I am not sure how far you are going back, but there was plenty of poverty around just after the war when I started school. In one class the day started with Victor getting his daily beating from the master. Dad had been killed in the war, and his Mum was taking on all the cleaning jobs she could find just so they could eat. Victor was never going to be broken though of his disruption. Today my daughter -in-law takes extra sandwiches to her school because some of the children haven't the money to buy a school dinner. The days when a teacher could get by with a stick of chalk and a blackboard have been replaced with loads more technology which should be good, but it is not if it is at the expense of good teachers. One of the most inspirational teachers I have ever come across, who had all the children eating out of his hand, became so fed up with never getting a pay rise, begging parents to make additional contributions to the school budget, that in the end he just gave up, and left to run a fish and chip shop. What a waste of talent!
I was in primary and secondary education for about 12 years... including seven years in child psychiatry and another couple as head of a special school for children with emotional and behavioural problems. I now supervise therapists working with young kids My masters research indicated that chilldren with emitional problems who did not have the active involvement of a father figure really struggled in the . I have not doubt that much points back to parenting. Sadly we are in an era where the parents themselves have not had good parenting and it is a vicious cycle. Most parents work so their kids are brought up in many cases in infancy by a variety of carers and thus may not have a secure base from which to develop. Teachers thus have a very hard task developing social behaviours in kids that in the past they will have learned in infancy at home.. I have also seen wonderful kids adapt and grow out of the most shocking home lives..... Particular teachers and schools can in some cases turn a child around....
In the early days of my marriage We had two children whilst I was on low apprenticeship wages. Our priority was unsurprisingly our children. We managed without buying stuff we could not afford without borrowing. Times are clearly different today, credit is often proffered to those least able to afford to pay back, often with horrendous interest rates. However, parents should shun the need to have the latest 'must have' sleeve tattoo, beauty treatment, trainers, frequent take always etc and look after the most vulnerable in their families. Of course some parents struggle whilst being model guardians of their offsprings but in my opinion it is too easy to blame politicians, or the government, for the failures of selfish misguided individuals.
When I started my teaching course at university in Australia, there was a heavy emphasis on what was referred to as the 80:20 principle - that being the ratio of good learners to poor learners in any given class. The term ‘good learners’ referred to the willingness to learn rather than ability to learn, whereas ‘poor learners’ covered those who were disruptive for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, inability to learn, mental health issues, poor upbringing and abusive home life. Each year, a large part of the course was spent studying a variety of strategies aimed at addressing all the issues student teachers were likely to encounter in the course of their careers. Upon graduating and commencing work, most of my cohort kept in touch for the first couple of years, simply to compare notes. Most of the discussions centred around the 20% and how a lot were struggling on a daily basis to cope with the poor behaviour. The mature age students in my cohort, including myself, each arrived at the same conclusion independently - that the ones struggling were all of the same age, all had gone straight from school to university, and all lacked what could be called life skills. In most cases, they were only between ten and fifteen years older than the children they had been charged to teach - and most of them had assumed the role of older brother or sister rather than that of teacher. In essence, there was little wrong with their curricular knowledge, nor with their pedagogical approaches - they had all simply made the mistake of being friendly. A few years ago, I was asked to address a group of first year student teachers about what they might expect to encounter in their chosen career. My first words to them were “Be the Nazi - never start off friendly with a class of any age. Children don’t need you as a friend, they need you as a responsible adult and a teacher. Starting off as a strict disciplinarian is easy to roll back, starting off as a friend is near impossible to roll back. If there is one thing school children are notorious for, it’s discarding friends - and once discarded, respect is lost and poor behaviour takes its place.” When I came to Scotland to teach in 2004 I found that ratio was more like 70:30, but the problems were the same - teachers too young and making the mistake of being friendly. My wife is a highly experienced and well-regarded lower primary teacher in this area - her school actually failed the last HMIE inspection, but she was rated as outstanding, as was my daughter who works in the nursery at the same school. She currently has two stage partners, both young and in their first posting - and she is tearing her hair out at having to sort out behaviour problems in their classes. It’s not as if her own class are easy - she has four children on the autistic spectrum and two diagnosed with ADHD - and has to cope with no classroom assistant. She does cope because she is so experienced, and knows how to handle the problem children. I have never worked in what you might call a problem inner-city school, but have had a six month stint in a school in a large fishing town near here - a town noted for its drug problems and, dare I be politically incorrect, its high percentage of knife wielding Eastern European workers. It wasn’t easy, especially conducting parent-teacher interviews with an armed police guard, and it took about three months to win over both the kids and parents, but it was worth it in the end. To see poor behaviour in the class reducing, happy parents and the attainment of the pupils increasing, however slowly, is what teaching is all about. I guess it’s wrong of me to generalise without properly knowing the situation, but it does sound to me as though the young teacher you refer to falls into the same category as all the others I’ve encountered - too young, lacking life experience and too friendly with the children. It’s easy to blame the parents - poor parenting skills, different ideas on discipline, abusive behaviours towards their own children, limited intelligence etc, but the reality is that even a newly qualified teacher straight out of university is better qualified than most parents to handle their unruly children. Just as you can’t threaten children with a big stick these days, you can’t threaten parents with a big stick either. The only way to handle unruly children is introduce discipline in their lives, be a responsible but caring adult towards them, and let them know that, just as you have to earn their respect, they have to earn yours too. Ramble, you’ll be glad to realise, over…
