AiBU to get fed up of people running our schools down.

[Washandblowdryplease]

I get that not every school is perfect and people have specific and individual issues with this or that. However, every thread on education seems to take it for granted that our system is dreadful. In the 3 big global rankings we are currently placed 4th, 6th, and 16th. We are in the top 10 for all 3 subjects compared by PISA scores. To me that suggests that we actually have a pretty decent system.

We also have 4 of the top 10 universities and are ranked 2nd for research quality in higher education.

Links provided so that you can see the data yourself

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-countries-for-education

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-subject-rankings/education-training

This is my experience of school too. Teachers would come in , hand out textbooks and say “read chapter 3 and do the exercises”. That was it. We never had catch up revision sessions before exams, never saw a past paper until out mocks, got in trouble for wearing the wrong colour hair band . It was dire.

Well it must have changed. My kids went through the state system to masters degree level. Now they both have decent jobs.

In what way is your child being failed in school? Id appreciate experience, not links to statistics.

Yes. Scotland And Wales didn't do as well as England on the Pisa rankings. They have different governments managing (or not) their education systems. And it shows.

Well if they are throwing chairs at teachers they are learning this at home.

School is for education. Home is where you learn to be a decent person.
Schools cant do much if the parents are arseholes, their kids have no chance.

Schools vary so much, as do the kids attending them, One child can attend a school without issue, another can go to the same school, be in the same class and have a totally different experience. If you fit the mould then it’s fine, if you don’t it can be very difficult.
I home educate and I am not anti school but I have heard some shocking and upsetting accounts about schools from people who have removed their children who haven’t really felt like they have another choice. But equally I know many kids who have a good experience.

ps. YANBU. @AgeingMillennial is correct also.

Yes the sheer amount of tailored or personalised help they get now goes way beyond what we got. It was one size fits all, or nothing.

I would love going to school now, I was an academic child who did well and enjoyed working with my dc in primary learning all kinds of stuff that I didn’t learn at school.

But a large number of kids are being failed, like my autistic daughter and many other neurodivergent children. Many of them can’t get into a school that meets their needs and so they struggle and distract other children. It’s not their fault. Many schools are also inflexible with rigid rules such as the curriculum, uniform that aren’t fair to these kids. Despite having to pay for a detailed educational psychologist report dd2 wasn’t allowed to have any of the accommodations recommended because the neurotypical kids would want these things. I’m in a few local Facebook and WhatsApp groups for parents of kids with autism and adhd and mainstream schools are mostly not fit to support these kids.

Quite. See posts on here from teachers in primary schools, where kids are eg. starting schools with no manners, not understanding how to take turns - very very basic things. Which are free and simple for all parents. Never mind the stories about aggression and class violence.

Or, in the past these kids would be sent to a PRU where education was more tailored to their needs. Mainstream state schooling was much calmer. Now in Scotland these kids are in mainstream and so everyone sees it. And others copy the bad kid too as they know there are zero consequences. If they’re bored, they know they can enjoy some consequence-free chair throwing.

The failings currently are funding from the government and provision for children with SEND. Shoving children who need alternative provision into mainstream is a travesty for all and under the misleading banner of inclusion. Inclusion can work but not for all children.

Not my grandchildren either.

"Scotland is failing badly in comparison to England and is on a sharply downhill trajectory. Sad to see in a country that once had the best education in the world but that’s what happens when you follow ‘inclusion’ policies even when they are harming pretty much every child and teacher, and rewrite the curriculum to dumb it down massively."

100%.

I massively agree with this. It's shocking how far down the Scottish education system has fallen, with the focus on inclusion, bringing down expectations to SUCH a low base line, and restorative practices instead of actual evidence-led teaching approaches and consequences for poor behaviour in school.

They're letting an entire generation down because they've implemented education policy in Scotland based on wishful thinking, rather than what is proven to work.

I have family members in teaching, and children in the Scottish system, and comparing to English family members, it's shocking - and it can't be explained by differences in income, demographic as we mostly all live in similar areas in terms of affluence, stability of teaching staff, and such.

You absolutely cannot make any sweeping statements about education in the UK if you weren’t even aware that the Scottish Education system is a reserved matter and is an entirely different system from England and Wales.

