Hello, welcome back to Teach Repeat the podcast where we keep
our finger on the education pulse and we deliver to you all
the news and reviews and all the best things that you'll ever see
with some light, smouldering, smouldering.
My name is Hayden and this is Dylan.
Dylan, you changed it up there. I know because you said earlier
we should do some kind of like let people know listening for
the first time, like what the podcast is all about, and I feel
like I did a solid 410 job. There.
No, I thought it started well. Yeah, and then?
You got flustered. I got lost.
Yeah. Because so I saw your face like,
ohh yeah. Ohh, I've been not listening to
a lot of Rob Beckett and Josh Williams.
Ohh Parenting Hell podcast. Yeah.
And I noticed that they do that. So I was like, well, they're
famous and funny. And we're.
Trying to We're one of the two. I'm not sure we are, actually,
and I thought it might be a good thing to do.
Really good podcast, by the way. Have you listened to it?
I don't like Josh Widdicombe voice.
Really, he's very he's got a very particular.
Voices, I can't listen. To very, very nicely.
I listen to a couple and I just think of it.
I just think of it. But I mean, I I know it's great
podcast and I've listened to snippets which are really funny,
but then I thought, I'm going to listen to a whole one, very
recently actually. And I know this and I just
think. Of it.
Well, I'm not gonna be guest on our podcast now, are they?
Ohh yeah, not now. Imagine otherwise.
Geez, we're gonna be right here. Yeah, just want to come.
Great guy. Just don't listen.
Your voice for now. Whereas you guys listening to
this you. Well, let's do this right now.
I don't you. Know I did like about the
podcast they got. There was a lot of talk because
I like it. Yeah, they get a lot of
interaction people. They get people sending.
People send in like little voice clips and stuff and they play
them every week. Their podcast.
I do like it when they don't interrupt.
Each other like their podcast. So anyway, maybe.
Yeah, they really they they do nice segments.
They get like small businesses on to like.
Hayden this is a chat which have separately not on my live on
the. Podcast.
So why don't? We live is it is live, really
live like we don't have anything like as well.
We live on the airwaves. Anyway, welcome new listeners.
We talk all things education in this.
Podcast and how was your week? Interrupts me.
You could. I think we should play a game
where you guys keep tabs on how many times he interrupts.
And not just. I don't know.
I don't but like when I'm
midpoint, I'm mid sentence. He does it.
That's fun. I do it because I want to save
the I was about to swear. I want to save the viewers from
boredom. Hayden, by the way, just so we
all know before this podcast starts, like, well, you're going
to lead this one? Are you going to?
Because I don't want to say. I just know what to say.
I don't think what to say to them.
You're gonna have to lead it. And then you know what?
I do? I come into the podcast and I
lead it. Control.
That's not. True.
It's not true. Can I tell you what he really
did? I'm gonna show you all.
If you're watching, you're watching his little.
No. Normally it's a podcast most
people are watching. Normally we write our notes on a
on a shared screen, right? And he's that there is little
notes screwing, a screwing notes on this little notepad.
And then he went and he closed it.
Like kids at school, they don't want their partners to cheat.
He closed it over like that. Like, no.
And I was like, I haven't written anything down.
I need to know what the conversation points.
I was like write your own ones. It's a shared podcast, honestly.
Go. Because what happens is I'll
write my points and then I'll be like, I can't wait to make that
point and we'll go to the podcast and you'll be sat there
going, yeah, I was just. Thinking, actually.
And you're saying my prepared point really good.
So I thought what we could do is like like we haven't prepared
properly anyone who listens. I'm sorry if this is your first
podcast episode. This is slightly unhinged.
We Yeah. Well, I mean I don't know why
you still listening but I we prepare it.
I thought we call this week if I just have my own points and we
just have more of a. That is good, but I just want
like you, I just want to know what the overarching points were
to talk about. Otherwise I am just.
You know the title of this episode is Does School Prepare
Children for Real Life? Yeah, I was gonna read what you
put there, but you did it grammatically incorrect.
I was gonna show you. Up.
That's the school. The school.
Just one of them. Just one school.
Yeah, that's right. That's only one score, only
working 1 score. But as always, before we go dive
straight into what we actually talk this week, we are going to
catch up and have a little chat about what's happened this week
in the world of education and our own lives, indeed ourselves.
Hayden, how's your week? Been that's nice, bit lovely
week as always. Come up to Sats, get a little
bit stressful, but still pretty pretty.
Unusual year six teacher, right. So do you feel stressed at this
point, having done it so often? A little bit, like a little bit.
I'm not stressed about the kids doing.
It's more like the it's just the feel of like people getting a
bit like when we got to make sure we talk this actually ohh
haven't done this in a while and and also me I put the pressure
on myself like ohh actually if I haven't recapped everything like
fairly recently there's a chance they might have gotten that
thing. So I need to be really cautious
to like I haven't got I haven't got extra time that this this is
the date that's on. I need to make sure, Oh no, I
didn't do Roman numerals and ages that might come up.
Even though it's completely pointless, it might come up in
the Sats. That's.
You find yourself falling this trap then, even though your
personal opinion is you don't really care, right?
Yeah, yeah, I'm. I don't not care, I think.
No, no, I'm sorry. Let me be really clear.
You don't care about the fact that it might come up in this
arbitrary paper that we've all decided is really important.
Like you're gonna teach your kids stuff, obviously, but like,
you don't actually care about the whole SAT system in.
That you know you don't. Think it's as highly regarded.
As it should. No, I think we need to chill out
on putting pressure on 11 year olds to to performance test them
literally is meaningless to them.
Like genuinely people sometimes pretend.
I pretend sometimes to make myself feel better that this
test has any meaning on anything.
And it literally doesn't. So I'm like, no, we probably
should just chill out a little bit, but no, I'm not feeling too
much pressure. Maybe the week before I'll be a
bit like all God have I done my job properly.
I sure everything I should have done but it's.
Alright, quite normal. I suppose that in any old job
when yeah, what, what, what this, what the Sats essentially
is for you guys in year six especially even I know it's key
stage two exam, I know it's testing everything, but it's
particularly in year six, it's like that kind of pride does
come into it, doesn't it? It's like if you feel like your
kids have underachieved for where they should be, then
that's not a nice feeling. Yeah, exactly.
Especially if you did the final stretch with them right?
When when realistically, like memories aren't perfect, are
they? So realistically, the last year
is going to make the biggest impact in terms of what they
remember in that test. Sure, sure.
So I don't know. But other than that one nice
little win we've had our school, which I just share with our
listeners, I know, you know, because you work at the same
school as me is last week we talked about using AI or week
before, I don't know about using AI to write reports.
And actually our school has come out since then and just made it
really clear in a staff meeting that is completely fine to do
that. And I'm glad they did that
because I think people are still a bit like the formula to use
AI. Of course you are.
A I is great for writing. Reports.
And if you're not, no one will know.
Do it anyway. Yeah, what are they going to?
Do. I don't know.
They're quite easy to say, aren't they?
But you could just say no, I wrote them.
Yeah. And what?
Honestly, what? Happened.
Yeah, Bosco was really good. They just said look this is
honestly spent 5 minutes doing it.
I just said look this is this is an example as my eye software
you can use. They're really good and This is
why it's OK and the reasons we're basically you're still
inputting everything personal about the child.
All the tool is doing is saving you 5 minutes structuring it
into a beautiful paragraph. It will just do it for you,
probably better than you can do. And those 5 minutes multiply,
don't they? Yeah, when it's 5 minutes per
kid for one subject. OK, well, each kid has four
subjects. I've got to write 4 and I've got
32. Yeah.
So you can extrapolate that you do the.
Math. So use a I.
It's really good for writing reports.
It will save you a lot of time, and they're pretty good.
At the end of the day. What about you, Declan?
Good week. Yeah, good week.
A couple of things. I guess one would be again
highlights in our school. We're big up our school here.
I very much enjoy our school. And as anyone who's listening to
the podcast knows, we had Ofsted at the end of last year.
If you're a new listener, go back and look at our podcast
episode Ohh Offset experience. It was very enlightening.
Obviously we're very vocal about the fact we absolutely do think
that Ofsted is completely broken.
