Children with problems in mainstream schools today.

Mollygo

But don’t you think that schools deal with those children?
If we have non-verbal children, staff are aware of that and address it. We use Wellcomm to support both staff and children with speech and language issues.

There are lots of activities before and alongside using a pencil, and nowadays using a knife and fork hasn’t always been a focus in their pre-school life.
I’m sure that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t learn it.
Quite often children, including those like the one you describe, have no idea how to play. So the teaching activities have to include that.
For example, the idea of a home corner is strange to so many children now. Their life has been “get up, get dressed, go to nursery/child care etc. so what would you put in the home corner that you know would be relevant to all the children?
A child still with a strong trajectory schema will often simply throw whatever equipment is available, including dolls, plastic fruit, crayons, or bricks. They also have to be taught how to play appropriately-and that doesn’t mean straightjacketing them into one right way. It means developing life and social skills.
You can’t just put equipment in an area and expect them to deal with it if they have no experience of that situation. You have to interact with what they offer and demonstrate what else they can do.

Not all children have nursery experiences. The problem is that there are still expectations which depend upon the child coming into school with certain skills and some children haven't those.
I find it strange that you previously listed activities that you thought were learning play activities but now you are saying some ideas are strange to those children..
Decent play requires a high level of staffing which I know isn't available in many schools.
There are several posts on another thread about the numbers of children in classes with special needs.
You seem determined to pick holes in any examples I give. I don't know how much experience of inner-city schools in deprived areas you have had, unless you have experienced the severe deprivation I don't suppose you can really imagine it. It is undoubtedly worse now than it used to be

I have worked in Toxteth in Liverpool, definitely deprived, and in equally deprived areas elsewhere. The school where I work now is better off, even though we have a large number of FSM and PP children, but the school where I am a governor has many problems due floating population and financial deprivation among the parents. You only have to look at the FSM register and PP funding to know that.

How much experience do you consider necessary to meet your requirements?

Witzend Luckygirl3 and others...

Working to support families during the SureStart era and working on a pilot project assessment I felt that at first you were right in that the opportunities there were initially not as well used as they should have been by the people who would benefit most. However, local reserch showed that what the families really needed was some hand-holding through the first few visits. The (mainly mums) needed to have support to get there for example and other practical things. I worked in an area with three different SureStarts and they spent their budget and did work quite differently.
Also, Homestart for example had local fundingwhich i expect is impossiblenow, They did a big training and recruitment drive alongside SureStart in my area and were invested in these families too.

Organisations such as Barnardos at that point had more funding - and local authorities funded local support workers.

Once a parent had been a few times to a good SureStart local evidence is that they would go back, often taking a friend with them. They would call certain staff for help and advice and the level of autonomy in the SureStart was such that they were able to respond in a more targeted way.

By the time the funding tap was turned off they were, in my opinion, beginning to look pretty much like the original vision. This sort of thing takes time to grow and embed in a community and the experiment was cut short. It was very frustrating to see services dwindle as the money was withdrawn.

Yes, middle class mums found SureStart a great resource - but they did also get involved in them in such a way that benefited the community. They gave other mums lifts, helped with fundraising, helped with toy libraries etc and in my experience helped keep the buzz of activities going. My middle class daughter made a very good fried there - with a mum who would have been from a "target" family. My daughter used to push her little one in the buggy (with a small detour) past the other mums house and would "call in on her" to walk there together.

Yes, SureStart was slow to get going - but a lot of great work was done there. I confess I was fairly hostile at first but the obvious successes won me round. I think it took time to embed but was really at its best when the funding was pulled.

I heartily agree with the above. Sure Start was just really taking off when funding vanished. The problem with a lot of things is that government do not think long term.

Yes I agree and the hard to reach families arent necessarily going to come to groups when they are mid crisis. That was recognised and individual work was being done.

Does anyone think that a Labour government will bring SureStart back or is it something we have just abandoned. Also is the system still operating in the US? I might Google that. The original participants must be grandparents now (or almost) I wonder if they've been tracked?

Many reception classes are struggling this year, it is certainly an interesting cohort

More TAs in reception class is the answer right now. The majority of the day is already learning through play, more adults to guide that will make a huge difference

Galaxy

Yes I agree and the hard to reach families arent necessarily going to come to groups when they are mid crisis. That was recognised and individual work was being done.

It’s the same with all the things that are now on offer. The parents come to see the SENDCO or family support mentor so they will help them make the initial contact with the support offered rather than just ringing, emailing or visiting the support group themselves.

I think the investment would be huge Glorianny, most of the sure start buildings in my city are being used for other services. It would be starting again I think.

I just Googled to discover more about play training. There are Play therapists who have done a post grad course and undergone therapy themselves. One was working across 5 schools with children with serious problems (excluded etc). Wouldn't it be great if all schools had access to someone like this.
Mind more TAs in reception would be great as well.
But it all costs money!

