To think parents expect too much of schools?

[Arbel]

We all know state schools are desperately underfunded, with big class sizes and kids with English as a second language and unmet SEN needs lumped into mainstream.

I have a son in year 2 and a daughter in year 5. Last night on the year 2 WhatsApp, several mums were bemoaning the fact that their kids don’t know the days of the week in order, can’t spell their own middle names and have illegible handwriting. Surely as parents, you care enough to educate your own kids on such basic matters?!

We all prioritise differently.

Not being that person but both parents have been working more or less since the 80s and certainly the 90s. Sloppy parenting and failure to take responsibility is the problem, really. Whatever the current social problem, schools are asked to mop it up. They simply can't. Not enough hours in the day and not enough funding and support.

I think it works both ways to be honest. Parents (and the government / society) expect too much to be covered in schools but I also think schools have gradually started encroaching on home life too much now and it’s driving resentment and blurring expectations.

When I was at primary school not too long ago, we went to school, could have anything in our packed lunch, we had a bit of homework from time to time and we wore a sensible uniform.

Now schools are dictating the order in which kids eat their lunch, have constant communications with parents via email and WhatsApp, expect huge inputs into World Book Day costumes and the like, book expensive trips, request things are brought in at short notice (also true from my time, to be fair) and have nonsense rules surrounding the colour of socks and hair that is either too long or too short and burden six year olds with pages of homework to be down each week.

So yeah, if the expectation on parents has increased then so should the expectation on schools.

When mine were at primary, mid noughties, I used to go into school and read with them. In every class there were half a dozen Asian dc whose parents did not have English as their first language. I made some progress with them and found if I wrote in the reading record "it will help your child to read this book with them and write in the reading record", they usually did it.

The head of KS1 asked me if I would be prepared as a volunteer to formalise the arrangement and come in weekly, for an hour or two and focus on those children. I agreed providing there was a session with those parents to explain how important ot was to read with the children and get them chatting about the pictures, etc. The head teacher declined on the basis it was inappropriate in her opinion. I therefore was unable to give my time as freely as requested.

Yes, we do, and my priorities are very different from a lone parent working shifts with multiple children. That person's priorities will be different from a mum with a school refuser following parent loss. As I said, trite saying.

'Twas ever thus. Parents who are more involved and invested in their children's education do more at home and have better outcomes for their children. It's staggering what some parents think is someone else's responsibility other than their own.

Schools dictating that children can only bring fruit for their morning snack v schools constantly cancelling PE. Only one of those things are part of the curriculum and should be prioritised imo.

It is a collaboration with the school, homework has existed forever so if the school is sending home material to follow up with then we ought to be doing it. I do agree with incorporating learning at home before school for example learning to count can be fun game as we climb the stairs to bed. The toys you buy have to be a mixture of shape games and colours.

I'm 35 years into teaching.
There's been a massive decline in ALL basic skills in the last 10-15 years, but it's particularly noticeable in language skills.

It's no surprise that many year twos don't know colours or days of the week.
I can remember doing activities with students in the early 2000s that are absolutely unthinkable with current students. They just don't have the vocabulary, the oral expression, the listening comprehension or the attention span that we used to expect.

I can't count the number of parent information days or new parents' evenings where the headteacher spouts out that school is a partnership of parents, teachers and children, when parents seem to nod then mishear this and pass this on to their children. Teachers definitely do the heavy lifting (as if they are also not parents or time-poor).

My Y5 neighbours a few doors down are particularly fluent with the f-word.

As I have said already mine were at primary in the noughties. I expected their primary to educate them. The Head Teacher always seemed more concerned with telling a largely degree educated cohort how to parent. What to feed them, brushing their teeth, and don't get me started on the newsletter about why teachers striking should be supported and applauded.

Sadly, some of the teachers could not construct grammatically correct sentences, could not spell and one taught my son that the x axis was vertical and the y axis horizontal.

It isn't just a parenting issue, too many teachers are ill equipped to teach literacy and numeracy.

My DC started school reading, and knew their numbers to at least 20, colours and days of the week.

The thing is that everyone is afraid of their kids coming to harm if they are not on screens. If they are on a screen then they are not getting hit by a car, or rummaging in the knife drawer, or eating the weeds in the garden (myDS did this), or boiling the kettle, or any of the other million wild things that kids do.

Mothers are trying to keep their kids from physical injury but letting them on screens, but then the kids' behaviour goes off the dock from being on screens and it is very hard to go back.

If any of the people who are judging these mothers would pitch in and help a bit then it would really be good, but I can be my bottom dollar that these kids who are not school ready are also not getting the party invitations or the play dates.

Mothers just can't win, I think.

When my kids started school, they could read, write, count etc (age appropriate) and had social skills.

At the other end, I employed private tutors to get them through all the exams.

All I required, in between, is for teachers to teach them properly.

This was years ago, but surely, everyone just needs the same. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, but the change of month doesn’t happen often enough for them the register the order of the months, and then carry their previous knowledge to remember the sequence.

Also, in England they aren’t in school in August. 😉

I work in an infant school and the amount of children not school ready has definitely grown (lots of children not fully toilet trained).
There are so many more children with additional needs too and no funding for them (very long waiting lists means it takes longer for a diagnosis therefore a longer wait for funding).
We still just have one teacher and one TA but the expectation on us is so much more.

