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.

Education feels almost unrecognisable from 15 years ago. I agree with so much of what has been said already on this thread. Behaviour is a huge issue and parental support is almost non existent with some children and they are letting their kids down so much as they are just not prepared for the real world. Aspirations are all 'I'm going to be an influencer' or a footballer (this is 15/16 year olds talking, not 10 year olds). U fettered access to the internet has given children unrealistic expectations and so much anxiety about just about everything.

I've had parents push me as I get into my car, name me on social media for giving their child a detention for throwing a chair across the room (she was 'provoked' by being asked to sit down and stop talking) and so many other things it's almost unbelievable. I can't do it much longer and I'm out at the end of this year. I loved my job, it was a huge part of my life, but it's unrecognisable from 15 years ago. I will miss 'teaching' hugely, but it's such a small part of the job now.

I agree wholeheartedly. One of my children was receiving no education for a long time. I appreciate the excellent specialist setting my other child attends so much, we know how lucky we are and I would be frightened if we had no choice but to mainstream my kids.

Special schools meet the needs of disabled children much better, but they are segregation. On an individual level they are almost always a good idea, on a society level I think they are not.

I am so conflicted over it all.

Everything you said in your original post describes my department in the NHS 😢

I feel the same way - discussions always (understandably) end up being dominated by SEND issues, but as the parent of a very academic daughter I’m looking for something a bit more holistic.

I second what @Neemiesays about single sex schools; we are moving area to access a good one for DD, and everything I’ve seen as a primary teacher, volunteer and governor over the past 15 years leads me to believe that most girls do better in a single-sex environment. Even our local co-ed academy now teaches boys and girls separately for the core subjects as they’ve realised this improves outcomes.

On a wider level, I agree with several posters that we are looking at a full-scale societal crisis in the future, with issues stemming from unmet special needs happening alongside the neglect of our more able (and even in some cases averagely attaining) children - I’m seeing this play out in DD’s current primary, where the focus is almost solely on SEND inclusion and getting those who are struggling to hit ‘Expected’ to improve the headline stats for SATs. There is no interest whatsoever in facilitating more able children to fulfil their potential (indeed, the Head is all about ‘equity’, and not challenging higher attainment pupils allows her to pretend that she has ‘narrowed the gap’ attainment-wise) .

It's the wilful ignorance by anyone in 'charge' (government/DfE/Ofsted) about how bad it is and the insistence of carrying on as normal with a focus being on 'rigour' and 'attendance'.

The budget is so poor that staffing and resources are stripped to the bone. Classes are huge with growing numbers of very high need pupils in. Expectations are that all needs can be met if teachers 'just' adapt what they are doing, which was possibly fine when it meant-flexible groupings, using a visual table, adding movement breaks and chunking instructions. When it means classes with 5 pupils with ADHD, 4 with ASD, 2 in nappies, one needing hoisting for the toilet, one needing movicol morning and afternoon, one with diabetes needing carbs to be weighed and blood glucose to be monitored throughout the day, but there is only one teacher in there, it's very different.

It's not like the government will say, 'we know this is a massive ask-just keep everyone safe and do your very best with the curriculum', it's

Why haven't you changed your displays?
Your assessment is due in-haven't you done it yet?
We are doing learning walks-why have t you finished X ?
We have been doing book scrutinies-why aren't you prepared?
The IEPs should be updated termly-why is your paperwork behind?
You have a lesson observation on Thursday.
There is training to be done-we can't release you so that needs to be done in your
We are due an Oftsed-your subjects this year are history, phonics and maths-you need to have your folder with data, evidence, children's views and progress in place and will be expected to do interviews, observations and learning walks with the inspectors in at least 2 of these, so be prepared. The Senco is leaving so we want you do that as well-you'll get every other assembly free to do all the paperwork. Beware that Ofsted will have an 'Inclusion' grading now, so that's pretty high profile-sorry, there's no money in the budget to pay you any extra.
We have had parental complains that your children in nappies aren't being changed regularly enough-can you do it more often and make sure they aren't sore? You forgot to give medication on Thursday as well. Other parents are complaining that their children are being ignored and you haven't changed their books this week or heard any of them read -can you please remember our school pledge? We'll be coming to do more learning walks to check that you are doing all this.
You're Upper pay scale now, can you price to us that you are going Alice and beyond for your salary? Otherwise, I'm afraid we will have to look at capability proceedings which will be weekly meetings and observations to assess how you are improving...

There is one teacher in that room being expected to do more and more with less and less. The results still have to be good but nothing ever gets dropped. What happens is, that teacher will break and nobody wants to replace them.

