School Readiness

[MissLead]

So on the news this morning it was reported that 37% of kids going to school in UK are not deemed ‘ready’ often lacking basic speech and not being toilet trained.

Assuming these kids have no medical conditions - there must be some bloody lazy parents out there!!

Ex-primary teacher of 15+ years. Yes there are. And noticably worse now than when I first qualified in 2008.

My mum (teacher) has been saying this for years. Too much "gentle parenting", not enough parents being in charge/upholding standards

Oh good, we haven't had a thread on this for about 3.5 minutes.

i can’t remember the percentage, it was not insignificant, many don’t know how a book works apparently. They tap it and try to zoom in etc.

Or some parents are both working flat out doing full time hours and long commutes to pay their huge monthly rent or mortgage.

I was a single full-time-working mum. I used a child minder rather than a nursery, a lady with 30 years experience. She was a Godsend.

I openly admit she led on potty training and I followed. Without her, my ds might have been in that situation. DS is my only dc, I had no experience and I was working flat out to provide for us. I did, however teach him his letters and to count.

Don't judge others too hastily. Circumstances vary.

Quite a massive issue of relevance on a parenting forum though isn’t it? Im not
surprised it gets a lot of discussion - it’s horrifying.

Does that 37% match the number of kids not in early years childcare? Nursery made sure mine were school ready.

You think there are too many threads about neglected children?

Scroll past 🤷‍♂️

It would be if the threads were in any way helpful. Nobody ever seems to post saying they have a great idea as to how to fix it, or offering individual help or support to parents struggling with this. It's always just judgement and badly hidden relief that their child is not like those children. It's the virtual equivalent of playground sneering.

As this is AIBU I thought this might be a question like "in order to get my son ready to start school, DH wants to focus on phonics, but I want to ignore that in favour of potty training. AIBU?"

Similarly, if you don't like my comment, you can always scroll past if you want 😊

The report highlights that in an average classroom, one full day of teaching time each week is taken up with changing nappies or helping children to use the toilet. 22% of parents surveyed did not think it was their responsibility to toilet train. Many children don't know how to eat. Some have never seen a book.

You're making a tit of yourself now.

You don't like the thread and yet here you are, posting to take it off on a tangent.

And that certainly helped in our case too.

A PP mentioned something about two parents having to work FT flat out. Well that pretty much summed us up. But surely if you are in that position then you have to arrange child care. In our case that was a very good day nursery which certainly helped with potty training, feeding and general socialisation.

If you are not both working full time then that must mean at least one parent around to provide the child care. So what are they not doing now that they used to?

Given 18.4% of children in England are considered to come under SEND and then there will be a number who have other conditions and reasons to not be diagnosed or have other conditions (11% or children are registered as disabled, although there will be some overlap) and 31% of children live in poverty perhaps it’s not the parents you need to blame at all but the lack of support?

Some people don't like to hear it or even consider it, but if parents spend as much time with their noses stuck in their phones at home, as many do when they're out and about, they will be neglecting these things.

🤣 No, I'm not. I'm pointing out how unhelpful these threads are. It isn't a tangent.

How does living in poverty prevent a parent from teaching their child how to use a toilet, or how a book works?

Is this your input no.other conversation about it ?

I think the overall % was lower and the 1in3 statistic was for the West Midlands... not sure what's going on up there!

I don't think schools should have to accept children who are not really for school. Not fair on the other kids or on the teachers.

What do you consider early years? My DS went to pre school for 15 hrs a week. He was potty trained, had an extensive vocabulary and knew how books worked etc. He was 3yr and 2 months old. They didn't take children who weren't potty trained.

My youngest is 18, oldest in their 30s. With each of them we had a list of things that should be expected before school.
If I remember it was things like being able to manage to put their coat on and manage shoes. Be able to dress. Be able to sit and listen to a story, that kind of thing.

I totally agree. Posters do not want to discuss SEN or cuts to support services, but instead blame lazy parenting. The threads always go the same way 'disability didn't exist in my day' 'disabled and neglected children do not deserve an education'. It is a pointless discussion when set out using inflammatory headlines in AIBU.

Some of these children will have undiagnosed SEN.

When my dc were little there was a children's centre where parents could go to for help and advice and health visitors in abundance. We had free books from bookstart, workshops on weaning, potty training, libraries, baby signing etc. Now the children's centre is gone and the government is focusing on partly funding childcare instead. So now the children are getting early years education but nobody is teaching the parents. There isn't a lot a nursery can do without the parents being on board.

Also as a PP said, there will be children whose parents are both working long hours who can't manage to get their child school ready.

Everybody knows children have to learn to use a toilet at some point do.these busy parents expect their children to just teach themselves ?

I think the loss of surestart and other provision is a factor, and it’s reinstatement would help.
I do really feel for the teachers and if SEN is not the issue then poor parenting surely is. If you are working so hard that you can’t teach your child to eat and toilet then it is abusive and parents are failing their children I think. There is plenty of information out there online, tonnes of very cheap books in charity shops etc. Abdicating responsibility cos it’s hard seems pretty poor (and I’m a single mother who works).