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!!

so agree tatt

"you will often get a teacher you don't like or who doesn't like you or who is unfair"

"occasionally you get one who no one likes much or doesn't like your child"

Bollocks. Teachers don't work like that. Some kids are easier to have in our classrooms than others but that's as far as it goes. We work hard to build productive relationships with our students and their parents but we're professionals ffs. The most important part of being a teacher is ensuring that all our students get treated fairly and equally. Parents telling their kids that their teacher doesn't like them makes our life even harder.

Mind you, I don't (and never would) work in the private sector which is where you say your kids are Xenia. I have fairly strong feelings about the fact that selection of any sort in education doesn't promote fairness and equality; maybe you should try your local STATE school if you want your kid's teachers to be objective and unpersonal about your DCs.

umm... some teachers do work like that exactly.

agree with article and science teacher

i am sure the majority are the paragon of professionalism, but to say that it oesn't happen fairly regularly is a blinkered view imo.

and the whole bloodyt hing is missing the point, which is that we need smaller class sizes and more resources

Message withdrawn

Interesting discussion.

Are schools allowed to put up the sorts of notices that we see in the NHS, libraries and on buses etc - Our staff expect to be treated with respect and any abusive language etc will be ...etc etc.

What can help schools stand up to the parents who actually undermine the authority of the teachers?

I think it's outrageous that parents come in and give the teacher a piece of their mind in a threatening, what-you-gonna-do-about-it sort of way. Can head teachers ban parents from the premises, unless by appointment?

Are these 'contracts' that schools attempt to draw up with parents effective? How are they ever enforced?

I would be interested to know what teachers and heads feel would be supportive and useful to them as the current climate (in some parts) is clearly appalling.

Custardo, in 10 years of working in both primary and secondary schools, yes teachers sometimes make unprofessional comments about kids behind closed doors but I have never met one who takes it into the classroom. We work our damndest to be fair.

And Bloss, I know it's impossible when your own DCs are on the receiving end of crap behaviour in a state school, but 'good' parents removing their 'nice' kids and sending them to 'good' schools is part of the problem. It makes it harder for schools in tough areas to improve because it lowers aspiration and achievement.

Schools do tend to have a contract that kids sign and people do get banned from the premises (my dad, as a head, called the police to escort parents away on several occasions).

What would make our lives easier would be more places in Pupil Referral Units for kids with severe SEBDs, fewer hoops to jump through when we need to permanently exclude a student, more funding for pastoral support, better communication and more integration between schools and other agencies (e.g. social services) and more training and MUCH more funding for kids with SENs (e.g. it should be an awful lot easier for a student to get a statement).

Integration is a lovely idea but it hasn't worked because there's not enough money been spent on it. Net result: kids with SEN/ SEBDs lose out because their needs aren't met properly, kids without SENs lose out because we spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a very disruptive minority.

And ALL the parents are pissed off! And the teachers! Really, we all want the same thing and that's for our kids to be happy and fulfilled.

Whoah. Rant over. Bedtime now.

feralgirl I have worked with teachers who have taken their dislike of pupils into the classroom, not often but you are very naive if you think it does not happen. It is also wrong to say that state school teachers are I do agree about the need for more PRU and the failure in many cases of inclusion.

with over 13 year in the education system ( as a student!) and 15 years of being a parent of children in school, i can tell you that my experiences give me a diferent POV feralgirl

sorry I seemed to have lost half my post I also wanted to say that it is wrong to say that state sector teachers will treat their students in a more fair manner than private.

While it may be the case that some teachers choose to teach only in the state sector because they believe in providing a quality education for all you cant then make the leap and say that teachers in the private sector treat their pupils in an unfair way. I would imagine that the average private school teacher is less stressed as they do not deal with the extremes of behaviour and therefore if anything they are less likely to snap.

Great posts Feralgirl.

I'm a parent of 3 and have spent the last year in secondary school classrooms for my work and I am continually amazed by the humour and resiliance of teachers.

Hooray for great teachers It's a tough job.

I also reckon that kids appreciate good teachers more than they let on at home. Teachers sometimes need to teach stuff that's boring. Learning to write and to reason properly is hard work. Kids mess aound, teachers bring them back on track. Hopefully they get a bit inspired, hopefully they learn to use colons sometimes.

As a parent I find school like the ultimate test.. Will they carry on like they do at home, or will they act 'normal'? If teachers can't cope with dc's and there are no SEN's in sight, surely you need to concede that there's some work that might need to be done at home.

I am very supportive of teachers but there are occasionally teachers who are unprofessional towards children.

I was quite a swot and generally well behaved at school. Biggest crime was trying to sneak in with makeup on at 14. But I was picked on by a maths teacher because he didn't like my elder brother (who had been a clever clogs disobedient PITA when he was 14). I was humiliated in front of the class frequently and I had done nothing wrong.

I am sure the teachers on here who say this would never happen would never do anything like this.

My point it that you can never generalise about any profession.

I don't often agree with Xenia but I think teaching your children that sometimes teachers are unfair and lifskills about how to cope with that is a really good idea.

I know there are a lot of teachers on this thread but there have been so many posts about how lack of self awareness, self exteem, good models etc make parents worse, I'd be astonished if the same weren't true of teachers.

