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?

Yes, this poster has zero idea of how I teach or manage behaviour but still thought they were in a position to tell me that I should try talking to my pupils!

Can only speak for the school my DDs went to, but I find the rules on sock colour, tights not being thick enough, not being allowed to wear scrunchies in their hair, not being allowed to remove blazers when it’s 30 degrees in the class room, checking what shoes kids are wearing in the morning, making them remove jewellery and checking if they are wearing mascara (or any make up) stupid

what do any of these thing have to do with them learning? I would go as far as to say making them keep blazers in when it’s far too hot is doing the opposite of helping them learn

I don't think you need research to prove that consistency is key with kids tbh!

We are in an irish city (not Dublin) and our two secondary age kids (14 & 17) attend a school which doesn't get too excited about uniform issues or the odd absence. They both absolutely love school and get good results academically. It is diverse and not just white Irish children, a lot of Travellers, immigrants etc.

The cousins in England seem to be having a terrible time with the strictness but also with the curriculum. They both seem anxious and not very settled in school.

I don't know why this is but factors which may differ are:
There are no private schools in our city.
There is a choice of secondaries including some all boys or all girls or mixed. Most schools are Catholic but there is a multi denominational one so there is some parental choice.
There's no zoning, you just get assigned a place by lottery (or not) in whatever school/s you apply for. It's chaos, you might get 5 places or none.
Teachers seem generally happier and teaching is seen as a better job here - my teacher friends do have their complaints but it's basically pretty secure and relatively well paid so there are some very good people teaching. My kids are truly inspired by a few of their teachers.
Some of the best teachers seem to ignore the curriculum, eg the religion teacher just talks about ethics and things and my kids love it.
Ireland is a less rule bound culture overall, people tend to do the more humane and the less official thing.
The school runs a lot of sport, music, school trips etc activities, my kids take part in a LOT of these, eg playing sports matches with other schools or singing in a choir for the school Mass etc

I don't think Ireland is paradise by any means but we've been very happy with schooling, it's better than when we were kids.

That's a problem with that specific school, not rules in general.

However sock colour I can see the point of a coherent look.

Tights I can see the point of not wanting to see fanny under short skirts.

Shoes end up being a popularity competition especially when expensive trainers are allowed.

Scrunchies meh I don't mind but around 2015 those JOBow things were fashionable and a huge distractor and literally stopped kids seeing the board.

Blazers my experience is that most staff don't care.

DD's school allows any jewellery but anything at risk of getting caught in machines or being a good hygiene issue must be removed for the relevant lessons, which makes sense and is fair (and legal, as schools can't legally tell students what not to wear here except in cases where it affects health and safety, and obviously rings and dangly necklaces aren't a risk in a maths lesson like they would be in woodwork)

I am not making the assumption that you do anything.

I started my responses in this thread by replying to a teacher who gave an example of a boy talking back in an altercation over a forgotten pen and suggested that maybe it was the calling out of the pupil in front of the class rather than quietly on the side that was the issue.

That teachers response to the boy did not include the threat of sanction, whereas mine did. The difference was mine wasn't in front of the class and didn't automatically assume intentional defiance.

I did not personally attack that teachers methods or style, I commented only on the incident that they relayed.

I posted generally that in my view and from my experience there is a lack of respect these days in schools towards pupils which didn't exist, at least in my school, in the mid - late 90's and that they are treated like automatons rather than individuals which fuels the pupils lack of respect for teachers.

My first interaction with @noblegiraffe was when they decided to take the idea that respect should be mutual and earned as a personal slight and critique on her own teaching methods.

I didn't assume anything about her beyond what she has said herself and I have not assumed anything about you beyond what you have said.

If you, as a teacher:

• treat pupils with respect and as individuals and use a range of methods with them,
• don't use shouting as the primary method of classroom control
• understand that embarrassing children in front of the class will increase rather then reduce disruption
• enforce rules consistently and for the more ridiculous ones creatively
• feedback to SLT about the decisions they make that makes teaching harder to influence change
• recognise that not all teachers do the things above

Then we agree - so what is it exactly that you think I am wrong about?

Oh - and the conferences weren't pedagogical echo chambers because they were local schools forums with representatives from schools from across the whole area with a range of different cultures. They featured some brilliant and passionate discussions and disagreements about ideas and methods - no personal attacks and belittlement of people's opinions like on here luckily.

And yet many schools are still massively inconsistent 💁

My first interaction with noblegiraffe was when they decided to take the idea that respect should be mutual and earned as a personal slight and critique on her own teaching methods.

I said "Spare us the parents who tell us that teachers have to 'earn the respect' of their pupils before they should be expected to behave for us."

You still have no idea what my teaching methods are, but do you identify with the suggestion that pupils shouldn't be expected to behave for teachers who they don't respect?

Not through lack of trying!

Turns out running a sch relies on ~200 people all saying and doing the same thing...

As was ever thus!

Huh? I have literally no idea how you've got that from anything I've said. 🤔

If it matters though, I was never once sent out of a classroom, never had a detention, I was never shouted at and got mostly As and Bs at both GCSE and A Level. I think you have me confused with someone else.

@BloominNora I don't think anything you've said is inherently outlandish, disrespectful of other posters on here, or even wrong. I'm baffled by why it's become so toxic with defensiveness and incorrect assumptions (such as the one that it was me and my mates misbehaving in the classroom, when my best friend at the time was head girl and I was a prefect). People who are not teachers but who have experienced education from a different perspective can and should be able to voice an opinion (respectfully) without derision.

