Are schools asking too much of parents these days?

[icantthinkofadifferenname]

I think back to my own childhood where my mum occasionally helped out as a spare pair of hands at a school trip and donated something for a raffle.

My kids' school seem to be asking more and more of parents to help out, or in some cases deliver, things that would historically have been the role of the teacher to do. I know times are tough and resources short but surely the answer is to recruit more teachers and argue that the budget needs to be increased for education instead of asking parents, many of whom will work, to step in for a cheap fix.

I think you haven't quite grasped a fundamental difference in pass rates for SATs and the 11 plus. The biggest difference between SATs and 11 plus is that if your authority had 1,000 grammar school places and 1,000 children got 100% then a child who got 99% failed, doesn't work like that with SATs does it? Doesn't matter how good the teachers were they couldn't possibly get more children through the 11 plus than there were grammar school places. In the authority where I lived just over 20% of children could get grammar school places, that doesn't in anyway equate to how many children can get 100 in their SATs.

Obviously if children are tested on things they haven't done they won't do well. Children now won't do well with pounds shillings and pence, they won't have a clue with ounces, pounds, hundredweights, tons or bushels, pecks and quarts. It is likely that many teachers would struggle as well.

The routine beating of children wasn't great, as I said I feel it marked me for life and I was a very well behaved child. I well remember the day I got the cane for not getting 20 out of 20 on a spelling test, I got the single L and the double L the wrong way round in parallel, I still stress about spelling but on the other hand in a school in a rough area where many children lived with great deprivation they turned out children who did well I know one who is a world renowned surgeon, a professor and I even went to school with one who became a Lord. By the way another girl got praised for getting 2 out of 20 on that test, as Sister said to me she achieved what she was capable of and I didn't.

Education wasn't perfect then, it isn't perfect now either.

My parents never got 30 bloody ParentMail messages a week… that has definitely got worse.

but there was a lot of school in the 80s that is used” mums who were not working during school hours. My dad was a governor so often on the premises anyway.

@ancientgran

Education wasn't perfect then, it isn't perfect now either.

Absolutely agree - it definitely isn't perfect now and I'm certainly not arguing that it is.

The biggest difference between SATs and 11 plus is that if your authority had 1,000 grammar school places and 1,000 children got 100% then a child who got 99% failed, doesn't work like that with SATs does it?

No, it doesn't. But do you honestly believe that 99% was ever a real cut off rate? It could just have easily been 30%. We don't have the data to be able to support a claim like that so let's look at the data we do have:

• in the 1950s around 25% of children attended grammar schools,
• of those children and the ones outside grammar deemed bright enough to take their exams, only 40% attained the equivalent of what would now be five GCSE grades 4/5 to 9, in 1954 (the lowest level). The highest percentages of equivalent passes was in 1959 at 56%,
• these represented, at lowest, 10% of the entire student population and, at highest, 14%. It was better in the 60s but only really improved in the 70s,
• now, the percentage of children achieving the equivalent results is consistently above 60% of the entire student population.

Over 60% of students every year come away with the equivalent level of qualifications as 10 to 14 percent did during the 1950s. Now, you could claim, as some do, that the tests are "easier" these days but there's no real evidence to support that claim. What the evidence we have does suggest is that, over time, the quality of education has improved, as we should expect it to.

Anyway, I never intended to have a little side thread within this. The point was that claims of teachers being able to do it all, back in the day, even with loads more pupils are not comparing like for like. The system, structures, demands and expectations are completely different. Education now is not the same as education was 20 years ago, let alone 60 or 70.

@ancientgran

Going off topic a bit but Personally I think maths teaching is so much better these days. At least it is at any decent school. I remember my poor maths lessons in the 80s in junior school (and my school was well thought of). Pages upon pages of sums, subtractions, “bus stop” division. I enjoyed it cos I quite like repetitive tasks that just require working through a process without having to think much. But I could not problem solve to save my life as we were never really taught it beyond the basics of “Peter has 7 sweets. He wants to share them equally between himself and 3 friends. Can he do this? Does he have any left over?”

