Some children starting school ‘unable to climb staircase’, finds England and Wales teacher survey | Education

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WTAF is actually going on anymore.

Completely regressing, and children being utterly failed.

I don’t care if you work full time it’s your job to make sure your kid can go the toilet, brush their teeth and climb the stairs.

If they can’t then it’s neglect.

Of course it’s terrible neglect on one level, but it’s quite possible for a child to lead a fairly normal life but only rarely see a staircase. 

At the point I got my (rescue) dog I was living in a ground floor flat, there were no stairs between us and the park, and even the tube station was escalators not stairs. I only realised he never used stairs when I took him to see family in another part of the country and he looked really narked at the existence of stairs. Presumably he’d seen stairs in a previous home because he understood the concept (unlike many rescue greyhounds) but if I’d had him from a puppy I think I’d have needed to teach him in adulthood. 

When kids live in flats and have a younger siblings, they’re clearly not using them at home and there’s a high chance that when they’re out and about that mum and dad are choosing the lift because it’s easier with baby sibling’s pram. 

It’s probably easier than you think to live a life with almost no stairs, without really realising it. 

Whilst ‘Trash’ and ‘Vacation’ are American words, they’re not that out of place in English conversation. I’d only start worrying when the kids start asking for a ‘fountain beverage’ or dialling 911.

I had taught at a school with the classroom adjacent to toilets. When a new student and his family were first visiting, he emerged from the doorway calling for them to wipe him. He had no physical or developmental conditions. He was 7!

The other children turned to each other in shock but it was the shocked expression of the parents (that other 7yos were independent) that most shocked me. How can some people go through life believing it’s up to teachers to resolve this?

For the love of God, not everyone is meant to be a parent. It’s one of the hardest jobs on the planet, which you must get right.

You fail these children, and it’s catastrophic for the rest of society.

Is anyone else getting strong moral panic vibes off this? It really reminds me of the Physical Deterioration scare in the early 20c where army health recruitment standards were increased so people started claiming that industrial society was leading to weak chested men unsuitable for military service?

I’m sure potty training has reduced with sure start closing but piling it in with the sitting stuff and Americanisms strongly suggests confirmation bias “we’ve decided kids were watching too much tv in Covid, so we’re going to attribute everything to watching too much tv.”

I’d love to see the wording of the question to parents where only 44% of them thought a child should know how to turn pages rather than swipe. I bet it wasn’t worded the way it’s been portrayed in the article, and instead was something like “has your child ever swiped a book page” which is a whole different question (most adults have absent-mindedly done something similar and it is noteworthy and funny when it happens)

The Americanism is also an interesting one – and I have no stats to back this up, but anecdotally I know a lot of 2nd gen immigrant toddlers, or toddlers to a foreign mum who use Americanism – either because their parents also do (having learnt American English themselves) or because their parents aren’t as selective in the origin of the media the children consume (either because they can’t distinguish the difference, or are unaware that it even matters). 

I find the core strength one bizarre though, and wonder just how much screen time is necessary for an otherwise healthy child to be unable to climb stairs or sit on a carpet. 

Ultimately I don’t think parents today are any lazier than parents of the past! I’m mid 30s and my mum had to wash reusable nappies for me – this is no doubt an incentive to potty train sooner than the convenience of disposable ones. Likewise we watched a lot of TV when we were little, but we were limited to 4 channels and whatever hours they showed children’s TV. 

Had my parents had unlimited entertainment on a portable device, I’ve no doubts they would have employed its use as much as any parent today. 

When I talk to people who are 50+, their parents were negligent by modern standards – kicking them out the house after breakfast and not worrying where their 6 year old was until dinner time. 

Never before in human history have the masses had the time, materials, education, inclination or resources to raise children as well as we can today – and as such the gulf between those that put in the effort, and those that don’t has grown massively. 

I love how everyone’s focusing on the Americanisms, rather than the fact school-age children are still wearing nappies, can’t use stairs, and can’t sit upright on the floor. No wonder our country is in such a shit state, with parenting this neglectful.

I don’t really understand this…I have a small child. They WANT to climb things, including staircases, as soon as they can move. Even when they probably can’t manage it.

My wife left teaching after 20 yrs as sick and tied of wiping the arses of 5yr old who weren’t toilet trained…and it was getting worse yr on yr.
NB this isn’t about kids with genuine medical conditions

When our kids were entering school, 20yrs ago, it was a prerequisite your kid had to ‘ be clean’ but then she started to see standards slipping with schools allowing kids not toilet trained to enter school.

She witness the gradual decline over 20yrs…and complex reasons, but saw many with learning needs now in mainstream, partly due to many parents wanting their kids to be in ‘normal’ schools, councils abandoning special schools and pushing SEN into mainstream schools..and schools got more money per pupil if they have high percentage of kids with SEN but there is a line between kids who have genuine mental/physical needs and those who haven’t been taught the basics by parents.

The tales she tells of kids who couldn’t eat with knife and fork and used hands to eat beans and other non finger food, as they clearly been fed burger, chips, and the like, were unbelievable.

Pride and giving your kid the best start in life seems to have been replaced with some parents wanting the ‘badge of honour’ that their kid has ‘special needs’ seems to give them an excuse for bad parenting

Don’t get me wrong, if your kid has genuine medical needs, that’s different but it does seem to be a slide over the last few decades of some people not investing time with their kids

It’s far easier to give them material goods and leaving them develop unaided, rather than spend time with them

A child needs/wants more time, love and attention than just toys
It takes time and effort and seems some don’t want to do that

Having a kid is easy
Raising a kid is hard…but the rewards are there to be had if you do.

Let’s call it what it is – it’s neglect. It’s criminal. Get the authorities involved if they are capable of doing their job.

As a small aside, I’m giggling about how all the teachers in the picture are carrying big sticks.

I realise it’s because of the challenge the kids are doing but it’s giving me visions of them beating the children until they “climb the fucking stairs properly, dammit”.

The staircase thing was mentioned by one headteacher out of the 1,000 teachers surveyed. It’s probably one kid and totally blown out of proportion.

Ok, but there’s no statistic in this article about children who “can’t walk up the stairs” it’s simply something said by *one* deputy headteacher at *one* school. I’d also like to point out that the survey for parents is only 1009 people completing the survey for 2024 reception intake, so do take it with a pinch of salt. Something else to consider is also the fact that schools are overwhelmed, have high class numbers in many areas where teachers are spread thin even in nurseries, their education budget is pants and many parents have to put their kids in a daycare before they are school age so that they can go back to work full-time. My youngest child is in Year 1 and they allow the kids to watch things like Blippi on ipads, even when they are outside “playing” (whereas at home Blippi is banned and American content is limited as well as tablet use and tv in general). You also have neurodivergent kids of all capacities mixed in with neurotypical kids because they are undiagnosed because of the waiting lists for diagnosis, and help is limited without one. They are all jumbled up in classes sometimes of 35+ kids to one teacher. My son’s school had almost 40 kids in one class. My point being-we *all* hold responsibility as a society for this mess and if the government doesn’t get their priorities straight then the younger generations are screwed. And don’t reply with the talking point of kids “being able to walk upstairs or sit up straight regardless of the hours a parent works” when this is something said about an extreme minority (“some kids” according to one deputy and “two kids in my class” according to one teacher, respectively, with no other info) kids not being potty-trained/toilet-trained, lacking social skills, poor reading, **those** things seem to be represented more commonly in the data from various research papers and would be a better talking point instead of this rage bait headline.

It’s very worrying that people cannot do the most basic of parenting. Unless your child is disabled they should be able to complete basic life skills surely.