What exactly is the strictness in English schools actually achieving?

[WaitAMinutePlease]

I’ve been on Mumsnet for years and one thing that genuinely puzzles me is how strict many English schools seem to be.

The thread today about the little boy with severe leg pain, and his mum asked if he could temporarily leave school at 1.30pm instead of 3.30pm because he’s struggling physically. The school apparently refused and said they wouldn’t “release” him. (Sorry? You won’t ‘release’ MY child??? WTAF!)

I see similar threads all the time. Parents being threatened with fines over attendance, children not being allowed time off for family holidays, requests for flexibility being refused, schools insisting on attendance despite medical issues that are still being investigated, and so on.

I’m Irish, and honestly this feels ridiculous to me. Irish schools are generally much more pragmatic. If a child was struggling with a health issue, even one that hadn’t yet been formally diagnosed, most schools would work with the parents. Reduced hours, work sent home, flexibility around attendance, none of that would seem remotely controversial. Equally, while schools don’t encourage term-time holidays, taking children out of school for a family holiday isn’t generally treated as some major disciplinary issue.

What I don’t understand is what the strictness is actually achieving. Ireland has a higher proportion of students progressing to third-level education than England by a mile (approx 76% vs 46%), so it’s not obvious to me that a highly punitive attendance culture produces better educational outcomes.

So my question is: why are English schools like this?

Is it government pressure? Ofsted? League tables? Funding linked to attendance? Or is it actually genuinely believed that this level of strictness benefits children?

My point was more about parents expecting free stuff but not wanting to pay for it through taxes. Lazy parenting is also true and very annoying. But if you’re a selfish person, like the person on the thread about wanting her child to have all of the toys at the swimming pool then you’re going to teach your child to be oblivious about other people’s needs.

Especially those who are not academic, but really want to learn. They are usually in lower sets with disruptive pupils.

Correct. Most behaviour at school has been learnt at home.

You mean England?

Is there any evidence at all about OFSTED and league tables improving schooling in the slightest? If not then it’s a waste of money and stress. From what I’ve heard teachers spend way too much time on bureaucracy which would be much better spent on teaching.

Also have academies improved anything at all? Another scheme that was about big restructuring that costs a lot to implement but does it improve anything.

The one thing you don’t mention is home.
Students start secondary school at 11, by then the pattern has been set. If a parent cannot help their child, why do they expect miracles from schools?

Yes that’s so unfair. Maybe it would be better overall to just put all of the disruptive kids together to not learn as much as they want.

A qualified subject specific teacher? Giving a child a worksheet isn’t teaching and it’s not learning. If that’s the case why do we send kids to school at all. Just give them a worksheet and let them do it at home.

That’s what they do at our school. But in the subjects without sets, it can be horrendous. It’s almost a relief when they walk out to pace the corridors.

I think there is one huge difference between teaching in Ireland and England. I have some Irish connections including a cousin's daughter who teaches in an all Irish school (Gaelscoil), and another who is a secondary teacher.

Looking from afar it seems to me that the teaching profession in England is not all that highly valued, respected or paid all that well, and many extra hours are required for little recompense. Lack of respect for the profession from society, parents and the State (pay and conditions) is something I have noticed. I don't have any children myself BTW, I just notice this!

In Ireland on the other hand, the teaching profession is very highly regarded, it is a great career with excellent pay and conditions and parents respect the educators of their children. That is a huge difference IMO.

Maybe that's a factor in the difference between the two countries. I don't know, but there is a huge difference in attitude towards the profession in both countries.

Would anyone like to comment or am I totally off the wall here!

Not many parents are qualified teachers though are they? If parents struggle to ensure their children have the right equipment, they are hardly going to cope with teaching high level Maths are they?

In one word, nope.

My kids secondary had a rep for being overly strict and 'military style strictness' I don't recognise that at all. Yes they do come down on them in the earlier years to set the boundaries and expectations and in my opinion it's a good thing.

The school has been great for my kids and they have been seen, they have a great relationship with the staff/teachers.

There is a balance but the strictness is also to instill a bit of responsibility in the kids. It really is up to them to remember the PE Kit, the right material for the class etc and not for parents to blame all and anything when their children are disorganised or couldn't care less.

@Treesnthings As a N Irish person who moved to England as an adult, and has had a now young adult son with SEN go through schooling here, I agree with you that the teachers are also under a crazy amount of pressure from OFSTED and league tables over attendance and academic performance. I definitely agree improving teachers’ lot would probably have a beneficial effect for students too. Really both teachers and students are under pressure from external targets set by OFSTED and competition from league tables.

