To let DD leave 6th form to work in a pub!

[tralalaa1225]

DD struggled at school, we had a lot going on at home and she only just about scraped through GGSEs. It was bloody hard work keeping her on track and she barely did any revision. However her love of Drama won her a scholarship at a local private school and I was really hoping focusing on fewer subjects would re ignite some passion for her subjects.

She is now in lower 6th and tbh I’m sick of the battles trying to get her engege with the courses. Even Drama no longer holds any interest for her. She has a part time job at our local pub which she shows much more motivation for but we have regular arguments over the hours she works. Both me, her Dad and school have raised concerns about the job impacting on her school work but she takes no notice.

I know fundamentally she wants to leave 6th form, she feels a failure academically and much more of a success in her job. TBH I am sick of the battles and am on the cusp of giving her the ok to leave. Feels such a failure though and that she would ultimately regret walking away.
My other worry is that she has failed Maths GCSE twice now and says the recent 3rd attempt wasn’t any better. What happens then with applying for jobs without Maths?

I have been called into school several times by concerned teachers who are doing their best to support her but at 17 it seems utterly ridiculous

Do I just stand back and let her make this huge decision or keep persevering with school?

This isn’t the law though, kids can leave school at sixteen.

This. When she has matured a bit and lived a few more years she may discover something that really interests her and she can return to college if she needs qualifications. That may be in hospitality or something totally unrelated. My brother pratted about all through school. When he was 21 he did 3 A levels in 9 months and went to University.

I’d give her the choice but make the terms clear

choice 1 - stay at sixth form and actually apply herself with the intention of working hard and doing as well as she possibly can in these subjects. In turn she remains supported by you and carries on the job at x number of hours per week (you pick a low ish number you think suitable). She must abide by this

choice 2 - she chooses to leave school. At which point you make clear she has chosen to be an adult. Therefore she needs to work full time and pay 1/4 of ALL the mortgage and bills (if there were 4 in the household, not some low nominal board, but actually proportionate costs), for her own place on the family holiday, nails, phone, hair, clothes or anywhere else she goes and has to support herself. You must not fund things or let her pay less etc. she needs to realise life on minimum wage isn’t glamorous or easy.

choice 1 would hopefully be a short term push to gain higher qualifications and she can make further choices later. Option 2 must be allowed to happen if she wants it but she must live by her decisions as she may then reflect that gain more qualifications will be helpful.

i thought about leaving uni to work in a factory as I’d had such a great time there during a summer holidays job. I was being youthfully foolish and short sighted. My dad gave me a reality check and showed me how much I earnt a month against what the bills would be, how much a holiday cost etc. I was back to uni in September as planned! I quickly realised when (what I can now see was) an actually proper adult showed me how expensive life was rather than my childlike ideas

That seems like an awful lot of money when you are a teen living with mum and dad at their expense. Maybe sit down with her and ask her to use this figure to imagine she was moving out in a few years and living in her own/ with friend / boyfriend. Get her to look up rental prices / mortgage and deposit requirements, utilities. Having said that, she’s young, motivated in this job, working and earning. That’s something, it’s good life experience and she may learn a lot about people, make connections etc

This is a good book (the adult version was recommended to me by an EAP counsellor):

www.amazon.co.uk/Smart-but-Scattered-Teens-Executive-ebook/dp/B00AYI838E/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=53983449580&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DPnsK5UKCuyzvPcBN-OM-8Korrh00XMzUxgGjfXmrMTn-0Ac1almY7tBMlA4UJX8FdciMbeT82LW5xRQU_2Gpk3LQIrK_l4bndBVEkOgW3-lIyvUfGJ2VZLX8oy3XTXWfWMDwd3JsWPNkrsGMu60bWaRKfPHqDO5h8U4aAcvqxXcnQPgWKkvwiJYZW9u5JHPjovtvjLwxwKXpLWT033GIw.ZUa5p0v46r_LBbwAjNiYcgGQPrg9rms8Awwec2X0b5Y&dib_tag=se&gad_source=1&hvadid=606338293136&hvdev=m&hvexpln=0&hvlocphy=9190959&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=13577443754998128330--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=13577443754998128330&hvtargid=kwd-300069010040&hydadcr=21611_2291911&keywords=smart+but+scattered+teens&mcid=20219bebaf743973af67ac4a0a787ade&qid=1748898460&sr=8-1

I would say she can choose but if she makes the choice to work rather than study she will have to pay her way for food/utilities - she needs to know the reality of what she is choosing.