Obviously children shouldn't have to put up with bullying teachers but frankly teachers being a bit unfair sometimes and having favourites (however much the teacher tries to hide this) is part of the school process. Teachers can shout 'but I'm a professional' all they like but they are nonetheless human. It is ridiculous to suggest that thy will always be perfectly behaved at all times and make no mistakes.

I think a lot of the 'poor parenting' agrument from teachers has been going on for decades. We have a family full of teachers including my uncle (now died but a teacher for 30 yrs, sister (still teacher for with 25 yrs expereience) , two of my cousins - newly qualified and the conversation around the family table when they talk(ed) about their jobs was and is eye raising.

Goodness gracious. If teachers think they aren't human they need to go off and get some therapy. Some are awful. Some are great. Some have off days. Some are always sunny and cheerful. Some are old misery guts. So are human beings. So am often I. Its' how humans are. If teachers think they are like some sort of robot in terms of mood and personaltiy rubber stamped to be perfect off an Ofsted production line they are conning themselves. Surely you walk into the staff room every day and you see Ms X who is lovely, Ms Y who is a pain in the neck, Ms J who everyone likes. I don't see why what I wrote was remotely controversial.

Sometimes the tacher is great but they just don't gel with your child. Sometimes the child is a lazy so and so and it's surprising any teacher takes to them at all. This is life. It's certainly not a criticism of teachers and in every class in the land will be some wretched child who we all wish were not in that class because they are difficult to get on with.

I have never disagreed with teh comments on the thread,. Just as my mother as a teacher found in her 40+ classes in the 1940s there will always be children who have a difficult home life. She had a lot of prisoners' children for example, fathers in and out of jail, those who knew their fathers that was. It was ever thus. If you're sensible as a parent you seek to ensure your chidlren are not educated with those who will damage their education and you try to pick the best school for your child.

feralgirl - totally agree

custardo - being a casual observer as a student or a parent is not the same - i am sorry thats a fact. I, like many others on here, have been a student within the system, a mother and a teacher and what feralgirl says is totally spot on.

fwiw teachers talk about kids and their jobs in a TOTALLY different way out of the classroom context than they would ever do in the classroom situation, as those in the medical profession would have gallows humour, we lighten our stressful jobs through various non pc ways i am sure..however this would NEVER come into the classroom.

OMG. I have just agreed with every single word of a Xenia post.

My experience of schools and behaviour, is that on the whole, they have lower standards of behaviour than I do. I feel mildly disgruntled that my efforts to teach DS table-manners and decent behaviour are constantly undermined by his school, who encourage the kids to wolf down their food like little savages and where destroying people's property and clothing and deliberately hurting people draws no particular sanction. In my house, bad behaviour has consequences. At school, it appears not to. I won't be sending out a press release telling the world that therefore schools are lazy and underrmining of families however, as I don't believe that that would be a very constructive way to address the problem.

I agree with Feralgirl-I said earlier on that however much training a teacher has in SN she/he needs support-they can't meet the needs of 30 children, some with SN without support in the classroom.
The other week, on supply, I saw that I had the year 6 lower Literacy set, my heart sank because there are some very difficult DCs in that set and they set each other off. I went in and there were two TAs with me for the whole lesson-it was brilliant and went fantastically well, because the DCs got the help they needed.
Spending the money at a young age would save a lot later on. Teachers can spot problem children as soon as they start school, extra support and special nurturing units would turn them around before they got to secondary school.

I think your DCs are at the wrong school LitleBella! They are not all like that.

So basically, stillenacht, you are saying that all teachers are angels all of the time; the corollary of this is that all blame must lie with parents.
What a disgusting, holier-than-thou, smug attitude and one totally at odds with your supposed perfection.
Teachers do make mistakes and one of their biggest is never admitting fault.

I think it is down to parents rather than schools to bring up children.

However there are things some state schools could do better to reinforce good behaviour and manners. In DS state primary the children eat their school dinners with little adult supervision. I think meal times would be far more successful if the staff sat down to eat with the children at lunch as happens routinely in the private sector. This would encourage the children to eat all their food, to speak properly (rather than picking up bad language and sloppy conversation from their peers), and use their knife and fork properly. Children spend so much of their time at school that if you try with all these things at home and they are not reinforced at school it feels as if the hard work of parenting is being undone.

Children should be able to get themselves dressed and undressed and use the loo etc before starting school (unless they have special needs). This is the parents responsibility although nurseries should also support the children learning all these things and picking up social skills (rather than too much academic stuff)

I expect other bad parenting that causes problems in schools includes people giving their children a diet of junk food, too much TV/computer games not enough excercise, children staying up too late.

Completely agree with feralgirl.

Although I saw examples of this when I was growing up, like Custardo, the demands of this job are vastly different now, and such that I believe it no longer happens. There is no room for anyone who doesn't absolutely work their arse off - and why would you ever do that if you disliked children in the first place?

I can guarantee that every school has at least one member of staff who does not work their arse off, or does what they need to do and no more. They do it because it is a secure job, from which it is very difficult to get sacked from, great pension and holidays.

Its interesting that teachers complain about children watching too much TV at home.

However when DS was in year 1 they seemed to regularly watch films during school time towards the end of the summer term. I think this was extreme laziness on the part of the teachers...couldn't they have taken the children outside to play games if they had finished the years teaching? (or at least watched something educational)

This is at what is considered a very good primary school with good results.