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?

Isn’t that obvious? The OP specifically brought up English schools. I don’t think posters need to clarify they are talking about English schools surely.

Comprehensives in the 80s and 90s were chaos and unless you were motivated and academic enough to be in the top stream, there was real danger of falling through the system. Something had to change.

Because our county councils aren't responsible for education they are in England.

Exact same here! It seems to be a much more collaborative relationship ship between parents and the teaching body of the school.

Laugh them out of it? Interesting idea. Does it work with parking tickets?

And this is it! If the schools weren’t so strict, and actually created an environment that was understanding, collaborative and flexible, maybe so many students wouldn’t refuse to go to school.

School refusal in Ireland is not even close to the same level as it seems in England. I don’t know of a single student in our wide circles who has been a school refuser. It’s alien

There’s no fines in NI either and that’s not because people just don’t take their kids out during term time because pretty much every child in primary tends to go on their summer holiday in May and early June and the teachers attitude is “happy holidays!”
I can only assume overall attendance was worse in England before the fines were brought in to address that perhaps?

I don’t know Ireland very well, but my impression is of more family-focused families (if that makes sense) and of living up to expectations. Is that accurate?

I currently teach in one of the most deprived areas of the country. The vast majority of pupils want to learn - they know (and their parents know) that education is a route out of poverty. We cannot, and will not, allow that to be derailed by the minority of pupils who try to destroy lessons. We are no more strict than the private school I previously taught in. That also had (imo daft) uniform rules and (imo very sensible) low tolerance on lessons being disrupted. We have more pupils excluded (both suspensions and perm ex) because we have more pupils who are unable (for whatever reason) to function in a normal school.

I saw the thread about a child whose parent was trying to get the school to agree for him missing for 2 lessons a day (so around a third of his education) for an unspecified timeframe and due to generic leg pain making sleep difficult. To me, that seems like the GP is fobbing the parent / child off rather than a sensible reason for missing education. It really wasn’t clear why the child needed to nap during school time rather than immediately after school. Nor was it clear what had been put in place to manage the pain and sleep so that his education wasn’t seriously disrupted. And missing a third of every day is serious disruption - we’d all be up in arms if our kids schools suddenly cut a third of their lessons!

Then we get on to the cases where parents will support a child in feigning any sort of illness to avoid school. It is a form of self-exclusion and it undermines the right of the child to an education. Sadly, a very small minority of parents don’t value education or simply don’t care that much about their kids. It is heartbreaking to see kids who have never been given any boundaries being allowed to miss day after day of school. Failing to follow that up with robust processes would be negligent of the school imo.

If anyone thinks schools are too strict I strongly encourage them to speak to (or ideally shadow for a day) a teacher working in a school like mine.

Couldn’t agree more.

But Welsh school results are terrible compared to the rest if the World (including England)

You don’t think they’re strict enough??? 😳 If they were any stricter I’d imagine it would be akin to prison standards with night time release??? 😅

Actually it basically does, parking tickets can’t be really be legally enforced in NI because they need to prove you were driving and due to gdpr the company fining can’t do that. So you can pretty much laugh at the fine and bin it in most cases.

Maybe that is why England outperforms Wales in education ranking?

Oh, and our school refusal / persistent absence rate went down when we implemented a proper (or strict, depending on political persuasion) behaviour system. It turns out that anxious kids find it much easier to come to school when they know they will be safe and that classrooms / corridors will be calm. And (shockingly) staff have time to work with those children individually because our time is not being wasted on dealing with persistent disruption.

I work closely with Tulsa education welfare officers in Ireland and school refusal is a huge problem and increasing year on year. Definitely not alien. I don't know the stats to UK to compare but it is a growing problem exasperated by COVID school lockdowns. Anxiety in teens is a real issue and area of concern

Indeed. With the lockdowns, and making reopening of schools an extremely low priority, opening pubs instead, Boris Johnson and his merry men screamed “EDUCATION IS NOT IMPORTANT”.

Poor attendance is strongly correlated with poor achievement, the EEF research suggests that disrupted schooling, principally student absence, is the second most important influence on school achievement, especially in disadvantaged students.

