Keir Starmer "sick and tired" of hearing about children who aren't school-ready

[Kirova]

I get the point he's trying to make, of course, but it seems like a stick to beat parents with (and particularly mothers, of course). There's no sense in saying you want all children to be in the same place when they start school. Apart from anything else, some are nearly a year younger than others in their cohort, so clearly they are not going to be in the same place.

My youngest daughter was born premature, has a significant hearing impairment and various other difficulties. She will soon be two, and while she's doing brilliantly, I doubt she'll be "school-ready" by the government's current definition when she is four.

Not sure what my point is exactly, it just seems like another absurd over-simplification on the theme of failing our children, state of the country, etc.

Clearly he’s not talking about children with additional needs or premature kids that are catching up. This is about 4 year olds with normal development that can’t go to the toilet , put a coat on or feed themselves.
He has a point

These threads remind me of threads about breast feeding; yes it’s better to breast feed. No, you’re not a bad mum if you didn’t. Yes, most kids should be potty trained when they start school. No, you’re not a bad parent if your kid is delayed in this respect for some reason.

People need to chill out and have confidence in their parenting; if you love your kid and you support them every day (like most parents do) you’re doing a great job.

I think the absorbency of nappies has had a significant impact. My children are in their 30s and were all trained around their 2nd birthday as was the norm then. I could tell that they knew they were going, and they could associate the sensation of doing a wee with the subsequent discomfort. Then it went from there. They knew they were going to wee and I could see the signs and could say do you need the potty. The nappies are so good now they don’t feel in the least bit uncomfortable, so i think it’s easier to miss the signals, maybe it seems more difficult and suddenly received wisdom is that they aren’t normally ready until 3. Even then if it doesn’t all go swimmingly they obviously aren’t ’ready’ so put it off and try again in a few months.

I agree that disposables definitely big factor. In past a child would have felt wet and uncomfortable plus incentive for mum to avoid washing and drying nappies.
The not ready wasn’t a thing. Parents just potty trained from young.
Also there was an element of it’s not sanitary for an older toddler to be soiling themselves, vocab used to be ‘are they clean yet’, undercurrent of no one wants their dc thought of as dirty.
There was also added pressure to get them potty trained so they could go to pre school as they wouldn’t accept them in nappies, I had a friend with her son turning 3 in August a few days before start of school year and pressure was on as school nursery wouldn’t take children in nappies in those days.

No, but since I work in a school, I’ve seen some pretty shocking parenting .Ironically, none of those children were still in nappies in reception.

Too much chill is responsible for children not being equipped with the skills they need and deserve to thrive in the examples being discussed on here.

Not playing with them, talking to them properly, teaching table manners, autonomy in dressing and personal care, offering a decent diet, enough fresh air and exercise because all of that takes times, effort and initiative and it’s easier and far more chill to have them babysat by a screen, quiet, calm, clean, dosed up on crap food.

I get the spirit of your post but this thread has countless examples of how things have changed from childcare and education professionals and it’s due in part to parents choosing not to take responsibility for basic childhood development and hoping someone else will do it. They may well feel they’re supporting their child by making life as easy as possible.

You can’t just make stuff up and state it as fact.
Considering 74% of 0-4 yos are in some form of childcare setting I could state that working parents /being in childcare are the real cause, but that wouldn’t be right, would it?

Ok, I think our messages/quotes are not making sense anymore, it's shifting meanings and not really responding.

Yes, but the main difference is that the children he is talking about usually aren't on waiting lists as the parents haven't even recognised there is an issue. The engaged parents of those with potential additional needs will have spoken to their nursery, GP, health visitor or even self referred to specialist services, and be fighting to get their child seen. We were told there was an 18 month minimum wait for my daughter to be seen by a specialist - regular polite calls to their secretary led to my daughter being seen on a next day cancellation within 3 months of referral. Many will not be as fortunate as us, but they will be trying, and letting the school know progress, agreeing best ways to support whilst waiting etc.

Again, not really relevant to the either the post you were responding to, or mine.

Try using visuals for tolieting ? Encourage him to dress/ undress himself, wash his own hands and feed himself. Many DCs with autism suddenly pick up many more words and phrases in the second year of speech. I guess most important is don't give up.

Dd is about to be 19 she is October born. We trained her over the May bank holiday so she could start the pre-school after half term. 2 and half if out of nappies was the rule then.