However, it's still a thing that exists and you know teachers do
need to be held to account. We went through it, yes, schools
need to be accountable. We went for the whole process.
It was a really nice and cathartic.
I thought afterwards to talk through it and it's worth
listening to. But anyway the point is that our
head after that experience and Ofsted does why heap on the
pressure of any school for a good at least a year, probably 2
years before they actually come Because you know when they're
coming you need to put a lot of effort into preparing.
So our head said cool, every single person in the in the
school gets a day. In lieu just could.
We went through Ofsted basically.
So it's been known as very nice, the Ofsted Day.
And yeah, it's fantastic. And his point was like, I could
do a lot of things to try and help but actually you just want
some time. And I was like absolutely true.
Like what everyone says, the best thing for well-being is
just. Times not going to.
Work it's not, yeah, exactly what it's doing the job.
So I had my well-being day. My friend need financial
planning as his name. He for his, I think it was a
birthday gift. You're given some gig tickets in
London for a comedy event and so I went out with him.
Watch that and we made a day of it.
Rather than like rushing after school, going to London, umm, we
went to Camden Market at loads of food.
I put on our Instagram, rate my plate and I love how seriously
people took it. When I see like a sliding scale
thing on Instagram, I usually just slide it all out because.
I want. I took it seriously because you
put one little quite cheesy, Yes, I made sure to put that
right down. Just Cheeses Rank.
Exactly. And and looking through like the
same people obviously voting each one.
It's very interesting and very insightful to see where ohh, you
like the pasta dish. Anyway, that was a really nice
day, really enjoyed it. And yeah, that's a direct that
is a direct consequence of someone SLT, a head teacher
taking well-being seriously. And I feel great for it.
And I was very grateful. And do you know what it kind of
juxtaposes? Like doing less work because
genuinely in the future now. But like, that was nice.
I am, Of course I don't mind doing this thing.
It's like, you know, scratching, you scratch my back, I scratch
your back kind of thing. Like it's just.
Sort of psychological game and that treat.
People. With respect, we saw months ago,
we mentioned it because someone put it on Facebook or something
and they were saying about how when they worked at a school was
toxic. They were like, hell, no, I'm
not doing anything extra, I'm not doing it.
And then they worked at a school where they were treated nicely.
They were like, yeah, I don't mind doing a club and it was
like it was the same amount of work, but they were just treated
nicely. So it does make a difference.
Yeah, because your mental state. Exhaustion is one thing.
I don't think anyone's a teacher and isn't actually always
exhausted. Like I don't we were we were
talking earlier about the whole thing of I think teaching is
this thing where we are walking a tightrope where anyone doing
the job could very easily fall one side or the other into
complete burnout. Hating the role and and really
like falling out of love of teaching and the other side
which is actually still really enjoying being with the kids and
loving your loving your job. And I think the biggest
determiner for that fact is the school you work in rather than
the person you are. Yeah.
I think almost anyone who's a teacher, if they're in the wrong
environment and toxic school, where they're undermined or
forced to do work or just treated like rubbish, treated
not like a person, treated not like someone with a family at
home, treat it like someone who's got no, you've got no
interest. You wanna do that evening, I
don't know. You gonna go and do this
planning for me that's gonna drive anyone to despair.
Whereas I think the thing we have to do a teaching is is
really nurture that. And you've always said this and
it's stuck with me and I completely agree with you.
If we ever stepped into a role of SLT or did anything like that
in the future, what the number one thing would be the
well-being of the teacher, Because everything else stems
from that. If you want to just expand that.
I reckon it be controversial by the way, because I'd be really
vocal about it. They're like no, no, no staff
come. First because he here you go
then. So I'm going to be the person
you say that I I work at the score and down the road and I
I'm even I'm offended or whatever and say what ridiculous
things of course the. Children of staff come.
First, why? I say because they do.
I walk away and leave you hanging.
No, it's it's simple, isn't it? It's more provocative than it
really like saying that statement.
What I what I mean by that is if you have happy staff, they will
do a good job. Simple as that.
And then, but inadvertently, by putting your staff first, you're
putting the children first as well because they will just do a
better job. Simple as that.
It's just. I don't know, maybe it's not as
simple as that and I'm oversimplifying it, but to me I
think it's a a simple way of thinking.
About you do it, mate, he said. Yeah, you know, I might do.
I might. Do more than watch it burn and.
I'll employ you. You can be like Admin Assistant.
Or something. I appreciate that roles reversed
once. So I saw something this week in
the news I wanted to talk about and I'm hoping it develops into
a bit of a discussion. Don't interrupt me.
Thank you. There was a school in London and
I had all debate with my family about this because a few of my
family members work in a school. Some don't obviously, but
everyone's got an opinion on this.
And that's why I found it really interesting is children are
addicted to social media. That is a fact.
Children Hayden Stevens is addicted to TikTok.
But I think you know, to me, it's different.
Children, children are protected.
You talked a million times already.
Go and see our episode The toxicity of teacher TikTok.
I think that's a really. Good, well done.
For saying that, I always consider you can't normally say
words in general sentences. By the way, need financial
planning. The guy I went with to to count
them that time, that's his new name.
He showed me on the way up on the train.
He started to keep a note tab of everything that we get wrong
with language and he only started on one episode.
There was already 3 on there and I was like, well, if you could
be bothered you'd find hundreds if you go back because he
realised that we constantly save things wrong.
I said something like it's not all roses and jolly and I mean
like it's not like I was just saying it's easy.
I just mashed together two things.
Anyway, there was this big discussion.
It was on this morning. A head teacher in London has
suggested a 12 hour school day. And the sole purpose being to
try and break the social media addiction of his children.
And this was a secondary school which I think we see a lot more
of the kind of, you know, social media problems.
Yeah, the phones are more right, The phones are more rife and the
point was to break it up. What is?
What is your thought on that immediately?
I think the headline is very like click baiting and catching.
My first thought on that was like, what an idiot, what's he
talking about? And then I didn't reload.
I did just skim past it like I imagine a lot of people did and
just looked at a little bit. And when I saw that it was, it
was a controversial way, I guess, of being like, yeah,
because kids are on phones all the time and it's not.
I'm not saying they should come and do maths and English for 12
hours. He was like, yeah, we'll just
provide tonnes of extra curricular stuff that really
they should, you know, back in the olden days, cooking do
anyway, they cook and go out and play some football with their
mates or go and do whatever. We'll just put all that on and
just make kids do it. So I'm not, I'm not actually for
it, I don't think, but I thought it was it compulsory.
I don't know. I don't think it was compulsory
so that it was compulsory, I think that.
Yeah, I doubt it was. I felt anyone would not go
through that thought and be like come to that conclusion.
So in the end when I saw it was more, it wasn't as clickbaity as
I thought, like, ohh, this teacher thinks everyone should
be doing that. Everyone should be working 12
hours a day to teach kids. I realised that he's just making
a wider point about a massive issue, which is what you're
getting on about. And it is true, isn't it?
Like it is a problem. It's a huge problem.
It is a problem in primary school.
I can't even imagine what it's like in secondary school as a
year six teacher, I've had so many issues.
It's the biggest issue issuing issue, the biggest category of
issues, categories what I'm looking.
For I don't know what you're. Talking about, it's the biggest
cause, right? The word cause, that one the
cause of. Issue it teaches SAT.
Like ohh, I've had in the past. I've taught year six for like 5
or six years. I've had kids being caught on
their on their phones making tik toks in school toilets.
Yeah I've had kids making ticks by each other at home and like
horrible things and making YouTube videos about each and
horrible things and I'm just like Oh my God like social media
causes so many problems. The worst one.
I don't know if you get this in your probably not.
Probably too. Young.
WhatsApp groups, man. Oh my God, I just can't get over
how. What's that?
To me, it's just this innocent. It's just a messaging thing and
we use it for our business. Use it all the time, just
personally talk to people's kids, make WhatsApp groups and
just brutal to each other. They are ruthless, they send.
Voice it's just another way of it's another platform that
allows bullying and stuff like that.
So I don't in that respect I want to separate this out
because I don't think that WhatsApp is a problem.
I think children are going to find a way to be horrible to
other children And and it's a bit I I get boomer, boomer kind
of vibes from someone who's like what did horrible.
It's because it's WhatsApp like no it's not.