Now, they teach children multiple different methods so that they get to understand the logic behind it. Some children don’t understand one method but can do an alternative one no problem. They have brought back “mental maths” which I think is a good thing.

but who really needs to know long division etc anyway? As you say it is just calculations, which can be done quicker on a calculator, so you can solve more complex maths problems rather than spending all your time working something out. It’s the problem solving and logic that schools are good at teaching now. The application of maths. Yes, they still teach the old fashioned methods as far as I know but it’s not all they do because the emphasis is on the thought processes and application.

I was astounded at the things my junior age children were doing in maths. Really high level problems. Both of my children have come out with excellent maths skills, in fact one is off to Cambridge at the weekend to start an integrated masters in Engineering. His understanding of hard maths is phenomenal. However if you asked him to do a long multiplication in his head you’d probably think he wasn't great at maths because it would take him a bit longer than it would take you to do it. It would take him seconds on a calculator and he’d then be off finishing the complex problem that the long multiplication calculation was needed for in the first place.

as for history teaching, it seems to me that a lot of it used to be about rote learning of dates or who was married to who. Not highly useful if you think about it unless you want to do well in pub quizzes or be a history teacher.

I had kids at school in the 80s, I think they way they taught English in their school was really poor. Spelling in particular was something that they just never corrected. My eldest was good at maths, my husband had to do alot with the 2nd one though.

I think using a calculator is great but they do need to understand how it works. One of mine went to one of the top 3 universities for maths, as you say I can do calculations in my head much faster. When the machines go down I can be their human calculator.

I think our history was a bit more political, not sure what the Polish and Italian kids made of it to be honest.

My point was it was different. No one is going to want classes of 48 now and it couldn't work because they definitely couldn't get away with beating kids like they beat us.

You seem to miss that I was talking about my school, just like virtually everyone on here has been talking about their experience with their own or their child's school. Not sure why I'm suddenly expected to represent every school in the 1950s.

Do you accept that comparing pass rates for SATs to pass rates for the 11 plus is not possible due to the real physical limits of places at grammar school so you comparing pass rates doesn't actually work.

Totally agree. Teachers never seem to be in the classroom at my kids' school. They're always off ill/ at a wedding / doing training / having an operation etc. Meanwhile parents who actually have full-time jobs (9-6, you know, four weeks of holiday a year) are constantly getting emails asking us to show up to help on trips, help in class with reading, help by buying supplies of various kinds, help by administering various bits of school business via committees with many in-person meetings followed by endless WhatsApp messaging or other parents etc etc.

This in addition to the constant requests for money.

And the essential lack of teaching and books which means I spend hours a week at this point teaching my children to read and do maths, outside the school curriculum. It's exhausting.

*@Iamnotthe1
*
Over 60% of students every year come away with the equivalent level of qualifications as 10 to 14 percent did during the 1950s.

I agree with many of your points, but how do you know that these are real equivalents?

Old exam papers are incredibly hard for modern students. As a university lecturer for twenty years, it's also clear over a much shorter timescale that students who now receive an A or A* in A level (in core humanities subjects, most of all in modern languages and Classics; I have no experience in maths or science) aren't as well prepared to study the course as their predecessors 20 years ago with a B or C. In fact we have had to make the university courses easier because our median student is no longer able to cope with the pace or depth of the first term's teaching.

I think you're probably right to say that a larger proportion of the population now emerges from school moderately well-educated. But there has been a real decline at the higher levels.

Think you need to query this if true. We get 2 and a half hours planning time a week that can be covered by support staff (planned by teacher) If the teacher is part time there should be someone there for the last day.

Meanwhile parents who actually have full-time jobs (9-6)

This is fewer hours than a primary teacher works in a week, per DfE figures.

surely the answer is to recruit more teachers and argue that the budget needs to be increased for education instead of asking parents

Who is supposed to argue the budget needs to be increased - and who are they arguing with?

A headteacher can’t just recruit more teachers without the funds to pay them.

They argue for more funding all the time - but the government isn’t listening.

It’s shit. But it’s not an easy fix at this point. Where’s the money coming from?

Where’s the money coming from?

The same magic money tree that is funding all these tax cuts?

There's always money to be found when the government wants to do something. They just don't give a shit about education.

Mine too - no such thing as a TA at my school, even though we had 30+ kids in a class and a massively wide ability range.

