whose job is it to make sure they are emotionally ok?

[justacigar]

Just wanted to hear people's opinions on the role of pshe in schools - do you think teachers have a duty to help children become happy, functional young people, or is that strictly the parents' domain? I'm not a media request in disguise - I've just noticed how little my dd's teacher knows her :she's 6 and in a class of 30. She is at school for 30 hours/week but they seem to spend very little time building their class community, apart from facile "we don't bully in this class" kind of stuff. bearing in mind how important "emotional intelligence" has been found to be as an indicator of future success, I would have thought this would be just as important as learning to read. thoughts?

I do see that we have a pastoral role, to try to make sure the kids settle in well, that there isn't some aspect of school that is preventing them making progress. But the rest of the stuff sort of has to be in place so that we can do our job. As custy says we are teachers first of all, and I'm not trained as a councellor or a therapist

I suppose what I think is that if as it seems, EQ is a better predictor of success/happiness etc than IQ, then we have got it all BADLY wrong and PSHE should be at the HEART of education, and teachers and parents should be working together. In the state system this then raises the question "why should the state mess with my child's emotions?" and I don't know how I would actually feel if they were more involved. But in a very complex, mobile world, of shifting relationships, rootlessness, etc, - the ability to get on with others, whilst knowing who you are, is arguably more important than ever. And I would have thought the government might want to invest a deal of money in insuring the next generation of citizens are emotionally literate and mentally strong.

In my dd's school, the emotional welfare of the kids is put only as the 4th ! 4th! selling point of the school - after academic excellence (of course) great sport, and religious fervour . And these are infants! I find that just a mite shortsighted and oldfashioned. And having helped regularly in my dd's school for the past 3 years, I've seen loads of kids who I think could do with a bit of guidance in this area - my dd included - and sometimes an adult who is NOT the parent is, IMO, able to break through where a parent can't - offering a fresh perspective - particularly when a school is a better microcosm of society than a family. Sorry - my emotionally very expressive kids are calling so I have to go but will be back later.

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I think there is something to be said for having nurture groups for children who have major probelms in emotional areas. In these the children tend to be laken out of the school system for a time and immerced in a nurture environment to help 'fill the gaps' in a child's emotional development. This is mostly used whena child cannot really access the academic work anyways, since they cannot integrate into school.

How we could do something similar for other children is beyond me. I already teach fat too many kids with poor literacy/ numeracy as it is.

Noting the comments that mb makes about secondary schools, I've wondered for a while now why the UK doesn't have a system like the States where each secondary school doesn't have a dedicated school counsellor on site whose soul responsibility is the emotional/mental health of its pupils.

Then again, dedicated school nurses seem to be getting rarer, so the chances of that are minimal :/

we are trying to get one on staff, but havent the funding. the current wait for a referal to the ebss for anger mangemnt for a child where i work is about 18 months

As a parent and a daughter of a teacher and a nursery nurse myself I have very unclear views of this.

I think as a teacher you have to know you children in your class to get the best from them. However, there is a lot of pressure and paperwork (lots unnecesssary and repetative) which distract from the job of teaching children. When I work with a group of 30 chidren, generally its not just me but I am one of 3/4 nursery nurses. I feel I do know my children as much as it possible but often they don't really tell you much about their environment outside of the nursery. My DD's school in the UK used to put alot of effort in making the school part of the village it was in and building a feeling of community within the school. My daughters school was and still is a lovely school which I have never heard a bad word said about. I feel this emphasis on PSE and instilling this sense of part of a larger world and the need to care for each other an important aspect of this positive school environment.

So custardo and colditz you think the teachers' job is just the academic stuff and yours is the emotional stuff? so would you have them do LESS pshe? I'm not aggressing, just curious. Teachers at primary level do already take into account the ways in which different children learn, whcih is already partly what I'm talking about. You're more likely to be happy if you have an interesting/successful school life, which means being engaged in lessons. But in our school parents already help so much with the academic stuff - ie in year 2 they kids ONLY read to other parents, never to teachers - they have homework, which requires ubersupervision, etc that the lines of who does what are somewaht blurred. Why is this? Isn't it old fashioned to expect teachers just to teach literacy, numeracy etc - isn't that a legacy of the 19th century education act?
BASICALLY what I wanna know is this: What is school for?

justacigar

The teachers cannot possibly have time to ensure that the children are happy well balanced people. If they are managing to fit pshe in, very good, but it should not be aiming to replace the parental role, and I suspect that sometimes it is fitted in at the expence of other subjects.

What I mean is really, if the parents are not managing to fit tackling the emotional welfare of their children into the day, this is the issue we need to be dealing with, not trying to foist that responsibilty onto already over-burdened teachers.

Spookily, I have just seen a thing in the guardian today about how the government are just about to spend LOADS of money on emotional literacy. But the way they are going to do it sounds horrendous - discrete lessons, fraught with bureaucracy, tick boxes, testing and more work for teachers,ie typical unimaginative new labour stuff. Now little bobby do you think you were feeling ANGRY there or SAD. This is not the way imo. The ideal way is obviously to half class sizes and make the schools particularly primary schools the hub of the communities they are in.

