To be shocked at ‘school readiness’

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2 weeks into this school year with a new class of reception children who 90% are utterly unequipped to be in a classroom. This is a list of things that come to mind the children are unable to do.

-put on their coats. I don’t mean when they struggle to get their arms in or don’t know how to turn a sleeve from inside out. I mean completely unaware of how to even attempt to put on their own coat.
-Recognise their own name.
-They walk away while you are actively talking to them

-Nor a single child has used manners, pleas or thank yous, without being prompted to do so during the whole 2 weeks.
-take their coats to their pegs. Children are taking off their coats at the door, dropping them to the floor and walking away.
-close a toilet cubicle door or pull their pants up before they walk back into class (our toilets are directly off the classroom)

This is not even mentioning the running away or out the classroom when asked to do something they don’t want to do like sit on the carpet, children outright saying no or screaming at staff.

These are not SEN children who are developmentally delayed. Covid babies are no longer an excuse. I’m absolutely baffled how parents have neglected to teach their children basic skills and expectations of behaviour, I have never had a year group like this.

AIBU to be shocked at the lack of school readiness

So much of it is down to parenting.

Many of our family members are on the spectrum, but "high-functioning". The first person with a formal diagnosis was diagnosed with what was then termed Asperger's and ADHD, but in the 90s.

Most of our family members have been academically successful (for their generation - my mother's generation didn't have our opportunities). The lad I mentioned above has made a success of his life, but it's a wonder given the parents' attitude. Fortunately, he had other family role models around him.

At one point - nursery/early primary - he needed speech therapy. The therapist gave the parents exercises to do at home with the boy.

The father proudly informed family members that he'd said to the therapist "Is that no your job?"

What has changed? It can only be lower expectations by some parents who don’t see the need for their children to possess these skills. That’s the crux of it. The children ARE capable, it is purely down to parental expectations

Exactly this.

They do that but the little ones are strapped into their buggies with an iPad and a dummy while the mums sit outside the cafe with their coffee, cigarettes and vapes.

Absolutely this , parents need more support, to work less not judgment. Unless you have generational wealth , rich or on the other side fully supported by the state (including your housing costs) and so not working (time is q huge plus) you are on a hamster wheel in the middle .

I agree with all this but surely the kids should be taught this stuff at nursery, if they’re in nursery for so many hours of the day?

Or is it not feasible with the staff to child ratios?

Yes I agree with you. I'm thinking more about other interventions that may be needed like additional support with reading etc that once upon a time could have been easily done in school when they had more funding and resources, but now it's not as simple for them to do these things. It's probably a different subject really.

Do you really believe children in European countries can't put on a coat, or say please and thank you before age 7?

In their own mind I suspect its frankly unbelievable that 90% of children dont know their own name

I think OP meant recognising their own name written down.

Yes. 60 years ago, things were DIFFERENT.

Things that applied 60 years ago no longer apply today. Cloth nappies, more tightly-knit communities/family involvement, different demographics (fewer elderly people, more children), and far less technology.

What worked 60 years ago will not necessarily work TODAY. Neither will judging and spouting phrases like "In my day, we..."

SureStart is the example I'm using because it was cut to the bone not that long ago, and did have measurable results from something like 1999-mid 2010s. We can tut at bad parenting until we're blue in the face but early intervention might actually fix a few things that the OP has concerns about.

Children in the UK have been starting school at 4 or 5 for a long, long, time but the issues the op raised are new, its not the child's age, its the fact that they have not been taught basic manners or encouraged to do things for themselves because their parents are either too busy, or too lazy. I have seen 4 year olds arrive at school in a buggy sucking a soother, with a bottle tucked in beside them, and ime the parents who are babying their dc are usually the same ones who expect them to be reading and writing within a couple of weeks. Because they are idiots.

I’m not as surprised as I should be. I have a friend who’s been childminding for about about 25 years now and has said the years since Covid have been the most challenging because of the children (and parents) themselves. The lack of manners, entitled behaviour, blatant rudeness, lazy and selfish behaviour is what has made her decide to jack it all in. She tells the parents when there’s an issue with their kids behaviour and they basically just shrug whereas pre Covid basically all of the parents would be mortified on the much rarer occasions the kids stepped out of line. These are kids from toddlers right up to year 6 btw.

And haven't health visiting services been cut too? We regularly saw the HV when mine were babies/toddlers and they were always available for advice, but I think some of the checks they used to do no longer happen?

You have a good point here - my 3 and 7 year old were both potty trained by 18 months and using a proper toilet shortly after.

I used cloth nappies with them

They use cutlery, sit at the table properly and we have family meals together.

