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?!

Yanbu...I'd be embarassed to admit my child didnt know the days of the week.

While she might mix up tue- thu my 3.5 yo reliably knows the days of the week.

Oh I totally agree, I was just pointing out that even if a parent didn’t feel confident there were commercially produced alternatives. Also good for sharing on play dates.

I cant even with the nonsense that youre writing. Reception do maths and literacy and basics like the date every single day. In the years that I've taught the only thing that's changed is the parenting.
If a child doesn't know the days of the week by the end of year one and are NT then they're either not very academic shall we say or dont have adults that converse with them. The children only learn through play when theyre not in a group with an adult, and they need time to practice and use what they've learned or its not going to stick.

A lot of the issues when children are starting school comes down to lack of support for parents though. It’s easy to judge but so many parents had poor parenting themselves meaning they don’t know how to parent and they don’t have a support network around them to help with getting things right in those early years.

By the time children start school there are already gaps in development so schools are starting from a point of having to try to help bridge those gaps before they can move on. Working with parents and trying to provide advice of what to many seems like basics of parenting. Many parents could benefit from extra support which just isn’t there so the cycle continues.

We need to normalise support for new parents, we need a return to things like sure start centres and HV drop in sessions. We need to normalise saying “this is hard I need help”

I couldn’t agree with you more. The amount of complaints that people have on the school WhatsApp groups are just ludicrous. The expectations on schools are massive and plenty of parents don’t give a fuck about how little Johnny’s behaviour disrupts the entire class and means the teacher has less time to actually teach. So more kids fall further behind.

Many families over-schedule their kids and complain about homework given. Tarquin can’t possibly practise spellings on weekends because he has a football game, karate competition, a birthday party and oh we want to go to the pumpkin patch to take insta worthy pictures so we can show off our perfect family.

I agree that some parents only want to do the fun bits of parenting and expect the school to step in and do the rest.

If they struggle to get the days of the week in order, can’t spell their middle name and struggle with handwriting, that could possibly indicate dyslexia. I know a child with dyslexia who at that age really struggled with getting the days of the week in order and would have struggled with knowing which days were the weekend and which were weekdays. Her Mum had definitely tried to teach her.

My DC all knew the days of the week before starting school, even one that is SEN. With the exception of SEN child they learned how to spell their names at home. One of them is 16 and still has awful handwriting but excells in other areas. I don't think any of the things raised in the What's App or indicative of bad teaching. Do schools even teach children how to spell their middle names? I'm not sure they do or why they would.

Oh yes definitely. Not just learning - I work in a primary school office, 700 children, and the things parents expect are unbelievable. Drop everything to look for an unnamed jumper, make the child something special for lunch, keep the children half an hour late every day, arrange a tour on a Sunday….. I could go on. And office staff have been pared to the bone.

i have no idea how you guys put up with it. I witnessed another parent shouting at one of the poor office staff a few weeks ago because she had been given an appointment at an inconvenient time. 🙄

Where is it you want children with English as a second language to go?

Yes absolutely. DH is a high school teacher and he frequently gets told schools should teach how to manage money, being a good citizen and various basic things that are essentially parenting. The other one is along the lines of “I can’t control him/her you need to teach him how to behave”.

Thread jack

@RosesAndHellebores wrote
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.

While I agree that it’s better not to label the axes that way at primary school level, technically it’s not wrong as long as they are labelled. It’s just a convention which not everyone uses, which is why you have to label them. There’s less agreement with 3D coordinates, which we usually label x, y, z. My internet search illustrated this with the first results it produced. (See picture, when it loads)

I wouldn’t teach it that way, though.

Thread jack ends

This is Autumn 2 term. Most are only 5 years old. Their hand muscles and coordination is still developing; of course their handwriting is poor. It is also not the school's responsibility to teach children how to spell their middle names. And they will almost certainly have covered days of the week in Reception with the days of the week song. I am glad I am not teaching that class!

@Fridayyesterday ty and very interesting. Do you reckon the average primary school teacher is aware?

YANBU - schools have too much to do already and I groan when I hear someone say ‘this should be taught in schools!’.
Theres so much that you can do to educate and interest your children as a parent and it’s completely bonkers what teachers are now expected to be responsible for.

I agree but I am a teacher so I would.

Toileting comes up a lot but I would say eating is a big one. Trying different foods, being able to sit still and eat a meal, having basic table manners etc.

Another is children losing things then not putting any effort into finding them and then parents accusing us of not looking (we do). The first thing I say to my children is YOU need to look for X.

I started school in 1970 (Y1 not nursery) and none of us started with this deficit.

I’m kind of surprised by some of these comments - I did read with my kids ( now teens ) and draw and talk with them , take them different places - I have boys so it was tiring them out really . They went to preschool 4 mornings a week - and it sounds like it was a great one as they learnt lots of this basic stuff there . I’d assumed that children in full time nursery before school as so many more are now would be at a huge academic advantage . It doesn’t sound like the issue is solely one of deprivation

More likely, they haven't been informed of their middle name, and haven't had any rote repetition of the days of the week, their numbers, their ABCs.

Parents are too busy on their mobile phones.

Agree!

Also I'm amazed that people can remember who could or couldn't read in their reception class in 80s/70s. I went to school in the 90s and I'd have absolutely no clue what the other children could do.

But saying that doesn’t fit with the “good old days” agenda!

I’m an ex teacher. Parents don’t expect too much from schools, they just blame the wrong people when their expectations aren’t met. Parents have every right to be angry about huge classes, unmet SEN needs, hardly any money for resources and staff who are utterly exhausted caring and teaching their kids. It is awful. But the constant underfunding combined with taking totally the wrong approaches in primary schools in terms of testing and over formalisation of the curriculum are the fault of the government.

Be angry, vote angrily, tell your MP, become a governor and tell other parents how appallingly under funded schools are, join with SEN parents in demanding more special school places… do all this! But don’t shout at the exhausted teacher who is doing their best.

Re: eating in nursery -

If parents send in packed lunch/bento box, children have no opportunity to learn to use a knife and fork. Their food is bite sized and pre-portioned, with and without motivational messages.

Using a knife and fork has to be done at home. If their tea is similarly sandwiches or something else they can just pick up, they won't use a knife and fork. If they are lucky, their family will put priority into a roast lunch on a Sunday...

I could write my full name before I went to school. I’m surprised how many parents don’t really bother with any of that.
I was late summer born aswell so had only just turned 4 when I started school.

I actually agree with the idea that too many parents think it’s Schools job to teach their child basic stuff but…

This comment rankled. The original comment by IkaBaar was spot on. These things are an early indicator of dyslexia.
DD2 struggled with all these things - I can't tell you how many hours of my life I spent trying. She is now 12. Still spells her name wrong if she’s in a hurry. Still can’t count in 2s,5s or 10s. Still has almost zero concept of telling the time. Took forever to learn the days of the week and months of the year.
And was diagnosed with dyslexia aged 7. And dyscalculia aged 9.

This was despite reading to her daily, doing all the little things (counting Everything from sweets she was given to stairs as we climbed them to sticks we collected…). We counted in 2s daily for about six months until I gave up in despair as she still couldn’t get past 10 and was getting upset.

It would have been easy to assume I’d done nothing. These things are indeed an indication of SEN - worth bearing in mind.