I can relate to your post entirely BB. My wife is qualified to teach adults, but when our youngest one started school at four, a job cropped up at the village school to take the children on all of their craft, art and helping the slow readers and writers. She applied and was given the post as she wanted to be available for our children when they finished school each day. During the twenty odd years she was there the Ofsted reports singled out the good work she was doing, in a school that was one of the best in the area if you believe in the measurements that are used. Some years she would come home just as the new intake had settled in, and say this lot are as bright as buttons, other times we have a load of dullards. The head who employed her was very strong on discipline, and the school was a happy place and the troublesome ones generally settled down after a few months, except for those who had a real problem with health issues. Today the auxiliary staff and head have all gone as the school has struggled with the budget they have been given, and the Ofsted report showed last year just how far the school has fallen. My daughter -in-law has been a qualified teacher for thirty years and has had job after job. She also has had some very good reports on her teaching ability and her ability to keep order in schools that are really rough. Why she has had the number of jobs is due to her being given a one year contract, which comes towards an end and she is told that she will be too expensive for the school to keep her on. She is always replaced by someone straight out of college who is much cheaper to employ. I don't know how the funding in Scotland is worked out, but the village school now has 30% less money to use than it had 14 years ago when we left England for roughly the same number of children. Reading the last governors report they have been told to prepare for a further 5% fall this year.
Despite any perceived cuts in expenditure England is doing far better in international education league tables than many other nations including France. The resident government in Scotland has a lot to answer for to explain the alarming slide in its standards.
What do you mean by 'perceived cuts' when they are actual cuts? £18,873 on average each year has disappeared from my village primary school in 10 years. They are now getting £304 per pupil less than they did 10 years ago. They are due for further cuts shortly.
Education cuts are happening everywhere. It seems to be based on the neo-liberal agenda that everyone is responsible for themselves. This is fine if everyone is responsible. If they aren't I can't see why children should have to suffer because of the inadequacies of their parents. This is not just a problem of the poor. Parents who bring up their children to think that they are special and provide them with everything that they demand are creating high levels of entitlement. I'm at the end of the educational chain and I am getting sick of students who seem to think that it is my fault if they fail because they can't be bothered to put in the effort.
The UK government has recently announced extra funds for education. You really should be asking those governments that spend much more but fail to achieve educational results even close to England & Wales.
...after years of underfunding....(ask anyone in Education) Can we really stop the sniping and discuss the issue???? UK used to be the best in the world and now falls below many countries which ever way you cut it. As an educator I want every person to be the best THEY can be... in spite of a wealth of disadvantage......
The issue is England & Wales achieve far better results than other nations who apparent spend more. It is not all about money. The idea of a forum is to post alternative views, you can-t quite grasp this concept.
My contribution to the teaching debate is to confess that I hated all teachers when I was at school ! I left school at the earliest possible opportunity without any school leaving certificates - but then took them later in my own time, when it was right for me. One of the problems is that nearly all teachers have known nothing but the academic World and have spent their whole lives within that institution - they are preparing children for a World which they, themselves, don't really know. It would be better to improve conditions for assistant teachers - those with some knowledge of the World outside of school, those who have practiced other professions, so that they can come into the classroom and add a different perspective. But instead of that they have to do the same work for a minute fraction of what normal teachers earn, earn little respect, and mostly have contracts ended just before the summer holidays - to be opened again just after !
The job of the teacher has moved more and more to tick boxing attainments..... the admin time teachers have to spend has gone up and up. The teacher now has less time for the emotional development of the child to facilitate learning.... you cant have one for the other..... and has to focus on measurable goals....
Agreed, that is why the government tried to encourage people with real life experiences into teaching instead of the usual teacher training Guardian reading fodder. They are well meaning but not qualified to teach kids for the real world.
I agree with you about the teachers needing knowledge of the world outside of school. I too left school early, with not much more than a now-broken vow never to enter a school again. Possibly surprisingly, as a teacher, the most useful part of my subsequent work history was the period spent as a humble labourer for Queensland Forestry, when I picked up so much knowledge about Australian flora and fauna. As a teacher here, I've utilised that knowledge in many schools - adding to it more about general life in the tropics as well - with stories, pictures, videos and powerpoints. Even the most reluctant of learners enjoy that and, as I always utilised those sessions to inspire further activities, they were learning without even realising it. If there's one thing schoolchildren like, it's a good story - and you know it's a good story when they clamour for it to be told over and over. It's a simple fact that young teachers who have gone straight from school to university and back to school mostly don't have experiences like that to draw upon. For that reason, I'd advocate that teacher training only be open to those who have a reasonably lengthy work history - and one of the groups I'd be targetting is those classroom assistants you mention. Most are 'mature' ladies who have had other jobs and have children of their own - they are absolutely worth their weight in gold.