They are trying to close the achievement gap, which begins at Reception age (about 4 months delayed) and runs until GCSE (grown to more than 17 months delayed). It works out about 3.5 grades lower in GCSE.

Disadvantaged White British students are making some of the slowest progress during secondary school. Which is likely fueling the current bubbling unrest.

This is only my option/experience but generally I think education is valued more in Ireland across most sectors of society. It was seen as a way out of poverty etc and I would guess that recent immigrants to the country share those values.

It does not seem to be as valued in all parts of English society, possibly because up until a few decades ago there were plenty of work opportunities for those leaving school without many qualifications. If it's not valued, the support from parents is not there.

Schools are often perceived as strict simply because they are setting boundaries and structures in place that are missing at home for whatever reason. And frankly many parents don't parent adequately. Having rules around uniform and attendance ensures cohesion and minimises disruption.

If you don't work in a school you really have no idea what is involved day by day in ensuring that students learning is not disrupted.

But I think this describes the experience of parents at the school I teach at in England and those that my children attend. We show sympathy when children are ill. We wish them a happy holiday. We understand they have dental appointments. Schools aren't actually the ones issuing the fines and many (most) teachers recognise there is no issue with an orthodontist appointment or even a long weekend away. In reality most parents aren't actually fined for non-attendance because they only take a few days off here and there. Even four days tacked onto a Bank Holiday isn't actually problematic.

The Department of Education attendance strategy and Ofsted scrutiny

Part of the point of school is to prepare kids for work. All they really require is what normal workplaces do: be there when you're supposed to be, be on time, follow the dress code, focus on your work most of the time, follow instructions, treat everyone else there with respect. And don't abuse or threaten your manager (something that teachers, in some schools, have to suffer all the time).

In England I’m not sure it’s quite as bleak as that and there are now large teams of pastoral staff in most schools, as well as counselors, and other providers, such as classroom assistants. Kids have extremely complex needs these days. In addition many schools are now trauma aware and adjusting things for kids with high ACE scores.

Attendance in England has been hit hard by the big differences in holiday prices out of holiday time, but also things like children being taken out of school to go visit relatives abroad. Covid made things much worse and there were significant safeguarding concerns with many children being kept off. Unfortunately this has led to much stricter rules and this impacts parents just wanting a few days here and there. And then it seems more are turning to home schooling. However, there are genuine reasons for it and a lot has to do with safeguarding ultimately.

But I’m not talking about reprimanding bad behaviour. I absolutely agree that a very strict approach needs to be taken with behaviour issues, a complete zero tolerance approach to bullying, strict with regards to showing respect, kindness and tolerance etc.

What Im talking about the ridiculous rules around attendance, the lack of flexibility, the fines and threats of legal action towards parents.

Part of the issue is that things like attendance are being taken out of the HT’s hands and they have to send letters when it hits a certain percentage and they have no say over fines.

In the last school I worked in the staff increased the overall attendance by 6% in 3 years. They knew the kids and they knew the parents. They knew what to do to help the children in their school.
They cursed the fact they still had to send letters because they knew it could have a negative impact on the progress they were making.

There so many mandates and set things that have to be done that schools can’t tailor things to their school. Similar to the fact we don’t allow teachers the freedom to teach, schools aren’t allowed to do things to their way.

Uniform is a very interesting one. One primary HT removed strict uniform at Covid time - kids could wear black trousers, skirt, leggings or joggers, white t-shirt, polo shirt or shirt, and a black or red jumper, cardigan or hoodie - and never brought it back. It caused an absolute storm amongst the parents, but she was adamant. It’s done wonders.

The other primary school brought it in a year after. The high school brought it in at the start of 2024 and even the very annoyed parents have now had to admit it was a great idea. The time that has been freed up now that staff aren’t having to deal with uniform issues multiple times a day is staggering. Attendance is up, isolations are down, suspensions also down and general behaviour has improved, and the HT puts the latter down to the fact that less kids are starting the day with a run in with a staff member over uniform.