AIBU to think some school policies are at least partially responsible for the rise in pupil unhappiness?

[Alittlebitofmin]

A friend’s kid described school like a prison. He is likely to be a school success story set to get really good grades, but sees school as something to mainly tolerate. AIBU to think the school system itself is at least a significant partial reason why teenagers report lower levels of happiness at schools in England? Schools seem increasingly punitive and restrictive, pressure seems high, some children are even made to feel guilty if they have a day off sick.

Yes, where we are is in a country with a stressed, stretched system that needs a long term policy shift. Is that likely to happen? There's not much money for anything and we have a lot of political back and forth in our system

When you say 'you didn't treat' etc., that should read 'successive goverments didn't treat' or 'the country didn't treat'.

I understand teachers leaving the system, having done it.

There is a teaching shortage because it is not the respected profession it used to be and parents do not back teachers up.

It’s mainly about awful pupil behaviour, I know 3 schoolteachers. I feel very sorry for them.

My own under average secondary school streamed pupils in to 6 classes. I was in top sets for everything so pupil behaviour was totally fine. They had made a mistake though and the first week I was in lower classes. The head of year apologised to me, those sets were positively feral.

I am pretty sure that trying to relate the teaching of geometry to patchwork wouldn't go down well with many 14 year olds. Sure it is easier to learn something when you can relate it to something but these are kids so the thing that they will relate it to will often come much later, like the patchwork, or me realising the value of Shakespeare.

We have children in school every day for such a short period of their lives. It's so important to teach all of them a little bit of as many subjects as possible for as long as possible to:

1. create broadly educated citizens and humans, and pass down the hard fought-for knowledge of our ancestors
2. keep as many doors open for them as we can for as long as possible

At what point should we say 'ok, no more English literature for you', you're going to be a plumber?

The vast majority of pupils don’t get detentions, most uniform policies aren’t ‘draconian’. Your hyperbole is very telling.

I was using that just as an example. When you are being talked at by various people all day then it can be helpful to know why all this stuff matters (even in a broad sense) to understand the point of it all.

I saw how hard it was to retain a love of reading and learning throughout years of school.

Teachers are constantly asked "when am I ever going to use this in real life'. We're always thinking of real world applications and ways to make the content relatable. The idea that we're just droning through the curriculum to pass the time is unfair. But real world applications are still quite far off for them and they live in the present. Kids aren't any more engaged by geometry when we're calculating how many paving slabs are needed to pave around a pond even though one day they might have a garden. And they are often incredibly disengaged during PSHE when they are being taught all the stuff that regularly comes up on threads about 'why don't they teach x at school', like personal finance.

Not policies but their approaches.

I work in a primary school and we've been focusing on play up to year 6 and on children's well being, as well as adapting for Sen, and it's had a massive effect on the children. We work with other local primary schools to share knowledge and expertise.

It's been increasingly the subject of conversation in the staffroom as we worry about our year 6s as they move into secondary, plus most of us have children either in or been through the secondary journey. My children tolerated it, they pushed through it, focusing on getting out the other side. It is heartbreaking to see, especially in such contrast to my own secondary journey. And I feel it is the approach as a whole rather than specific policies.

Telling how?

I have four senior schools that are around 2 miles radius from my house.

I have friends who have children in them. They have ALL had detentions for minor uniform infractions. It is fucking ridiculous.

I have no skin in the game - my sons are in special schools with none of this so it doesn’t affect me and I work in a private school where uniform rules are dealt with sensibly.

Of course there needs to be discipline and rules but the school environment is oppressive and prison-like in many schools.

I went to a rough south London high school in the 90s. I wore grey track pants and Fila trainers for most of it. I got pretty much straight As at GCSE - my learning wasn’t affected by my clothes and teachers didn’t have to waste their time policing uniform.

Most of the rest of the world manages perfectly fine without uniform so why we think dressing kids like they work in a Carephone Warehouse for school is sensible is beyond me.