The press make out that teachers are just lazy and part time and when there is talk about Ofsted, there are loud voices saying, 'teachers just want no accountability and of course inspections should be vigorous' but the way things are going, there won't be anyone left to inspect.

So many teachers I know are on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills or off sick.

Something desperately needs to change.

I didn't even go into pupil wellbeing. I have never seen the stress levels present in our children the way they are now-anxiety, self harm, school refusing, even in KS1. The testing and high pressure and expectations is having a huge impact.

Yet, the focus is on attendance-'if we get children into school, things will be better' but when school is the problem, this is not a solution. If adults have this sort of level of stress, the GP would probably sign them off-that isn't a possibility-it's just a meeting about how we can get their attendance back to 100%.

Throwing money at mental health practitioners in school (which is mainly ex teachers working at a much lower pay after a year of training) really isn't the great fix they think either! That's a bolt-on sticking plaster which won't help when the problem is school itself.

You have very much described our catchment academy secondary (which we are moving to dodge), except ours sounds even more utilitarian and punitive. There is next to no music or sport; you wouldn’t know the art room was used for art (stark white walls, no work on display); trips offered only for those children who have achieved 100% attendance; shiny but cramped new building with insufficient outside space (staggered break times; a ‘no running’ rule) etc. Parents make schools choices here based on whether they can ‘cope’ with the school’s regime, not whether they’ll actively enjoy it.

And DD’s historically lovely, warm, creative primary is heading the same way - focus on uniformity and Death By PowerPoint lessons in the core subjects, and creative subjects all but gone. We have found this to be an issue in almost all local schools in our outer London suburb, so are moving out of London in an area that has smaller, slightly more ‘old-fashioned’ schools that have slightly poorer SATs results on paper, but still focus on the whole child and offer at least some kind of creative and outdoor learning (Forest School etc).

Great post. Spot on.

And yet those of us who go private supposedly do it to "avoid the Riff Raff"

Both.

Maybe I should qualify it with 'behaviour in my lessons is better than it was under the old policy'. Behaviour is pretty appalling in some other lessons, for various reasons.

Behaviour in my lessons was worst when we had a restorative behaviour policy that effectively meant that if a kid was dicking about in your lesson, you couldn't get rid of them from your lesson. The sanction for poor behaviour was a restorative conversation that massively increased teacher workload with zero impact on behaviour. Low level disruption was a huge issue and just getting the kids to shut up and listen was a constant battle.

Now we have a behaviour policy where I can kick a kid out of my lesson for dicking about pretty rapidly and they will mostly actually leave because they will be excluded if they don't. I actually only use it very rarely, but because it's there and I do use it and kids know that, there is far, far less dicking about and I can actually crack on and teach.

Sone parents though think this behaviour policy is just terrible, far too strict, like they prefer kids to be allowed to dick about in lessons.

This is absolutely true. Schools' roles are being added to and expanded upon, similar to the way hospitals are having trouble getting people out of beds because the social care that used to be there to assist with the transition back to home doesn't exist in the same capacity any more. The amount of time schools are expected to keep kids has increased too. My child has been HE since the pandemic, he starts secondary soon and as much as I love the school we've bagged a place at, I'm bracing myself again for more trouble. When he started primary I was so optimistic that it was going to be brilliant for him and we were hugely let down. They actually told me not to bother seeking an autism diagnosis for him because there wouldn't be any additional support for him, they'd just do what they were already doing anyway. All the awareness in the world is useless if nothing can be done to address it.

I also really like saying 'dicking about' @noblegiraffe

@Redlocks30 I used to work in kids' respite in my former life and I used to wonder how TF schools managed to meet all the personal care and medical needs of pupils, as well as actually provide education, when it had us flat out at the home. I visited a school of a kid I keyworked, joined her in the pool. The support staff were incredibly fast at changing etc, they had to be - they weren't rough in any way but the sheer speed of it all had my head spinning. I can easily see how that would become wearing very fast. This was around 2009. I wonder how things have changed since.

This. It's brutal for both children and teachers.

Just checked with my 7yo and they have PowerPoints already at that age. I would have been very bored 🥱

DD’s school started with this in Year 1. I volunteer in Year 5 and most lessons consist of the (very experienced, very frustrated) teacher clicking through a 35-slide PowerPoint. The kids are bored senseless but apparently (according to SLT) it is ‘best practice’.

The good thing about PowerPoints is that they can be clicked through by someone who is neither experienced nor qualified.

