Should ‘British’ kids be pushed a bit more?

[Bloodybrambles]

Following a conversation with my sister on how not one of our peers went on to become a doctor/dentist/engineer/research. Out of a couple of hundred students, I can only think of three that studied nursing/midwifery and a handful wanted to do teaching. A few of the ‘clever’ kids went on to do graduate schemes/roles and currently sit in middle management positions.

Our conversation was us having the same thought in school of our country being screwed by looking at our cohort. We’re lucky to have immigration as if the majority of our year flukes the exams and became a doctor, they either wouldn’t have a pen to do the prescription or arguing about having a dress code.

My career advice was somewhat like ‘you’re doing well in your A-levels, you like sport, you should study Sport Science at uni’.

Why on earth wasn’t we encouraged to do something useful? Surely as a country there should be some kind of drive to guide kids into doing something useful for society.

@Digdongdoo I agree that looking further forward is crucial and was certainly lacking when I was at school and with my parents tbh.

DH and I talk to our teenagers about where they see themselves in five and 10 years, and the steps they need to take to get there. Neither know exactly what they want to do, but DD’s degree will give her several options work-wise.

Obviously people need to play to their strengths and there’s no point doing a degree or pursuing a career path that you don’t like or aren’t well suited to. But ultimately, unless you’re so wealthy that you don’t need to earn, you do need to have a plan.

You're right. There are a lot of useless degrees, and the general advice has been to study something that you love, without giving any thought to career prospects. Young people study things that should be pursued as hobbies.

I find a lot of youngsters quite unaware of career choices and income potential of their degrees. They just take subjects that interests them, then graduate and have no idea what they want to do so they fall into random jobs.

I let my dc choose, schools, how hard they studied , uni/ not uni and they're all in good jobs. Better than sone of the pushier parents, who despite studying hard to get near perfect gcses/a levels didn't do do well at more independent study at uni/ getting jobs.

School may tell them that a pass in exams is 50%, but the DC know that our family’s standard of pass is different, and even 95% means you got one in twenty questions wrong.

Encouraging kids to work hard and to do their best is one thing, but framing it this way is unhealthy.
What matters is effort and application - for some 50% is a great result, for some 50% is a sign they've not tried.

Focusing on what a kid didn't get is demoralising, especially if they did achieve 95%.

I think it depends where you are and what school you go to - so most of MN won't see as much of the lack of expectations.

We in a lower social economic area with poorer results and low expectations are rife.

One of DD2 friend 15 coming up to GCSE - likely to do better than DD2 TBH was thinking medicine being slowly talked down from doctor to nursing but Careers office decide it would be to hard for her and suggested social care courses at local college rather than A-levels she intended.

My DC needed extra support especially in early primary years - and even on here I'd get slatted by some poster deciding I was destroying their childhood and forcing them to work - they caught up and are all doing well -so have more options. I think a different school and cohort would have made pushing more easier - as it in in teen years I've stepped back and much more encouraged and tried to get them to focus on their future.

@LoraPiano Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. As long as you’re aware of where your education can take you, that’s fine. One of my friends in his 30’s is a composer and conductor. He’s gaining recognition now, but he taught for several years while he was building his career. He knew that he wouldn’t immediately gain recognition and had to pay the bills in the meantime so he qualified as a teacher as well.

Uh huh. For some kids 50% is a great result. For my children, it isn’t. I don’t berate them for getting 95%. It’s a good result. They tend to be the ones kicking themselves about losing a mark or two, as it’s much nicer to get 100%.

My friends and I were talking about this. We come from a working class background but not one adult, family or at school encouraged us to go to Uni. Most of my friends got jobs straight from school/college as they needed to play keep. I did go on to get a degree in my 30's and now have a reasonably decent job. We came to the conclusion that it was because of our working class background but now I see many more children, mostly from minority backgrounds studying hard and going to uni, even those from disadvantaged backgrounds. I recently read something that said, white, working class boys perform the worst at secondary school and did wonder why this was.

*pay keep

I still remember my school careers interview at 16y with someone who came in from the towns career service. I said I wanted to be a doctor to be told that it was very difficult to get into and with my good gcse predictions i should think about doing a business degree as so many courses at university.

