Do Schools Actually do Enough?

Group chats are a wonderful thing and there’s nothing better than discussing the woe’s and highlights of our school days. Yes that’s right, we weren’t discussing the gossip of the recent night out when kicked out of spoons or our plans for Christmas Winter Wonderland, Mel actually dropped ‘do schools actually do enough for us?’. That’s it, all systems go, a debate was launched and what better timing than just after I graduated...

The Government would probably argue yes, whether that’s their honest answer or the most convenient opinion at the time. However, the answer from myself and the majority of an Instagram poll I did, is no. When I left my days from secondary school to sixth form, I was told I couldn’t do Photography because there weren’t enough people. Looking back, ummm ????? what do you mean?! Surely you should give the students the subjects they are offered. Instead I was directed to do Health and Social Care, double Health and Social Care. Non creative, related subjects completely at random. Although I enjoyed it, the head of sixth form who advised me actually had no background information that this would be something I’d be interested in. I didn’t even know what it WAS. Anyway, I did it, I was good at it and I went on to do it at Uni. I don't regret it because I've got an amazing skill set and a wonderful set of friends, but it’s not what I want to do and I was completely miss-guided at school and assumed if I was good at it I should spend £27k to do it for life.

'There was next to no career advice, counselling, days out to colleges for apprenticeship schemes or any other options. Only days to University’s were an option.'

The group chat, ‘Schools push us into going to uni, which don’t get me wrong is defo right some people, but isn’t for everyone and makes people feel like they should go when they don’t really want or need to.’

Someone then added, ‘They treat us like children’.

A reply to the Instagram poll, ‘I still don’t know what taxes are, how much I should pay. I think foreign languages in public schools isn’t much use in terms of what they teach, either, it's fine for some but how do you say useful things or learn to apply it to real life'.

So is the answer that actually we don’t have enough practical support to know how mortgages, premium bonds, investments or taxes work? Probably. And is the answer that we don’t have enough support to be able to go a different path to the expensive and time costly University? Probably. There is nothing wrong with going straight to work and I watched a lot of people who actually drop out of Uni to succeed and blossom in what they’re doing now.