Why The 2024 UK School Year Is Looking Rough (And What I’m Doing To Prepare As A Parent)
Last Tuesday, I stood outside my kids’ primary school in a fine, drizzling rain, holding a lukewarm flat white from the garage down the road and prying a lollipop out of my 9-year-old’s sticky hand before we went in for pick up. The headteacher was leaning against the gate, talking quietly to another mum whose son is in my oldest’s year. I wasn’t eavesdropping on purpose, but I caught the line that’s been stuck in my head ever since: “Three teaching posts still unfilled for September. We can’t find anyone to apply, and the trust won’t let us split classes any more than we already have.”
My oldest is Sam, 12, going into Year 8 at the local secondary three stops on the bus. He’s got dyslexia, and an EHCP that’s supposed to get him 3 hours of extra support a week. Last year, his SENCO left at Easter, and the role was frozen. For four months, he got zero of that support. His form tutor changed three times in one term, and half his math classes were covered by supply teachers who didn’t know he gets extra time on tests. He came home every Friday for a month with crumpled, failed spelling tests in his bag and wouldn’t talk about it at dinner. All he’d say was “it’s fine” when I asked, and go up to his room to play Xbox.
That night, the email dropped confirming the unfilled posts at the primary, and my phone blew up with parent group chats. One mum from the secondary down the road said they have 8 unfilled teaching roles for September. Another said her child’s primary cut their after-school art club because there’s no staff to run it. Everyone’s talking about the same things: cost of living squeezing school budgets, teacher shortages, SEN support being cut left right and centre. It’s not just my kids’ schools, it’s everywhere across the UK right now. Anyone who says it’s not rough is not talking to actual parents or teachers.
I’m not here to rant about policy, though God knows there’s reason to. I’m here to say I’ve accepted this next year is going to be rough, and I’ve been working out small, doable things to get through it that don’t cost a ton of money or take all my spare time.
First, I swapped the big “how was school?” dinner table question for post-it check-ins. Sam hates emotional conversations about school, and would just shut down if I pressed him. So I got a pack of cheap post-its and stuck three blank slips to the inside of the fridge door, one for each kid. Every evening, when they grab their after-school snack, they just fill it out: one thing that went okay, one thing they need help with that school didn’t sort, and do they want me to follow up. They can write one word, draw a picture, leave it blank if they want. Last term, when Sam was struggling with the unplanned supply changes, I only found out he needed his extra test time re-confirming with the head of year because he wrote “spelling tests” on his slip. No big argument, no awkward silence, just a quick note I could act on.
Second, I got together with three other parents whose kids have additional needs, and we made a shared Google Doc. We all put in our kids’ key adjustments: extra time, sensory breaks, preferential seating, all that. We uploaded scanned copies of EHCP extracts, doctor’s notes, all the paperwork that schools are always asking for. If there’s a new teacher or supply covering a class, we just send one email with the whole doc, instead of four separate emails that get lost in a crowded inbox. Last month, we chipped in £5 each and bought a box of basics for each of our kids’ form rooms: extra pens, pencils, tissues, and a stack of cereal bars. A friend who works as a TA told us most teachers are buying these things out of their own pay now, so it’s one less thing for them to worry about, and if my kid forgets their pen, they don’t have to sit through the whole class without one.
Third, I adjusted my own expectations. I used to assume that the school would notice if my kid was falling behind, or flag if he wasn’t getting his support. That’s just not possible right now, when teachers are covering three classes a week and paperwork piles up to the ceiling. So I do a 15 minute check-in every Sunday with each of them. I pull up their homework on the parent portal, flip through their exercise books, and just note if there’s a lot of unmarked work or if they’re consistently stuck on the same type of problem. I don’t do extra tutoring or anything, that’s too much for me and for them. I just keep a running note on my phone, and if I see a pattern, I send a short, specific email to the head of year: “Sam has not had his extra reading support for four weeks, can you let me know when this is going to resume?” I saved a free dyslexia support checklist from the British Dyslexia Association website to my notes, so I can point to specific things I’m seeing, instead of just saying “he’s struggling.”
Last Saturday, we were at the local chippy after football practice, and another parent asked me if I was worried about September. I said yeah, of course I am. I don’t know if Sam will get his SEN support this year. I don’t know if Lila will have a consistent pastoral worker for her anxiety. I don’t know if the school will have to close for random days because there’s no staff to cover. None of the small things I’m doing fix the bigger problem: the system is underfunded and stretched so thin it’s barely holding together. This next year is going to be rough, no two ways about it.
But we’ve got our post-its on the fridge, we’ve got our shared doc, we’ve got a box of cereal bars and extra pens ready. It’s not enough. It will never be enough, not when the problem is so much bigger than a bunch of parents muddling through. But it’s what we can do right now. And for now, that’s got to be enough.
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