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.

Those figures are meaningless without comparitors. State schools are seeing year on year declines in rolls to the point of school closures as well.

They are far from meaningless when the number reaches 55000 then the policy brings in £0! This isn't reduced rolls, it is the number of kids leaving Indy schools for state ones + therefore cost implications on taxpayer. They are key figures.
Secondary schools are still in bulge years until 28/29.

What are these reserves that are spoken of? Are they held by individual schools or academy chains or what? Where did they come from?

Reserves are unspent budget allocation from prior years

Lockdown learning is nothing at all like real natural unpressured learning that self directed kids do! Funny that think its remotely a good comparison.
It also takes time for most kids to develop their own intrinsic motivation. Kids have to ‘deschool’ first (unless they never went to school in the first place) and then their natural curiosity and drive to learn starts to come through.
Of course my experience is anecdotal. As is yours. Just because you are a teacher doesn’t make you an expert on how children truly learn. Especially as you sound so wedded to the system you can’t even admit the curriculum is even slightly outdated.

Sorry, but this is bollocks. It’s also quite rude to suggest that professional teachers aren’t experts in learning. Yes, some teachers aren’t great, but they have all undertaken professional qualifications and the majority of them are far better placed to instruct children than parents.

One wonders why, when most children have access to the internet, that Roblox is more popular than Udemy or online knowledge building classes for children?

I also think homeschooling as undertaken by culturally middle class families who value education will of course be successful - not because of any benefit of homeschooling but because it’s driven by motivated parents. It’s parental influence that is the driving force, not necessarily anything intrinsic to the child.

Let's just clarify that you said the curriculum was outdated because it required pupils to memorise things when they are now living in an Information Age where they can just look stuff up.

Let's also confirm that in a previous post you boasted that your children have 'amazing general knowledge'. So either you value the acquisition of knowledge over a broad variety of subjects or you don't. Which is it?

Are you always this captious?

You are clearly not interested in having a productive discussion about this & only want to try to twist my words and meaning to be ‘right’. I feel like I may have worked with you in the past 🙄

It's hard to have a productive conversation with you when you don't even believe what you're saying.

You have criticised me for not agreeing with you that the curriculum is outdated in that it requires pupils to learn stuff. You said "Who walks around with reams and reams of information about all topics in their heads?" Because obviously it's a bad thing when you are talking about schools.

But when talking about your homeschooling, you say "And shock horror they can add up, read, write, deal with money, understand interest rates, have an amazing general knowledge".

Walking around with reams and reams of information about all topics in their heads is positive when you're bigging up your kids' achievements? Surely you should be promoting how empty their heads are as they google everything all the time.

Sigh

Maths is a functional skill and something knowing aids with life.
Knowing facts about some historical topics but nothing about others just because someone says that's the part of history we need to know isn't function (unless the only function unless s passing an exam)
Learning history is useful as it encompasses literacy, numeracy, critical thinking and all manor of skills but it doesn't matter if this history is the history taught in schools or any other history the skills covered are the same. But if a child doesn't have an interest in WW2 but has a huge interest in a different history then that is more productive on a individual level.

My home educated children learn maths and English organically without having to be taught like school children are.
School works for some children but it absolutely fails other children my own child went to school and didn't learn to read or write the way it is taught in schools. The system was detrimental to them.

Some MATs have millions in reserves. In my LA there is one prominent MAT with 6.6 million in reserves.

My home educated children learn maths and English organically without having to be taught like school children are.

I don't think that's a feature of home educated versus school children but a feature of a certain type of child. If yours wasn't that certain type of child them home education wouldn't work for them.

And it is stupid to dismiss teaching as somehow a bad thing. Skilled expert feedback at the right time can be far more useful to someone trying to learn something than slogging away at it on their own. A curated curriculum with carefully selected resources is also better than letting someone who doesn't know anything just crack on.

MATs are legally obliged to have reserves. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-academy-trust-reserves/academy-trust-reserves--2

I don’t think you’re having this conversation in good faith. You’re twisting my words and trying to ‘catch me out’ (not to mention being a bit of a twat… “Promoting how empty their heads are” ?? Ok…. 🤨 )

My original point about the school system was that it’s outdated and it is no longer necessary in 2025 to memorise large amounts of information for exams and that the ability to look things up in seconds makes a mockery of this system. My opinion is also that the system needs to incorporate a wider variety of skills for the 21st century, not just academic skills. I understand that you’re loyal to this system so you don’t want to admit it’s outdated. I also know myself how being a teacher becomes very integral to your identity but at this point I think it’s clear we won’t agree on these points so I will be leaving this thread now and this conversation. All the best.

You clearly think that having knowledge is a good thing despite your claims that it is outdated to teach kids things, so your repeated attempts to not engage with that and instead witter on about how I am merely instead wedded to being a teacher aren’t convincing.

If course knowledge is beneficial. But that is a wide variety of knowledge and skills not limited to that taught at school.
Let's be honest here not every child that leaves school has learnt all or even most of what they have been taught. If school worked effectively we wouldn't have children leaving school not being able to read,write or do math.

Outside of functional maths and literacy everything else is objective and teaching WW2 but omitting to include other aspects of history has no difference.

Learning to repair Car or plaster are skills we need in society. A car mechanic, a shop assistant, a cleaner is just a vital as an academic job role to society

I do agree the school curriculum is limited but at £6 a lesson you can’t cover ancient Egypt/ medieval France and ww2 in depth and give kids a choice. So you get what someone at some time decided was the minimum someone should know about the world and if your dc want to learn about other things then you need to supplement it yourself. The extreme of that is home ed and most people don’t have the money for that or the expertise.

I think vocational subjects should be brought back properly and funded adequately as no one is inventing ai plumbers and builders etc and these are excellent professions for people who prefer self employment and have ambition to run their own business.

It’s not the staff, it’s the system that isn’t working but it would cost a fortune to put right.