Not once have I said children shouldn't be expected to behave or that rules should be optional nor have I ever said there shouldn't be sanctions.

I can understand the fairly basic and accepted psychological position that it is perfectly normal and healthy for teenagers to push boundaries and defiance will be exacerbated by the attempted enforcement of blatantly stupid rules which blurs the boundaries of the reasonable ones.

I've said that if pupils think rules are inappropriate they should argue for change through appropriate channels and that schools should encourage that type of dialogue and critical thinking as part of learning.

I can agree that children should be expected to behave but that I think that expectation should come with an expectation of mutual earned respect, not top down authoritarianism and that we should seek to understand what drives children to misbehave.

None of those things are mutually exclusive.

All of your responses to me up until my suggestion of talking to pupils had been personal attacks including calling me a liar when I talked about my DDs experience of teachers that did take the time to speak with their pupils.

I assumed that given your already stated time constraints, your contempt for the idea of mutual respect and the view that I was lying about our experiences with teachers who did what I was suggesting, that it was something you had not done.

Maybe I was incorrect in that assumption - but Instead of responding in a mature and professional way and saying you had already done so but it hadn't worked for x, y, z reasons, or a, b, c is what works best and furthering the discussion you chose to launch yet another personal attack this time with CAPITALS!

Well - yes.

If a school can't get 200 adult, professionally trained staff who choose to work then and get paid for it to all behave in a consistent way and comply with policy, it just serves to further highlight how ridiculous it is to demand it from 1500 teenagers who don't have a choice to be there without being willing to engage in discussions about why it might not be working.

Right so you decided to assume that I don't treat my pupils with respect and have gone on long and tedious rants at me when in fact you misread what I said and do actually agree with it?

Also, I didn't call you a liar, I said that this "The teacher who doesn't have a seating plan, only implements seat moves as part of the behaviour policy not as a weird powerplay, chats to the kids, sometimes lets them get loud but lays out their expectations at the start of the year. That's the teacher that can say "Quiet now everyone, its time to work" and they are listened to."

was untrue. Which it is. Laughably untrue.

Never ever going to happen. With the best will in the world. There are too many variables for humans to be 100% consistent at all times. As you've repeatedly said, conversations and understanding lead to better outcomes. Those conversations are irrelevant and might as well not happen if 100% consistency is the goal. There has to be some flex in places and some accountability for individual circumstances.

You didn't call me a liar while claiming the anecdote I shared could not possibly be true

Run that one by me again will you. Or are you calling my daughter a liar? Why would she lie about it in a perfectly normal day to day conversation - there was no motive, reason or benefit to her to so.

What bit do you feel is untrue - that the teacher doesn't have a seating plan? That she lets the kids talk when it is appropriate but then asks them to lock in when she needs them to listen? That she can ask and the vast vast majority of the time they listen?

Also I didn't 'decide' anything about how you treat your pupils, I made an assumption based on the content and tone of your responses on this thread.

If you are unable to be respectful during a discussion with adults who don't agree with you and consistently resort to personal attacks, why would I assume you would behave any differently in the classroom?

I don't disagree at all

Hence my frustration with having that expectation of children in the classroom.

There is flex in the majority of cases. Where there isn't, kids have usually been utter dicks. Despite your child's reports.

You took an anecdote about an individual teacher who doesn't use seating plans, allows kids to piss about but who, according to your DD can still get the kids to do the work and made it a universal truth.

It's not a universal truth. 'That's the teacher who can get the kids to be quiet and do the work just by asking'. No, it's often not.

If you are unable to be respectful during a discussion with adults who don't agree with you and consistently resort to personal attacks, why would I assume you would behave any differently in the classroom?

What a completely stupid comment, but typical.

Oh don't get me wrong. I know that is the case a lot of the time.

I think with how toxic this discussion has become the lines between the funding pressures and idiocy of a 1950s style curriculum that doesn't reflect modern life, the move towards a stricter rules based culture and expectation behaviour generally and individual teacher behaviour has all become blurred.

I did really well at school and for the most part enjoyed my time there. Never got a detention or in trouble. They allowed me the space to learn how to push for change effectively and at times encouraged it. There was a natural inclusion culture that meant those of us who were ND didn't struggle (which is in part why there are so many late diagnosis now.)

I look at how schools are now - the not fit for purpose curriculum, the lack of natural inclusion, the virtually termly updates and changes to the behaviour policies, some of the dafter rules and ridiculously strict uniform policies

And then specifically my own kids school from my interactions with them, as well as what the kids say.

I can say with near certainty that if I had gone through the school system as it is today, I wouldn't have done anywhere near as well. In fact I may very well have ended up being a school refuser!

Most teachers are trying their best within a culture that limits them - some teachers, like some kids are just dicks.

Either way, at the end of the day, its the kids tjat suffer the consequences of it.

You couldn’t have it at the times you say as those are pupils own times. They need their breaks just like staff do. Even after lesson is a bad time because you would make them late for their next and impact on a colleague. Just saying.

However, you’re right about the personal attacks and I apologise.

I wouldn't have the conversation during class. I would have it after lesson, during break, lunch or after school.

Disruptive children are well known for happily giving up their social time for conversations about their behaviour.

And any non-teacher who suggests a teacher can just 'do that in their lunch hour or after school' can get in the bin.