This just used to happen on the way home from school or when you
said when you used to go in the park and play Kirby with your
football. Right.
Yeah. Used to be horrible to other
kids all the time. Right.
So kids are gonna be able to have kids That's a problem
that's ongoing. It's always going to be there.
We have to be ways to you know step in and help them and stuff
like that. It's kind of 10 we can get rid
of. We're not gonna solve that
issue. Yeah.
But I think that what's different to me is how
incredibly mind rotting and horrible and disgusting the
algorithm is. And and, you know, all you need
to do is is talk to anyone who runs these companies.
In Silicon Valley over in California, you were in charge.
They don't let their own kids on this kind of thing.
Yeah. And there's a reason, because
they know that it's terrible. Absolute brain.
Wrong. Absolutely terrible for them.
And I suppose my point, my my point is my wider point here is
I I don't think this is a bad idea because it's just, it's
basically saying to kids what we've always said.
Here are some enrichment activities that I'm, I'm
offering for you that you can come along to.
The only rule is when you come along, you find you don't bring
your phone. Yeah.
And it's like you want some cooking something.
OK, brilliant. I think that's absolutely
fantastic. I think that's the only way
we're actually gonna ever solve this.
Problem. Do you think it work?
Yeah, I think. I think it could work in that if
in those three hours they'd be sat in their bedroom scrolling
on TikTok, mindless, saying mind numbing, scrolling, scrolling,
scrolling, scrolling, getting brain rocked by being fed stuff
which is age inappropriate for them.
They shouldn't be on it anyway. It's not filtered whatsoever.
I think that's terrible for them.
So if instead of doing it for five hours every evening, if
they're doing it for two hours, but they also played a game of
football and cooked a. Cake.
If I wouldn't, I'll be like, I would just like.
Yeah, that's fine. You're not part of that.
You're you're not this problem. You shouldn't be forced.
You're you're still an issue. I'm not.
It's not gonna solve the thing completely, but if if some kids
do it, obviously a good. Thing Yeah, I guess some kids.
I just don't think kids do it. Maybe I'm sceptical.
I my. Parents might forced into it and
I also just think sometimes you just have to like I wanna, I
wanna ask you again just very clearly about the whole should
should phones be banned in school?
Because I am very much of the opinion that they absolutely
should. There is no need to have a
smartphone in a school. It's not a Nokia where you just
phone your mum because you're walking home, right?
But I think in the hours where you're going to school, and I
don't care if people disagree with this or not, like I've what
about. No, I thought about this enough
because people go, oh, it's quite that.
There's that boomer. Ish, you know, of course kids
will have phones in school. Yeah.
Why? You know, it's just a rule.
No, you don't. And if you bring them in,
they're going a little plastic wallet or a case or something.
They're locked away all day because you know what?
At break time you can talk to your mates.
You know, you don't need to scroll TikTok.
We don't need to be pandering to 1415 year olds because they want
to scroll and TikTok in their break time.
No, you're in school to learn like other things.
Enforcement. Exactly.
We know. You know, we have rules about
uniform. We don't you go ohh OK no
problem whether you agree with them or not different story but
we you it's OK to have rules sometimes and I think sometimes
people want to go the other way and it's like ohh but no we
should we should have house anti liberal it's it's just.
They want to go now. I mean, I'd say we're.
Yeah. And you were quite liberal
generally, aren't we? I think quite liberal thinkers.
But I do agree, I don't think school phones should be banned
from the premises, but I do think they should be banned in
school hours. So quite simply, like my, I
think of my year six is right. And a lot of their argument was
what a lot of parents argument was, yeah, I'm not going to let
them walk home though, unless I got a phone.
I want them to be independent. So, OK, fair enough.
So they bring it in school, they put it in a little pot, It
stayed in the locked cupboard all day and they get it at the
end of the day. I don't even give it to them.
This, this is the issue. This is the like.
I've learned this, by the way, because in the past I'd give,
I'd give it to them in the classroom as they were leaving.
Right, Say gone in, Here's your phone.
Put in the bag. We're leaving now.
I'll dismiss you. And even in that time, there
have been kids that got in trouble for getting their phone
out in the 20 seconds it takes it and filming something.
And I'm like, Oh my God. So now I give the phones as
they're like, there's my mum or my dad or I'm walking.
So there's your phone, then off you go.
And even now, I'm really harsh actually when they, even if
they're just standing around waiting for someone from another
class, come out of their sibling or something.
No, no, I'm like, no, no, put your phone away.
Yeah, they're like, you know, I'm gone now.
It's like, OK, still standing like right here in school.
You're still representing the school standing right there
other kids coming out you anyway, you can put, you can get
your phone out as soon as you leave that gate.
I don't care. You do what you want, but you
find a way. So yeah, I think, I think
banning phones in school, they have no place or they do have a
place that's a lie. But I think there's other ways
you can do it, like a lot of people.
Say if you want them. Not even that.
But a lot of people say, oh, we can use smoke.
Is is modern. You can get them, get them
engaged with their phones, putting like little games on it
that come up. You know, like you will log in
on your phone and you tap the answers and stuff.
It's like, OK, have school. 1. Yeah, do an.
IPad have school. iPad have school, something And I know OK
budget. You can keep going lower into
the argument and as every. OK, budget.
Does everyone have a smartphone then?
Does every kid in your class have a smartphone?
No, because I can't afford it. So that's a ridiculous argument
to be like like, ohh, yeah, we're gonna rely on your
personal smart tech to do a lesson in class.
That would be ridiculous. True.
Yeah.
Winds me up. Anyway, I saw it and I thought
the guy thought he got a lot of Flack for something, which I
think is quite nice. Got a lot of Flack for a for a
headline, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Not his actual idea, yeah.
Yeah. So again and and you know I
don't think any teachers would be expected to do 12 hour day.
It would just be do you want to. And if the answer is no, then
cool down and didn't want to come, then cool down.
But here's this really I thought was really cool idea.
We can't sit here and be like enrichment so important for
kids. Why are we giving them more
enrichment opportunities? And then this guy does that and
it's like, oh, that's awful that you should be.
You should allow the kids to sit on TikTok for four hours.
No last point, by the way. I don't want to move on, but you
can't make it work because I've worked in a primary school.
There's not right to this extremity, but it it was a
longer day, right? You can just have shifts like
normal jobs. Yeah.
It doesn't mean you don't have to have teachers now working
like 17 hour days to allow this to happen.
It's like you just have a teacher that does the normal
job. How do they work in that school?
Though because so I. Went along the day.
Yeah, I was in a in a free school that had just had very
different timetable. The kids came in earlier and
they generally went home like an hour later as well.
But the the classroom teachers like me, we finished at a
certain time and then we had these other specialists set of
teachers that came in and did these other lessons that like a
PE teacher or drama teacher or music teacher came in and did
the 2nd chunk. So it was like, so it was just
shift it wasn't. So what you were marking and
stuff like it was after? School.
It was just after school for me on those times.
It's like by PPA or whatever it was.
So it can work. Of course you have shifts in,
you can have companies coming in and running clubs and stuff.
I don't know. I think money in it really quite
cool idea actually saying I think about it.
Yeah, same. I think you got a bit of a harsh
deal there, pal. It's basically just turning a
school into a community centre, isn't it?
Essentially because there's no community centre anymore.
Yeah. We can't in one breath complain
about how there's no, no, no opportunities and then when
something else comes up, everyone doing it.
Yeah, I don't know. I I thought was a nice idea.
And I'm also really, I would love someone to convince me
otherwise. And I'm not even joking now.
I I would love someone to convince me that for some reason
smartphones would be OK. It's a trap guys, cause he's
extremely stubborn. Arrogance.
Yeah. Try.
Don't try, don't try. Not worth it.
Listen, I wanted them to do it so I could destroy their
argument. No, I just think there's there's
there's some point where I was speaking to someone about it and
their reply was like, ohh. But some kids just, you know,
whether it's a rule or not, they just they just so stubborn.
They just won't do it anyway. And I was like, yeah, OK, I'll
sing to myself. Cool.
I was probably that kid didn't understand the rule, but tough
because some people know better than you.
It's not good to have TikTok at school.
Yeah. And that's the that's the end.
Of the conversation of. End of conversation.