When I was at school back in the day, of course the school cared about students’ exam results but there was a general ethos of the priority being more on encouraging a love of learning for its own sake and encouraging individual talents and passions over final academic grades, a lot more choice and diversity in the curriculum, a lot more emphasis on extracurricular activities, unison and belonging in school life, showing initiative etc. Being a “well rounded” student academically who also had time for at least one of arts or sports, extracurricular activity, friendship, family life and community contribution was seen as genuinely more important than having a handful of A star grades in exams. A teacher wouldn’t have regarded it as a failure if they’d inspired a love of their subject in a child, even if that student missed out on a good grade.

To be fair, it was also a lot easier to get into uni back then even for competitive degrees like Medicine (Oxbridge was still hard to get into!). So that’s part of it too, I was shocked at the high grades required for most traditionally academic subjects at a half-decent university these days.

But if I were PM, I’d try to lessen the grip OFSTED has over schools, allow heads to have a bit more discretion in practice than they do now over authorising leave during term time, and make sure no child with serious long term illness such as cancer or their family are being penalised through lack of attendance. As a GP I have seen way too much of that, and have even had students missing chemotherapy sessions over worries about attendance percentages or exam grades, which tells me our priorities are crazily out of whack as a society.

Basically I would somehow try to encourage a focus I think we’ve lost over time on metrics that are less measurable but core to a student flourishing at school. And track the metrics on good mental health and happiness overall and with specific reference to a school environment a lot more closely, and respond to them if they are going downhill.

@Differentforgirls the UNICEF report card cites United Kingdom rather than England.

Yes but OFSTED only operates in England.

I think there's some truth in that but the schools need to pick their battles and concentrate on the issues that affect teaching and learning.

The obvious thing that they worry far too much about is the perfectness of the uniform. Just simplify it and get on with worrying about the things that really affect teaching and learning, like general classroom behaviour,

I don't agree that being strict on trainers means kids behave better otherwise. If anything it works the other way because you can't have respect for pointless and petty rules.

English schools are not all the same. My DD's secondary is nothing like the zero tolerance examples here. Nobody is getting detentions or isolations for minor uniform or equipment infractions.
Most students attend and engage in learning, but poor attendance and a minority of pupils are disruptive and defiant. The causes of these issues are multi-faceted and they are not purely the result of zero tolerance environments. Staff invest massive resources in trying to address them, but there arent easy answers.

I think there is a shift in how some people view responsibility. Some parents can be quick to point the finger at teachers if their child doesnt do well rather than examining their child's level of engagement in the classroom and studying at home. I am frankly amazed that so many people seem to think that secondary aged neurotypical students without the challenges of poverty should not be expected to turn up to a lesson with a biro or at least ask politely to borrow one if they forget. Draconian punishments are over the top, but encouranging students to take responsibility for there own learning (part of which is organising their own basic equipment) is part of education. Removing the most basic of expectations to avoid conflicts is setting the bar very low.

Back in the day you could have 10 days? Holiday during term time.

My son had mental health issues self harming suicidal. Refusing school. Tried a reduced time table they would only agree to doing it for 2 weeks. On one of the days he was meant to go to school after lunch he got there a little early during the lunch break and the member staff/SLT who was dealing with the situation started shouting at him for being early. He left . At one point he went missing and was found self harming that same SLT rang me shouting down the phone having a go at me. Ds had some support via early help and same SLT told us she had spoken to him and he had said that DS was being perfetic and he doesnt understand what his problem is. He was really angry. Off record he encouraged me to deregister DS. It was the best thing we could have done.

Children have alot of pressure at school especially from year 10. Dd was meant to do school from 8.30 -3pm then stay for master class until 4pm every day. Then home work on top of that every evening . Plus some extra sheets I forget what they were. If they were wrong they woukd get told to do them again if not done/wrong they get detention. Also had days to go to school on non school days. The school loves the word compulsory when its not. I told the school that I knew ut wasn't compulsory as its out if school hours. I told them dd would only be doing core subjects for master class.
On one if the non school days I got message saying DD should be in school. The wording to me was reasonable. But the messages Dd had were demanding and implying she would be in trouble.

They never get a break it's affected Dd mental health alot. She has her last exam on Monday and I can see the weight starting to lift.

Sorry probably to much detail it just triggers me a bit when I see stuff about school life.