Colditz you are right - but if you work, and have 2+ children, all with homework, reading, and improving activities to supervise after school, just when are you supposed to "do" the emotional stuff with them? It becomes something else to fit in, rather than the core of your relationship with your kids. I think that argument only works if schools keep academic work to schooltime, and don't make parents do it as well.

theres something wrong when the state takes over a parenting role.

its hard doing all that stuff - but you dont "fit in" the emotional wellbeing of your child - its there all the time. its something good people do and if bad people dont do it - then please think of another strategy becuase i seriously dont want anymore lesson time taken away from my children

i think phse is a load of shite anyway

custardo - why do you think lesson time is taken away from your children? And why do you think pshe is a load of old shite? intrigued.

ok, i believe that teaching methods can be and should be explored and updated - there is more than one way to learn. my mum taught me times tables whilst doing 2 ball on the wall - it worked becuase it was to a tune and a rhythm. maybe more interactive learning wmay work better. or as an addition to - anyway that being said i just confirmed what i understood phse to be with my 12 yo daughter who said
" we talk about drugs n stuff and what social services and parents would do in a situation n stuff"
" dont you think it would benefot you more if you did more english or maths" says i
" no, cos someone might want to know how to be a social worker" says she

she adores the lesson she loves the given situations and thinking or the response - i think its the moral questions which intrigue her.

however this should be my domain - and is my domain. i took my 16 yo to a drug awareness evening the other week. we talk about stuff all the time. sex drugs everything. for instance MTV do a programme thats called 'room raiders' where teenagers go into each others room and based upon evidence in that room decide who they would like to date (bare with me here) as part of the process they have a 'blue light' to detect semen stains on the sheet!! so my 12 yo son asks me what its for so i tell him.

this should be my domain. if other parents are rubbish at it - then thats not a problem that should be forced into the education system. i truly believe its valuable wasted learning time.

my boys struggle at school academically and they need every minute. consequently i then struggle with part -time home ed questions in my head and doing eons of homework and at one point i even got in a tutor on a saturday. this is becuase they need a better education. and by that i mean english and maths and science primarily. my kids go to a catholic school and we are a catholic family yet i still believe that after options RE is also wasted time as is PE.

another related question and mumsnetters have slaughtered me on this. i also belive that PE is wasted time after options at secondary. my argument is that i should ensure my children get enough excersise - the consesus was " but most dont so we should do it in school"

well i think thats just pant. becuse most parent feed their kids shite at home and have lazy unhealthy kids is not a good enough reason to compell my kids to do PE in the two most important years in senior school.

i understand your argument and will end repeating my first point. i do believe that teachers should use different tools to learn - but social stuff is for me, making sure they get excersie is down to me

of course the school should provide healthy meals and do away with stupid coke machines

of course children should be introduced toother subjects like art and drama and cooking and woodwork becuase some kids will thrive at this.

but i think that my kids would benefit from a more pro active learning forum with subjects they already have.

As a primary teacher I actually see pshce (as it's now called) as a very important part of my job. However, it doesn't always have to be a discrete subject addressed with a 1hour weekly session.
When I wrote our current scheme of work I fitted topics in around other subjects. Some examples;

1. Year 1 topic on myself fits in with their science topic of body parts.
2. The healthy eating topic was given to Y3 as they do teeth & healthy eating in science.
3. Y4 were given diversity around the world as they study India in geography.

Of course, some topics need to be taught as discrete subjects such as sex ed and road safety but a lot of it can be incorporated into other lessons.

I think in an ideal world, emotional wellbeing would be primarily the role of the parent with these values and expectations being reinforced by school. However, for many children, school is the most stable part of their lives and teachers their only role models so for them PSHCE is vital.

I would however like to add (following on from the thread about the 10yr old) that I don't see it in any way my job to instill discipline in a child.

what is the c for is it citizenship?

Custardo, I totally agree with you in principle and I hope to be the same sort of parent myself. But I think that teaching needs to be pragmatic. Some schools in deprived areas will need more PSHCE than those in a more affluent area. Although that doesn't always follow as DH comes from an affluent family and was full of sexual and emotional hang-ups when he met me.

English and maths are important and the timetable reflects this. However, education is not just about literacy and numeracy.

Yep, c for citizenship. It's already statutory at secondary level and going that way at primary.
It's fab IMO. Lots of community work. Visits to old folks homes (sorry if not PC), learning about recycling, meeting the local M.P. All good stuff.
Also lots of it gives rise to interesting literacy and numeracy. Letter writing to M.P, recounts of visits, maths problems about amounts of rubbish etc.

its a load of bollox - why not just send them to school with a suitcase and all their wordly goods!

Totally disagree! Letter writing is part of the curriculum so why not write a 'real' letter to someone who can come in and discuss their role in the community?
When learning about India, why not learn about how the lives of those children are different from our own?
And how can we possibly justify saying that because parents such as you or I teach our children about road safety and sex then it's tough to the others?

