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?

Entitled, permissive parenting has always existed - so too have disruptive kids.

When I was at school in the 90s, there were no behaviour points and detentions for low level things like forgetting equipment, or swinging on a chair. It does feel like we've become more draconian, but it hasn't actually materially improved anything. Indeed, quite the opposite.

Imagine being a kid from a household where there's no money and being penalised because you don't have the right PE shorts with the logo.

This in spades.
They’re blitzing symptoms with no effort to stop the cause.

On another note, a very certain type of character actively enjoys barking at kids about ties, blazers, shirts and skirts and I think they’d be better off in the army,

I don't know what the issue is, really. When my DCs were younger, I wouldn't have let the school tell me 'yes' or 'no'. I'm the parent, not the state, and I don't care what their reasons were. I'm glad I don't have to deal with it, anymore.

My Scandinavian school had no uniforms or rules for hair/makeup
I have managed to work two jobs (both demanding a degree) wearing uniform without any issues in UK and Scandinavian.
How do you think it works outside England?

Part of the problem, and I've said this on another thread recently, is that schools are under pressure to turn out a workforce. The better schools are those who turn out young adults who are ready for life, including work. E.g. if consequences for being late are not changing the outcome, then surely you have to look at the root cause and implement other strategies. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Hence we end up in cycles of misbehaviour, punishment, disengagement, further misbehaviour. We seem to think that all children are born with an innate ability to manage time, plan ahead, sit still for 2 hours and listen and write. Kids who once wouldn't have even hit the SEND radar are struggling to cope with the curriculum, the endless expectations, the relentless pursuit of performance in the major academic subjects and from a younger age than most of our European counterparts.

We turn out clever children who are good at passing exams but lack basic life skills, and children who are bad at exams but have bags and bags of untapped potential in a working world. And of course their 'education' starts at home, but the reality is that children spend so much time at school that their success depends heavily on the approach taken by their respective school.

Hallelujah spot on

How many posts like "my son hit someone and he's suspended how unfair "
Or "my 7 year old said her teacher called her naughty "

And half of the replies tell the op to write to the head

I don't think schools have got more strict, they've always been strict. I remember getting told off if our ties were the wrong length/ our shirts weren't tucked in.

If I compare that now to the experience my children have had, their schools have been much more progressive.

Within schools, behaviour has worsened over the last few years, especially post-pandemic and there are more frequent attacks (verbal and physical) on school staff by students and parents.

The majority of students are wonderful. I absolutely adore working with them. However, there are some that are causing really severe issues around school. It impacts everyone, it disrupts lessons. For all students, they need 'minor' rules to bounce against, rebel against, a firm line. One of our previous head teachers said to us, if they are busy fighting us with the small stuff, they don't get as involved with the 'bigger' and for the most part that is true.

However, needs are so complex now. It's great because it means we are recognising those with complex SEN but it comes with its difficulties too, especially in the case of cut budgets and falling birth rates (you'd think that would mean smaller classes but in reality it means fewer teachers and bigger classes.)

Sometimes the children need to learn how to abide a simple rule. Some of them try to defy at every step and we are conscious that one day, we will send them out into the world and they need to survive and flourish but they won't be able to do that if they can't follow a simple instruction.

It's not as simple as I've articulated, there are so many complexities to consider and each student 'rebels' in their own way (as they should, as they are learning) but we hold firm boundaries as it helps them navigate the lines of society too.

Without firm boundaries and rules it would be chaos (still is, sometimes) and it's easy to say 'x' or 'y' should happen when you aren't part of a large school.

The holiday fines are nothing to do with us, they are government imposed and all heads have been told to refuse everything (unless exceptional, e.g. a funeral).

Yes. If you want children to learn, and set an environment that is best for the majority you need to be strict.

Otherwise the inmates run the asylum. I find what Michaela do fascinating and inspiring. It does influence aspects of my own practice. At my last school my students consistently made the best progress in the faculty and I built positive respectful relationships based on the boundaries I kept. (I was 'firm, but fair..')

Strict does not have to mean bad.

I grew up in a country that did not have uniform. I don't see it as the social equaliser it is hailed as here. But I do see the need to adhere to rules in the workplace. If my workplace says I wear black, I do not turn up in blue. If it says black leather shoes, I do not wear bright orange trainers.

The issue is that we have far too many students (and parents) who think the same rules don't apply to them. If you turned up at your workplace tomorrow not even vaguely adhering to their uniform standards, what would happen? And the day after? And another?

Uniform is just one symptom of a much wider issue.

Thing is all schools are different. You might have a particularly strict school near you. I have read about Michaela school - that’s quite unusual. There is a whole range of behaviour policies and where I live they are quite relaxed. Uniform policies are ridiculous though and yet school kids have never looked scruffier so they clearly don’t work.

The level of basic behaviour in kids has fallen off a cliff in recent years, I haven't seen anything like it before in my school and I've been teaching a long time, 11 year old kids looking at you like you're a piece of dirt if you ask them to not sit in the middle of a corridor, for example.

