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.

UK. I think they cannot ban children who aren’t, but they basically said in the induction and the presentation and the written materials that the expectation was they would be potty trained and that any that aren’t, parents should put real focus on this over the summer break

IME pretty much every child in reception is out of nappies and what is actually meant are DC having the odd accident, just like in the past. I'm not convinced that that much has changed for the children. IME a small minority of newly qualified teachers/TAs would like you to believe that the job is different when actually it is the attitude of a small minority of those that chose these roles. Obviously some the attitudes are linked to pay/lack of resources in the classroom/high expectations from the curriculum meaning teachers are stressed but this shouldn't be transferred to parents.

https://ihv.org.uk/news-and-views/news/teachers-report-that-growing-numbers-of-children-are-not-ready-for-school/

Pretty much every child? Then what was the report all about?

I was just talking to someone about toilet training yesterday. There is much more of an emphasis on looking for signs of readiness now, whereas I suspect my DM’s generation (parenting in the 1970s and 1980s) toilet trained at particular ages regardless of whether the child seemed ready.

Also, many more mothers were at home full time and I do think toilet training is something that needs a consistent approach where you stay home for several days at a time. If children are moving between several settings, that has to be harder to implement. And maybe parents were more confident - there was perhaps more of a “village” of support and advice than there is now.

I’m not saying some parents aren’t lazy but I think the reasons for this one are more complex in most cases.

But the poster above is taking about toilet training. Your link is about school readiness which is not (amazingly according to this thread) just toilet training.

As I've said the report doesn't mention nappies, it says that 1 in 4 children are not toilet trained. It depends on a persons definition of toilet trained. I have never experienced a class were 25% were in nappies, but I could find it plausible that 25% may have the odd accident, like they did when I was a child.

I also think, to be fair, what a lot of people called toilet training in the past was just “catching wee” and not training the child at all.

It’s parental failure.

I have involvement with schools. There are more children coming to school not properly toilet trained, it’s much more than the occasional accidental wee. Wet patches after carpet time are an occupational hazard! But we have YR classes where up to 25% will have recorded toilet training issues

So there's much more going on then - some sort of disablity - so not the normal situation you were trying to make out it was. .

So are we thinking it might be area dependent? Or some other factors? Or just not as big an issue as it’s made out to be? I can’t find anything contentious in what Kier said, he was emphasising he wanted all children to start school from a level position.

With regards to children that go to nursery, the toddler room at our private nursery has a toilet room with cubicles like in a school. From age two, and I always saw children using them at drop offs and pickups. I don’t think it’s fair to blame working parents, as many of us work full time, but our children are toilet trained at two. We either pick a holiday, or take a few days off to get it underway

According to the report, 1 in 4 children not toilet trained. Perfectly relevant to this thread.

I should imagine its a combination of nappies, accidents? Either way toileting issues shouldn't be happening in such large numbers with kids who are not SEN.

Being school ready isn't just about being out of nappies - it's the tabloid press who have picked up on this single aspect and made it such a big thing. Not being school ready means; underdeveloped communication and social skills, unable to follow instructions, unable to sit and listen to a story, not having sufficinet fine motor skills to start writing letters and numbers, not being able to wipe their own bottoms, not being able to take their coats on and off and not being able to play nicely with other children.

I think there is a huge difference between 25% of the class not being properly toilet trained and leading people to believe that in an average class 7 or 8 DC start reception in nappies, as that is simply not true. IME many of the not properly trained DC that need support are on NHS waiting lists and many of these DC later get a diagnosis or help. I believe we also have less resources in the classroom to help DC and notice they need the toilet/remind them to try. When I was at school we had atleast 2 TAs in reception class and there was much less actual learning in reception.

In my experience (as a parent) it is usually the DC that trained earlier rather than later that are still having accidents at school.

Are you telling someone that her experience is simply not true? Wow.

Where have I said her experience isnt true? I have said there is a difference between accidents and wearing nappies in school.

People read these stories and believe things have changed since their DC were at school, because everyone in their DCs class was out of nappies but some had the accidents. I am saying that it is the same today, that some DC have accidents. The aren't many wearing nappies in reception.

School readiness isn’t just about toilet training, it’s an obvious physical factor that’s tricky but some schools don’t have high numbers and that’s good.

