To think school is just crap

[moanymoaner]

I mean why in 2019 are we still teaching children the same generic subjects , making them choose what they want for a future at 14 when they care about nothing and making them sit exams at 15/16 that they will have to rely on for jobs for the rest of their lives!!

As time goes on the more appealing home Ed is becoming , if nothing else than my children being victims of other people's horrors!

I'm genuinely interested in people's thoughts around it . Also I'm not by any means dissing teachers , it's government policy not teachers .

I think the biggest problem with our schools, is the total lack of careers advice. It seems that teachers only push the careers that need a degree and anything else just isn't worth looking into.

I think the biggest problem with our schools, is the total lack of careers advice. It seems that teachers only push the careers that need a degree and anything else just isn't worth looking into.

Careers advice is indeed poor. It was 40 years ago when I was at school, it still is today. In our one and only 5 minute "careers" chat with our form tutor, he asked me what I wanted to do, I said "accountancy", he replied, "you've no chance with the qualifications you're likely to get as you need a degree." All it did was give me the push I needed to prove him wrong!

My son is in the sixth form and they've had a "careers" chat with the head of sixth form. He was bluntly told he's too good for an apprenticeship and should be looking at RG universities for a degree. She never even asked him what career he was thinking about. Last week it was parents' evening and we started to chat to his form teacher about unis - I said we'd been looking at outcomes at his list of preferred unis, i.e. job outcomes as per the published statistics of numbers of graduates in employment x months after graduation - she just batted it away and said the subject he chooses and whether he likes the Uni is far more important than likely job prospects.

They're just basically completely out of touch with work/jobs/careers and just fixed focussed on degrees.

Oh yes to the lack of careers advice!
The whole 'this subject is pointless' thing is another where teens are let down. Careers advice should also mean learning what you have learned in a certain lesson could lead to as a job. For example I did a Humanities module on urbanisation. We had done similar work the year before in Geography by studying Milton Keynes. At the time I found it all very interesting. I can even remember 'designing towns' when I was younger too. However at age 14/15 I had no clue that jobs like Town Planning existed. I always feel a shame that teachers would never say things like "if you found this all interesting, this knowledge is what is needed for people who work as town planners, or designing community spaces" and basically point out that jobs like that exist and are a thing. As an adult I still find it all quite interesting but unfortunatly I was also an adult and way beyond school days that I was aware that this interest could of actually led somewhere rather than 'just a grade'.
"what's the point in this Miss? " is a typical teen cry. Well teachers need to actually say "well an interest in this can lead too...

That is what is still missing from education.

book, I guess teachers are't experts on careers though, they are only experts in their chosen subject. Careers advice is generally provided as a specialist service, sometimes external to schools. I don't think general teachers can be expected to have the knowledge of every career possibility out there.

I don't think general teachers can be expected to have the knowledge of every career possibility out there.

Of course not, but it's reasonable to expect them to have a few ideas about careers from their chosen/specialist subject that they teach. No one would expect a physics teacher to know much about town planning, but it's pretty reasonable to expect a geography teacher to have at least some basic idea, just as you'd expect a physics teacher to have some basic idea about engineering or science related jobs based around Physics. We're not talking lots of detail about all possible jobs, but just a general/superficial idea of jobs related to their subject.

Fazackerley so your kids aren't allowed to tell you if they are not to keen on a teacher or find a subject uninteresting or hard. are they allowed to express any opinions on thier school life?. what happens when they don't get tops marks in everything?

And whatever you say some subjects are pointless for some children.

They don't often get top marks in anything. Only occasionally!. Of course they can tell me, and depending on the severity I'll be a bit sympathetic. But then they are expected to get on with it. Don't like your drama teacher? Tough.

Anything's pointless if you don't see a point to it. Personally I've always encouraged mine to enjoy school. Who wants to rush into a dead end job at 16?

So whats the point of for example art to a child with no interest or natural ability in the subject?:or german to a child that never been to German speaking country and never will.

RomanyQueen1 Ds is doing functional English at college and is not expected to pass. He has dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD and dyspraxia.

Fresta in the real world I have always been able to look smart and talk to people and have probably more confidence than is safe to have always managed to talk myself into any job I have gone for, including ones that say you need qualifications.

I have had more jobs than I can remember. Definitely more than 20 and less than 50. I was up to recently (Dp got seriously ill) buying and selling property and doing a bit of buy to let.

I have never been short of jobs.

Dd left school with a handful of barely scraped passes in her GCSEs. She currently works 7 jobs.

Some are only 3 or 4 days every few months and some are 3-4 times per week. She is never short of work.

One of the jobs she does is managing people who have degrees in the job to train them to be management like her. She too has more confidence than is sometimes safe to have. She got into management because she was at only her 2nd shift (zero hours contract work that lists who they are looking for, rates of pay and where abouts on the company website). She watched what the managers did and thought “I can do that” so put her name down as a manager the next time she was on the site.
Apparently she is an excellent manager.

Because knowing even a little bit about art or a little bit of german makes you a more interesting person? You don't have to be good at something to find interest in it.

Dismissing art and languages makes you sound thick tbh.

Fresta but surely a teacher of a subject should have some idea of where that subject can lead. They must of had a reason for wanting to teach that subject - an interest in that subject. They may not be aware of every single variation of jobs out there or every business or company that exists in the town that teach in but they really should have some way of communicating what studying that subject can lead too because otherwise it really is "I am teaching you this so you can pass an exam".

Anything's pointless if you don't see a point to it. Personally I've always encouraged mine to enjoy school. Who wants to rush into a dead end job at 16

Who is to say the job is dead end.