There are always children who never do homework or read at home and the gap between those and the children who do get support at home just gets bigger and bigger. Due to this we need to do more with those children at school to ensure they keep up.
We have some parents who strongly believe all teaching should be done at school and none of it done at home.

I really agree with this.

If my son had been allowed to come home to eat lunch it would have transformed his chances.

All the mandatory "enrichment" just scared him.

If the school had stuck to teaching and allowed my DS some head space to live his actual life outside of school, then many things would have been better.

I really am very confused about why the secondary school was so proud of having 300+ trips a year, then said they couldn't afford subject specialist teachers or class sizes of under 38 in some subjects.

I live in a pretty nice, northern commuter town. Whilst not amazingly wealthy, deprivation and unemployment is low. Pretty much all of the kids in reception could count to ten, knew the alphabet, knew colours and probably knew the days of the week (I’m less sure on that). I am always amazed at parties how interesting and chatty most of them are. I don’t recognise this massive decline talked about on this thread.

Whilst most kids at our school have 2 working parents, both of those parents are educated to at least school leaving standard (often much, much higher) and there is enough disposable income to substitute the lack of a SAHM (as was so common in the sort of town I live in now in the 80s and 90s) with educational experiences around school hours, such as decent wrap around care, extra tuition, extra curricular activities or retired grandparent(s).

So whilst I don’t doubt the teachers on this thread, I wonder if this is symptomatic of the horrendous and worsening inequality in this county. Basically, the divide between the kids that have and the kids that don’t have is getting wider and wider and is showing as early as age 4. I would be interested where some of the teachers on this thread work and what they think.

We have a shocking number of children in nappies in Reception and Year 1.

We have children that come to school regularly without breakfast, even though their parents have food in the house, because they can't be arsed to sort them out in the mornings.

We have children with crisps and chocolate for 'lunch' in their lunchboxes.

We have children that have broken, rotting teeth that are just shocking to see.

We have children who can't use cutlery.

We have children who come in with fevers, obviously quite ill (rashes, pox), have been sick in the night - or that morning - whose parents won't answer the phone when they're called to collect them.

We have parents who argue with us about returning their sick-bug/tummy bug child to us because they don't want to keep them home the required 24 or 48 hours (age-dependent).

We have parents who refuse to properly treat their children's nits.

We have parents who tell their children they don't have to do X Y or Zed at the classroom doors 'if they don't want to'. Thanks for that. The curriculum is not optional for your child.

We have children who are late Every Single Day because their parents can't be arsed to get them in on time. Or at all in many cases.

We have parents who do nothing educational with their children, including basic reading, and their sheer disdain for education shows in their children's constantly poor and disruptive behaviour at school, meaning they're well behind in everything ... yet are then constantly outraged that their term time holidays are not authorised. So call their healthy children in sick instead.

We have parents whose children are violent and rude and terrify other children but their parents will not accept that their child are ever the problem.

It's soul destroying ...

I agree with you but I'm not sure why you are surprised. Many families have two working parents and are time poor, often parents on here bemoan having to do any kind of homework or learning outside of school because that is what school is for and weekends are for family time. I hear this from my own dh. My own parents couldn't really help with homework once I got to secondary but at primary they would test me on spellings,my dad would get me to add up the kwiksave receipt to check it was right and I had to write out the shopping list every week to practice writing and spelling.

I read daily with our 3. I do spellings with them weekly,10 minute hand writing practice every other day and maths or time table practice. I find the time because I value their education and know whilst their teachers do their best for them my child is 1 of 20 or 30. For me they are a bigger priority so I take the time be it on the school run, whilst I'm cooking their dinner etc. It isn't easy as our eldest does have sen but to make sure they reach their potential we have to take an interest, at least that is my thinking.

Yes parents these days appear to have given up on teaching their own kids. The teachers cannot make a dent if the groundwork isn’t laid at home

I think that one of the problems with schools is that more and more is expected of them. My heart always sinks when someone says that "XYZ should be taught in schools" because quite often XYZ is something that could be taught at home. Things like using cutlery, tooth brushing, knife safety. Schools are not going to be able to solve all the ills of society.

I would be quite irritated if my children's school told me how to parent but then didn't send reading books home.

Having said that, I would expect a school to have taught the days of the week (I think my children sang a song to learn them).

God bless our teachers honestly. Absolute heroes

I spoke to a parent as part of my job recently and she was annoyed school weren’t helping her teenager enough with his reading, writing and handwriting. He cannot read his own handwriting. I asked her what they usually do at home to practice and she seemed genuinely flummoxed by this and said they do nothing at home. And then continued to complain about school.

🤔 I spent about an hour in the morning with my DC ... and then about 4-5 hours in the afternoon/ evening- reduced to about 2.5 hours while working full-time. Some of this time is taken up by breakfast & dinner, some for homework and some for bedtime. One or 2 days DC go for stuff like swimming and football or whatever. This is 5 days a week. I would expect the school to at least be able to lay the foundations for general knowledge as they spent an equal amount of time with the DC during the week. This obviously needs to be followed up via homework.