Start of actual discussion of podcasts where the question is
in the title. I'm actually gonna talk about it
after this Jingle. Wow.
Hayden does school prepare children.
School. Just school.
Doesn't this school, that's the only school?
Yeah. Does school prepare children for
real? Life.
Not really. OK, see you next time.
Wow, that's it. Done.
Does school prepare children? For real life?
I don't think so. It's not really generally.
I'm being serious. I'm not even joking.
Not really. What all school?
Just primary school secondary. School Does the school system,
Does the education system prepares children for real?
Life. I think most people would say
no. And maybe that's why I'm saying
no. Maybe I'm being sucked into it.
You look like you've got a different opinion on your on
your face. Really.
I don't think so. I don't think so.
OK, So what? What is preparing someone for
real life? What does that involve?
I guess just taking the average life of someone in the UK and
thinking what stuff do they need to do in order to operate a
normal life? I don't think school really
touches on much of it. OK, so OK, think about this
then. What currently children in
school? It's a very outdated system,
isn't it? Let's be realistic, It's not
really changed since the Victorian.
Times, yeah. So what that means is outdated
or not, I don't know, but certainly.
Probably probably means outdated because it's over 100 years old,
but necessarily no. I agree, so I'm saying.
Traditional. It's an old school way of doing
stuff. Literally old school.
What about it does prepare children for real life?
What about it doesn't? What What do we do Right.
OK. We've got a national curriculum.
Yes, and we never used. To no, we didn't.
And it would be interesting to see to argue whether it was
better before then. I don't, but I do think, I mean
obviously there are areas of the curriculum that are useful, Like
most of the curriculum, especially in primary school is
just skill based. And sometimes when the kids say
to me things like why are we learning this, which is a common
question, you. Get by the end So what what do
we teach in primary school where someone says why would that in
this you'd be absolutely confident saying because in real
life. So what does that?
Read reading. Obviously reading is because it
because everyone uses it. So that to me, I'm like, yeah,
we do that, right? Because everyone needs to read
like you. You just need to read, don't
you? It's very, very, very hard to
navigate life and have what I'm what.
I'm going to keep referring to an average life, by the way,
talk about someone's life. I am just thinking of like the
just the bog standard, average life in the UK.
I'm not going to extremities. To have a bog standard average
life you do need to be able to read, he needs to be able to do
a basic set of maths at least right?
And for a lot of jobs you need to have an extended knowledge of
maths. Yeah.
So the quick thing does that really well.
And so I'm going to jump on that really quickly because this is
obviously main ones. You can talk about other things
in it. But going back to that, when
you're saying we do that well and it's preparing them well for
life, you kind of talked about two different things as well,
which was like the life of the someone and the job market.
So like is, is it relevant that we're getting kids ready for the
job market or are we really getting kids ready to?
So do you think that's important then because or or is it more
important to simply get them ready to be able to function in
society? No, you see them.
At the same thing. Because if I'm gonna keep
talking this average person, the average person in the UK needs a
job for like 40 years. Yeah, sure, right, Jet Jet.
There's not many people really that can't work.
So do you think the role of the school?
Yeah, because that's part of life.
So if we're just thinking about what is life, what is life like
for for the vast majority of people, life involves having a
job. So I think it would be dumb to
think that to say that schools shouldn't be preparing is to get
jobs because they are going to need it.
Realistic. And you might have some rich
kids that like, well, I don't need to.
OK, well, not talk about you talk.
I'm talking about the average person who's probably gonna need
a job to get income to, to have a home and, you know, to have a
normal life, right? So reading, writing I suppose.
So those skills are good for that, for the job market, right?
But then there's the other Everyone move on to this right
now, but there's the whole other part of life.
But do you, is there anything else which is good?
Then before we go on to this, because I suppose the point
you're making out, you say no. OK, does the buck stop there?
We taught our primary all the other subjects.
I think school is is good at exposing kids to a wide range of
other stuff. So at least give them like some
opportunities to develop. Like we're not just making we're
not just making a tonne of accountants and editors, don't
you know. I mean like only maths and
English. So we are we are also making
historians. An artist.
Artist, yeah. And people that want to go and
travel the world and study geology or something like we are
making those people as well and that only getting that
enrichment through a free education that they.
Get What do you think about your interests?
And I don't think about my interest now.
A lot of them do stem from when I was a child and being
interested in something. Like, I think I was really
interested in space. Like, I loved the idea of space.
I was interested in history from Youngs, and I ended up doing a
history degree, you know. So like, there's, I can see
direct links from what I was doing in school to what I ended
up being interested in adult life.
And like, you know, is it preparing me for life to teach
me interesting history subjects? You could probably say no,
right? Someone preparing you for life.
But it's worth doing because because it invoked this
interest. I guess the point I'm making
here is you're talking about the job market, you know, getting
ready to contribute to the economy and society and the
average life. But isn't isn't there an
argument to be had that there's also a really important way of
preparing for life is simply just like enjoying, enriching
enrichment and enjoying it? I think there's a slight
miscommunication here. I'm gonna clarify, which is I
actually don't think there's a problem with the curriculum we
teach. I think all the stuff there is
great. I just think there's stuff
missing. I'm not trying to argue to say
that we're wasting our time teaching the stuff we teach.
I just think we're missing out on a whole bunch of stuff so
average person does in life. So therefore I'm saying because
of that schools don't prepare kids for life because it teaches
half of it. So in that case, is there a way
that we could prepare for life? Could you talk about other
things maybe that you think are missing?
Yeah, that we, you know, you definitely need in your life,
which school necessary doesn't. But then also maybe talk about
how could be introduced that about missing something else.
And is there a way to actually prepare someone for life, or is
it a futile thing that we're trying to aim for when actually
it's going to be impossible? Well, I don't.
Let's go back and forth and find out of our conversation.
I don't know. I'm gonna.
I'm very much thinking as we go and hopefully you are as well.
OK, so what's missing? What's missing?
What what? What should we What should the
education system? When you finish, what should you
have learned or done then that is going to get people ready?
Right. The average person has to pay
tax. The average person has to pay
bills in their home, and I don't think at any point in education
do we even attempt to properly train people before they leave
and go and be adults. How to navigate those things in
the world. I think it's just kind of a
chance and hopefully someone in your family will show you or
hopefully you'll go on a YouTube video and you need to do it and
work out. But I, you know, we spend so
much of our life, early life in school, I just refuse to believe
that there's not a place to learn those things.
That the average person in this country is absolutely needing to
be able to just function normally as a human being.
The average person doesn't actually pay tax though in terms
of person, they it comes off there and they're amount before
they get there. So are you talking about
understanding it or doing it? Understanding it, obviously some
people do pay their own tax, but we talk about the person.
You're right, the average person probably doesn't have a job and
the tax is all done for and they just get a pay slip and that
says it. But when you have a whole bunch
of people that are misinformed on how these systems work and
then we say here you go here's a vote as well on how we're going
to run the country. It's just so easy to manipulate
people and and and to to vote some sort of way based on
misinformation or misunderstanding.
Right. So I think we need to educate
people properly on of this is actually how it works like the
amount of people. I'm sure you've experienced this
right when I was in my early 20s and I worked at Tesco and I
remember so vividly my my boss at Tesco my boss like way higher
up in the ladder. The me at Tesco's telling me a
story about how his mate and how he recommends this people was
not going to take this job pay rise because it was going to
push him into the 40% bracket and then he didn't and he worked
out there. He paid 40% on all his income.
He would earn less than when he was only paying 20%.
And he had this fundamental misunderstanding as someone you
know trying to educate me and I didn't really know much about it
at the time. Being a 20 year old on how tax
works and he was completely wrong and he nearly put, he
nearly like set me up with that mindset of like Oh yeah, it's
not worth going for a certain amount of money because yeah
because then you're just. For context here, like just let
out to people. I suppose what you're saying
here is, let's say at 50 and you start paying 40%.
Yeah. So a lot of people think that
it's 20% below that. Yeah.
So 20% of 49 grand. Yeah.
Is a is just under 10 grand. Yeah.
Right. 40% of 50 grand is 20 grand.
Yeah. So.
So he thinks he lose 10 grand by going up to 50 grand.
