MrsR

‘School hasn’t changed! Why are so many more young people unable to attend? Don’t they just have to learn to put up with it?’ I’m often asked all of these questions. So here’s a quick answer. School has changed since most of us over the age of 30 were there. Starting in 2010 with Michael Gove, there was a deliberate shift in schools to a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’. This meant, more focus on learning information and facts. Less focus on play, creativity, problem solving and social and emotional skills. There was a philosophy which ignored child development and instead focusing on how to get more information into children and more test results out. More standardised tests have been introduced starting in primary school. Phonics Screening, Multiplication Tables, Spelling Punctuation and Grammar ‘checks’ AKA tests. Secondary schools have become more controlling. I hear regularly of schools where children walk along lines painted on the corridors in silence. I hear of frequent use of detention and isolation. Parents tell me quietly and say that they can’t complain openly because their children don’t want them to make a fuss. There’s a lot of focus on exam results, and education has become about retaining information. All of this has a huge impact on children’s day-to-day experience. More pressure has been introduced throughout the system. There are fewer options for those who don’t enjoy academics. Teachers are stressed, parents are stressed and it all results in stressed children. When they start to say they can’t go to school, the answer is more pressure. When parents complain they’re called vexatious. The answer is fines and threats. No one is listening. So, no, I don’t think this is the ‘real world’ and they ‘just have to learn’. I do think that something has changed. Schools have become less child-friendly, and the children are telling us so.