It's not all touchy-feely talking about emotions. It's about equiping our children with life skills and exposing them to community life. It's about showing them that rights go hand in hand with responsibilities.

If the parents don't do it and then I don't do it then you'll soon be whinging when their anti-social behaviour affects you.

Assuming that a child is NT I think that it is reasonable to expect a child entering school to have some rough ideas on what is expected behaviour. No teacher would expect perfection, but at that stage I think that it is reasonable for a child to understand that they take turns, wait for others to finish, share items, comply with (some) requests from teachers to do basic things some of the time.

The primary teacher will have trained long and hard in how to teach a child to read. While it is nice that parents support the teacher, she (or he) is doing the teaching, the parents do supportive work.

I am capable (most of the time ) of getting my children in a reasonable shape for school. Happy enough, content enough, confident enough, reasonably well behaved. I can do that, but I can't teach them to read (I'm a secondary teacher). So isn' it better for the specialist to do the teaching, and I do the bits that I can do, to make my kids lives happier and her job easier?

No one expects perfection, that would be foolish. However some children start school utterly lacking in basic life skills. It is children like this who need the school to step in with things like nurture groups.

I teach 16 year olds who cannot eat with a knife and fork, ffs, no one has ever shown them. They have the manners taht would shame a 5 year old. They have never sat down and eaten as a family. We all have time enough for these sort of basics, for the kids sake and our own.

justacigar- perhaps your child's school is not spending enough time devloping emotional literacy? Please don't assume that to be the norm. There are lots of teachers who know their children really well and care deeply about developing their emotional articulacy in order to allow them to develop to their full potential. We do this through a range of activities, planned and spontaneous, formal and informal. If you are unhappy with practice in your school, explore its foundations and understand the reasoning and then if you are still unhappy then challenge it.
If we insist on measuring children in levels then some schools will neglect aspects of children's education. Teachers work in partnership with parents.

I think that it is a very important part of primary school, and especially reception, to learn how to cope with being in a large group, to cope with not have a parent or significant care giver, to work out the rules of playgrounds, and to learn how to make friends. These are all crucial life skills, and they are not experienced by most children prior to school. These seem to me to be far more important for a four/five year old than starting to read. I would expect that any reception teacher worth her salt would be skilled and experienced in this area. Luckily at my children's school they seem to be pretty good at it. School is very very different to home, and it is a steep learning curve for many children.
I think that it is great that children spend time learning all about the world and the paert they might play in it. Of course it should reinforce what they learn at home (and most kids will learn something at home too), but talking about these things with your peers is very important too, and maybe they won't tell you anything that sounds very useful, but possibly that because they don't actually want to talk to you about it. My dd had a "life skills bus" visit today, where they helped gerald the giraffe learn to make friends. She clearly enjoyed it, and I think it was worthwhile, as at five the more skills and ideas she has in this area the better. But I also think this will be true when she is a teenager, and discussions with her peers about realationships are going to be every bit as important as discussions with me. After all if she is thinking about underage sex, for example, chances are it will be with one of her school friends, so guided conversations about why sex might not be such a great idea are a great thing IMO.

I suppose it depends what you think the role of a school is. In society as it is now, it's unrealistic to say that school has no role at all. Just as employers used to have no business meddling in your health or what you did outside the workplace and the state had no business telling you how many portions of vegetables to eat, the boundaries between private behaviour and public institutions have broken down quite a bit, and it would be unrealistic to imagine that schools could be unaffected by that any more than any other type of public institution.

we cannot and should not expect our schools to step into a breach and fill a gap left by poor parenting. Its not fair on those of us who are good parents.

i dont know how to do it - and ok maybe this is the only workable way for now - i havent got a solution but i think that the whole reason for doing it ie. its not being done at home - is piss poor.

the kids parents are rubbish - lots of kids parents are rubbish and so now its down to the education system to teach values and emotional wellbeing?
no
the education system should be there to educate my children in a traditional sense.

i dont know how to get round or overcome the piss poor parenting situation.

my kids need traditional educational support. they are not getting it.

am doing the parenting stuff - the school is now doing the parenting stuff too - who the f*ckis teaching them maths to a standard that they can get a job? especially if they struggle.

i will have very well rounded human beings who cannot spell or add up.

there is not enough time in the day as it is at school. by the time they get there have registration go to the next lclass settle down - i will eat my hat if out of a 30 min class in say history they get 20 mins teaching time beofre they have to get their gear and shove off to next class.

i have no solution and cant think of one but it seems liek the future of society is no longer the domain of the parent - but the domain of the education system and thats wrong.

am really sorry that some kids have piss poor parents who dont teach them to eat with a knofe and fork, whose tea that night ( if they get any) will be from the chippy, who never have any help with school work at home, have no blance int heir lives or structure, that they will never have a balanced meal, or see a potato peeled, that they aren't taught how to say please and thank you and be gracious, that the only form of communication they are taught at home is "fuck off"

i agree it needs addressing - i don't know how. all i know is my children need educating in a traditional sense - there is not the time in the day for teachers to do both adequatley.