That’s exactly it @noblegiraffe. I know that the school is actively trying to manage out expensive older teachers like the excellent Year 5 one (who is leaving at the end of the year) to replace them with cheap, malleable ECTs. It’s incredibly depressing - so much skill and knowledge being lost.

I guess that I should at least be grateful that they are qualified teachers (although, having seen the standard of many of the students coming through, not exactly great ones!)

I left school in 2000 so a relatively long time ago. I went to a bog standard primary school with a class size of 30 and I honestly can't remember any bad behaviour in the class. There was a single teacher with no TAs as they weren't a thing back then. Parents didn't get involved in school at all and I don't think we even had parent teacher consultations. Parents got a report once a year and that was that. The teacher's word was law and nobody would have ever crossed them. From there I went to grammar school and it was more of the same. Teachers had real authority and most of them were able to control the class through sheer force of will and personality.

My daughter is now at the local prep school. She's in a small class and there are two children with SEN who have a TA to help them. I'm happy enough with how she is getting on at the minute and it's a good supportive school environment. There has been a turnover of teachers recently as older staff retire and there is a perception that the new younger teachers aren't as dedicated as the older "lifers" were but I don't know if that's true or not as I'm not in class.

What I am really dreading is the move to secondary school. The school she will hopefully be attending is all girls and has a reputation for academic excellence but pastoral care may not be as good as it could be.

I left school in 2000 so a relatively long time ago. I went to a bog standard primary school with a class size of 30 and I honestly can't remember any bad behaviour in the class. There was a single teacher with no TAs as they weren't a thing back then. Parents didn't get involved in school at all and I don't think we even had parent teacher consultations.

Interesting-I started teaching in the late 90s and we definitely had parents evening twice a year, plus an open day in the summer-though not all parents turned up. Most classes had a TA-mornings only maybe for Y5/6 for literacy/numeracy hours.

There were children with 'behaviour' issues but they often didn't last long-if they were disruptive/hurt other children/hurt teachers, heads had the authority to exclude. There were places at prus without needing a statement, and if they did need one-the process was much quicker (with far more EPs-when it was only a Masters qualification!).

I left primary school in 1993..so even longer ago than 2000 but yes TAs and LSAs were really not a thing. I think parents in general were much more hands off and life in general was way less child centric. Kids were just left to get on with life.

My dad never went to a single school event in my entire time at school. It was all my mum's domain and she didn't get involved much either as I was a pretty self motivated student. She swears she used to read to / with me but I don't remember it. There was far less bloody homework as well. Imo homework at KS1 really is utterly pointless except maybe the reading and tbh Biff and Chip can absolutely do one as they are so dull!

I also can’t remember much bad behaviour in primary but there was definitely bad behaviour in secondary school. Thankfully PowerPoint wasn’t a thing when I was at school. Even when I started Uni some lecturers used overhead projectors.

We did have parents evening even in the 90s.

Despite all the ‘data’ that is supposedly collected now, none of this has been shared with me about my DC. At parents evening we just get the general ‘they’re doing really well’ etc.

What is often lost from this conversation is that school for the masses was started in the late 1900s as a response to the Industrial Revolution to provide them with some basic literacy and numeracy skills. Yet it hasn’t changed enough since then. Despite some curriculum changes over the years, some tweaks to styles of teaching and learning, more inclusion, more accountability and academic pressure/exam preparation and some awareness of mental health issues, really not enough has changed and it hasn’t kept pace with modern life.

The curriculum has outdated itself and not kept pace with the Information Age we live in. It still, all these decades later, prioritises rote learning and memorisation. The skills and knowledge needed for the 21st century are totally different to the ones needed in the past. Even in the quite recent past! Add to this high stakes assessment and lack of accountability for young people, it’s the perfect storm. (Not downplaying the importance of proper funding here and the stress teachers are under with accountability etc, just pointing out how the curriculum is outdated).

And kids know this. They know that information is at their fingertips. They know that the skills they’re going to need in the world of work are changing, they know that unless they want to go into a very academic career that they need more than what school can give them. School just simply hasn’t kept pace with the rest of the world.

I would also add from personal experience that kids do better in a mixed age environment, with less academic pressure, with a less competitive environment, more outdoor time, more play, more physical activity, more connection with their family and parents, less time spent with peers (and online!) in an environment that breeds conflict and bullying ie school.

I home educate my DC and am an ex teacher and I see the huge difference between kids not in school and kids in school. Their happiness AND their skills. To be clear I am not saying home education is the right thing for everyone (just as school is not right for everyone). It is more nuanced conversation than that.