To ask if you have an idea you believe would significantly improve life in the UK?

[ConfusedmumUC]

I’ll go first.

I can’t help but think making someone’s rent payments eligible to prove you can pay a mortgage would go a long way to housing security for so many people. And limiting the amount of properties owned by one landlord / amount a landlord can charge in rent, would also go a long way. I can’t help but think profiteering massively off of a basic need and right such as housing is really not ok.

Im sure there’s a reason why my idea wouldn’t work, feel free to put me right 😂

What’s your idea?

There would have to be a rehabilitation scheme going then, since we know people who serve time are more likely to reoffend. And since rehabilitation is more successful than prison time, you wouldn’t need your horrible death penalty one anyway.

Our creative industries are massively important, there should be more not less emphasis on creativity across all subjects including maths and science!

Get rid of the Tory govt
Electoral reform - some sort of PR
Rejoin the EU

Not convinced you have any liberal in you - maybe you need to work on your self-awareness?

Looking at the fact that many people in prison can't read or have staggeringly low literacy level's/ low self esteem and sonon.

I would make sure they can read at primary.
The barriers to learning to read are many but one is that teachers don't get taught any Sen at pgce. So they can't recognise or spot what the issue is, they can't help the parents or the child .
Senco is also a role that can be taken up without any actual qualifications or help.
So right there,let's expose teachers to the variety of special education needs that can be a barrier to learning.
Jets also make sure ta have that knowledge.

If a child isn't getting phonics, change tack immediately. Be flexible.
Try a different route.
Make sure they know the alphabet and use different strategies to get that embedded.

Make sure each child has basic maths,the big four.

That would feed into society with people who are then more educated etc and make a huge difference in the long run.

No, none of this is correct.

The solution is to throw money at SEN provision so children with SEN are fully supported in school. That’s not something that should be tacked onto a standard teaching qualification, it should be a separate specialty.

Learning the alphabet doesn’t help with phonics. The best way to learn to read is with open access to rich sources of text - so put loads of money into libraries, and bring back school libraries with qualified, chartered librarians.

The best way to improve maths is with number facts and number bonds to ten, which schools already do.

Also, the biggest things to help standards of literacy would be smaller class sizes, which means more money into school buildings and in staff wages.

There are some really great ideas on here, especially for proper dignified care for the elderly (and independent living) and convalescent homes too. This would take so much pressure off of hospital beds, and also from the people who normally have to give up work to look after their elderly relatives.
I would be happy to pay more tax knowing that our old people are looked after.

My wish is that I would like more companies to operate like John Lewis/Waitrose, and make their employees partners. It would give people working there more incentive to do a good job, and pays decent annual bonuses to everyone who works there.

I would also love a return to free university education, with paid apprenticeships for non-degree roles. If we have an un-skilled workforce we should train people for the roles we have.

All new builds should have solar panels and excellent insulation and all city center office buildings should have them too.

My personal wish is that people stop being so snarky to people online - it's quite unpleasant and really not necessary.

Many if not most young offenders have undiagnosed special needs. ADHD, ASD etc.

A big change I would make would be to the education system - apart from a handful of specialised schools that are nigh on impossible to get into, schools tend to be one size fits all, focus on academic subjects, discipline that doesn’t work (if the same children are repeatedly in isolation or detention it’s not working), pressure to perform well in tests and exams from an early age. It doesn’t work for so many children, then many of them (boys in particular) end up in the prison system.

Identify the children who struggle in school at an early age. Stop treating them as naughty no-hopers (my autistic son was treated like this, even when he was diagnosed - teachers didn’t like him so didn’t want to support him, even with an EHCP college pushed and pushed him to the point where he’s dropped out). Channel them in other ways that engage them. Teach trades, reopen colleges which had courses for 14+ year olds (there are a few left, but so many more disenfranchised students would benefit from them).
I’m convinced the only reason my son isn’t off the rails and in and out of prison is because I took him out of school and did what needed to be done - but not every parent is in the position to do that.
Ds has a string of teachers behind him who wouldn’t even try to understand his diagnosis, who completely and utterly failed him. Every single one of them could have made a difference to ds and others like him, for free, low effort, just get a basic understanding of the disabilities in question, stop labelling children, who need help, naughty, disruptive, stop sitting them next to quiet girls hoping that they’ll sort them out.
The whole school system actively fails every single youth who ends up in the prison system.

I agree too Dolphin, although I wouldn’t put the blame solely on teachers. It’s the result of SEN provision being cut to the bone, with a huge number of kids being failed in mainstream school. Also punishments in schools is hideous, and like you say, doesn’t work.

@DolphinWars absolutely. One of my favourite quotes is by Victor Hugo: open a school, close a prison.

You do realise that the UK isn't just England?

There is enough spare land, suitable for building in the UK to build more houses. This is a fact.

The only stupid thing here is your inability to grasp that.

Communism

“A big problem with our current system is lack of incentive to work, certainly to work to capacity. If you can work a couple of days a week and get various top ups and fringe benefits by keeping your earned income low enough, there can be little incentive to work harder or longer or in a role with more responsibility if you'll lose the tops ups. There won't be enough differential in what you end up with to make it worth your while.”

I’m currently not working, I am my ds’s carer, single mother, relying on benefits.

I want to work, but am terrified of losing the flexibility I currently have to be able to attend all the meetings and appointments, and be there for ds as and when he needs me.
I will have to start working fairly soon, and I wish I could just work full time, earn enough to pay my bills. But I can’t. If I work more than 10 hours a week I lose carers allowance, more than 16 hours I lose income support, and in my precarious position - a family life that can and does implode or explode as ds reacts to normal life events.
Universal Basic Income would allow me to work (and I do want to work!) without the fear that everything’s going to spectacularly blow up in my face.

You’re right.
Ds had such a difficult time with all his teachers, apart from one amazing one, that it’s difficult to not blame them!

I definitely think a different structure to schooling - more outdoors where available - forest school activities, and more exercise would help pupils who struggle.

Making classrooms a little more formal and less of a sensory nightmare would help as well.

Yep, this. Totally. One that actually gives a shit about ordinary people.

Definitely. Flexible seating, adaptable timetables and low-level changes like easy-grip pencils or coloured paper to write on also make a massive difference.

Why shouldn't my children benefit from my hard work?

Because they didn't chose to be born to you? It's pure chance and your hard work also has an element of luck?

What makes your kids more deserving than anyone else's?

What a vile attitude, calling for people in the UK to be put to death.

So you'd want someone convicted of shoplifting 3 x to be executed.

Tories really do want us to go back to the 1830s.

No liberal in you, just hate & stupidity.

I don’t know about you but the majority of our assets (our house) are thanks to property price inflation. Nobody worked for that money or ever paid any tax on it.

People who do want to pass on to their dc would just go. It gets more difficult to raise taxes from those who receive but not pay.

Atm it’s easy to gift the whole amount to charity if the idea is repellent. So those who do think 100% tax could easily do that.