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Parents Raise Worst
Generation Of Kids Yet

By Julie Henry
Education Correspondent
The Telegraph - UK
8-30-03


"A great number of parents are simply not interested in supporting their children..."
 
 
Children are starting school less well prepared than ever because parents are failing to raise their youngsters properly, according to the Government's Chief Inspector of Schools.
 
In an interview with The Telegraph, David Bell, the head of Ofsted, said that too many children were receiving a "disrupted and dishevelled" upbringing. As a result the verbal and behavioural skills of the nation's five-year-olds were at an all-time low, causing severe difficulties for schools.
 
Mr Bell said that one of the key causes was the failure of parents to impose proper discipline at home, which led to poor behaviour in class.
 
Another serious concern was the tendency to sit children in front of the television, rather than talking and playing with them. This meant that many were unable to speak properly when they started school.
 
"It is difficult to get hard statistical evidence on what is happening across the country," said Mr Bell, "but if you talk to a lot of primary head teachers, as I do, they will say that youngsters appear less well prepared for school than they have ever been before.
 
"For many young people school is the most stable part of what can be quite disrupted and dishevelled lives. This should worry us because if children don't all start at broadly the same point, we should not be surprised if the gap widens as they go through the education system."
 
Mr Bell, whose comments coincide with the start of the new school year, said that although classroom standards were rising, parents were still not doing enough to support teachers.
 
"There is evidence that children's verbal skills are lacking. We should encourage parents to talk to their children and give them a whole range of stimulating things to do and not just assume that the television, or whatever, will do all that for them."
 
He added that the deficiencies of pupils starting school could have lasting effects, particularly where parents continued to fail to offer support to teachers.
 
" Primary schools can motivate and contain youngsters, but if those youngsters do not have the proper basic literacy and numeracy skills when they go to secondary school, they will drift off the rails."
 
Such pupils were an "almost intractable" challenge that schools alone could not be expected to deal with, he said.
 
"If children are not encouraged to turn up regularly at school, if casual non-attendance is condoned at home, that makes it difficult for school. If there is a sense that the standard of behaviour set by the school is not supported at home, that makes it difficult.
 
"If schools set homework and encourage out-of-school activities but no encouragement is given at home, that makes it difficult."
 
Monica Galt, the head teacher of King's Road primary school in Manchester, said that many children started school with minimal social skills. "It is not just verbal skills, they seem to have no notion of danger or idea how to sit still," she said. "Many can't fasten buttons or use a knife and fork.
 
"We start them with spoons and wean them on to other cutlery. Some children have never sat at a table because their parents let them eat their tea sitting on the floor in front of the televison."
 
David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "Too many are starting school without basic social skills and simply do not know how to communicate. This puts enormous pressure on teachers.
 
"A great number of parents are simply not interested in supporting their children or working with the school. These parents are giving their children a raw deal."
 
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2
003/08/31/nedu31.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/08/31/ixportaltop.html

 

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