I think it’s a real shame as she’s clearly brilliant at the drama to have been given that scholarship. Is there no way she can drop everything else at school and focus only on the drama?

The other complication is that I may well have to pay her scholarship back if she leaves!

Perhaps point out she us on £7.55 an hour (presuming NMW) and when she's 18 £10.00 per hour, at which point the pub will give a lot of tge hours available to the next 16/17 year old.
Additionally she will, I'm guessing, not be paying tax. If she carries on earning 1200 per month she will start to pay some tax, likely from April.

I can’t see them letting her do that.

Drama schools / performing arts schools still have their pupils learn maths, English, science, other subjects at that age. The Brit school is a good example. There’s a higher focus on the performing subject however pupils still have to do the other subjects too.

Good point. There is a large turnover of young kids working in there

Let her choose - she can always go back to education later.

Generally, I've found people I've recruited that have worked between school and college or uni far more motivated, switched on, pragmatic & tons better employees compared to those that have done a levels/uni & in some case post grad on a treadmill because their parents expected it and not gained any real life experience on the way.

Including the twatty idiot on a grad scheme who couldn't address an envelope.

How did she get a scholarship for 6th form without maths GCSE?

They really wanted her! Happy fur her to re sit Maths

I would strongly encourage her to persevere with years 12/13 in some form. If she’s talented at drama, what about a UAL extended diploma in performance and production arts, or BTEC or similar at a college? The former is worth a whopping 168 UCAS points for a distinction. She could start again and do GCSE or functional skills alongside.

I left during yr13 and almost 30 years later, still regret it. I wish my parents had kicked my arse, told me what’s what and has a proper discussion with me, rather than their wishy washy ‘well it’s what she wants’ attitude (both teachers too ffs!) I also regret staying at sixth form rather than going to the college, however that was never suggested as an option (lived very rurally and would have had to rely on being taken into town by car with my mother). I was clever but lazy and loathed my comp’a sixth form and my friends had all gradually left.

The money your DD earns at the pub seems great when young and I completely empathise, but going back to education will be a lot more difficult when older - trust me!

I had a deal with my DD that she would work her backside off 16-18 so that University/Conservatoire was an option later, but would not pressure her to go immediately - if at all. I think seeing her own mother’s abject failure to meet her potential has also helped focus attentions.

Some really good suggestions on this thread.

It seems to have changed. I don't know when as when Gordon Brown first introduced it the e was indeed for employment, but now it seems to be employment with a large element of training.

I have experience working in a Wetherspoons through uni, became a manager and was making good money (plus great bonuses, but that depends on your pub). It obviously wasn’t my career, but I still know people who work there who are doing well and are now homeowners ect. The man who was our pub manager had no GCSEs and was pulling in really good money, our area manager left school at 16 as well. I think if you’re not academically inclined it can be a good career, as long as you enjoy it and understand you have to work bloody hard (until you’re a manager, then you can hide in the office). I can only speak for Wetherspoons and a brief stint at Greene King, but I would say it might be a shout.

It’s a tough one. I don’t really get how your school system works or how it corresponds to ours, but I was a lot like that at her age.

I did end up going to college (university) after I graduated 12th grade, but I only went for a year and then dropped out as I just couldn’t cope. I was 18 then. I’m 43 now and I’ve done a lot of different things; I’m looking at finally going back to get my degree at my old age 🤣

I struggled a lot with my undiagnosed and unmediated ADHD then. I don’t regret my life, I’m very happy and have managed okay without a degree, but I’m pushing my children to do better because it has certainly been hard at times.

Does she really want to leave? Or does she want to stay at least for the drama courses?

I made it through my A-levels - didn’t do brilliantly but wasn’t given a choice by my mum. I worked kitchens/bars through it, like I had since I was 14 and loved. Then scraped into a uni. Spent more hours working on the campus pub/club than I ever spent in lectures (expensive bloody year). Then came back to help look after my mum and worked a couple of cafe/bar jobs to pay bills etc. Did eventually go back to uni to do biomedical sciences and carried on working hospitality through it. Then finished…and went back to bar/cafe jobs. I was always happier there.