A pp mentioned nurseries having small numbers and more staff so able to potty train - private nurseries do, and they are great at it, council/school nurseries have higher numbers and 1-4 members of staff,
So say you have 30 kids, 5 still in nappies might not sound a lot but takes at least 1 adult away at any given time, and that’s breaking rules tbh as there should be 2 adults present when changing children, then you have children who may or may not be diagnosed with ALN, at nursery age they will likely require a 1:1, that leaves 1 adult for all the rest of the children, and then some of these children will not be ‘school ready‘ so you’ll have potentially 20+ children to keep an eye on that don’t follow simple instruction, can’t sit for a story, can’t interact with adults or their peers.
Spend a morning in an early years setting and you’ll find yourself exhausted!

To add to what a pp touched on too, ALN isn’t always an excuse for not toilet training, we’ve had lots of children come through the infants with diagnosed & undiagnosed (but awaiting assessment) need that are toilet trained, we’ve even toilet trained a child with ASD in year 1 who ‘wasn’t ready’ at home but took to it like a duck to water in school with some gentle encouragement and reminders.
(Disclaimer; I’m not suggesting all children with suspected or actual ALN will be ready or able, just that for some children it will be achievable)

I don’t know how true it is, but I read at the time that Sure Start was avoided by too many of the parents of the children who would most have benefited from it, because they thought it would mean too many bossy, ‘middle class’ women telling them where they were going wrong.

My Dmum said that - they often only realised when routines were disrupted often by hoildays.

They also worked to routines - so go before leaving drill to go to toilets at school breaks - I've seen that sort of bladder training frowned on by some these days.

Now there more emphaiss on letting them learn body signals - which is great till you get often ND kids who have poor feedbacks.

DS has very poor interoception skills body singals he doesn feel so even a teen he gets dehydrated.

I remember the teachers storming out later to complain in preschool year as DS had one at 3 - but he was stood right by the toilets made no attempt to get there and they left for for next 20 minutes in wet clothes surpised he wasn't bothered. DS was fine most of the time but end of terms and if he was coming down ill then he'd often have accidents.

As PP pointed out when you look at the surveys these headline get based on it not really kids in nappies -though that may be on the increase- it's accidents - and kids struggling in class room enviroments often with undiagonsed SEN/ND or youngest in school year are most likely to have it happen.

Incidentally mine could use cultery and get dressed - though made that easy as possible - could follow instructions but were often left exhuatsed by school and older two did have accidents which woudl put them in these sureveys as problems.

Our youngest who doesn't have poor body feeback older two do and was trained in a week when she suddenly announced she was not having nappies any more. She didn't have any accidnets at school and I got told I finally worked out how to toilet train - no I'd finally had a child who got body feedback messages - and is likely only one without ADHD - though she has a few processing issues.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHERSure Start did nothing for dc who didn’t go. Believe me, a good proportion of the ones who needed it. There’s a myth been built up around this. Spaces were taken by dc who didn’t need the service. Parents were not compelled to go and many were too chaotic to go or simply did not care.

So, why are so many children now falling behind in being ready for school? Why has it become an issue now?

I've heard so far,

Parents too busy.
Not a SAHM.
Continuity issues with carers.
Nappies too comfortable.
Children go to school too young.

Are these valid reasons, really? At the end of the day school is about learning. Learning only. Any children, not including SEN of course (which has never been the issue), that are no school ready is a parental issue surely. Parents literally are in responsible for their kids, nobody else. I realise that is an unpopular view here on MN.

I heard that a lot of the children who didn’t actually need it were attending. But AFAIK there was no assessment - nobody was saying, ‘Oh, you seem like a nice MC parent, your child won’t need it, go home.’

Was it recommended by SWs or HVs to parents of children who’d benefit? If so, I can imagine that in itself putting people off, if it implied any criticism of their parenting.

A lot of money is being given to Ofsted registered childcare

Is that tax payer funded childcare failing our children?

But why would it be? My experience of nurseries through both a toddler and a preschooler is that they support potty training. Understandably children have to be started with the intensive potty training at home, but then they have supported us with continuing. Same for my friends. It is ultimately the parents responsibility - and we both work more than full time hours and trained ours. Our friends also