My school is not strict. Absolutely zero consequences for those kids who refused to move. And yet a group of parents have gone absolutely batshit about our attempts to impose any serious form of sanctions for kids who seriously disrupt the learning of others. Those parents have moaned about 'sanctions for stuff like forgetting a pen' when that's not even a thing (my kid was sent to iso for not having a pen - no, they did fuck-all work for half the lesson then when this was pointed out, said it was my fault because they didn't have a pen etc etc). Those parents

1. don't have a clue what it's actually like and
2. are actively destroying the school's ability to teach kids in any orderly way.

I’ve said this on a few threads recently about similar topics BUT I was at secondary school under New Labour and it was like Lord of the Flies. It was, as Alistair Campbell famously said, a “bogstandard comp” in a deprived city with almost 2000 kids. The teachers had zero control over us, we very much ruled the roost. Think of the early series of Waterloo Road and it was actually probably worse…

The headteacher was a hippy and she believed in kids “expressing themselves” so our uniform rules were fairly lax, we were allowed to have multiple piercings, wear jewellery, crazy makeup and dye our hair whichever colour we fancied. Most of the teachers had given up on us all- some were plainly waiting out retirement, others just didn’t last long. One teacher threw chairs across the classroom in sheer rage a few times and didn’t get sacked. Girls were getting pregnant before year 10 even. Fights happened daily and loads of kids would run to go and watch. Kids were smoking daily just openly on the fields. Kids would set fire alarms off to get out of lessons - sometimes multiple times a day.

It was insane. This was considered a “progressivist” school, quite popular under New Labour. I recommend Nick Gibbs new book on the education reforms. I don’t agree with everything they did by any means but it’s difficult to argue against schools now being much better. Also find the Michaela school interesting.

There is only one true reason in my opinion.

Attendance, which impacts a schools ofsted rating.

The thread is about English schools though.

That’s nice, but could it be a factor in the worse educational outcomes in Wales than in England?

I was at secondary 2004-09, behaviour was hideous then, it isn’t exclusive to this generation.

Until 1960s you had to pay for your child to attend secondary schools in Ireland. So free secondary education is probably still respected. I imagine therefore the schools there don’t need to manage children in quite the same way as more impetus comes from home.

The uniform is something that can be stricter on a school by school basis in Ireland really. Some can have high expectations, but on a hot day for example, children can still remove jumpers and ties without ‘permission’.

Blazers just arent a thing in Ireland, except maybe in the few private schools.

My DC school allows the kids to wear all black trainers (no white soles or markings), they don’t have to wear the jumper day to day if they don’t want.

The student body a number of years ago voted via their student council to get rid of ties all together, so they changed from V neck to round neck jumpers and don’t have any ties anymore. The jumpers don’t have logos/crests so they can be purchased cheaply in supermarkets etc.

They used to have logos/crests on the PE T-shirt, they became too expensive so they got rid of them too and the kids were any all black training gear. There are optional crested shell jackets the kids can purchase if they are members of a sports team and will be travelling in their kit.

They still expect shirt and trousers and kids to be clean and properly turned out, particularly for school events and trips, but there’s no such thing as detention if they’re not.

And I think there’s maybe some truth in that, and what other posters have mentioned about the value placed on education in Ireland. Education is a route out of poverty, so as a historically poorer country, maybe Irish parents place more weight and expectation on education, third level especially. It is very, very out of the norm for our children to choose not to go to university, and if they don’t then they have a trade or apprenticeship lined up. I’ve seen loads of threads/posts on here where English children don’t have a plan for after second level, or are just working part time, that just doesn’t really happen regularly in Ireland.

This! It also makes the children very cynical about whether the school really values education if every punishment deprives them of it.

OP, It sounds ridiculous because it is often ridiculous. I never understood fixation on the attendance while insisting unwell children stay in class/come to school.

Uniform doesn’t even seem strict in England compared to NI, sure some schools will have their own stricter rules but over all primaries have polos, there are colleges that have no uniform or just a polo and trousers and plenty of secondaries with a more casual uniform.
In NI many primary’s are already in a shirt and tie and the vast majority of schools have a formal strict, and largely branded uniform policy.

Defintely some schools stricter than others, due to the nature of my work, and my DC hobbies and social circles, I’d be familiar with many of the secondary schools in the county and the more hard line still don’t seem as strict as English schools.

Even in those stricter schools (e.g convent schools) you’re not getting fined for your children missing school, you’re not worried about whether absences for appointments, important family occasions etc will be authorised. You’re absolutely not worried that your child won’t be ‘released’ when you want them to (wtf?). Those stricter schools would likely be more accommodating in terms of sending home school work and working with the parents in the event of absences. And you’re definitely not worried your local authority will be on your case, having a civil servant poking their nose in your child’s attendance and threatening legal action.

Superb post.

I feel for schools getting lumbered with the dafter side of attendance management. Can have an awful impact on relationships with parents. Because ultimately, lots of people are sufficiently well informed to know that what you just said there is correct. We know full well there's fuck all evidence that a child missing a few days for a term time holiday is going to have a significant negative impact. And even for those who don't specifically know this, we have all just lived through a period where school attendance became a nice to have, something that could be stopped if there was a good enough reason. Our society values travel, so naturally the dots are joined. And school staff have to piss in the wind.

Irish people do get fined for non attendance. Im not sure why you think they dont. Its just the theshold is much higher. 20 days missed in a year and you will be issued letters from tusla and if you dont have a good reason fined and risk prison.