Please don't 'baby' your children

[pineapple95]

Where do I start?

Parents of my y3/4 class routinely carry their children's bags in, take their lunch bags to the hall, hand in letters and money, put their reading diaries and spelling books in the right places on the right days, linger in the corridor chatting ... for goodness sake MAKE YOUR CHILD LOOK AFTER THEIR STUFF!

7-9 year olds can carry bags and remember books. Don't baby them. Even 3 year olds can carry their bags - don't be that parent who mollycoddles their children.

Children who are inadequately fed and clothed are also far less likely to have well developed language skills.

roundaboutthetown,
I agree that at 7/8 years overwhelming majority do not need that kind of help you were talking about, but my post was more in response to posters saying that their 4/5 year old is capable of doing all the things so should be everyone else. In years 3/4 I do not know any school in my area who actually allow parents in the classroom. Many do need help with carrying all the things into school, in particular if walking. My eldest's sport bag/equipment, school backpack and instrument were ridiculously heavy at this stage and they could not carry it all.

At the school my son goes to, parents are barely allowed past the gates at that age - the school really pushes independence (and walking/cycling) from a young age.

So schools, don't mollycoddle the parents

Roundaboutthetown, the biggest difference between UK and US preschool is that at the age American children are in preschool they are in full on school in the UK. That extra year (or two, because Kdg features very little formal teaching) allows time for social and emotional development and development of the fine and gross motor skills. Children experience formal teaching of phonics and arithmetic in 1st grade, two years later than in the UK.

The private vs state divide in England and Wales reflects the divide between the haves and the have nots and reinforces it, as the haves end up in the professions that carry with them the promise of high income and great influence. In the US you can often move to a school district with good schools, rent an apartment and attend a good school on an equal footing with those whose whopping property taxes pay for the schools. Or even move from a district with poor schools to one where the schools are decent, and you have a chance. Nobody is ever going to look down their nose at you because you didn't go to the right boarding school.

zzzzz it is not enough to aspire to adequate SEN provision, and it's especially not enough when comparing one school system with another to say that airy fairy, heart in the right place good intentions count more than actual nuts and bolts provision, or a reasonably thought out approach.

mathanxiety - last time I looked, the US had phenomenally expensive private schools for their elites, an astronomical divide between rich and poor, the rich living in entirely different areas from the poorest, plenty of appallingly bad schools, and increasingly limited social mobility. I am not seeing a massive gulf between the UK and US from where I am... I am also state educated, as are my children, and am certainly not a have not. Nor do I think my children's education stunted their social and emotional development, nor the development of their motor skills. The current woeful underfunding of state schools, however, is definitely threatening inclusivity and a broad-based curriculum, but then you have already noted that the US education system is also heading in a direction you do not like.

zzzzz true, but let's not pretend that aspiration says anything about the general culture apart from the obvious conclusion that there is an aversion to putting money where the mouth is.

Roundaboutthetown
There are very few phenominally expensive private schools. The vast majority go to public school (funded by local property taxes, with catchment areas rigorously enforced - a big issue as poor areas find it very hard to turn around). There are private schools that are not incredibly expensive.

The rich and poor divide is not as stark by any means as you may have come to believe it is. The super rich - a very small minority - of course live lives in a separate universe, but there are hundreds of millions of Americans occupying the middle ground.

The problem with the early start in formal instruction in the UK, accompanied by the inevitable testing and the pressure that places on teachers, is that social and emotional development are seen as nice optional extras. This is especially the case when primary age children know they are on different levels, sitting at different tables according to perceived ability, given different work. The damage done to self concept by the practice of setting is incalculable. Setting compounds racial and class inequalities. It alienates children from schools and from the culture that values academic effort. Placement in a lower set tends to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

I live in a municipality with a huge income range and a huge range of residential property types and price range, with lots of rental properties too. Very good school district, with schools invested in over the past century+.

mathanxiety - do you actually have any children in English state schools? Your description of them doesn't fit my experience with my children. Do you really think all English schools operate as you describe???

And is there any evidence that American children are spectacularly well adjusted, with superior physical abilities? And are you really arguing that America does not have massive racial and class inequalities? The election of Trump indicates to the world that the US is as divided and angry a country as anywhere else at the moment.

A significant number do operate that way. I have many relatives and friends whose children have attended both private and state schools in England. I also have two friends whose children started out in English schools before the families moved to the US and were gripped by anxiety about their children falling behind because American schools seemed so laid back, and very suspicious about the lack of school uniform.

I am not arguing any of your points. It's not an argument that can be sustained. Trump did not win a majority of the votes cast in the presidential election. It was a quirk of the electoral system that landed him in the White House. Elections do not tell the whole story when it comes to the nature of a society - if they did, then people would be forgiven for believing that the UK is a xenophobic, racist, nation of ignoramuses that bites the hand that feeds it, post Brexit referendum. America does have class and racial inequalities. But the lines are more blurry than you are arguing, and it does not have a system akin to a caste system, which the UK does (it goes far deeper than class).

The point that American schools focus more directly on socio-emotional development and pressure free fine and gross motor skills still stands. (And I think American results in most Olympic Games are a testimony to American physical abilities, as well as an American tendency to invest in training, etc).

The idea that America is in any sense a more progress society than the UK does not really hold water.

There are plenty of surveys that measure these things and the US comes out top in the inequality stakes out of 1st Workd nations.

Add to that the whole Ivy League system with frats and sororities (pretty class based) and costing vast sums of money and the U.S is perpetuating these inequalities.

mathanxiety - your rose tinted spectacles are clearly bolted to your face and you have thrown away the key. I have many American friends living in various different parts of the US, including those who moved there from the UK so can compare their experiences of the two, or who are American but spent time living in the UK, and their perception of the US is not nearly as rosy as yours. Still, if it makes you happy to live in your fantasy bubble...

I’m a bit vat the idea that American elementary schools are laid back Math, that has not been my experience.

Moving from the U.K. to Texas we found that the school day was much longer with barely any playtime, vastly more homework and testing and annual 4 hour long state exams from 9 years old.

That’s not to say that I don’t think my D.C. are getting a great education at their Texan school, I do, but I certainly wouldn’t consider it “laid back” compared to the U.K.

My experience of American students both in school and at university is that they are a few years behind academically

Top US high schools are full of brilliant and accomplished students. As are top U.K. sixth firms. Don’t compare apples and pears.

I said “brilliant and accomplished”, not “bright”. That means level of education!

English children aren’t especially well educated at 18 by international standards. US high school really paces up and DC work very hard but their focus is on breadth as well as depth and the skill set achieved by the best US students is different to the skill set achieved by the best UK students.

zzzzz - that article is referring to international American schools rather than schools in the US.

Why don’t you check out data (eg Pisa)?