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.

How do you know at 4 for certain that they are NT though? That’s the point.

It’s fine saying they should be ready etc… however at that age it’s impossible for the average Jo to know whether or not those difficulties are due to ‘neglect’ or whether there is underling SEN. Most ND isn’t diagnosed until much later unless it’s the extreme end. There are people with ASD that have degrees and are more academic than the average person, yet they struggle to get their clothes on…. It’s not as simple as lazy parenting.

Agree, we shouldn’t be lessening expectations based on parental failures rather than what should be normal development.

The parents around me are woeful. Half of the kids are visibly obese by 7 or 8. The parents rush them to the corner shop after school pick up for more sweets and crisps. They ignore the letters telling them their children are fat and chuck them away, claiming it’s all a big body shaming conspiracy. They bring the kids mobiles so they can stare at them all the way home. Their only parenting tools are food and screen time, and if that fails, make up some excuse about the kid having some complex psychological tendency which means they can’t behave.

While I’m in favour of strict immigration control simply due to overcrowding, I will add these are mostly white working or middle class parents. The above doesn’t seem to apply to the immigrant families here.

I’d also agree there’s a shift in expectations and children just aren’t expected to do small self care tasks that would have been normal not that long ago. Busy parents probably find it easier to just do things for them.

DS1 started school at just turned 5 (due to a house move). DS2 started at just turned 4. There is a huge difference in a year at that age and IME, no allowances made in a class of 30.

Potty trained, know how to clean themselves after a poo (best effort basis…), knows how to eat with cutlery (even if uses hands occasionally), can get changed for PE (even if the clothes are sometimes back to front), can put coat / shoes on, is used to sitting down for 10-15min to listen to a story or watch something not on a screen.

Well he’s the Prime Minister, so I’m afraid it’s his job to address it, not be ‘sick and tired’ of anything. The majority of the country are sick and tired of him, but we still have to put up with it for another few years.

I am staggered at the number of Y4 - Y6 (with no additional support needs) who still cannot use a tissue or wash their hands. Those are things they should have learned before they started school.

Yep

I think we are all tired of ‘addressing’ aka paying for intensive support for lazy adults to escape their most basic duties

I guess it might be a bit of a dig at parents increasingly thinking that teachers should take on the responsibilities of parenting. A lot of ‘gentle’ parenting seems to absolve parents of actually preparing their children for a classroom situation. Some aren’t properly toilet trained, some have a poor relationship with food, some have no social skills, some have barely touched a book or learnt to count, some don’t know how to re-act to the word ‘no’. It’s important that parents understand that education for academia and social skills actually starts at home and not just in the classroom.

I despair of some of the kids I see who are absolutely massive. I'm not talking about "puppy fat" i'm talking about rolls and rolls of fat.

I think we've lost sight of what a normal kid should actually look like. You should be able to see their ribs for example.

All of the above is fine and dandy but none of its relative if a child has undiagnosed SEN. No amount of involvement is going to make the issues significantly better, so it wouldn’t matter what the parents did/didn’t do because ultimately they will likely struggle throughout to varying degrees.

I have worked with preschoolers and reception aged children for nearly 30 years and have seen the level children attend nursery 3+ and reception drop significantly. Many eat with their fingers, their expressive language is poor, they have poor attention and they are not toilet trained. There is a significantly higher level of children with significant additional needs. Everything seems to have got worse and it’s really concerning.
There are always the exceptions but as a whole the picture is not healthy. Parents do need to do more. TV, tablets, phones are probably at the heart of why things are deteriorating not just for the children but for the parents too.

I would assume if both parents are in work then the child would be at nursery, then surely the child would be learning most of these skills and the family would be getting support from them?

He’s right though.

He’s stating the bleeding obvious.

I don’t know a person in education who isn’t absolutely fed up with the amount of kids coming into school absolutely unprepared.

And I am not talking about those with particular needs.

Parents need to step up!

It puts a lot of pressure on early years staff who get judged on school readiness

It’s interesting I absolutely hated nursery and primary for my son. He was toilet trained at 2 and hit all the usual milestones but what’s the deal with the less educated parents types wanting to keep them babies for as long as possible.? They do it in a tone that makes sound like they really care and it’s good parenting. Needless to say the wilder more inquisitive children like my son got complained about as they reckoned their child was “too young to hear about some stuff”. I can’t even remember what it was as it was totally trivial to me. Yet these ones have teenagers with far greater problems and parent with this mindset seems to have children that didn’t do well in secondary.

There’s seems to be a mindset that keeping your kid behind and sheltering them from stupid stuff (not dangerous stuff) has them well controlled.

The other issue is primary school being coy about where your child is. I remember asking what maths group my son was in and they refused to tell me, he was accessed as gifted but I’m sure they put him in lower group, which they simply couldn’t in secondary. You have to ignore the school and do your own education at home to ensure they stay on track.

I have never once met a middle class professional parent who behaves the strange way these “keep them babies for as long as possible” do. They literally inhibit their child’s development, slag off other children all so they can stay in control of their younger kids. The school should be telling these parents their kids need to be more independent. Also speaking of that I think kids in the private sector are way more self sufficient and independent than the state school ones.

So it’s not just ‘better diagnosis’ as everyone insists when this debate comes up?

I invited 5 of DS school friends to tea when they were 7 or 8 and was pretty taken aback at their behaviour at the table - no please or thank yous, throwing food, putting food on their face, crawling under the table, answering back, pouring eg 1/4 bottle of ketchup onto a plate (that they weren't going to eat) etc.

None were from deprived or dysfunctional homes, one has since been diagnosed with ADHD (the others i know fairly well, and none have SEN) but most just had zero table manners.
Other parents commented how good my kids manners were but its just the basics (please, thank you, sitting at the table etc, its not rocket science)

I agree with that in general terms for sure
and parenting (or lack of, is probably more apt) will have an impact in some situations, but those who end up with SEN later on will
present like that too so it’s difficult to distinguish between lazy parenting and SEN

WTF?!! How many 10 year olds have you seen who don’t know how to wash their hands?!? I can’t believe you’ve seen any, let alone a staggering number.

Yes, all children develop.differently, and all preschool.and kindergarten teachers where I live are well able to handle the odd (predictable) accident. When my DCs went to school, parents were asked to send a spare set of clothing in preschool and kindergarten.

But there has been a marked rise in numbers of parents who have simply checked out of the hard or boring bits of parenting (i.e. approximately 80% of it). A few years ago, a teacher friend in a suburban British school remarked that she was seeing children of 5 who had never used a scissors and who were nonplussed by the idea of creating something artsy all by themselves using construction paper (to be cut into various geometric shapes), scissors, glue, scraps of fabric, pipe cleaners, and other bits and bobs (scarecrows for a harvest theme).

So who is missing the sure start centres then?

I’d also say that the it takes a village aspect had been lost.
So in past children would have been clearly told to sit on bottom and listen at library story time, Sunday school, toddler group etc whereas now adult much less likely to ask in case of additional needs, parent reacting badly etc.
Now even something mild like sit down so everyone can enjoy the story can result in parental complaint.

I don’t think it’s gentle parenting that’s the issue. Parents usually invest in reading, listening, modelling better behaviour. There may be a cohort that’s not ready but it’ll be something else driving it (I don’t mean SEN in this).