Surely being school ready is just potty trained? My middle son is an August baby and he had attended full time nursery since he was 12 months old so was definitely ready for school. Now that childcare is funded from a much younger age, apart from those with SEN, the majority should be ready for school. Yes some children take longer than others to potty train, but it’s not too much to expect them to be able to use a toilet by age 4. It does cause a big problem for teachers / TA if they have a classroom with multiple kids having accidents.

I've met several children who are 15 with undiagnosed SEN - half of the professionals involved are incredulous it hasn't been formally identified as it seems so obvious, half are in the 'there's nothing wrong with them' camp. I often think about how those families were treated when their children were little. I am actually, weirdly, sort of glad with my children it was 'obvious' they had SEN in infancy (non verbal) so we got a lot less of the whole 'it's just shit parenting'.

I totally agree with you but if your child had a specific problem which has caused them to be behind where a child of their age would normally expect to be in spite of your best efforts, there’s really no need to start a thread about it on Mumsnet (in my humble opinion).

SEN also doesnt always prevent potty training! DC1 didn't get their formal diagnosis until they were 9, and took bloody ages to potty train, later than usual (see also sleeping) but with support from nursery got there by school age. I'm not massively keen on this idea that SEN parents go 'oh well' and don't try (which is obviously not true but you see quite a bit of it on MN) and also that all kids with SEND aren't capable of any of the school readiness stuff. Having SEND doesn't mean you can't do anything.

Expectations are already pretty bloody low for children with SEND from the system, let's not add to it eh?

If he is fed up how does he think the teachers feel? There will be genuine reasons why a child might not be school ready, as you have mentioned OP. When a child has additional needs that they are born with, or may later develop, this is not the same as those who do not know the basics due to parents not teaching them. If a child is not potty trained and there is not a physical reason for this, then this is unacceptable. It is not up to school to do this. Most children should be able to master the basics. If a child is in childcare I don't know what would happen re potty training? Would the nursery deal with this as the child is with them.most of the day? OP I think most people who say they have an issue with kids not being school ready are talking about poor parenting, not parents who are doing what they should be doing.

My personal opinion is that 4 is too young to start school. I know it would be very expensive, so never going to happen, but I think keeping children in a nursery setting longer would allow time for social and physical development and for SEND to be noticed and addressed.
Nursery has twice the space and half the children. Back in my day nursery also had 2 qualified early years staff. No idea if that is still the case. IME going into reception is quite socially challenging and stressful for an only just 4 year old.
If it was up to me I would make 6 the legal age to be in school.

Let's be honest about one of the biggest causes - all of us parents have mobile phones.

We are on them quite a lot. We think we aren't, that it isn't enough to matter, but we are and it does.

Aside from disabilities, the biggest reason for a child to have good listening and speaking skills is how much they are talked to. Directly. By other humans. Screens don't count, they don't help with this.

The amount of time we spend speaking to preschoolers has dropped. Anyone who's worked in early years since the mid 90s will tell you this

We also use screens to entertain them when out and about. They aren't learning how to be bored. They aren't learning how to engage in their surroundings the way children before smart phones were.

So as well as th toilet training issue we have children who can't follow instructions, can't keep still without endless distractions and can't play cooperatively because they've missed out of hundreds of hours of socialising they'd have received in previous generations.

Well it obviously isn’t working well as kids aren’t being toilet trained

Starmer doesn’t really understand what’s going on in Britain. Just so clueless.

They are though aren’t they? Multiple teachers of reception have came on and said that only a small number of their students aren’t toilet trained. It’s just hyperbole to make parents feel shit.

My son is three and one of 28 children at his school nursery. All of the children are potty trained. The school made a big issue at the induction that all children needed to be potty trained, and for any that aren’t, parents needed to use the summer to get them there.

My 18 month old even can use a knife and fork and cup. Where are things going wrong that neurotypical children aren’t potty trained l, able to dress themselves, or able to eat with cutlery by 4-5? I think it’s good the government are focusing on this and can provide more support hopefully. Imagine how hard it would be for a teacher to have several not school ready children in a class of around 30 children.

But he really isn't talking about kids with medical needs or sen.
If your dd has delays then research ehcp so she has the support in place when she does start school.

@january1244 what country are you in? Thought that wasn’t allowed for discriminatory reasons.