But again, for anyone out there who might be listening to this
and actually still doesn't understand the tax system,
because a lot of people I know don't understand it, who are
incredibly intelligent. And I just don't think about.
It they don't get it, they don't quite understand it.
That is not how it works. You get paid, you get you get
taxed 40% on anything you earn over 50K.
So if you go from 49 K to 51 K, only 1000 lbs is taxed at 40.
Percent. So I didn't understand that and
he didn't either. And they're the kind of things I
look back and I'm like, that's mental, that's mental that we
all rely on this like system of our structure for our entire
country and everyone, everyone living in it, right.
And people don't even know how it works and they come out of
school And then I would use often use arguments, but they
know and I'll insert a tonne of things from the curriculum that
are in my opinion, way less useful I suppose to understand.
But do they? So most people who come who
don't understand like the tax system, what you said, right,
they don't. They don't actually.
Then also remember everything about Anberlin.
It's not It's not like suddenly because they did history.
Their brains just full of all of these dates about when you know
the War of the Roses was and Amber Lynn died On this date.
No, they've forgotten that as well.
So it's not like we we can't magically we can't magically
assume. No, not at all.
There'll be some people who may be get it.
But I don't think we can magically assume like, oh, why
didn't you teach me this? It's like well, could you work
out the percentage of a number in the 1st place?
No. Well then of course not going to
teach you the intricacies of the tax thing, which is all about
percentage of an awkward amount. And it's different scales.
So that argument is. But is that an argument to never
teach anyone? Then not at all, but it's an
argument. Say that like there there are
certain things you need to learn first.
Like you need you need your basic understanding of maths
first. I again, I think it's probably
some parts of the mass curriculum that are less
important. But yeah, at what point do you
start? Like at what point do you only
do stuff which applies to your real life?
Like in terms of, you know, problem solving and working out
the missing angle of a triangle, Right?
If you can't understand how to work out the missing angle of a
triangle, can you really understand the intricacies of
the tax system? Maybe, probably no, probably not
though, because because the intricacies of intricacies maybe
not. Is way more complicated.
Understanding what I've just explained in the tax system to
have a proper understanding of that is way harder to have
proper understanding of 180 takeaway 2 angles you can see.
But I reckon you can have a superficial understanding of
that. I think it was that enough to at
least get it right. I reckon you could understand.
I reckon most people, even if they're terrible at maths, could
understand that if you just said Oh no, no, no, no, no.
You only get taxed the bigger chunk on Money you earn over
that amount can have a fairly. Easy concept and I think that's
something where actually it wouldn't even come into maths
for me, that would come into general studies, you know, I
think there's a there's a scope for generic life skills to
absolutely. Have school.
You won't be. You won't be worse off.
Yeah, that's what you need to understand.
You're not gonna be worse off going from 49 to 51 grand.
And I think that's really important and I'm not against
that. I think my point here is like, I
think some people will be sat in math thinking why am I learning
this is separate though I want to make that point.
To me it is a very separate thing, like of course it's
maths, you need to understand it.
And I guess my point is to understand that you need to have
a higher level of maths, maybe that you need to get to 1st.
But it is also separate, like how to how taxes work, how bills
work, like how to find a good deal.
I didn't know how a mortgage works until I got a mortgage.
Yeah, yeah, you know, but is it relevant?
But is it relevant for a 15 year old to know that?
Can you not just learn it when you do it?
Like at what point is it like, I don't know, we'll just do it
when you're. I didn't get a mortgage until I
was 25, like would it really have helped me to have done that
on 15? But I could probably think of
other things that are more useful.
I don't know. I think I just, I think, yeah, I
just think it could genuinely, I think it.
I think it's worth teaching. I think it's worth some some of
the time in the curriculum because it's not that it's not
that big of. A thing we do, we do talk about
how the curriculum is bloated already, what we're getting rid.
Of I was just arguing myself in my head.
Then you were talking, I was listening to you and thinking we
did. We did a whole episode recently
on like, the blurred lines between what parents should do
and what and what teachers should do, right?
And in primary school, that kind of argument is we're talking
about little kids. And it's like, should teachers
be showing them to brush their teeth stuff, you know?
I mean, and now I'm having this argument ahead of, like, OK,
well, when that gets older, What's the analogy now?
Is it? Yeah, of course.
We don't teach kids how to do tax.
Parents do that. We're going to teach them the
correct. We're gonna teach them the
curriculum. Parents, I'm sure to spend 5
minutes teaching them how tax works, right?
But the problem is, again, they weren't taught at school, so
they don't. Know.
Yeah. I'm arguing myself here.
I don't. Know, but we have a bloated
curriculum and you started off by saying you don't think the
curriculum is bad. So my point to you would be,
because what frustrates me when people say this all the time, I
was like, oh bloody, which is what they do in a teacher.
Should we teach the real skills? Like you know how to do this to
their tax works and I have to pay the water bill and I'm just
like, OK, when and how and what do we drop instead?
Yeah, I don't know but my but it's funny because after all
this even going back and forth in my head my answer still
hasn't changed though to that question of does school prepare
children for real life will still know because they because
that what I've said is not true. Should not untrue.
Sorry, what I've said. Is not true.
Should school prepare charged for real life?
That's the question, isn't it? Yeah, that's the question.
It's like the first one. I don't think they do.
And I guess the answer could be you.
Because that stuff gets taught by family and culture and
society impact things. Yeah.
Should they do it? Because essentially what we're
saying here, yeah, what we say when we say should school pay
for real life, let's break it down and get meta here.
We're saying should the government prepare your child.
Yeah. Because all government funded
and the government are in charge of the curriculum is the, you
know, how is it down to the government to make sure that you
understand tax or like as the people who tax people, I'd say a
very strong argument, yes, they should.
Yeah. If they're going to tax you and
have this system in place, they should go out of their way to
make sure you understand it and not just trust people to tell
you like. Otherwise a lot of arguments
I've seen online when of this cause this kind of thing gets
talked about a lot, doesn't it? People always come out of school
be like yeah, school system top mean nothing.
Yeah. And and a big one I always see
is just general financial literacy and how they're like,
There's just not, there's none of it really, in that you learn
statistics, but you don't learn like general financial literacy.
That could that could help you in lots of different ways.
And again, like history, you might not ever use it.
You might not even need to know how investing works and how
compound interest works on money and how.
Many compound interest is in the curriculum.
I learned that maths in secondary.
School. OK.
Fair enough. Yeah, yeah, OK.
What I'm interested what is that just in like?
Statistics. Yeah, it's just in maths.
It was just like the the question would be something like
if I had five grand in the same account and it was 4% annual
interest, how much would I have after three years?
That was that was a question. That's interesting.
But I didn't ever make the link between me having a savings
account and. Yeah.
It was, it was work out the maths and this is the point I'm
making. Again, like OK in maths.
At what point do we say this is stops being maths and it starts
being a completely separate subject, which is how to apply
this maths? Or because you're in a reading.
That's right. Yeah.
We wouldn't do a lesson on interpreting the news and
understanding the bias of the news when we're like, teaching
someone to read, right? So I'm teaching someone to do
maths. Is it also inappropriate to be
like, and here's the maths in the context of a mortgage scheme
that you might buy into and reasons why it's good or bad?
I'm not saying we shouldn't teach those other things.
I'm not saying we shouldn't teach the bias of the news or
how to shop around for a good mortgage.
But is it just a separate thing? That's my point.
Like, is it just a different thing?
Like it doesn't mean one's bad because we don't do both.
Yeah, no, I think my answer to that is just like, yeah, just
later on the school's school's long.
Like you learn those things way, way earlier on I learned the
learn the basic maths on how to work out a mortgage in like 6.
Genuinely So I think yeah by the year 10s should year 10s have an
opportunity to learn a bit of financial literacy and put that
into practise and very much labelled as you guys gonna be
adults soon. This is really useful
information for when you're adults not just a problem
anymore, solving a little math problem like you don't think
about or care about. This is real and this is how
some finances work. If you go on this life route you
might get faced with this situation and this is how
compound interest works in this situation.
If you get a mortgage this might happen.
If you decide not to. What are the pros and cons of
renting and mortgaging? Yeah and buying a house.
