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?

That makes no sense. No-one was proposing to charge for rain, the charge is for collecting and purifying it then delivering it in pipes to people’s houses.

The water protests were populist nonsense. We should pay for water like they do in most European countries, it makes total sense.

Goodness! I don’t think schools are strict enough!

It seems I am in a tiny minority here on Mumsnet to have that opinion though.

I feel teachers (who are doing a great job btw) are constantly coming up against entitled children and parents, who would fight against them if they dare spoke negatively towards a child.

Is the risk of stabbing someone correlated with wearing PE joggers that are slightly the wrong shade of blue?

We have a super strict academy in our area. It had a really oppressive and old school business like feel when we visited. The pupil that showed us round said “they give detentions out for EVERYTHING”

Our school shifted that way a bit when the head changed. The aforementioned suddenly wrong shade of blue (that had been perfectly acceptable for the two previous years) now resulted in seclusion. My DC had their arm in a cast so their blazer wouldn’t actually fit over it - I had to take it to school so that they could carry it around in their bag. I mean, how can anyone, including the students, take rules like this seriously?
Ironically they’ve now changed the uniform policy and blazers are optional, along with trainers being allowed. Same headteacher.
Pointless rules and disproportionate punishments are just as likely to make kids respect authority less as they are so arbitrary and ridiculous.

Totally agree it was ridiculous. Water is not free it costs a lot of money to collect, purify and distribute. It is a finite resource, paying for it was necessary.

There is definitely a cultural difference in that education has historically been more valued in Finland, as a country that went from being a poor farming country to a reasonably rich developed one thanks to education (and, ironically, having to pay war reparations) but the other differences are due to the school rules, which focus on the things that actually affect education not things like uniform

One of the most petty things I ever came across was a head saying my son (year 5) and I couldn’t leave a school trip to a museum in the city centre, but had to travel back an hour on public transport to school with the group.

They agreed they still had more than enough adults accompanying the trip for safeguarding ratios. I offered to sign a form to confirm he’d been released into my care. I worked full time and had taken the day off for the trip, so thought my son and I could spend longer (than 2:30pm) in the museum and then I could treat him to something to eat together to make it a special ‘mum and son’ time.

But, no, we had to travel back to school a hour with the group to be back for 3:30pm to go home. The only reason given was ‘rules are rules’ and ‘no exceptions’ could be made.

My son (who has ADHD) was so burned out and miserable at GCSE level I genuinely worried he was sliding into depression. And although changing his school did help, going straight from that into A-levels (and not being allowed to do one of the subjects he wanted to and was considering doing a uni degree in, because his English GCSE grade wasn’t high enough - he did pass!) was hard on him, and on me. By the time he finished his A-levels honestly I personally really wanted him to take a gap year before uni, partly with a view to earning a bit of money for uni but also for both of us just to be able to recover from the sustained stress of the previous 4 years at school, coming directly after the pandemic, and perhaps be able to - shock horror - just enjoy our lives for a brief interval?! Unfortunately my son had other ideas and wanted to go straight on to uni, though it does seem to be working out well for him.

I do think there is now way too much focus on academic achievement and attendance, at the expense of good pastoral care and modelling how to have a good work/life balance. Back in my day it would have been absolutely unheard of in my top performing grammar school in N Ireland, to ban a child from being in the end of year school play if they wanted to be in it, in fact we were actively and genuinely encouraged to continue extracurricular activities alongside our studies. Rather than lip service being paid to it but when push comes to shove it’s “oh no you aren’t allowed to do the play if you’re in GCSE year”. Which just makes our children cynical about how much good mental health and a good work/life balance is REALLY valued. Also, 9 GCSEs and 3 A-levels was standard then for a grammar school, as a top of the class child I did 10 and 4. My son as a child who was “bright but lazy” ie has ADHD, did 12 and 4 in his grammars. And had significantly less choice and a less balanced STEM heavy curriculum at GCSE level in particular. I think all those things make a difference.

There has also been a huge change in parenting styles and approach to SEN from parents in this generation. My sister is a teacher in Scotland so I do hear from her about the genuine deterioration in behaviour at school (one child with SEN actually fractured her hand and faced zero repercussions which I find staggering), and yes I think there is some correlation with changing parenting styles. But I feel like the unnecessary strictness and academic pressure put on children at the expense of all else is probably not helping with behaviour either. Of course there will always be terrible parents who genuinely don’t care out there. But also back in my day most of us would have never dared to openly challenge a teacher on anything and there was huge conformist pressure. Whereas now as a society we are now more often trying to bring up our children to be authentic to themselves, to care about their mental health and general wellbeing, and not to necessarily defer to authority as a matter of course. That’s not the same thing as being disrespectful, and it’s probably more needed than ever with the rise of authoritarianism and the far right. But I can see this probably does lead to more problems with behaviour at school. As well as the fact that back in the day children with significant SEN were corralled into “special schools” and not in mainstream schools. So there has been an ethos change there which I think has not worked out well for most.

I’m unclear what uniform’s even for. In the modern workplace, who the hell wears blazers? I’m surprised schools don’t still require bowler hats and spats.

My DS was at a strict academy when Steve Hilton was skateboarding into 10 Downing Street in his board shorts.

It does seem particularly batshit that school uniform has moved more towards the blazers rather than polo shirt end of the spectrum whilst work clothing becomes steadily less formal.