Looking at the statistics you provided. “UK” ranked 12 in 2024 and are now 16th in the WTO.nIn 2024 (and for at least 5 years prior) UK ranked 2nd in the USN data, in 2026, they are 6th. I have no idea how these ranking are comparable given Slovenia scores better than we do in WTO, despite being among the lowest in USN .

Setting aside how difficult it is to combine the 4 nations in to one ranking given their different systems, I think it’s fair to say that such a drop in standards is unlikely to be happening in a single year and is likely that the chronic underfunding and the failures in ASN education, pushing more kids to mainstream when they can’t cope with it that has happened over the last decade is what brought us to where we are.

The world university rankings are meaningless. The vast majority of young people going to universities in the U.K. are not going to the handful of prestigious schools on the list, they are going to the other 160 universities, which are ranked way down the list. Again this is due to chronic underfunding. In Scotland for example, funding of university places for Scottish students has fallen by more than 50% in real terms over the last decade.

There is much to be proud of in our education system, but complacency and a lack of prioritisation means we are seeing problems in the system. It also doesn’t matter where we rank in the world when there are large numbers of children being failed by the system. Recognising problems is the first step to fixing them.

This is the truth

This. Girls' skirt length was measured regularly and the boys' hair had to be 1cm above their collar. We had to wear our stupid hats walking home from school. People who think uniforms are stricter now are deluded. On the other hand most primaries except church schools didn't have uniforms at all until the 90s.

I'm not particularly in favour of uniforms I'm just saying it's not worse now.

The kid isn’t a “bad kid”, they do face consequences, and other kids are not copying them.

Mainstream state schooling has never been calm. The problem is we expect all kids to be able to deal with the chaos.

This is not the truth. It’s what was said about my generation of kids 40 years ago, and it wasn’t true then either. The problem is, the education system is based on an outdated model. It never suited a whole load of kids but back then we just suspended and excluded them, wrote them off as being stupid or unruly. We don’t do that now, but neither do we support them.

It’s also a massive misunderstanding of what inclusion actually is.

Teens in the U.K. have very bad mental health compared to many other countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/26/young-people-england-common-mental-health-conditions-nhs-survey?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

research into the factors behind this typically cite academic pressure and schooling problems as a significant factor.

many high performing schooling systems academically have very very high rates of mental distress amongst young people.

They have reduced funding to education which i think is awful.

This is rubbish, far more abuse is recognised now & plenty of lax parenting in the past.

I don't know OP. Ds' very small primary school was good. The secondary he was offered, 41% of boys passed gcse maths but 72% of girls. Why? Same cohort, same families, same town, same facilities. No explanation.

ds got a scholarship to a small rural independent, definitely not fashionable nor selective but they did a really good job. He was very happy & had good outcomes.

I'd say yes, in our rural area generally, our schools are pretty good.

I do agree with you @Washandblowdryplease and others who have posted the same and it annoys me too.

When I think back to my own schooldays (when dinosaurs roamed) – we were given a textbook and told to copy out of it. Or some maths was put on the board and we had to do it. Or we spent the lesson reading silently. DH says the same (these were two selective schools btw). We both recall having to source the material needed to get good grades in our A levels as a lot wasn't taught and there was no support with exam technique.

Since then my own DC have been through the school system and I have also worked in a number of schools as a teacher and as support staff. Goodness, what a difference. Lively engaging lessons, teachers spending so much time prepping their lessons, sourcing revision materials, giving useful and helpful interactive feedback; and also providing food, clothes, stationery and more for students who are struggling.

A diverse range of subjects as well. Here are some subjects not offered as exam classes in my grammar school, now commonly available as GCSE, A level or Btec in many regular state schools:

• PE
• Drama
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Politics
• Law
• Economics
• Dance
• Applied science
• Health and social care
• Animal care
• Child development
• English language A level
• Sports science
• Computer science
• Design and technology

It makes me sad when people are so dismissive of the work teachers and other school staff put in to support students. They really for the most part do a great job in very trying circumstances.

White working class children are being hugely failed, the majority of funding and grammar school places are now diverted away from then. Just in the last 5 years alone, close to 3 billion out of the education budget has been spent on children for whom English isn't their first language. These funds once would have gone elsewhere within education. Basically, we cannot afford to educate our own adequately anymore.