The amount of people online I see that just so illiterate when
it comes to understanding the difference between renting and
buying a house as well. And you know you get arguments
both ways of being like you should only ever buy a house or
yeah, I've never buy house, always be a renter.
Here's why. And I'm always just like what
you talking about like to the arguments.
They always miss stuff. They don't understand the
fundamentals and like these are adults like trying to educate
other people. They just.
I just. The role of the school to step
in. Yeah, I think so.
And I was very like this in the other episode we did.
Wasn't it where I was like, yeah, I I just think the schools
are maybe a wider thing than it is.
Because I also said in that episode that I think primary
schools should have the capability to step in and do a
lot of things that we deem as this is what parents do outside
of school. I think secondary schools have a
way bigger like role in that, especially that end a bit of
being like you are actually going to be adults soon and this
we don't, we don't like. Your trickle out, your education
is very much like you do. You just go look.
Stopped by you just you just walk out of this building one
day after coming here every day and then you never come.
Back and and do a job where 90% of what you've learned is
genuinely pointless. Yeah, like like truly in the
average person. Right.
Really. Like can you tell me the seven
parts of a cell biology lesson? And I guess that's the wider
point now. Like they're not gonna remember
that. OK, well might remember the
mortgage thing but get get tell you what.
It's more likely someone's going to get a mortgage than ever have
to tell me about the. Yeah, so some people remember
that in the same way that some people would just remember
things about osmosis, I remember.
That word, Yeah. Yeah, you know I just, I don't
know. I just wish I'd learned more
stuff as as a as someone growing up that I felt like I was fairly
intelligent. Like I liked education.
I loved learning to get to a point where I where I didn't
understand like a basically a year six level understanding of
like a system which was tax really with the mass behind it.
At 20 years old, I was like, well, how the hell have I got to
this stage and not not know this, But I know all these
things about like how to, how to work quadratic equations and
that's the way people make they go.
Why don't you learn all this and when, kids?
Think you've got a point. I think they've got no, I'm
saying I think no. I think they've got a point when
they say. That.
There are certain things where even as a teacher I'm like,
yeah, you're right, I don't need to learn the four over AC thing.
Four AC. Do you remember the square root
of BC minus? I can't remember four A -, C / B
^2 or something like. What's that for?
It's defined the intersection of a line on the X axis.
Yeah, yeah. What?
Like like can you teach me something useful?
So I agree with you completely, I think.
I think I guess my point here is again going on to the next
thing. I suppose I want to know your
opinion. Like is it realistic to suppose
we could change it? Then?
Like is that a like scores been the same for so long?
Like what? How?
How would you even go about doing it?
Or do you just think it's this thing where we just have to
become a society more aware that school has these gaps and we
have to fill them in certain ways?
Or is it something where we should actually be like no, no,
actually school needs to change. I don't know if I'm being naive
when I say I feel like it wouldn't be that hard for for
someone in the government or whoever does it to create a unit
of the maths curriculum that's called financial literacy and
does this thing like and and I often ask myself why?
Why has it never been done people been complaining about
this for? Years.
Yeah, a lot of conspiracy stuff about it.
Like, yeah, lots of people saying.
Low down. Keep the poor, poor keep the
rich. Rich, I don't know if I buy
that. No, I don't.
I don't know. I think maybe maybe there's a
small subconscious bias like that, because I do think there
is a divide there. I can't say there's not a
device. If you become a politician, it's
probably because your parents knew how to.
Get Yeah, like there is clearly a difference.
Between and, let's keep it with what we know, like who we know,
rather than what we. Know.
So I do think that's there whether they all sit around a
table and. Go away, yeah.
Make sure we never teach the children how a mortgage.
Works. I don't think that ever happens,
but I think subconsciously the people that got there, got there
for a reason, and probably equally all just have to share
the same value of, yeah, we need peasants though, keep the
peasants peasants. We're rich, you know, That's
what they think about them. That's what they think about us,
isn't? It.
I don't know. Yeah.
I mean, I guess I'm just trying to be more positive than that,
but I'm sure some people have done myself.
Maybe not going off, going off on one.
Do I think we could change it? I think we could change it.
I just. I'm just not sure we will.
Umm, but school's very traditional, isn't it?
It's it's like you said. It's not changed in a.
Long outdated might. Might be a bit outdated, could
argue it's not, yeah, it just is.
So OK thinking about school then I I going back to what you're
saying about let's think about preparing children for going
into the white place which the average person is right.
So you going into the workplace you know when you go through
primary school we spend a lot of the end of primary school
thinking well they're about to transition into secondary school
and then we we put a lot of time and effort into saying how
important that is and how much we need to prepare the children
for it. So I you know I remember
finishing secondary school and I did have careers advice and
stuff like that. I do think there is stuff in
place. So I don't, I don't anyone in
secondary school to think I'm suggesting we just got off a
Cliff edge and he had no idea. I don't think that's what
happened at all. However, you know, there are
certain things I look at and this really stuck with me
because it was an argument for home schooling and with home
home schooling. Where schooling?
Yeah. Why?
Are you hearing that as well? Sorry.
Schooling. Right.
Home schooling. Homeschooling.
Homeschool School Now say Homeschool homeschooling.
Jesus knew I can't deal with this.
Why? My brain too let's move home
schooling and they and they made the point because someone said
well you're not with your peers you miss out that kind of you
know you're not you're not face to others in year four for
example and instead you're with like a mixture of ages you're
with a 14 year old older brother and next door neighbour also
home school and they're they're 8:00 and 9:00 and you happen to
be 6 whatever. And you because of the way home
home educating at home works you know you kind of doing the same
thing because you can't be everywhere.
You might go to the zoo and learn about zebras.
Everyone's lying about zebras because you just there and they
made a really good point. That's really stuck with me.
And the point was, yeah, OK, fair enough.
When would you ever be with 32 people your own age ever again
in a, in a, in a city? And I was like.
Yeah, it's true. Oh my God, yeah, when I went to
work at Asda after I left school.
Umm. The after 200 people who worked
in that shop, three of them were my age and I was directly
working with people who I was directly working with my
manager, who was like in his 40s.
I was directly working with my colleague who was like, it's a
retirement job, is there 12 hours a week.
He just puts the booze out. Called Ken.
Lovely boat called Ken. But he was just 12 hours a week
absolute legend and just was you know, he just sprinkled life
advice every now and then. He bought players going, ohh,
you know, never do that. And he walked past and and never
like, I had never had any kind of social interaction or
training, which we all pretend. It's really important.
But I know your kids need to go to school.
They need to socially interact and learn how to be around other
people and yeah, and make these bonds and stuff and like, yeah,
yeah, cool. Because then I'm gonna go and do
a complete different. Generation work with people at
the same age as the teachers. Yeah, I completely disconnected.
Exactly. And it's a good point, I ask
you. Different backgrounds and stuff.
Yeah, that's real life, what you just said there for the majority
of people. So does school prepare for that?
No, not really at all. Completely agree.
I think the answer to this question, by the way, I think
the answer is question is no. Yeah, I just don't think that
that that there's a obvious solution that some people
pretend there is. I think that's what I don't get
annoyed, but I get frustrated when people are like, Nah, we
should do all of this and I'm just like, OK, but there is a
reason why we don't. Yeah, yeah, I do get the whole,
because I think the point you made a couple of times in this
is that, you know, some of these things are difficult to
understand in real life and if we've got kids who are
illiterate in English and maths to a certain level, then it is
what it is, genuinely a waste of time trying to get to understand
this concept. That's even harder than the
algebra. They can't.
Do and it doesn't mean there's not other stuff in school, which
I think is also a waste of time. I mean, the other thing to
remember, I'm not saying that we've got a perfect balance
here. I'm just saying that it's not
necessarily going to solve all our problems If we try and teach
a 12 year old about compound interest and shopping for
mortgages, which they will never do for another 15 years minimum
in their life. Like I just I think there's got
to be there's got to be something in place and again
whether it's the government or not, I don't know I think
sometimes you and I have our with our politics we rely too
much on the government doing stuff honestly that's how that's
how I feel. But quite I think we're quite
you know left-leaning in terms of the government step in and
and provide help when needed. Like I do think there is an
argument to say though like yeah OK but if you're going to shop
for a mortgage it's just down to your individual like research
like you just you do need to just go and find out about it.