A few years later, a job came up in local authority Democratic Services, supporting one of the parties on the council. Nothing I’d ever done before - mostly press and policy work. I assumed I’d done terribly in the interviews and I had no relative experience or training but surprisingly, I got it. My new boss, when I asked why, said it was because they needed someone capable, not afraid of hard work, good with often difficult and belligerent people and able to multitask. The job could be taught, the skills could not.

All skills you get from the hospitality trade.

I now run my own press team for a large-scale public sector organisation. I still struggle with all of the challenges that someone with ADHD struggles with and some days, most even, I think I hate my job. But inside I know it’s brilliant and well suited to me…for all the reasons that canny boss took me on.

I also only just finished paying off my degree six months ago…FINALLY. Never used it, would have been miserable if I’d worked in that field, left me massively in debt. As someone who regularly hires, I don’t think I’ve EVER looked at applicants’ qualifications, just their skills/experience. For a handful of mediocre A-levels and a degree I only did to make my mum happy - was it worth it? Hell no. Just set me back by four years that weren’t really necessary.

Support your daughter in what she wants now and she will probably one day see the point in getting a foundation Maths GCSE in her spare time, especially as she’ll know you have her back, regardless of what you think of her choices. Or maybe she will never need it. But it’s her life and your expectations might be the thing that’s holding her back, rather than helping her.

It is this hard, if she has ADHD. Without the structure, routine, oversight, accountability and support that school provides, it’s going to be EXACTLY that hard.

Said with kindness, from an adult ADHD’er diagnosed in late 30s, who achieved fine-ish in school, struggled through the first year of sixth form similarly to your daughter before chucking it shortly after the start of the second year in to work in… a shop and a pub.

Many years ago now, and as a pp said times are different in terms of being able to work and financially support yourself to be independent as a young person. It’s way tougher now than it was then.

Please, if you can, try to have her assessed. ADHD meds aren’t a silver bullet and they aren’t for everyone, but they can be absolutely life changing. I wish wish wish I’d have had the knowledge (bright, reasonably well behaved girls didn’t have ADHD or autism in the 90’s/00’s!) understanding and access to the option of medication when I was young. My life is lovely now, but it’s been a long and tough road. Even without medication there is so much that can be done to help.

Knowledge is power.

Good luck, to you and her.

I was going to say hospitality, lots of possibilities, chef to management. Transferable skills later. My DS was the same. Eventually he was asked to leave his private school. Got a job within a week. Has worked predominantly in hospitality since.

I’d be putting your foot down on her hours, who’s taking her, driving her to her job? She needs to just focus for a tiny bit longer then she’s done.

i have a pub working DS who's 17 about to complete his a’levels and is having a gap year and pub working, so I know how much fun they have, it’s been the making of him, but I’ve restricted his shifts over exam time to 2–4 a week maximum, he’s excited to do 20-30 hour in a weeks in July onwards.

I love the work ethic and don’t want to ruin his fun but I decided to just be the bad guy and rein in his shifts, I subsided his hours for a few weeks, so essentially paid him not to work.

but hopefully he will get some decent grades and leave his future options open.

She's doing something she enjoys and is motivated by. Let her work instead, she'll find her own path.

Is it drama A level she is doing or something else? What are her PGs or mock results? I ask bc it is relevant wrt whether it is worth her keeping going.

I think an apprenticeship and qualification in hospitality, as others suggest, might well be better. Has she actually said she wants to leave and work in a pub?

Btw there are some misunderstandings on this thread. NEET does indeed stand for (a YP) Not in Education, Employment or Training and obviously is a figure the govt is keen to keep low.

All YP aged 16-18 are supposed to be in education or some kind of training – not simply working. (This is not connected to the NEET figure, tho obvs any YP who is in education or an apprenticeship is not a NEET.) So sixth form, college, A levels, vocation quals, apprenticeship... but not simply a job. The idea of that was to encourage YP, including those who don’t do well at academic quals ie A levels, to continue their education. So an apprenticeship would tick that box. Why not sit down with her and look at what's on offer? https://www.apprenticeships.gov.uk/apprentices

In practice btw there is little done by any govt agency to ensure that YP are still in education or training till 18 but they are supposed to be.