I find it hard to believe any adult in the UK doesn’t understand the point of uniforms, it’s a concept I’ve understood in regards to trying to create a level playing field in school since I was a teenager, there’s also a relation to behaviour and discipline. I don’t disagree about branded uniform and blazers, but the concept of the benefits of uniform are widely understood surely?

There have been many instances throughout my career where I or a colleague has been accused of being too strict eg sending a kid out of class for no pen. The reality is this -
Teacher - John, why haven’t you written the title in your book yet?
John- I haven’t got a pen.
Teacher- oh dear. This was the same last lesson. Can you please bring a pen to class.
John- STOP HAVING A GO AT ME!
Teacher - I’m not having a go- you just need to bring a pen.
John rolls eyes. ‘Whatever.’
Teacher- Please don’t respond like that. It’s disrespectful.
John- I don’t care.

Meanwhile 31 other children are sat waiting to learn.
John is removed from the lesson either temporarily or for the whole thing because of his attitude but he says it was because he didn’t have a pen. Any secondary teacher on here will recognise this scenario. Honestly sending a kid out is a PITA. You have to log it on SIMS or similar, you have to have a conversation about what went wrong and you have inconvenienced a colleague too.
im talking here about NT teens from stable homes not kids with SEN who genuinely can’t help forgetting a pen.

I'd caution believing everything you read, as my experience doesn't reflect what you've written or the many posts I see on here. We are in England. 2 in primary, 1 DSS at secondary and DH a teacher himself.

Reality - yes, attendance is a key metric and is pushed. But, I've never had any issue with kids being off for illness AT ALL, never had fines or been reprimanded in any way for the odd day off during term time for weddings or holidays (in our LA its 5 consecutive unauthorised days off that triggers potential fines - anything under that is considered unauthorised but no issue). Fine isn't automatic either - it's considered at that point. Uniform is relaxed at primary, and at our secondary it is much stricter on uniform than primary but hasn't been a huge issue for us. It was strict on uniform when I attended secondary back in early 00's too - we had to ask to remove blazer etc and put it on between lessons even when hot. It's silly rules, but it hasn't been a massive problem. Also had to try and wait to go to the toilet at break/lunch.

Attendance does sadly have a real impact on some kids' progress and overall the aim is to improve outcomes. I think the uniform rules aren't necessary for that particularly though and could happily do without them!

Except that in most countries schools manage perfectly well without uniforms, so the supposed benefits are pretty illusory.

Isn't it only English schools wearing uniforms? So a a lot of UK adults most likely couldn't care less.
It wasn't a thing the years we lived in Scotland.

Absolutely doesn’t make sense how it’s done in England though. If the water system is paid for it only makes sense if it’s nationalised, not a choice-less private system that’s allowed to cream off profits and not reinvest and then constantly get bailed out.

I really don’t think you can make equal comparisons as blindly as that, culturally countries are all very different. The UK is a challenging country, we do not respect education as the same way as other countries, the context is different.

If nothing else as a parent I am very grateful I don’t have the pressure to provide my teens with a huge variety of branded clothes. I think it’s good they go to school without the pressure of wardrobe choice.

Where on earth are you getting that only English schools wear uniforms?

Agree. In Ireland most schools do wear uniforms but they don't appear as formal as England. My kids went to primary and secondary schools that did not require a uniform. It has made zero difference in fact has caused less issues than in my day when I had to wear a uniform and spent so much time moaning about it and how uncomfortable it was.

My kids go to a small private school - they’re really relaxed on most things - there’s uniform but no one is getting detention for not wearing blazers if it’s warm or for forgetting pens, and the school doesn’t really care too much if you take the odd holiday in term time.

There are also a lot of resources to genuinely help SEN kids - nice places they can go if they feel overwhelmed, reduced numbers of subjects with extra help in the spare lessons it creates.

The school gets great grades and there are no real discipline issues. So I think it’s a mix of a minority of parents not teaching their children how to behave / to respect school and value their education combined with not enough decent SEN resources meaning the only way to control the large classes is to be ultra strict on absolutely everything. Which I think fails so many kids and causes way too many anxiety issues.

No idea. I grew up elsewhere, and have never worn a uniform. English schools seem like prison to me. My son forgot his tie the other day and was sent to the "iso corridor" to be issued a spare one and had to put his name in a book. Bizarre.

In UK? Right my children didn't in Scotland state. Properly crap schools then.

My DS has chosen a 6th form that requires “smart dress”. So smart trousers and no jeans, a collared shirt, no logo’d stuff. He said he’s happy with this as he will essentially have a “uniform” in that he’ll have his specific school clothes so won’t have to think about what to wear each day. The only bit were both not too happy about is no trainers. He’s been allowed to wear trainers at secondary for the last couple of years, plus look around anywhere and 80% of people will be wearing trainers. But, he’ll just have to get used to it.

I’ve recently retired from teaching in an inner city school. I can’t put into words how shocking the environment is; it honestly has to be seen to be believed. It serves nobody well. Behaviour so bad and time consuming that you have little time for the pupils who want to learn. Rules being made and broken as SLT see fit. Inconsistency everywhere. Pointless, meaningless branding and mottos. Staff bullied by other staff for trying to maintain order and follow processes.
It’s a real shame because 90 percent of the students are great but they are being let down by the grown ups who pander to the minority. Undoubtedly there should be more specialist and alternative provision within the system. Failure to do this is having a dreadful impact not only those students who would benefit from these alternatives but also on the majority of pupils for whom mainstream should be a good and suitable experience.

Is it any wonder schools are struggling so much when parents and students can’t even follow a uniform standard?