French news channel France 2 recently spoke with Researching Reform about how a growing emphasis on exams has been affecting children in the UK.
The programme looks at how children around the world are coping with different types of testing and the frequency with which they are tested, as well as an in depth look at state schools versus private schools. The UK portion of the programme investigates our own two-tier system, which effectively still stigmatises state school graduates – most of the ‘top jobs’ in the country still go to those who have been privately educated.
During our segment we talk about the added pressure children now face to perform, the negative effects of unhealthy levels of competition, which include mental health difficulties like depression and anxiety disorders and the terrible catch 22 parents now face when trying to get their children into good schools in their area, who feel they need to push their children harder than ever to secure places in these schools.
We would like to thank Nic Boothby, and the amazing team at France 2 for interviewing us.
[This programme is in French].
Researching Reform 
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I agree with the stress caused to kids to day sitting exams as some one very close to me is in this situation, but I know many people will disagree with what I say but then all they have to do is to look at many self made Millionaires in the world who have not passed any exams, and I for one could not even read or write correctly when I left school let alone add up 2×2 so much for the state schools, but I still became a self made Millionaire and remember the world is run by money not education, but kids need love and affection when growing up not the stress of the so called education system that is so corrupt.
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I agree 100%
Maggie , you are a true inspiration.
Shame success is viewed on how many millions people make though.
Your success as a human being is in helping fellow human beings and you have never received true recognition for it- as you keep so much to yourself, due to lack of ego.
That is true success as a Human Being.!!!!!!!
The only language children hear these days is exams and scores, creating competition among each other and so in turn stress.. Divide and Rule game.
As a retired teacher, I witnessed this change in early 1990’s and fro then on its been test after test for children……which proves nothing….well it proves the child can repeat verbatim, but may not be able to think for itself.
The more I observed, the more I saw this attrition through stress, which is a killer – gradual- but a killer.
Now I would say all this stress creation is child abuse- a crime.
I left teaching as I felt it was abuse,
Children are unique and not all children are academic.
Some have other gifts which are never deevelloped as the system is designed to produce obedient robots.
I took my children out of this system and homeschooled.
Both adults and able to think for themselves, create businesses, travel and blend in with other cultures, etc.
The British schools all look like prisons.Why?
In my time I did not have any assistant teachers to help. I could manage just fine.
My biggest pain was staff and social workers calling children in care and from poor families – DISPOSABLE KIDS- who were written off as useless from day 1.
I used to take some of these classes in order to prove these so called professionals wrong.
There was no training in how to teach these children. I burned all the professional books – useless in the real world and then listned to the children, taught them all about life in this world, how to cook, pay bills, how to travel, learn languages that help them on their travels etc, etc.
There is no testing for any of these subjects of course. Survival skills are essential.
There is a man who totally understands children and teaches them and shares with others who want to really teach. He is 85 and still going strong. Witty and has adults and children awake to his every word.
His name is Christopher Gilmore.
https://www.waterstones.com/author/christopher-gilmore/798173
I mentioned Christopher because he talks about telling stories and using imagination – aka I magic because I am sick to the stomach of hearing adults telling children youunger and younger theses days that they are too old for fairy stories and stop making up stories. Their imaginations are being shut down younger and younger and that is a crime of child abuse.
Children are here to teach us adults , but will we listen? Rarely.
I learned more from children than in any University.
Most adults claim they know what is in the best interests of the children- but that is simply based on what they feel was best for themselves- which is where so much goes wrong.
But adult professionals believe they are gods and we ought to take note of how children switch off in schools when adults speak – because THEY ARE BORED OF THE BS.
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If anyone wants to learn about children and education and finding their true talents and develloping them – Go to Russia.
Go to Kins Domains Russia also .
Its an eye opener.
Best medical schools on the planet as they study . Mind Body and Soul as ONE.
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how right you are children are the most beautiful little things on earth and I have always loved naughty kids because that is how they learn to be good and about life and the bed time stories well that is another planet, but kids in care don’t get the bed time stories love affection then the kids have to go to school and what are they taught bloody sex education and god knows how much more, so I agree with all you say, also in the 80s not that it was in the media but I was a child minder and I took and fought Government so that child minding into the community and it was legal cheaper, child minding in the community needs to be in the news as so many parents cannot afford the high fees in nurseries in the 80s a nursery cost over £100 a week my child minding nursery was £80 a week and the kids all arrived to a breakfast on the table and they were taught the three R.
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Oddly enough, I have recently been having a debate with a woman in a local group on facebook I am a member of with regard to (low) standards in the education system past and present. Apparently, she’s a teacher (at 58 5 years younger than me) and didn’t enter the profession until late in life, obtaining GCSEs in English and Maths in her access course. I also started an access course with a view to going to uni to train to be a teacher at the same time but with home pressures had to give it up. We difffer in opinion; she tells me I should ‘shadow’ a teacher of today. I tried to explain I base my opinion on experience, my own and that of others, what I have seen regarding poor standards and who I have helped going way back, predominantly emulating methods used by my teachers in the 50s and 60s but with some of my own ideas. My children went to state schools but I played a big part in their education, teaching them aspects of English and Maths long before being covered in class that put them in front of their peers. I also gave other examples I have had of teaching – IT for the terrified, a local group of adults in early 2003; a group of 9/10 year olds in school one hour a week 4 years before that, helping them with their reading while introducing some aspects of geography and history to increase their understanding of the country involved in the story and so widen their horizons. Her response was quite patronising and condescending as though I hadn’t said a word. I was fortunate in that I was able to take the more prestigious O levels, passing all 5, leaving school to go to college. Sadly, I did not study for A levels. Responding to her defence of the system (as she knows it), I remarked that it was weird that the methods I used to help a wide range of people spanned the last few decades and clearly had far more success than many of those used in schools – she had implied it was more the students’ fault than the schools’. A cousin of mine was the head of a school in Ireland until she resigned several years ago due to being disillusioned by the system. Having said all that, I never felt pressurised when studying for exams, but then there were no SATs to worry about.
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