I still tried for medicine with the idea i would do a health related qualification if not sucessful. Achieved above the grades needed and have enjoyed a career in medicine. I often think did they destroy anyones dream that could have been persued ?

In high school, I was under relentless pressure to pick a college course. I was constantly asked "What do you want to do?" "What do you want to do?" "What do you want to do?". The truth is that I had no idea. I wish I was told that it's okay to delay the decision or not to go to college at all. College is really expensive. It can be useful, but only if you have a purpose. It's a means to an end. I was already under a lot of stress to do well on exams, and my home situation was chaotic. I really didn't need to pressure to decide on a career in my teens when I had no idea about the working world.

I left high school and worked for a few years. I eventually decided on a course, but I chose poorly. Today, I don't even use my degree and am still paying off my student loans. Still, that piece of paper opens doors and job opportunities I would not have otherwise had. However, I think this is also changing.

The fact is that the world is constantly changing. What might be good advice today, won't be in five years. I would advice kids to keep an open mind and to be flexible in their approach to life. I would also teach kids to find their own limits, so they know how and when they can push themselves without burning out.

I also think apprenticeships would be a good idea for a lot of teens.
Skilled jobs are looked down upon in the UK but in Germany to be skilled and useful is a positive.

It's a bit daft to compare our upbringing to our children's.

I was at High School late 90s - early 2000s, I went on trips to Universities and did outreach things, went to the local uni for their Prospectus day. School mentioned University, whereas it was never mentioned at home, my parents weren't involved in anyway in my GCSE or A level choices or future course changes, not because they didn't care but because they didn't know. Both barely finished Secondary education with any O levels and they had nothing to add to the conversation other than making sure I valued education and had the stationery and resources I needed. They wouldn't have known to look online and there may not have been great resources on there anyway.

Today is different, lots of parents of modern teens have been to Uni, they can talk about their experiences or if other lifelong studying they have done, or OU study as an adult. They can educate themselves online and look at University websites. They can look at student loans and understand them rather than being scared off by the ££££££ loans that many debt adverse working class families of the 90s and 00s would have been worried about / scared of.

Many white working class boys perform the worst because they have a shitty attitude to education instilled in them by their home life " I don't need to learn that, I'm gonna work with my dad", "what do we need to learn this for, Im never going to use it", "my dad said he never got any GCSEs and he's doing alright" etc. Those white working class boys whose families value education do just fine.

@Bloodybrambles - how old are you, just out of interest?

I'm in my 40s and went to a rough inner city secondary school, where the career adviser told to me to become a nurse because I seem kind and caring even though I told her that I wanted to be a solicitor. I ignored her advice and studied to become a solicitor but changed my mind in my 20s but have worked in many roles where I've been able to utilise my law degree and legal professional qualification.

I knew a handful of kids at my school who went to 6th form college let alone university, as their parents told most of them to just get a job.

My parents (West indian) and my close friends parents (West Indian, African and South East Asian) encouraged is all to study for a degree in order to improve our job prospects for the future. But I didn't the majority of kids at my school getting this type of encouragement from their parents.

Not sure how old you are OP but I'm over 40 and while Uni was free when I was able to go, not as many did. It was reserved for the cleverest and most other people generally had no idea what they would end up doing. If you got to a certain point and needed a degree you could go back and get one.

I really feel we have too much hanging on Uni these days and so many courses that we don't need/are not vocational in any way. It feels as though standards have declined to "encourage people to have a go" which has meant everyone is in debt before they've even worked a day in their life and often repeat basic skills they should be learning in secondary schools. Careers advice should be alongside school learning for each subject IMO with teachers trying to highlight what skills certain lessons would be good for in the world of work. Pathology in biology or chemistry for example. Languages showing how a translation job might work. History showing how source finding can be used in journalism etc etc.

What have you parents said about your question regarding lack of encouragement?

I went to private school and hardly any of my peers went into those fields. Thee are other successful jobs out there you know?
Maybe they didn't want to be a dentist or do 'research' (whatever various ambiguous careers that could cover)

The grammar schools in Birmingham are overwhelmingly filled with children of south Asian descent. Of course, Birmingham is now 50/50 minority/ white which will explain it to some extent but are south Asian kids generally brighter than white kids? No, their parents push them.