I didn’t pass anything and talked my way into a job that needed a string of qualifications

olivers

I'm so sorry, that is tough for your son, why does it have to be like this when they don't need that subject to go further.
I can sympathise with you, it seemed like touch and go for dd for a long time but is finally picking up. I think something just clicked with her.
Her predicted were 3/4 x 7 and one 8/9.
They have increased since September, we were worried too.
I hope it goes well for him and something turns up to allow him on to level 3 it does seem such a shame

I think what is really so irritating is the constant news that there is a shortage of people qualifying in these trades so we have to have people emigrate here who don’t have to have the English and Maths qualification because there is no need to have them. They can just qualify in their trade in their own country.

Because knowing even a little bit about art or a little bit of german makes you a more interesting person? You don't have to be good at something to find interest in it.

Which is fine if you have a motivational/interesting teacher. Yes, you may get something out of a subject you have no ability nor interest in.
Unfortunately, not all teachers are like that.

A lot of teachers are pretty shit at motivating in arts, music, drama, tech etc. They facilitate those who have an interest or aptitude, but if you don't, the lessons can be pretty boring. All I remember about art is constantly drawing/painting on paper - it was fine at primary, but it didn't move on in secondary - I wasn't particularly "arty" so my work always looked childish and pretty crap compared to some of the others, so I dropped it as soon as I could. From what I gathered, it got more exciting once exam options had been chosen when they started doing photography, screen printing, etc. Perhaps I was unlucky to have a lazy art teacher?

Same with my son - he was really looking forward to his "tech" lessons as the open day showed all kinds of robotics (inc lego mindstorms solving a rubik cube), 3d printer, laser cutter, and a computer suite with cad/cam stations, etc. First year, they made the obligatory wooden fish and metal trowel - he wasn't too good with his hands, so they were pretty amateur, but teacher was very complementary and said things would be better once they started using the "tech" as it was more about design further on. Second year came and went, slightly better as they started on working with plastics - a vacuum formed clock and a torch, but it was still all by hand. Third year, back to hand tools to make a wooden box. He had all but decided to drop tech and do something else for GCSE, but they had an "options" open day, and all the "tech" came out again, with promises of using the cad/cam to design and make the project, with only minor finishing off by hand (such as sanding/varnishing etc). Son actually got quite excited and chose it as a GCSE option. Big Mistake. They spent the first year using the cad to design the project, so he spent hour upon hour at school and home doing 3d designs, detailed plans, etc - really impressive stuff. But then when they came to start using the laser cutter, CAM equipment, etc., the teacher went off on sick leave and the cover teacher didn't know how to use them, so they were all told they had to make it by hand - son now wishes he'd just dropped it when they told them, but we encouraged him to carry on, and the teacher promised to help. In the end, he was on his own, and his project turned out as if a 5 year old had done it. All the while, the "tech" room was kept locked, the laser cutter, 3d printer, etc all just sat gathering dust. What annoyed him more was that other pupils had parents, grandparents or uncles with the "workshop" in their garage and were producing really good stuff (with lots of help!!). He actually scored nearly full marks on his theory/design work, but in the lowest band for the finished product. If he'd known he'd be making it by hand, he'd have designed it differently, with simpler shapes, simpler joints, etc. The school badly let him down and it's now put him off "tech"!

I think what is really so irritating is the constant news that there is a shortage of people qualifying in these trades so we have to have people emigrate here who don’t have to have the English and Maths qualification because there is no need to have them. They can just qualify in their trade in their own country.

What we need are basic/functional numeracy and literacy tests, not GCSEs. You don't need to know Shakespeare, poetry, pythagoras and simultaneous equations for most jobs, but you do need to know how to read and write, understand instructions, form filling, and do simple calculations such as percentages, fractions, etc. We need a "lifeskills" qualification to demonstrate that people can do the basic life functions, as the "gateway" to further education/training. Trying to teach poetry and shakespeare to kids who can't read & write is never going to end well, nor is trying to teach algebra to kids who don't know their times tables.

You do realise people in other countries go to school and that there education system probably ranks much higher than ours. Also the technical education for people who want to learn a trade is usually better and far more respected!

You do realise people in other countries go to school and that there education system probably ranks much higher than ours. Also the technical education for people who want to learn a trade is usually better and far more respected

So in other words you think British education in anything is crap and we should all be unemployed and import everybody to fix our toilets and plaster our walls.

I have also looked into Ds going abroad and the college I spoke to was quite willing to take Ds to do the equivalent of level 3 without any extra qualifications (just has to pass level 2 which he should. He is top of the class in all his exams and has an average score of 97.5%). They take anyone regardless of previous education.

All he has to do is prove he can speak English.

No I don’t what I think is that we should respect education a lot more and maybe learn from other countries. England currently ranks around 26 in the world in maths and science below the countries where a lot of trade-people have come from. It’s not a race to the bottom some of the stuff i’ve read on here is insulting to people who do these jobs for example

Plumber’s tend to need to have a very good grasp of maths, physics, chemistry and English for their correspondence.

Electricians need to have a very good grasp of maths, physics and English.

Bricklayers need to be able to use maths and read technical drawings.

McDonald’s have a well defined career structure for people who are interested in progression.

Well we have to find a way to educate these people then not just write them off as being unable to educate.

Well that’s fantastic and proves that maybe we should look at our education system then because your son is obviously highly intelligent.

I lived abroad in one of the countries where a lot of our tradespeople have come from and am aware of the differences in the systems.