Like, to me, that's different to tax, like you said, yeah, I'm
going to go and work for the system and be exploited.
You should be taught that. But when it comes to like,
shopping for interest rate, do you know what?
I didn't know, but I learned it in a week.
Yeah, like I just had to do some research.
I'm like ohh that. It's easier to do that now.
More than and it's easy then to be like, well, why wouldn't I
taught that at school? Well, that's why.
Because you just taught yourself really easily.
Because you had a whole education where you were become
a become literate. And others got the skills that
you could. Under skills, Exactly.
You've been in the workplace for a while and you understand how
to find information that's way more important, how to find
information that's going to set people up.
Because my point, my wider point here, and I'm not gonna go into
something, The point I'm making here, is school will never ever
prepare everyone for real life. We could make all of these
changes that we're talking about.
Hmm. And there'd be a group of kids
who are worse off now for real life because they got way more
out of the biology stuff. They became scientists and
things like that. School is never going to hit
every single child and get them ready for ready for real life.
So what we need to do is maximise that.
And I think the way we maximise that in school is by teaching
skills really well. If you teach skills really well,
with the odd splattering of what they enjoy and facts and ideas
and stuff means when they're 28 and they come to get a mortgage,
you've taught them how to interpret sources, how to trust
what websites are going to give them good advice, how to how to
understand and comprehend data. And and you know, you, you did
statistics, so you understand this graph now and you know what
exponential means and you know what that kind of growth is
gonna look like because you understand what compound
interest is. You understand how much you're
gonna get charged over a certain amount of time because I've had
all that foundation. It means I'm then able to work
things out for myself and learn things myself.
I think that's way more powerful than us just saying you need to
learn about mortgages in schools like, cool.
Well, I've dropped something else that I might need then in
the future. So I think it's more important
to teach people this Last I'm gonna say before you come back
at me because I want to hear what you think.
It's more important to teach people and get them to a point
where they can learn anything they need to because everyone's
going to have an individual life.
So it that's way more powerful to me then then preempting what
they need to know. Yeah, and I think that's great.
And I think for people like me and you who did enjoy our time
at an education and do well out of education, that's great
because it has set us up. But a lot of people, a lot of
like you said, and it's never gonna prepare everybody.
A tonne of people are coming out of school, not even at that
level. Still so.
What makes you think teaching about taxes would?
Help. I just think like you.
I just think it will reduce the amount of people who are like me
at 20 years old who will just be fed misinformation with and
they've got no pre information to to even argue against it
with, right? Yeah, I know I did learn about
this at school. I'm sure that's not how it
works. I can't remember how it works
because I can't remember a lot of things, but I'm sure it
wasn't that. I just think having having had.
But they won't remember the tax. Either, and maybe not, but
having had exposure to it as well, it might at least give
them. It just gives people a chance at
fighting misinformation because it's so rife misunderstanding
with with those life things. Even.
Just like how bills were. The amount of people that don't
even know, like unless their parents tell them, even know
that you have to pay for the water that comes out of your
tap. Stuff like that.
That I I agree by the way that there are levels.
And I think that that basic level of water costs money by
the way. Or like, you know, you will be
taxed for the work you do. So when you get a job that's 30
grand a year, you don't actually get 2 1/2 grand a month.
Yeah, you know you're gonna get XYZ.
I think that's really, really important and on a different
level to like shopping for a mortgage deal or or very
specific stuff. So I completely agree, like
their easy wins we could put in. Yeah, and not rely on family and
not rely on who people know. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Hmm. What you thinking?
Don't know. I'll just actually think
reflecting on your point about some big up Ken from Asda and
just thinking about the social side again, just kind of going
back to that and not just talk about the kind of the knowledge
of academics and things and just being like, it's just really
stuck with me at that point because I just can't believe
I've never thought of that before that, you know, like it's
like, yeah, of course, actually when you go to get a job, you
have to work with people from different ages and generations,
different beliefs, biases, different upbringings.
That's really hard navigate. I think I found that really
tough starting work. I suddenly, suddenly talking to
someone who's 35 years older, older than me, who had a
completely different experience through life, has these
completely different opinions politically about social
structure, everything. I'm just like, I've never been
experienced in this because all of them, all of the kids my age,
we all think the same thing. We all just kind of agree with
each other because we're all grown up together, just like,
deep. Yeah, that's just weird to me.
I'm like, what? What can we even do?
Can we even do anything with that?
I don't know. Like, is that that goes back
down to, is that the school's responsibility?
Like is it even possible? For I don't think so.
I think. I think that's where society as
a whole needs to do much better And the whole saying of like it
takes a village to raise a kid and stuff like that.
Yeah, I think that that you cannot, I don't think you can
manufacture that through like a state-run school or something
like that. I think you just have to what
the government maybe can do or what you can do as a society is
like, you know, for example, I know for example that you have
had your next door neighbour round for dinner.
Yeah, they're an older couple. Hmm.
But I think a lot of people would think, Oh no, I won't ask
them, because they're not. Of my generation, my friends.
You've had them round for dinner, so let's say Rivers
6789, they come round for dinner because you just make them
friends. That's put her in that situation
where she's then. That's true, you know,
socialising with someone on the socialising level.
I think that's way more about how we act as a society and how
we can build those things in not the schools.
Yeah, the school. It would be too contrived.
Like what? What would you do?
Like go to a care home like that's that's not normal.
It needs to be in real life situations and I think it's I I
guess my overall point here is I think it's important and I think
score has a huge role to play in this.
But I I don't think it's healthy to pretend that the best way to
do most of this would be through real life as well.
To prepare someone for real life school is not real life to very
manufactured experience. Like you're with 32 people of
your own age group, the only time you'd ever do that and
you're being told a curriculum which has been decided by the
people in suits. What you need, you need to know.
Unless it fundamentally changes from the ground up, to be
prepared for real life is to go for real life experiences and
school won't provide them. No, OK.
I want to clarify something because I'm actually a tiny bit
lost as to what you think about this right, based on what you
said. Because my answer was no to this
by the. Way.
Yeah, exactly. So you had a bit of a monologue
a minute ago about. Yeah, it was good.
It was good. But I was, I was kind of
questioning at the end like go on.
OK. If you are actually presented
with the opportunity now or it's like, yeah, you can call a unit
from one of the year groups. Right.
We're talking a minimal amount over the whole education of a
child. You're gonna call one of the
units over a whole term and they're going to replace it.
Let's say it's in maths, make it, you know a big subject and
it is going to be replaced with some sort of unit where it's
just like the whole focus is this is what the average
person's life looks like in the UK and he's here.
All the things you need to know to do it and it just and you
know more than what we've probably we probably touched on
a few things. Yeah, imagine like tax and
paying your bills and stuff. There's probably loads more.
If we sat down and thought about it, you know, you kind of made
the argument for, well, you know, you learn those things
when you need it, it's not necessarily going to be useful
to learn them. Would would you then actually
say no to that coming in let's not replace something in the
curriculum that exists? Or would you still be like, no,
OK, yeah, let's have that in. There, I wouldn't say no to it.
I wouldn't say no to it because I think it's, I think it's
useful. And I think if you started with
a blank canvas and someone said OK, you can learn soccer tower
and how to calculate the side of a triangle and how to calculate
the side of a triangle. Or we can do a unit on, you
know, bills and tax and stuff. I think it would be really,
really hard to argue against picking the bills.
Yeah, because it does mean now that the people that do end up
going becoming mathematicians have lost this.
Really. And that's fine, because what
we're doing as a school is actually we're just trying to
get as many people as possible and more people do it.
I'm not against that. I don't want anyone to think
that. What I'm saying is I don't think
that we're going to solve this problem and prepare every child
for school anyway. No, no.
For life. Sorry.
Anyway no. So what I'm saying is it's all
well and good saying ohh schools are should this schools do that
And I'm not even against it. I think some of the some of the
stuff you see like Santander and all the big banks have like
released a lot of financial literacy stuff and I think it is
is vital to be financially literate.
And I think the amount of times I've explained stuff to people
who've just asked me, like, what does it mean pro rata, like I'm
gonna go for a job, it says 24K pro rata.