@countrylife00 Of course home plays a role in that too, as well as wider national and even global issues/politics. The recent report about the rise in NEETS emphasises how children and young people have not been prioritised in policy in any area since 2010 and that has a lot to answer for.

But we are talking about schools here. And adolescent mental health dips hugely compared to primary age, so we are talking about secondary school age, after age 11. Not that I think all kids have reached their full potential academically or in any other way and should be written off at 11 anyway (yes I’m a bit of a hypocrite for sending my son to a grammar in that case, but I’m in an area where the choices for state schooling are excellent grammars or failing academies).

I know a lot of children who have been fine in primary but had serious mental health struggles in secondary, and it’s not always due to their home lives. In fact many of these teens have very happy and supportive home lives. I’m a GP and I see a lot of teens really struggling with their mental health these days, and often for no obvious deep reason, as would have been the case when I first started out eg undisclosed sexual abuse or severe bullying etc. These days teens are super unhappy, and it genuinely often seems to revolve around school. To be fair these teens are primarily SEN students or likely undiagnosed SEN students who are just not coping with what is expected of them at secondary school in modern UK.

I’ve been a GP a long time, and it’s not something that used to be a thing I would see at all, but since the few years in the lead up to the pandemic it started to be a thing, and really took off during the pandemic once schools reopened, and has actually continued to escalate as an issue ever since it seems.

I just think as well as SEN being appropriately and genuinely addressed (which may well mean accepting that mainstream won’t work for these children, but then we need to establish more appropriate schools for academically able SEN students too rather than lumping them in with students with true learning disabilities who are unlikely to eg sit A-levels), teens in general need more downtime, less academic pressure, less authoritarianism at school and actually meaning and not just saying that academic grades aren’t the be-all and end-all, and that balance, even at times of extra pressure during exam years, is needed.

I am in total agreement with you over OFSTED achieving nothing except stressing everybody involved out! A bit like CQC in my profession.

This also puzzles me. We don’t have teachers dropping out the profession so I assume it has something to do with the curriculum and it seems more exam driven amd less holistic maybe. The actual school buildings in Ireland have really poor facilities as well, I’m always fascinated that the completion rates and progression rates are so high.

Just to touch on some other points.

The mental health of Irish children and Uk children is similar and Ireland has more service gaps in mental health.

it’s my impression that parenting in Ireland is less strict actually. However of course there are disadvantaged kids and certain schools have extra funding to deal with this.

Attendance problems in both countries are on a par. They just choose to tackle this differently. There is no fines and taking your kids out of school for a holiday at primary level isn’t a problem at all here in Ireland.

2 of my DDs are at 1 very strict high school - they spend more time policing the colour of childrens socks than they do teaching it feels like. My youngest is at a different high school, has excellent results and is far more laid back in regards to uniform. They have a uniform of course - but its basic items, which can be bought from anywhere and they accept black trainers. They don't appear to isolate children for wrong socks, or dyed hair and certainly aren't performing any worse than the other school. Children (and parents) seem happy there, there is far less online moaning about the school.

Parents often professs they want a more holistic educational approach with less focus on exams, but equally many, many parents want their child to attend a school with high results. If their child isnt meeting their target grades they are often looking at the school to improve things. For kids to learn you need them to be focused and on task. Getting the balance of strictness right is no easy task. Teachers are trying to keep kids learning in challenging circumstances everyday. They have to work within the rules and resources of the school. Things like dealing with off task chat or silliness can seem minor to parents, but when you are managing 30 teens and dealing with it on multiple occasions in a lesson it is wearing and impacts everyones learning.

@noblegiraffe your post made me laugh! I do agree it’s not a lot to expect that students turn up with a biro for school 😂 I’m also quite surprised this is being seen as unreasonable. Even my son with ADHD always had a pen because I knew he would lose and forget them so he had a crazy amount of pens with him secreted in various places in his schoolbag. Not sure how they could be expected to learn in class without even the aid of a pen haha.

I think that is broadly true and it’s a better job in Ireland overall but I do have a teacher friend my age in Ireland (60) who says her cosy little gaelcholaiste which used to be a dream to teach in has really seen a shift in behaviour in the past 2 or 3 years and this coincides with parents not supporting the school with discipline rules etc .
She had a first year (12 year old ) simulating oral sex with a lolly recently and upsetting the girls so she put him out of class . The parent refused to believe her and demanded an apology ( despite CCTV evidence )
luckily she has a supportive HT but she says her days are numbered and she can’t wait to retire .