Do your homework and work hard or you'll end up working in a bloody factory!

[mids2019]

This message was a lot in the 70s where I grew up.

Absolutely inappropriate now but is there a grain of truth in this approach (rephrased of course?)

@mids2019 that's true, no degree required.

But you do need qualifications. Then there will be the other 500 plus candidates who have applied - many of who will have a degree.

In the last few intakes at my TOC a lot of degree educated trainees were employed.

It's a very good job - but not one that just anyone can walk into if they didn't do academically well at school.

I tell DD that I will show her how to clean toilets so that she can do that for a living when she refuses to do her homework.

There's 2 sides to this and as a PP said we need people to scrub toilets and collect the rubbish and other unpleasant jobs. These people aren't failures per se, but it's an unpleasant career I'm sure.

@Goatinthegarden

Seems a very sensible approach. However once you talk about budgeting and careers aren't you veering into thorny subjects like social mobility (or lack thereof). Household budgeting is dependent on house hold income and there can be a large spread of income. A students view on budgeting may be heavily influenced about how their parents spend money and relative socio economic status.

Medics and lawyers earn good salaries as well.as city bankers but would you discuss these career option with a group of kids in an underachieving comp in a deprived areas where expectations are low. (Are you just telling them how th other half live)

My DC are less academic. We have always used the 'education gives you more choices' phrase.

@Chesneyhawkes1

Interesting. In your opinion are some of the staff overqualified?

Of course you discuss medicine and law with children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. What a strange comment. How do you think you encourage aspiration if you don’t let children know the possibilities?

Thats part of the challenge for children from poorer backgrounds. Less likely to have lawyers, medics, etc in their families social vice or, less likely to be aware of the range of jobs out there and which ones might be better paid. It’s incredibly important to tell them.

We have had similar conversations when DD is having a teenage strop about not seeing why she has to do exams anyway.

Although we have said things like "Fine, stack shelves in Asda your whole life". Education gives you choices. Stacking shelves in Asda might be something you want to do short term to earn extra cash while at uni or to top up an income. But many don't want to do that their whole life and having qualifications gives you options.

We sell kids a lie when we tell them, work hard at school, get GCSs, get A-levels, go to a good uni and you’ll get a good job. Many of them see through that lie.

We should instead be asking ‘ what do you want from your life?’ Lots of money? Social justice? Family? And when they don’t yet know point out how they can consider these in career choices. Also what are you good at? Some love academia, for these kids, university is a great choice regardless. For others a degree is just a stepping stone and there may be ways to get employers to pay, to make the journey to that qualification cheaper and more interesting.

A hands on kid who wants to earn highly can be directed to skilled trades that pay particularly well. The train loving kid can consider progression on the tube or National Rail and discover they still want English and Maths GCSEs

Kids need to know the wide variety of work and careers available. Rather than considering their uni choices they should consider what they want to do with their lives and how best to achieve that.

Our teachers used to trot out 'end up stacking shelves in a supermarket' i always remember one girl standing up and shouting that her mum did that and was financially self sufficuent and raising her alone and she was proud of her mum so stop saying it as a terrible way to live. Then the poor girl cried.

I love the idea that all the skills are used in many different careers. Thats even better than choices.

@fucketyfuckwit

I think that chimes with my OP.

Interesting take on cleaning toilets. I work in an organisation where the cleaners are often immigrants (or possibly second generation). There are also those of UK birth that seemed to have limited qualifications and needed jobs to fit around childcare.

I think you need three things : hard work, education and luck.
It's reasonable for parents to try to motivate their children to try hard at school.
Our kids are used to nice hobbies, nice holidays and nice home (but no flash cars). I suspect they could not maintain this lifestyle working in a factory / as a bin man. I want my children to be happy of course and if they wanted to be hair dresser that's ok. But I'd like then to have choices. My best friend when I was a child had quite a different educational pathway to me and now is apart time nurse. She's great at her job and enjoys it. But she's financially beholden to her arsehole husband as she doesn't earn much and he (in my opinion) lords it over her. This isn't a situation I could tolerate. I believe women should want financial independence. I worked in a factory the last summer of my university years and it certainly motivated me ..

But I agree that university is not for everyone and we should have more apprenticeships.

@mids2019 well they don't need a degree to do the job - as I've been doing it for almost 19 years without one.

My husband is also a driver and has a degree. I just think it's a shame he got into a load of debt to essentially earn the same money that I do.