Like, that's mental because a lot of people just think 24K and
it's like, no, it's pro rata. So like, maybe it's an 8.8
contract, you're actually paid 18 grand or whatever it is.
Like, I'm like, OK, that's cheeky, but but why would you
know that unless you've been told it, right?
Yeah. And and and I guess my point is
you could have been taught that in year eight or nine, but you
still might be confused. With might be real, but a lot of
people might not. Be that and that's great and I'm
like I'm not against that. I I think what I'm saying is
you're never gonna prepare everyone for their life.
Yeah because what what is what is everyone's life is so
different. Like there are some people who
are self-employed and and need to know their tax things.
There are some people who are never self-employed get the gist
that their tax something because it goes to the government and
runs the NHS that they use and stuff like that.
Do they really need to know about the ends and outs of like,
maybe not. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
Right? But I guess my overall point is
just quite simply, school is not gonna pay everyone for real
life. We can do the best we can.
We can still try and improve it. Yeah.
Let's not pretend, though, that there's one option that's gonna
fix. Everything.
No, because it's not, I think, anyone.
Thinks that, No. But I think as a wider culture,
let's not just point to school and say, you know what?
I don't know about this? And it's because of school.
It's like, OK, but is there are there other ways that we could
have learned these things? You have to learn some stuff,
not from school. Yeah, I guess so.
And to me, it's not the stuff that we've left out.
Yeah, OK To me, OK that's your what if I was to rank the things
I think are most important to like the most people right at
the top is like 100 people need to read.
That has to be in school. And then the percentages would
go down, right? Like the amount of people that
need the thing, all of the life skills we talked about in this
one up above, I would honestly estimate absolutely every other
subject and everything you learn in them.
So would you, Would you just not do biology anymore then?
I wouldn't do it because I don't think I need that much space,
but if, but if again but. If you list everything, it's
like is are more people going to put a table together in their
life? Yeah.
Or put a bit of IKEA flat pack furniture furniture together.
Or, you know, learn how to budget their money every month
because they need to pay their bills and stuff.
Yeah, genuinely, Yeah. But is that more important than
knowing what the function of the mitochondria is, Obviously.
So let's. OK, drop that then if if we have
to put in a flat pack part. Has to be replacing.
Sure. But then I say that word a flat
but then but then the argument carries on cause I felt that's
quite a like a like a headline of a newspaper like getting me
like capture because then the same thing.
OK but now let's check biology. Is there something now less
important biology can stay in and you just go to the bottom of
the list basically what's the least important thing that they
do at school for a term and we'll get rid of it and we'll
put this thing in. It's like OK, probably, I don't
know, maybe that maybe that unit in German that they learn in
year. 11 yeah. Yeah.
OK, check out our episode. My language is.
That's why I put it in there. But realistically is, isn't it?
It's like we something like that there'll be some unit of some
subject that is like ohh mate, you know what?
Nought point nought 2% of people ever use that in their life,
whereas like 80% use this thing. And I think that would be a good
place to start. I do.
And I've got nothing against that because I don't think
school prepares children for real life right now.
I think it does a decent job at what it's what it does do, which
is exposure stuff. But it's it's impossible to do
it. I think that's the point.
I'm coming across like I don't wanna be defeatist or anything,
but the school is never ever going to prepare everyone
because like you said, how do you, how do you mimic that
societal thing where you go into work with completely different
age. You can't you can't mimic that.
No, no, you can't learn how taxes work and that's important.
But as a whole, it's not gonna happen.
And I suppose the point that one of the last points you wanted to
make, and I'll, I'll throw it over to you, is we, we, I think
we agree and everyone in the whole country agrees that school
is not for everyone. So you know, how do we go about
this? Do we try and fix school or do
we go down the route which is already happening is an open
different types of school, forest schools, you know,
farming schools. And stuff like that.
Like, I don't have anything against those schools, you hear.
I remember hearing learned about it when I was at secondary
school actually. I've been having my mind open
that there was this school where kids went and it was basically
just some giant farm. And rather than doing the
curriculum that we did, they went out and looked after the
animals every day and did all the things I was like.
What are they all gonna become? Farm.
That's an option? Yeah.
I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe. Is that just as useless as the
curriculum? I don't, yeah, I don't know.
I actually don't know the answer to that.
But I like that those options are there.
I guess it just those those things just open your mind a
little bit too. There is more than this one
system though. Like it might not be the best
system that we all went through and have that circular system
that we've. Done.
Centuries. Now it's not, I guess.
OK, I'm gonna move on immediately because I think it's
really interesting, though, because school.
You're in a school, OK? And you have a you have a
curriculum. I always think back to one of my
colleagues in one of the earliest schools I worked out
one of the people I worked with me.
No. Who said they had someone in
their class and they were just like, school is not for this
kid's. School is not for this kid
already knew. And it was like, yeah, three or
four already knew that school was not for this kid and was on
it. And he, this guy was a bit sad
that he was like, he's got another 10 years at this because
he just got to it's not for him whatsoever.
It's complete wise waste. I know what's gonna happen when
this kid is older. In 15 years, I'm going to go to
my local wildlife park, my local zoo, and this kid's going to be
a zookeeper. Amazing at his job, happy as
Larry doing a practical job labour or something like that.
Yeah. Really good.
It getting on with people very sociable and schools gonna fail
in 15 years. You're gonna resent it.
He's gonna leave get a job like that.
And his point was just like why are we putting him through the
system? Yeah.
Why are we putting kids through this system which is absolutely
already we all know as professionals that school is not
preparing this kid for what their life will be.
Why are we pretending that it does like and no amount of
change in the curriculum or doing tax at the right time or
you know, giving him like that's not going to fix this point in
that school is absolutely not for this kid, you know, what do
we do at that point? Because that is broken at that.
Point Yeah, yeah. Where's the whole And that That
was it from Albert Einstein or something.
The whole judging a fish to how it can climb a tree.
That analogy thing. I always remember that picture.
I'm like such a good visual. Representation.
And we got on the score. We didn't really do anything.
I do. Even when when that happens,
we're just like, Ohh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you.
Gotta do it. So I think the school system
fails so many kids is almost different conversation right
now, but it does and I've taught loads over there.
For real life. Doesn't have those kids real
life now, because this whole conversation, funny enough, has
been about the average kid. And actually, the average kid
isn't everyone. Yeah, and even the average kid
isn't fully prepared for. No, not really.
They're still not. Yeah, I still think.
And then, yeah, like you said, there's those outliers, but the
country is so massive, those outliers aren't one or two
people. It's thousands and thousands of
kids every single year who are who the school system is.
Absolutely not remotely for them.
And they get, they waste in their entire childhood
resenting, probably end up way worse off than just not even
going to school because they actually just feel terrible
about themselves because they failed at everything they've
done all the way through. Yeah, you're right.
Don't. I said we leave that with the
listeners. Yeah, absolutely.
I think even that alone though. Yeah, I guess the overall point
I'll make, I'll summarise then You can maybe summarise what you
think is it's should school even prepare every child for real
life? It's a futile task and there's
going to be certain things that we can put in, and I would never
argue against, but I think there's a whole there's a huge,
massive different way to prepare children for life and it's very
bespoke. And I don't think the school
system can ever do that for every single child.
So I think what we should be focusing on is how to make sure
every child can be ready using the school system and other
things as. Well yeah, fair enough.
And my one, just go back to the original question.
Does it prepare children for real life?
I guess my overall point is just is no.
Simply because there's just a big chunk of real life that
isn't even hasn't even been attempted to being put into
school life that would, in my opinion, be prioritised over
many, many other things that already exist in school life.
Not everything, but many other things.
And that's the point. I'd like to leave it on
listeners. Let us know what you think.
They get in touch with us doesn't.
Just going to say, follow us on Instagram at TP Podcast, Send us
a message. I'd love to hear from you guys.
Get involved in the polls, get involved in everything else.
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actually, can you please give us a review?
It really does help us. You've got this fine this
podcast, hopefully we weren't that annoying and all four we
were actually quite interesting to listen to, but we want to
hear what you think as well. What would you introduce
immediately into the school curriculum to prepare children
for real life? What would you introduce?
Tomorrow that's going to be our Q and.
A Definitely, definitely. And I think I'm going to make a
real as well about that nice on the day this is released.
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it's great. See you next time.