'm saying that all children matter. So it's really useful to have this feedback from a non-SEN and mental health issue perspective, thank you!

(NB I'm aware that mental health issues can raise their heads at any point. We are in a position to deal with this privately even if school aren't able to do it, and in any case, I really don't want to base our choice of school on 'What's the mental health provision' - I would rather they go to a happy, vibrant place where the kids are thriving and therefore less likely to develop mental health issues).

It would be hugely helpful if parents supported schools when they try to challenge poor behaviour. Also it would be good if people would support teachers rather than creating a situation where teachers are constantly put down & accused of moaning. The last lot of strikes was all about lack of funding in education but the general public just thought teachers were having a moan & got fed of schools being closed. Also teach kids to be polite & respectful.

I think it’s a mix of modest salary (for the hours involved), constant pressure & stress of OFSTED. I don’t think parents can help with that.

Sadly most of what the OP writes does not surprise me.

Lord Gove will not be reading it, nor the even worse Secretaries of State that followed him.

I think that a lot of it depends on what the school you were first working in was like. I was an NQT in 2003/2004 in a school that was awful. It was a shabby, run down comprehensive on a council estate with a lot of social problems that were prevalent at the time. No, we weren’t battling the smartphone and internet crisis, it was the teen pregnancy crisis, the NEET crisis, the bullying crisis. It was pretty bad. I’m sure if you did your initial few years in a more affluent or even mixed area you’d have a different opinion.

I can't think of anyone who would want to do a TA's job now. They're required to do much more than helping out in a classroom and their pay and conditions are shit. The two tier treatment of staff in our schools needs to change.

As for what's changed? Parents. Parents raising entitled kids.

There were almost 40 kids in my Y6 class 25 years ago. Goodness knows if there were any TAs, I don't remember any at secondary school at all. Quite a lot of bullying and sexual assault at secondary; some teachers clearly doing the bare minimum. These were well-regarded schools with very strong academic performance.

I have genuinely been wondering what has changed in schools to cause the attendance crisis. I don’t remember much in the way of SEN provision, mental health support etc being available 20 years ago…but maybe I just didn’t see it? Classes were quite big then and I think my primary school had less TAs than my child’s school has now.

I don’t remember any TAs at secondary school either. The ones I remember from primary school worked with individual children with quite significant learning needs rather than the class as a whole.

I left teaching three years ago.

there’s less money. Fewer trips, larger class sizes, fewer TAs. Schools will always vary but the system as whole isn’t doing better.

yes more awareness of Sen and mental health issues but schools are employing their own mental health counsellors because Camhs has basically collapsed.