They have always eaten exactly what we have (I didn't do pureed food or jars and pouches, just plates of the same food the grown ups were eating)

I think some modern convenience options have encouraged later potty training and poorer eating.

But I also feel like a lot of this down to a lack of time - two working parents, long commutes, sub standard child care all day. What do we really expect to happen to our children's development?

Even if two parents were working in the past, it was either opposing shifts so one parent was present, or the children would spend the day with a grandparent or aunt who would act as parent in those hours.

The parents are saying that she isn't correct, their children are all well behaved, able to do tasks that are expected (dress themselves and sit down and recognise their own name written on paper). All their children have been parented appropriately

I think some parents are saying they shouldn't even be expected to be able to do this. Which is part of the problem.

The killing of birds isn't new either. A cousin of mine worked at a local school in the 1970s and arrived one morning to find the birds all dead. The children who killed them were 13/14.

Yes, a lot of SEND children are not diagnosed until later precisely because they're quite capable of the self care things. Ds has adhd, dd has autism. Both toilet trained, able to put on their coats (and button/ zip them up) and recognised their own names written down by reception age. They're also exceptionally polite and well mannered, and always have been.

DM was a teaching assistant from around 1970 to 2000. In all that time - and it was right near the end - she had one child who she had to clean up regularly because he wasn't toilet trained and had soiled his pants. There were no children in nappies/pull-ups.

But starting school sorts a lot of that out. We saw it in reception but they all got used to the processes.

Yes heaven help us if parents go around indoctrinating children to use cutlery, chew with their mouths shut or (shudders) say please and thank you if they don't fancy it. Nothing nicer than free-spirited, creative children who eat with their fingers and have the manners of a barn animal.

Great point. I have lovely memories of a HV that came after my son was born in 08 after a long and rough birth. I'm not sure if their services have been cut but I would sadly not be surprised.

No it isn’t. You both show how out of touch you are.

I have lived and taught in France and Spain and this idea ( I don’t live in the uk) that everywhere else is so much better is deluded. As an aside I found France awful for sn support ( I don’t have dcs with sn so this was an observation at work and having relatives with children in school in France). 3/4 is far too young to start in a formal educational setting. Also pp saying it didn’t happen in the past , children were beaten in the past physically, a lot ( it was rampant where I’m from) and therefore very compliant , fear works ..

Kids not recognising their name written when they start reception surely isn't unusual? You're supposed to teach them! My son started reception recognising his name but he has an easy name. Thirty years ago I wouldn't have recognised my name when I started school, not due to parental neglect but because I have a very hard name to spell. Some of the other stuff too I roll my eyes at - for a lot of kids who haven't been to nursery, school will be their first experience of using coathooks so yes... You will need to teach them that. And as others have pointed out, kids are a canny bunch. My son could put his coat on, do zips and buttons etc .. but if he worked out the teacher would do it for him if he pretended not to be able to, I can absolutely see him claiming not to know how to do it.

I find this topic so interesting and worrying.

My 4 year old has significant special needs and just started reception. I’m sure he is certainly not hitting all the readiness criteria. I know OP wasn’t talking about SEN children, but for example my son was toilet trained years ago. Yet, he has had nearly daily accidents since starting reception. Never happened during his year at pre school nursery, never happens at home. Not entirely sure what’s going on there and it’s a huge worry for me, but there we go - sometimes things do go out the window when they start school.

Something I have noticed with both my NT and SEN child is that expectation seem to be so low - even before my SEN child was evidently not NT I noticed this. The earliest example I came across was my HV telling me to give up attempting toilet training before age 2 - I’m well aware that many children will not be ready at that age, but all I was doing was introducing them to the potty etc, it’s not like I was doing some big pressurised campaign to get them toilet trained early. I don’t understand why anyone would discourage this.

I feel constantly undermined by other people including health professionals and adjacent services. For example I have always made my children say please and thank you and just generally speak in a polite manner. As a result they’re both really quite polite - okay, sometimes they forget (they’re only 3 and 4) and so I remind them. But so very often I remind them and the adult we’re speaking to says “oh don’t worry about that” - I know it’s well meaning but it just completely undermines me to my child.

For my SEN child, I’m constantly being told “oh we don’t expect him to do that so don’t worry” - and so often I have to say “no, he’s completely capable of that if you push him a little”. It does him absolutely no favours long term to allow him to get away with lower standards of behaviour.

Not exactly on topic but related, I’ve worked in customer facing roles for a very long time, and I’m really alarmed by the sudden and dramatic uptick of older teenagers and young adults who can only speak in embarrassed mumbles and are totally incapable of eye contact. I’m totally aware that this can be a SEN issue for some, but the sheer amount who are like this now is so shocking to me and cannot just be explained by SEN - there are simply too many of them who are like this for that to be the only explanation imo.