I was at private school with a fair few children of south Asian descent and they went into law or medicine. There wasn't much of a choice, this is what they did.

Is this a good thing? Perhaps, in some ways it is. I wish I'd been more career focussed younger. Certainly having a decent salary makes life a lot easier.

Having said all that, the traditional jobs don't pay like they used to so perhaps they won't continue to hold the same prestige for minorities in the future.

This is such an important discussion, particularly because it highlights how ambition has been declining in recent generations. Fields like medicine which require A LOT of dedication and effort, struggle to attract people despite their importance. While low pay and poor working conditions are valid concerns, they don’t fully explain the lack of interest. The bigger issue, in my opinion, seems to be a growing reluctance to take on challenging paths or strive for more.

In schools, all children start with similar opportunities, especially in state schools where they share the same classrooms and resources. Yet, many fail to push themselves or take advantage of what’s offered. Natural talent plays a role, but it’s effort and ambition that often determine success. What’s even more concerning is that many parents no longer encourage or nurture their children’s potential. Instead, they often prioritize trends like making TikToks in hopes of overnight fame. The main push for children to aim higher has to come from the parents, but too often, that guidance is missing, leaving kids to settle for complacency.

The real challenge isn’t just about pushing children harder at school; it’s about inspiring them to want more for themselves and their futures. Without this parental encouragement and ambition, we risk a society where fewer people rise to meet critical needs, leaving gaps that are harder and harder to fill.

it’s about inspiring them to want more for themselves and their futures.

Thats a great way of putting it, @Bloom007

I think pay is the majority issue with it. Why would anyone get into debt (medicine for eg) just to earn less than a mechanic? Add to that the stress and pshychological elements to working in a high pressure environment with no funding, ungrateful patients and a system taking on the role of social care and mental health care at A&E level and I am not amazed so many kids aren't staying in this country to work in the medical field. We also now have the pressure of AI taking any jobs that would be done that aren't physical labour, so it is no wonder a lot of kids don't know what to pick.

I remember watching one of those reality-style programs where cameras were allowed in schools, following students day-to-day and having one-on-one chats with them. In one episode, a group of “popular” girls were causing a mild disruption in class. When the producers spoke to one of them, in those one to one chats, she said she didn’t need to learn math because she wanted to be a hairdresser. This really stood out to me because it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about education. The reality is, whether she’s running her own business as a self-employed hairdresser or working in a salon, she’ll need to manage some budgets, taxes, and inventory, measuring products for hair treatments , —skills that require math.

What’s striking is that this wasn’t an old program. The parents are likely fairly modern, not from an older generation . This shows a disconnect in how some students perceive education—they don’t see the value in certain subjects that are actually foundational for their future. Career advisors can only offer guidance based on the information available about a student, like their grades and interests, but they can’t really know them well enough to confidently steer them toward the right career path. Students may not always understand the full scope of what their chosen profession will require. That’s why guidance from parents is so important—who knows their child better than them to help steer them in the right direction?

I've taught for 30 years in a wide variety of schools. Schools do pushand encourage kids. Why wouldn't we? It's easier in more aspirational andmiddle class schools. Not because the kids are brighter (there are bright kids in all schools), but because they haven't already been loaded with low expectations before they come to us.

I currently teach in a grammar school (where obviously the kids are all pretty bright). We have students from very difficult and deprived backgrounds and we try really hard to encourage them to aim high.

@NordicwithTeen Yeah, I agree. I only used that profession as an example because the previous responses seemed very focused on the idea that not everyone needs to finish school to become a doctor or a lawyer, which is true. However, the rest of my points still stand. I don’t think OP meant that everyone should go into a specialized field, but rather that very few actually choose to pursue them, while the rest are likely just plotting along. The broader issue isn’t just about specific career paths—it’s about fostering ambition and encouraging young people to recognize the value of education in all its forms, regardless of the profession they ultimately choose.

My son is studying Biomedical Science. He didn’t get in to medicine the competition is fierce. He’s going to have another go for graduate medicine.