I think the career paths for some with their degrees didn't turn out to be as lucrative, so they found something else to pay the bills in life.

Having a degree doesn't make them a better or worse train driver.

I had no burning ambition in life to be one. I was stuck in a dead end office job and applied on a whim.

Nothing wrong with encouraging hard work at school.
An awful lot wrong with encouraging looking down on people who work in factories, nail salons and other “inferior “jobs.
I have a PhD and put things shelves in a shop.

Yes, my dad was always irritated that this advice was given out at his school - as though working in a factory was the worst thing in the world.

There's actually career progression and a reasonable salary available available in factories if you work your way up.

@RJnomore1

I was being slightly facetious before and actually I agree we certainly limit young peoples' ambitions and I am very much in favour of social mobility. The point stands though in low achieving schools should we skew education towards life skills and vocational subjects or toward the more academic subjects that lead to careers in finance, law, medicine etc. ?

some people chose to opt out of their highly skilled well paying career to work in a shop for a better work life balance.

I’m seriously considering leaving the world of architecture to work in a shop stacking shelves. I’m not ashamed. I’m definitely not the only one.

I know plenty of highly skilled people who had jobs as lawyers and architects who have left their careers to become teaching assistants! (And some of their TA colleagues can barely read or write themselves)

“Work hard at school will give you choices” makes more sense to me

Factory workers were well paid in the 70's.
A lot more than juniors in a bank.
Factories were male domintaed with good unions.
It's unions we need now.
And a good government

No I think all schools should advertise the full range of careers.. otherwise how will education be the leg up it is supposed to be?

archtectbarbie we've had several primary trainee teachers who couldn't spell or write nevermind TAs..

I think it's an ignorant and disrespectful thing to say

I've got two degrees and have worked in a factory. Nice work, would donit again if I could. Snobbery, no more, no less.

"The point stands though in low achieving schools should we skew education towards life skills and vocational subjects or toward the more academic subjects that lead to careers in finance, law, medicine etc. ?"

We should be skewing our attention to why there are low achieving schools and fixing the issues that cause that. SEN aside, there shouldn't be high achieving schools and low achieving schools.

On the issue of working hard to get a 'good' job, not everyone can. I so admire our 'bin men'. They are organised (they plan their route to minimise their route time - job and finish - by sending some of the crew on ahead to group the bins, put extra bags from one house into a less full bin of another). They are efficient (they run from house to house, they don't hang around). They are skillful (huge vehicle driving down double parked roads). I think the rate of pay is pretty good, too.

My DH worked as a graphic designer for a couple of years. Absolutely hated it. Started delivering parcels and was much happier but hours erratic and long. Settled on school site management. Has ended up managing 4 schools and adding a school crossing patrol in to make full time hours. It doesn't pay anywhere near as well as graphic design, but he's happy.

I guess the trouble is with the phrase education gives you more choices is that it isn't always true.

I have a first class honours degree, good GCSEs and A levels. Due to social circumstances I can only work as a dinner lady. I have very few other choices.

All of the people I know who are doing well are because they have family support, lack of disabilities, there is childcare available, they had a reasonable upbringing and they have had some luck on their side. Also, most aren't single parents but the ones that are and are doing well only have one child or they aren't the resident parent.

This is regardless of whether they left school without a single GCSE or whether they are a professional.

The trouble is the whole get a degree, it will get you a good well paying job and you will own your home isn't always true. It is a big downfall for those children when they get to adulthood and they have done everything right and they realise it was all lies.

Plus, I also agree that it is degrading of those people who are doing the very jobs that everyone else relies on.

On the train driver thing - my dh tells a story of wanting to be a train driver when he was a child. His parents said 'oh no, you'll do A levels [or, more precisely, the local equivalent - he's not from the UK]' and he said 'OK, I'll be a train driver with A levels'. (Ended up in a completely different field)

I'm with RJnomore that the sort of comment in the OP 'reinforces the rhetoric that people on low paid jobs just don’t work hard enough and poverty is a choice' and should therefore be considered unacceptable. It also models a very simplistic and un-nuanced way of looking at life to children.

We do the good grades = choices thing, but we have also advised our children to take their time to work out what they feel they will enjoy enough to sustain studying/training for and perform well in. 'Take their time' doesn't mean loafing around, though - it means thinking carefully and knowing themselves. And not looking down on any experience of solid, honest work.