As many of you may know already, I'm home educated. I'll get to why later.
Right, first of all, I'll say my overall opinion about the system. I think subjects that you learn in class just aren't learnt for long enough. For example, doing fractions in Maths, you'll do it for a certain amount of weeks then move on. Some people may have not even learnt that subject properly in that time, resulting in having no idea, when the test questions, come what the answer is. I think this only includes with English, Science (this to me) and Maths, as I find these important subjects. For ICT classes (getting more and more important now as this is a more computerized world than ever before) at my old school we didn't even do at all for year 8, as there was no teachers whatsoever to teach the subject. If not that, a teacher teaches the subject that they hardly know about themselves!
I also found that some lessons in Seconday school were completely unessacary, like R.E and Drama for example. OK, people may like the subject and you can drop it in year 9 (to a degree) but I feel that the subject should be dropped altogether from the beginning if you totaly dont like it. People should focus on what they want to do and learn the more important subjects like Maths and English, as they are an everyday thing (ok, Maths isnt, but you will do it sometime in your life.) You should have the option to forget the lessons you dont want to do at all and get more time to do the the subjects you like. You learn much more easily if you do a subject you like. Being taught at home is like this, I have the freedom to do the subjects I'm really interested in instead of doing something I'll never do. It's just a waste of time.
Now, getting onto the main point. I've found over the years that behavior in classes have been declining, and because of this educational quality in classes have been dropping. Shouting, throwing things across the class, not listening to the teacher whatsoever resulting in the teacher telling them off all the time, wasing more educational time. Sometimes there were even random fist fights in class, and two cases of chairs being thrown across the room because he didnt want to do what the teacher told him to. All this really did disrupt me and affected my education. OK, the teachers most of the time do give out detentions, but the students dont care. They get the detention, stay in at breaktime or whatever they do, then just go back to the same behavior again afterwards. Also, the teachers do shout but they are just not disiplined enough. They shout, but most of the time students dont notice. Because of this I was picked on in class, rude things said to me, things throw at me and I couldn't tell the teacher they were doing so, because they would just do it to me more for "telling the teacher". I had to put up with it all day then tell my Tutor at the end of the day what had happened. OK, the tutor would help and I did get special help for handling situations, but that didnt really help. I was called names, blamed for doing things that I didnt do etc, no help would sort that out. Later I was told just to ignore them. OK, I tried my best, but because of the damage that had happened to me years before that was quite impossible as nearly every little thing upset me.
Breaktimes it was a different thing. It was more physical than anything. I was the type of person to walk around on my own or with a few friends because everyone were such idiots. But once I was cornered, told to say horrible things, then they would let me go. This was about a group of 6. In the end I done what they told, I couldnt ignore that. I was headbutted once, a piece of wood whacked on me, a piece of ice was thown at me and a teacher did see it, and she said that wasnt bullying and never told him off. I WAS SO PISSED AT THAT! This just shows that the teachers sometimes dont even care.
In the end, all this just made me ill. I have that type of mind to blow things out of proportion, but this really made me ill. The lack of education, the physical and mental bullying. I must admit, the school did try to help me and my parents with what was going on and what meetings will be happening to sort out my future, but the system just isnt strict enough. When we did consider homeducation to them, the headteacher was very for the idea, which made everyone think that the head just wanted to get rid of me! I'm not surprised at all that this has been on the news, and that people are complaining like me.
My brother is still at school, and has his own problems but he is a little different to me, so he's just coping at the moment. He has special needs, so he does get extra help that he needs which is a great thing (for once!).
So overall, I dont detest the ability of the teachers (apart from ICT), but their abilities are put back because of the disruptive students. I dont think seperate subjects are learnt for long enough, unessacary lessons are taught, schools arent strict enough and bullying should be taken more seriously. People may like the school envorment (if you dont like to learn), but homeducation is better overall and is for me.