Children's futures are definitely worth the investment... If the government has any long term common sense and listens to boot theory

It will be interesting to see what the next government does about it.
There is a lot more and varied support for all sorts of issues that parents and children have to deal with now, advertised on school websites and at clinics and well run pre-school groups though I’m not sure how closely their usage is monitored.
Will they continue to support that?
Will they up the funding for schools to allow more support, or will they do as they do with funding now and say it’s the schools responsibility over how they spend it?

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Luckygirl3

Witzend

I had gathered - possibly incorrectly? - that SureStart was often shunned by the parents of children who would most benefit from it, while middle class parents attended in rather greater numbers.

When I was in social work this was not the case at all. Joining in with Sure Start was by referral, often from health visitors. Where I was working - a very deprived area of a city - Sure Start became the place to go for the mums and their children. I organised some singing at ours - they all loved it!

Same with my experience Lucky. I worked across areas of high deprivation. Family and Sure Start centres developed good skills in engaging so called hard to reach families. They ran excellent parenting skills groups, dads groups, baby massage, budgeting etc
It was David Cameron who famously said only families like his were using Sure Start, not people who needed to. He set about closing them

Reported Jason - spam, OP is 2023

The thing about comparing now with when some of us were at Primary school is that there were Special Schools as well. That's most likely why we saw no children with support needs in our classes.
Also, some of these pupils received 'training' and not 'education'.

The school I taught at and retired from, before covid, 80% of the children were on free school meals. 20% were on the Child Protection register for mostly emotional problems ,but in two or three cases severe sexual abuse. We had Nurture classes in the Infants and the staff were often dealing with unacceptable behaviour. But the children were great. The parents feckless. Often all the work we had done ,was undone during the
summer holidays. Even so I loved it there, and most children were Edgar to come to school. I have no idea how things have now progressed…downwards it seems

Old thread.

Relevant now, with the new proposals, but well spotted OldFrill.

I am currently volunteering at a local primary school to help Year 1 children gain confidence with their reading. Their teacher has expressed that this is the most difficult class she has had in 9 years of teaching. She says it is down to the impact of Covid on their communication, socialisation, confidence, language and overall development. Apart from a handful in the class , They could benefit from another year at this level .
We could learn so much from the Finnish model of education !

Quokka

Trust the reception and Y1 teachers and teaching assistants.

They know what they are doing even when you might think them restricted by the NC. Some wonderful practitioners in Early Years eduction.

I agree.

I also agree that formal education is planned far too early, as are all these (ridiculous) tests and goal settings.

Of course, it’s important to monitor expected milestones in order to pick up any potential issues, but the stress and strains imposed on parents, teachers and very small children is so unnecessary in my opinion!

My youngest grandchild is in y1. He enjoyed reception but hates his current class. His birthday is in late June so he’s one of the youngest. He really struggling with writing. The teacher says he lacks fine motor skills. So in other words he’s being asked to do something he isn’t capable of. Neither is he interested in reading. I feel that once his writing comes along, reading will follow. He also struggles with having to stay still for what feel to him like long period of time.

I think like many children he’s just too young for what’s expected of him. Add in lockdown and all he missed and his struggles make sense. It’s so hard to see him cry because he doesn’t want to go to school. To hear him ask is it the weekend yet? School makes him really unhappy. I really think children his age are too young for formal learning. They should be learning through play.

Bring back resourced units in primary schools for children struggling with mainstream education. I worked in a primary school several years ago and it, and other schools in the same local authority, had these units where specialist staff worked with the children to prepare them to (hopefully) rejoin mainstream education. When this wasn’t possible, they went on to join schools that catered to their specific needs. Yes, it will cost money, but it benefits everyone, including those children currently in school who WANT to learn but whose lessons are being disrupted by pupils with additional needs being in their classrooms, not to mention the frazzled teachers and TAs.

When I started teaching in 1966 I had 38 children in my Primary 1 class. (Reception in England).
There was no N. Curriculum. I taught reading using the Look and Say method. Phonics in the top group during the summer term. I taught number work firstly by sorting buttons by colour and size then number. Next we made patterns of numbers on their desk with plastic counters . So it evolved. Every child could read and count by the end of the year.
No child EVER ran around the room . I kept a calm classroom. Every afternoon from 1-1.30 we had Free Play time. The children were free to choose jigsaws, Lego, Wendy house , painting , plasticine etc. All the chn tidied up. I would say” whether you played with the jigsaws or not pick up the pieces from the floor - you know better than me which box it goes in” .Then we finished the day with story time.
There was no classroom assistant and no sink or taps! I washed the paint pots etc. Very rarely did a child have an accident and then I called on the teacher next door to look after my lot while I dealt with it.
Happy days! I think life has changed so much- no accountability and no respect. As for starting nursery at 3 not toilet trained don’t get me started! To be fair-
Nearly all mothers go out to work so no time to potty train and leave it to the nursery to do this demanding task. Consequently the children lose out. It’s not a job you can do half heartedly!
Also grandparents maybe don’t live nearby to give practical help and advice.
Children like boundaries- it makes them feel safe. Maybe lacking nowadays. Easier to give a child a label.

I worked full time. I planned two weeks holiday at about age 2 for potty training. Job done
Mine are 40 with their own families as are their friends. All the mums and dads work. No toilet training or other issues