@cinnabongene same! I would
guess testing & ofsted among other things … I still can’t believe 7 year olds are tested …

My point wasn't to compare pass rates as we don't have the data for that without knowing the specific "pass" mark for the 11 plus for each year of the 50s: it could have been 90%, it could have been 40%. It was norm referenced so likely varied by a fair bit year on year. We just don't know the specifics.

My first point was that the test papers themselves don't match (the questions show that what is expected now at 11 is harder than what was expected then at 11). My second, more important point, was that teachers are held more to account and blamed for the results of their students (even losing their jobs over it) rather than the results being the responsibility of the student, as it used to be.

Wrong. Music has an allocation of 1 hour per week in all state primary schools. P.E is 2 sessions per week. It’s most definitely not several hours.
Why is the teacher taking a whole day ‘off?’
The half day is spent on PPA time - planning and assessment. Wish I had had this time when I was teaching 20 years ago.

Because she works 4 days a week. The day she isn’t there, the class is taught by the TA. This is a year 6 class 😬

Are schools asking too much of parents these days?

No parents are asking too much of schools these days.

Inclusion resulting in the closure of special provision schools, reduction of parental responsibilities, ta staffing levels reduced, alongside other departments shaving their budgets and schools picking up the slack.

80s teachers on the whole spent most of their time teaching. Teachers nowadays are expected to be so much more. There is only so much 1 person can do, so if you want the trips, clubs or extra bits that schools do that are not required by the curriculum etc parents will have to get more involved.

I'll probably get shot down but I don't think parents do as much as I remember parents doing at my school in the 80s.

One summer a group of dads completely rebuilt the cricket pavilion. They did a fair amount of work on rugby pitches etc. Parents did more transporting dcs to sport/swimming lessons/art galleries/museums etc.

Parents seemed to run more fund raisers, annual school plays, choir, did more careers intros. Maybe it was just our school.

Perhaps the parents of the pupils who abuse others, shout, throw chairs, intimidate others and quite frankly feck up the entire experience for others could come in class and help.

Maybe they could be made to apply some parenting skills alongside their DC to prevent others being traumatised by their own child's appallingly damaging behaviour.

Perhaps then schools would find teachers don't need to recover from breakdowns, seek medical treatment for injuries sustained at work, spend 80% of a lesson on "effective behaviour management".

Imagine DC having a happy, energised, highly skilled professional teaching them.

Totally agree. Teachers never seem to be in the classroom at my kids' school. They're always off ill/ at a wedding / doing training / having an operation etc.

Of that list... being ill isn't a choice. Neither is having an operation. Are you 'parents who actually work full time' immune to illness and conditions requiring operations? I've never in 27 years of teaching known if a teacher allowed time off to go to a wedding. As for training... well, teachers (like people in many other jobs) are expected to do regular training. Are you expecting them to do it outside of their paid working hours?!

As for the people saying more teachers should be recruited - well, yes that would be great. Unfortunately a) schools can't afford them and b) there aren't enough people who want to become teachers (or enough people who want to carry on being teachers).

I work as an HLTA, I do actually have QTS, so am qualified to teach but the job is just too big for me. Usually it is an HLTA that covers ppa time. The extra hours that are needed for planning and assessment, sorting out problems, dealing with parents, ongoing training etc are absolutely phenomenal and I just don't think I could do it at the moment with a young child. I previously worked in a more business environment and despite it being 'high pressure', it wasn't a patch on what teachers face. The teachers I know do an amazing job in really challenging circumstances, but I am worried some of them may completely wear themselves out the way things are going. I also worry that this will have a big impact on the quality of teaching my child gets - a worn out run down teacher will clearly not be at their best. Clearly this government do not care about education.

I'll probably get shot down but I don't think parents do as much as I remember parents doing at my school in the 80s.

Parents need to ensure their children arnt feral and have manners, want to learn, have good attendance, read with them - and back the teachers.

Th rest is fluff.

My kids school is always asking for "helpers" for various things but most of the parents all work and the ones who don't seem to have younger babies and toddlers at home.

And if I get one more email asking me to join the PTA............. just ask everyone for a fiver a couple of times a year far less hassle than fair and pointless fundraisers