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

I can believe you, OP. I worked as a teacher pre-Covid in a partially joint nursery/Reception class. There were 45 in Reception alone, for some bizarre reason, and it was a constant flow of children leaving and new ones starting.

Ours seemed to grasp putting coats on low pegs reasonably quickly, but staff still had to help with putting coats on. Forget about expecting quite a chunk of them to recognise the letters in their own name, too, and I'd have them sitting there every day, tracing the letters in their name, and reading, etc.

I do think that 4/5 is too young for a lot of children to go to school, and I'm not blaming the nurseries, childminders, pre-schools, etc. I do think that a lot of it sits with the parents. I had a few in my class who were taken into foster care, and the difference between them being with the parents and the stability and patience of the foster carers was astonishing.

They are in nursery for about 6 or 7 hours maximum, usually much less. The other 8 or 10 waking hours are spent with a parent who is distracted by their phone.

The whole point is that these are not SEN children (a few might be undiagnosed, but not 90% of a class!).

They're NT children who haven't been taught the absolute basics. I'm a teacher, though for older kids, and similar discussions happen in the staff room all the time.

PE teachers saying half the class can't catch a ball at 9 years old, too many children not knowing their own addresses or parents' phone numbers, 6 year olds in nappies because the parents are following tiktok child-led parenting ideas and refuse to actually potty train.

Just another thread judging parents and children 🙄

Cannot speak for all European or socialist countries. The one I come from, children do start school at 7, sometimes 6 for autumn babies. However, for several years prior to that they attend daily, very structured kindergarten which very similar to the Early Education Foundation Stage in the UK. They learn to read, write, basic maths, they do arts and crafts, music, learn classroom skills, etc. So they do start education quite early too, it's just not called School.

In my experience more money can lead to more helpless children rather than the opposite - children brought up by Nannies who do everything for them. It’s much easier to do things for a 2-5 year old than teach them/ support them to do it for themselves. Why bother as an underpaid nanny? See also parents not bothering to potty train. It’s hard, can be messy and lead to tantrums so let’s just stick with nappies.

It's not being a snob, it's a fact. Studies have clearly shown children from low-income households are much less likely to be judged "school ready" when they start primary school.

OK, am in UK, not in a European country, but like f was I going to let my dc go to pre-school - precious time spent at home, dh and I took turns being a sahp in early years. Best years ever. Best memories ever. Our earnings were pathetic, we lived in such a modest dwelling that had we, for example, wanted to foster or adopt - we would not have been allowed to, on account of 'unsuitable housing'. But the whole idea was to spend these years with dc, doing all sorts of unstructured things, like one parent (who was not working at that moment) taking dc to Scotland or Wales for a few days - pure delight!

Things in high school aren’t great either. The number of children who can not concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes is rising all the time. I blame phones.

Except that the op explicitly states sen isn't a factor here and that it's an issue with 90% of her current class having general struggles with behaviour and basic tasks.

Also can we please stop with this constant rhetoric that any child struggling with behaviour has Sen or attributing any hint of "negative" behaviour to it? Not all issues are sen, just like not all Sen kids display in that way.

Well MN is full of people saying ‘they will do it when they are ready’ about everything - passivity seems to be the current way

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgy6n0l4rdo

England isn’t doing that bad on an international level…

I can absolutely believe this.
I don’t think parents are aware of the impact they have by not teaching manners, basic independence, language.
the language is the worst. So many reception kids with us have to have intensive speech and language support just to make themselves understood.
I blame the cut of sure start funding.

I find it interesting that a Y2 teacher friend has noticed a huge decline in the number of their students that have fully formed knuckles and are very much lacking the fine and large motor skills that are needed to learn to write.

That is down to lack of play with construction such as Lego and active play such as climbing. To be that is an indicator that young children are playing very differently to say 10 years ago.

The only kid that had proper knuckles lived and helped on the farm.

I agree somewhat, although my children don’t have a smartphone until they go to high school and no social media until 16, but they never had limited tv/games consoles, so had screen time from quite young.
I think blaming screen time for everything a child does/ doesn’t do is also the problem, it almost gives parent an excuse as to why their kids can’t put on a coat “oh i just can’t get them off screens” which is bull imo.
My 2 yo is currently watching bubble guppies, the tv will be on all day with some sort of childrens program/film on but she can still put her own coat on, put her own shoes on, put her coat away/put her shoes away, says please, thank you, you’re welcome, share etc and she has screen time available all day.

Well maybe disabilities and sen aside, we need to be a little more judgemental. I think everyone has become too afraid to ever say something is wrong for fear of upsetting someone. Maybe sometimes people need to feel a little shame about the way they live and how they parent.

Did the children not go to nursery. A lot of these skills are covered at nursery as its also part of eyfs.
Could you fo an outreach to the bigger nurseries for next year on skills needed?.

I think we need to judge parents more. Not the children a 4 year old is just a 4 year old.

But the parents god yes for sure. People do judge silently perhaps but if you are a terrible parent you do get judged, quite rightly.

Why shouldn’t you? People judge others all the time, how they look, speak, decorate their house, the car they drive, you judge people, we all do. Why not parenting?

Absolutely this.

In my school, which is in a very deprived area and many parents don’t access any early years education until their child starts in reception, the picture you paint is absolutely not the same. There is the odd child that isn’t sure how to use a communal toilet, or where to hang their coat, or responds straight away to their name, but these children haven’t been in a setting with 29 other children, which is over stimulating and carries so many demands on them. Many are only just 4, and there’s a massive difference in the developmental stages of an only just turned 4 year old and an almost 5 year old.
Reception term 1 is the time to address all these social skills one at a time. It’s exhausting! Blaming reliance on tech and gentle parenting isn’t helpful. Also, many children don’t get identified as having SEN until well into their school journey. Saying ‘they don’t have any SEN’ is very different to saying ‘they don’t have any SEN needs identified as yet’.

I read it as OP saying it isn't a SEN school so it's safe to assume the majority are not SEN. The issues she's seeing are too widespread to be SEN specific.

I'm a teacher and assume most of my students aren't SEN. In fact I assume most of the adults I interact with over the course of the day aren't SEN either. It's a safe assumption to make unless you're in a SEN-focused environment.

I think people should be judged (not their children) for not equipping their children with the most basic tasks to be honest. I had a 15 year old plonk his foot in front of me last week and asked me to tie his shoelace.

@Sparrowsandbudgies you think schools are unable to tell dc what they are doing right or wrong? What has made you think this? How will judgement on a MNs thread improve anything?

90%, bloody hell, that's a big no. Where do you work?

No it hasn’t. I started school the term after I turned 5. No nursery as my mum didn’t work. Primary school had 6 classes - current year 1-6. No reception. The school had a nursery on site for the year before proper school started but you didn’t have to go and many didn’t.

an extra year makes a huge difference to maturity and gross/fine motor skills for most children.