Absolutely I’m seeing more approaches like this and it’s making a difference. I hope it continues.

And yet I've had the most unlikely kids, after a lot of initial complaining, end up finding the Shakespeare text more engaging than bloody Dickens or a million poems ("this is a bit like a gangster film, innit?". Not only that, it's often sparked conversations:"Ay miss, did they say fuck and that in them days?" Which has led to bigger conversations.

I hate the idea that literature, and Shakespeare, should only be for the kids who enjoy it or have a use for it. If that were the case, I wouldn't have ended up where I am. I hated Shakespeare at gcse. Although to be, I only liked reading horror at that age. I could just do lit analysis well.

Yes, but not in the way I think you’re suggesting. Due to safeguarding concerns, physical contact with children is frowned upon and can result in disciplinary action. Comforting children (at primary level) is tricky, my instinct - as a Mum - to sweep them into a hug when they are hurt or upset isn’t permitted. We are also not allowed to
administer basic medicines without a wad of paperwork so children who come to us with a tummy ache/headache can’t be helped in any practical way (other than the trusty wet paper towel). I understand safeguarding, we absolutely have to keep children safe, but I feel it’s gone too far and we are unable to offer hugs for comfort or a bit of Calpol for a headache. I am very fond of the children I work with and it seems a shame that I can’t do all I can to ensure they are happy and comfortable at school.

It’s not about the uniform at all, it’s about learning to follow rules in life- no matter how ridiculous you think they are - and learning that you don’t have a free pass to avoid rules just cause…add crap excuse here.

Its such a valuable lesson to learn, so that in later life you have someone who pays their bills on time, applies for planning permission before building a house, doesn’t play music top volume at 3am and generally speaking is a civil member of society.

I left because of behaviour: bullying, telling lies, cliquey, verbal abuse, shouting. But that’s enough about the Headteacher and her team, the kids were great!

Well of course schools ARE like prisons. The principles of the design of the two until very recently (ie: the 90s) followed the exact same model!

When i was growing up i never met a single person who didn’t hate school. It was only when I went to uni and met very privileged teens who had been to lovely private schools with horsies and boating lakes did i meet anyone who liked it. Goes to show people are people and if you give the povvos horrible crumbling school buildings with scratchy uniforms, horrible food and miserable teachers they hate it. If you send them to a nice place with green fields and swimming pools they’ll probably be happy.

Regardless the shift I think is expectations. The internet has made the world bigger and now kids aspire to not just suffer through education like we did but actually enjoy it. These days if I hated a job as much as I hated school I’d quit on the spot.

I think the other thing is the rise of remote working and computer enabled education has divorced the idea of education from the placement of a school. It’s far easier for parents to not have the fight with their kid about going in and say to them ‘oh it’s ok you can do some online learning on the laptop instead’. And of course the vicious cycle is the more the kid does that the more they become lonely and left behind which can lead to real mental health problems. Also with the rise of remote working there is less pressure on parents to force their kid into school as they need to go to work.

Many factors. Schools are not more horrible, they were always horrible. But the world has changed

Exactly this.
And students know the uniform rules, so if they deliberately go against them, they know the consequences.
Of course there are times when uniform is lost/ too small etc. At our school they get an out of uniform pass. They can also purchase uniform for next to nothing from our supply of donated uniform.
Of course, young people will always moan about uniform. We all did. Then I chose nursing and had to wear a frilly hat and awful black shoes with thick black tights! How did we ever survive.

But IS it important in the new world we teach our kids to mindlessly follow stupid rules? Or to be creative and free thinkers?

Genuine question as I don’t know the answer.

We’re in a world in which almost every job which is ‘rules based’ / processing will be automated in the next decade by computers so is this really the most important skill set?

On one hand it’s important to teach kids to be law abiding and good citizens. But that would mean more focus on citizenship, belonging, community cohesion

I read Nick Gibbs’ book a few months ago on the curriculum reforms he implemented with Gove. He explains how shoddy schools were under Blair and I have to agree. Kids were ruling the roost in schools, my secondary school was like Lord of the Flies. I think behaviour is managed much better now and they clamp down far more on truancy.

