Parents to blame for problems in UK schools

[Amey]

Any opinions on this article in the Observer. Mumsnet's Justine Roberts gets a name check and makes some sensible comments.

Personally, I think it tough to expect kids to be fully socialised and ready to learn at 4 years old!!

My uncle has worked in teaching for 40 years, and he doesn't think that behaviour has got worse. He used to work in residental schools for children with behavioural problems; there used to be a lot of those schools, and now there are hardly any.

These were not for children with ASD or ADHD; they were children who had no social or emotional skills because they had never been taught any by their parents. Most of those schools have been shut down in the last 20 years and the kids are now in mainstream schools.

Behaviour hasn't got worse; it has just been put into the mainstream.

Good point. And one thing you buy when you pay school fees is ensuring your children are educated even at primay level with non disruptive others and indeed if you pick a selective school classmates with an IQ of 120+ or whatever.

Mixing everyone together is an experiment which has failed.

That is all very well for those with a high IQ who can escape Xenia-but very hard on the poor average, or below DC, who is well behaved and keen to learn-or don't they matter?

He might do, Herbeatitude, but the 2nd lesson probably takes different format. Maybe lots of drama/speaking and listening? (I hope.)

picees plenty of people in the private sector send their children to schools for the rather thick but well behaved with 8- 10 children in a class. There you are segrating by behaviour or possibly sex and certainly ensuring your chidlren are in a class with parents so committed to education that they are prepared to pay £10k a year for it. One reason women should pick their careers with care so they can afford to pay school fees

What about the teachers who teach your children? Should they have picked there careers with more care, then?

their

Xenia - i am a teacher as you know and I am going to do exactly that with my DS, he's a typical "nice-but-dim" and would get eaten at the local comps - i bloody wish i wasn't a teacher (and DH too) though as the 11K a year is going to cripple us.

Some schools do expect young children to sit still for too long. I've been in my ds's assemblies when he was in ks1 and they could last for an hour. I was struggling to sit still myself by the end.

So's my dh, but in FE, which pays peanuts. There's no way we could afford it, even if I wanted to.

I don't, though. I have just finished some Primary Literacy consultancy with our local grammar school, and their teaching of reading and writing is woeful (hence my employment). But of course all their parents help their children and read at home, so the problems are masked. In state schools the teaching of reading has to emcompass children who are unlikely to pick up a book outside school.

Where they undoubtedly outdo our school is on class sizes, what we couldn't do with a child to adult ratio like that .

Omg, quorn, HOUR long assemblies? That's ridiculous.

My bum was numb by the end of it!

Interesting point about poor teaching being masked by the intake Feenie.

There is also the problem of catchment areas for the decent comps and therefore 'good' schools and 'bad' schools, schools where 'good' parents 'choose' to send their children and the schools that end up as a ghetto for all the 'bad' parents' children (who have not 'chosen' that school, but get it by default...). You then get all the 'undesirable' children in one school which negates any peer pressure of good behaviour or decent parenting. Thus those in most need of a good and proper education are all lumped together.

Well we know children with two teacher parents in the private sector who get 4 chidlren educated entirely free of charge or only pay 15% from age 4 - 18!! at some of the best schools. You can do pretrty well as a teacher if you pick your school carefully including those that even provide staff accommodation. Nice deal really once you factor in free fees for 3 or 4 and free accommodation.

Yes Xenia but those jobs rarely come up! Live in the real world fgs!

I'd rather my children weren't taught by people who are there for the perks thanks

I'd love some perks me

A Box of Roses at Christmas not enough then?

My job is one long series or perks tbh.

1. I teach a subject I love
2. Young people are great company
3. Great holidays
4. Lovely buildings
5. Great pension

Oh yes forgot about the one child who gets us a box of roses (we are not primary teachers!)

Oh twinset - if it were only true for all of us! (Can't afford the pension atm - holidays are filled with poo smearing and autistic screaming/tantrums)

We worked amongst those for whom they made that happen as my children's father teaches in the private sector. Indeed we lived in school accommodation at one point. They are hard jobs to get. You need the right look, accent, attitude, background, degree.

All the important things

Rolls eyes