09/08/2025
As children get older, the expectations at schools rise, and children are expected to keep up. At first itās putting on your own coat and asking to use the toilet, but soon itās remembering your pencil and bringing your reading book back. Itās sitting still in your seat and listening quietly, Each time the expectations increase, some children canāt manage. They arenāt ready. They might be ready next year or the year after, but by then it will be too late. Expectations will have gone up again, and theyāll be ābehindā.
But the biggest leap is when itās time for secondary school. Over the course of that six week holiday between primary and secondary, suddenly children are expected to be able to do so many more things. Getting the bus by themselves, getting themselves from classroom to classroom. Organising their bags and remembering their pens. Wearing their blazers and an uncomfortable tie. Spending their whole day with a stream of adults who can hardly remember their name.
Each lesson a different adult in another room, new expectations and a different subject. Itās enough to make your head spin. And now, when it goes wrong the consequences are harsher. Detentions after school, or isolation for repeat offenders.
For some children, itās too much too soon. They need more time to grow, but they canāt get it. Theyāre told they just need to try harder, just put more effort in ā but you canāt force your brain to develop faster. What we expect of our children is, for some of them, impossible.
Itās the expectations, not the children, who need to change.
Ctto
Words: Dr Naomi Fisher
Image: Missing The Mark