I don’t agree with a few of the curriculum changes, particularly the insistence on geography or history at GCSE and the alterations to English Lit to exclude American lit. Creativity has been shunned in favour of academia which definitely doesn’t work for many kids and the low A Level uptake in creative subjects is extremely sad.

But yes, I can’t argue that behaviour is better. Our literacy rates are also now much higher, apparently due to the increase in phonics. Phonics again is something I’m dubious about for all children, just because I have a 6 yo with SEN who thinks alien words are preposterous.

I genuinely think all kids should be made to work in the community, I didn’t think the national service idea was a bad one. Litter picking, volunteering in the library, in homes for the elderly, with younger kids in the area, at Scouts etc.

But the uniform is a vital part of pupils seeing that in a community, rules apply to everyone equally, and that you all have to follow the rules or be punished.

Look at jobs such as medicine, where rules like checking and double checking the appropriate level of drugs are administered are there to be followed for safety reasons, not ignored. Or the Army. Or building design. Or safeguarding. So many daft little rules you think are irrelevant but have been out in place because of the one time when they weren’t followed and something really bad happened.

Tbf I am explaining why schools were worse in the 70s and 80s than they are now. School was something that was to be tolerated at best. The idea that kids should enjoy it on some level is relatively new.

I can’t comment on PHSE as it didn’t exist when i was at school.

6 years ago I was a highly qualified SENDCO working as a lecturer in prisons. I was coveted for my specialist knowledge, my way with the students and how I somehow managed to calm even the most rowdy, volatile prisoners. I say this not to be braggy, but to demonstrate my worth. I had spent 6 years working for the prison system, getting students qualifications that many of my peers thought impossible. I filled out so many ESOL forms, must have done thousands of initial assessments to get these men assessed as dyslexic, autistic, ADHD etc. (prison system is slightly different - we had to put the request in) for over 10 years.
I left the prison system as I felt I had gone as far as possible and went to work in secondary schools as a specialised SENDCO. Sadly I found the same as you, bitchy, nasty cliquey headteacher and SLT, vile horrible teachers who would openly insult students they didn’t like in the staff room. HILTAs who had decided their skills were better spent with other students than the ones who were struggling. I found many pupils struggling to keep up with their classmates because the RE/french/PE teacher had decided that child was crap at their subject so they were basically bullied by the teacher. I saw a music teacher literally scream in a boys face when he couldn’t remember something that had happened previously. I watched a diabetic student get hauled to the front of the class and told “spit that out” despite him nearly going into hyperglycaemia.
Every single time I reported it. Every single time nothing happened. Teachers these days think they are totally untouchable, think they are above everyone else because they are teachers and doesn’t everyone feel sorry for the behaviour of their students.
Actually they’re the biggest bullies I’ve ever met, and that’s why I left teaching.

Think what's difficult about this is real society, adult society, doesn't work this way at all. And secondary age kids know that.

None of those professional have any 'daft little rules' they have justifiable rules. Schools have some very unnecessary, fake rules. The colour of socks is not relevant to anything that matters in a school, for example.

In the military, the uniform goes with the territory, and everyone who signs up understands that. In the US, where most students don't wear uniform, soldiers still follow uniform rules just fine.

Well, there’s a balance to be had.

When you get young staff members who don’t seem to think that they should be told what to do by their managers, I can see the value in teaching them that sometimes they need to suck it up.

Yeah fair point, agree with that.

Though i do think uniforms should be made more comfy! Memories of itchy shirt and tie, wooly tights, lace up hard leather shoes still horrifies me and i’m sad doing the same to my own kids!

If kids have no discipline at home, they will hate school. A pub I used to go in often had children in there acting as if they were adults - sat at the bar! God knows where the parents were - beer garden probably. Kids were probably about 7 or 8! I have no idea how they would manage in the most easy-going school environment.