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?

Not in the rest of Europe they aren't

can you explain why the rest of Europe is not suffering through not having a uniform in school?

Blunt!
But true….

Interesting discussion - I have had the impression that English (particularly second level) schools seem to be operating almost in crisis mode. Irish schools don't seem to have the same level of issues (school refusal, lack of respect for teachers) but I'd like to be careful not to come across as smug - and I moved my son (he wanted to move) mid cycle in secondary as his school was awful so I know it's not all roses. Linked to this, is the impression (received from this site 100 %) that teachers in UK work so hard, long hours, and don't feel rewarded, and struggle hugely with disrespect and even violence - in Ireland teaching is seen as a great profession, family friendly, respected etc. I'm not a teacher but have friends who are, and they agree that they have a great work / life balance. I would be happy for any of my kids to go into the profession. I'm gleaning this only from this site and maybe it's wrong, but I do wonder if the two issues are linked, and could part of the solution be in improving conditions for teachers.

We relocated to EU at Christmas and dd2 started secondary school. No uniform. No preasure to buy branded clothes.

Yeah, almost all irish schools have school uniforms.
One of the reasons they are more relaxed in Junior school anyway is down to a lack of facilities and safeguarding due to historic sex abuse scandals.
On "PE" days they can wear their tracksuit,runners and polo all day. No changing in the school. There can be 2-3 "PE" days. It also creates a "second" uniform so a child can wear it on the wrong days but are still in uniform.
I suspect girls senior schools are not at all relaxed about really short skirts.
I know of Senior boys who have been sent home due to hair dye. One of mine was sent home to change out of his runners into shoes. I told him off, he didn't do it again.
I personally like school uniforms. They make life simpler. I don't think they should be uncomfortable though and there should be some choice.

It’s the difference between crowd control and education. Labour has recruited 4,600 new teachers of the 6,500 they promised. Surely this would be making a difference? Our indie private school isn’t super strict, but mostly the kids are well behaved and if they aren’t they are the odd one out. I think the issue we have in some schools is poor parenting, meaning schools have to set very firm boundaries and stick to them.

Standards it’s achieving standards for when the children are in the real world.

Schools are strict because behaviour is atrocious. It's a bit of a vicious cycle and noone is happy and it's not working, but it feels like a "throw everything at the wall and something will stick" approach.

Having worked in an English secondary school (as a librarian) there's not a salary you could pay me to go back, both from children's behaviour and the crappy unsupportive attitude of SLT.

As a culture we're very ambivalent about education and it's coming home to roost, particularly as entry level and non skilled jobs are disappearing and employment is becoming more and more competitive. I think we're just at the start of a very rude awakening about the state of our country and unless a strong competent politician who is hiding under a rock somewhere jumps out to lead us then I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better!

Certain secondaries you can't have any branded stuff.

I haven't encountered this but yes most likely.

Don't primary school age kids go home at 1.30pm or did I read that wrong?

As a physicist that Birbalsingh woman at Michaela makes my blood boil. Openly misogynistic people should never be put in positions of school leadership - male or female.

I believe it is exactly this. It seems like every new head teacher has to crack down on toilet passes and tighten the uniform rules. Which conveniently are things that get them fawning attention in certain circles but involve little actual work on their part. The teachers and students are the ones who have to navigate the new rules, often damaging the student-teacher relationship in the process.

The best school that isn't private in my area has a policy of no branded clothes, coats or bags. Shoes and trainers as well.

Cool.

Until recently I worked in a Catholic comp in the U.K with many Irish teachers. They said on many occasions that if they’d had to ring parents re behaviour the parents would have been mortified.Maybe countries where strict discipline isn’t necessary have parents and society who instil respect and acceptable behaviour in their children so school can be more relaxed. Teachers seem to be leaving in droves and say it’s not the money so something is wrong.

Do we really think that parents in Ireland, Germany, Canada, etc are that much better at parenting? They seem to find ways to get by while treating students like human beings.

I once went for a job as an attendance officer in a school and it seemed to me that all they wanted to do was tell parents off and punish them for not making their children come in. There was no attempt to work with the parents to find strategies to get the children to feel more comfortable coming in.

The same school would also constantly be sending us letters about school uniform. One time I got so fed up with it I wrote to them asking why they were banging on about uniform when it didn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference to the constant low level poor behaviour in class and the chronic ladk of qualified science teachers. There was a lot of hoo ha a few years ago about a HT turning round a failing school by introducing pride in the school and part of that was strict uniform. But I think that was a red herring and the school turned round because of the personality of the HT and a range of measures. But weak HTs think if you just solve the uniform it will deal with everything else. It won’t…

I also once came across a primary school child climbing over the fence to get away from school because he was frightened of the teacher. That’s a terrible indictment.

In my experience schools don’t deal with bullying behaviour either which is a big factor for non attendance I’m guessing.

Having said that there are also parents who don’t teach their child boundaries and listening to those in authority and that is a massive issue too.

But that’s a petty response from the teacher (an adult). Surely the most reasonable response is- ‘here’s a pen John’. Faff over

Absolutely!

I'd love to see the long term social and mental health outcomes for those kids.

There is a significant amount of research which shows that children who grow up in very strict, authoritarian environments have low self-esteem, anger management issues and fear of failure. Given that the sort of parents attracted to a school like that likely means the children also have a strict home life as well with no respite.

I very much suspect that there would be a disproportionate amount of serious emotional and mental health concerns, failure to thrive, lack of socialisation, lack of initiative and problem solving skills, broken relationships and domestic violence among the cohort of students attending that school!

I think this comment is so telling in its misunderstanding. Yes, an individual child might miss learning because of being put in isolation - but it's being done because otherwise that child disturbs the learning of a whole classroom. Your child isn't actually the only one there that matters.

Asking a child to bring a pen to class is petty?

A) That child is looking for something to be rude about - giving them a pen might defer it, it isn't going to solve it
B) If you just let that kind of thing go that sounds fine and reasonable for that one incident, but it turns into constant low-level disruption and the teacher being increasingly distracted by becoming an equipment monitor rather than an actual teacher

Quite - "Here's a pen John"

End of lesson - "John - can I have a word? You've forgotten your pen a couple of times now, try and remember it will you? I don't want the hassle of having to give you a break time detention and email your parents, so sort it out will you? Let me know if there are any issues that are stopping you from bringing a pen"

What's John's homelife like - are you sure his family aren't one of the many that are in serious poverty and can barely afford food, let alone school equipment? Does he have siblings that are stealing his stuff, or is he being bullied?

Even if none of those things are the case, his initial response to being embarrassed is perfectly normal for a teen and to put both teacher and student in that position to start with then escalate it while expecting a different response is incredibly naïve!

I appreciate that the OP is entirely within their rights to ask this question but I am finding the various “ why is England so shit” threads quite demoralising. Would I go onto an Irish site and start asking why something was inferior? I absolutely would not.

I’ve often wondered this too! It seems completely draconian to me. As if the school is the authority over the child and not the parent. Where I live we get a warning letter if a child has more than a handful of unexplained absences a term. No school would refuse to release a child if a parent turned up for them.