Kelly Rigg (00:00.948)
Welcome to another episode of the Big Home Ed conversations. As usual, this is the podcast where myself, Kelly and Ashley are basically trying to blow the top off big conversations that we have behind the scenes around home education. So this isn't necessarily.
typically about the myths, it's more to do with the deeper, like the real issues, the real stuff that comes up for us as home educators, we're considering how we teach our kids or facilitate their learning, how we support them and ourselves to create a much better lifestyle for ourselves. So first of all, hello. I'll let Ashley say hello as well so you know that she's here.
Ashley Vanerio (00:42.466)
Hi everyone.
Kelly Rigg (00:44.532)
Today we are going to be talking about the UK school system. So we thought as we do tend to refer to home education, home schooling, we tend to refer to the UK, the Italian and the US school systems at various moments through our conversations that we just do. Like for those of us who might be listening who don't understand the UK school system, we're going to talk about it very briefly, kind of what the layout is, like terminology and stuff. And then essentially we'll move on to
really kind of the messaging that kind of goes on in schools and the experience that people have.
and obviously my experience personally and maybe what I'm trying to avoid for my kids and various other kind of elements like that. So that's what we're going to talk about today. So first things first, so the UK school system in the UK starts when they are either, well typically they're four when they start, but they will turn five during reception. So that is the first year that is considered compulsory schooling. So...
What's interesting in this country is it's called compulsory school age, but essentially it's actually compulsory education, so full -time education. So they expect that by the time a child is, well it's the term after they turn five actually. So if your child, for example, is four and would turn five in, say, June, they actually aren't compulsory school age until the September after. So essentially when they'll start year one. So this is something which...
I get quite frustrated about, and I don't know what the communication is like in the US actually, but it's frustrating you kind of get told they start school at this age and that it's just considered that is just the thing that happens. And actually home education isn't something which is often talked about as another route.
Ashley Vanerio (02:19.331)
Mm.
Ashley Vanerio (02:33.604)
Yeah. I mean, I definitely don't think that the states proposes that, like a home education route, if you want. I think they kind of say like, you know, as part of like, I don't know if it's the constitution or where that, where this falls under, but you know, the right, having the right to public education and by having the right to public education, you're...
required to enroll your children, like you're responsible for enrolling your children in either a public or a private school, but I don't think it mentions, it's not mentioned when you go to like your county's website, or you can homeschool. I don't think they publicize it that way.
Kelly Rigg (03:43.156)
saying I know I got a letter that told me to register his school place but I certainly did not get a note in that anywhere that said this is an opt -in process you do not have to use this you can offer your child options and I know that often in this country home education myth surrounding it is that home education is really reserved for children with special needs special educational needs and also who might be unwell.
Ashley Vanerio (03:47.141)
Yeah, exactly.
Ashley Vanerio (03:57.188)
rights.
Kelly Rigg (04:12.948)
in and out of hospital, possibly actors and people who can't get to school because they're off on set or whatever. But realistically you never really imagined that home education was for anyone else. So children, as I say, will start school typically when they're four, go into reception and then ultimately they will then go through what is often termed as infant school. So that is year one, year two. They'll do some
Ashley Vanerio (04:16.804)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (04:37.156)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (04:41.172)
I think it's SATS, I believe it's SATS at the end of year two to test like spelling and reading and stuff like that just to kind of really see where they're at. So.
Ashley Vanerio (04:48.837)
And what does that stand for? SAT.
like standard achievement test or something.
Kelly Rigg (05:13.684)
It stands for standard assessment tests. So essentially it's just basically figuring out where they're at in terms of reading and stuff like that with what their spelling is like, that kind of thing. Because obviously the government have got, well, basically development goals where they want to make sure children are hitting certain benchmarks by certain ages to help kind of standardize them and to try and get them all moving through at the same pace. Because obviously, as you can imagine, every
Ashley Vanerio (05:16.837)
Okay.
Kelly Rigg (05:42.676)
class of 30 will have children at all different levels, but the hope is that they'll actually all come in line and relatively similar for the sake of the teacher. But obviously this has a negative effect on both children who are struggling and also children who are at the top end of their classes too.
Ashley Vanerio (05:48.902)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (06:01.14)
I myself was one of the children who tended to be a little bit ahead, so I tended to be quite bored. I used to get a bit restless. I'd finish things a lot faster. I'd spend a lot of time waiting for news to be put in front of you, that kind of stuff. So it used to be quite frustrating, but...
Ashley Vanerio (06:12.229)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (06:17.204)
but you just kind of have to just wait. Like you just learn to wait and to move on to the next thing. But then you kind of, you carry on through what is normally called junior school. Sometimes they're literally lumped together and it's just a primary school. Sometimes it is split out into infant and junior schools, depending on the area, depending on what's available. And then you'll go off onto secondary school. So you'll go to, so you'll have your year 11 SATs and then you'll go off to...
Ashley Vanerio (06:22.822)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (06:33.062)
Okay.
Kelly Rigg (06:45.844)
secondary school where you'll do 7, 8, 9, you'll have some more exams, then you'll have, you'll choose your GCSEs and then 10, 11, so years 10, 11, you will do your GCSE exams which are the main exams that we're kind of aiming towards through the school system so that's kind of where everyone goes, oh, but like what about GCSEs? Are you going to let, like how are your children going to sit GCSEs if they haven't been in school? Obviously...
The answer to that, as we know, is obviously by accessing test papers online. It's booking them into private testing places to go and have them done, or they can enroll in a college, for example, and do those a couple of years that way or whatever. There's loads of ways around it. We'll get into that later. But essentially, they're then obviously from age 17, 18 is either sixth form college or college, and then they go off to university if they want to, say higher education and other routes. So.
School in this country at the moment, the UK, is considered compulsory up to the age of 18 now. So it's extended to 18 in recent years. So that's the gist basically, so kind of the terms if you're going to want to look for the terminology and stuff as we're talking this through. So that's what children are experiencing. They enter into the school system at four and they don't leave until they are a fully fledged adult. So it's...
Ashley Vanerio (08:04.424)
Okay. I have so many questions. Okay. So to just kind of standardize this for anyone not familiar with the UK alignment, what you have is year one is our kindergarten in the US and then your year two is our first grade. And similarly in Italy when we were there, our year one in Italy was year two.
Kelly Rigg (08:07.156)
Yeah, go on then, please do.
Ashley Vanerio (08:33.928)
to here. And I know sometimes like just that just being the one year difference can like change the perspective obviously of the timing. So just to put that out there. And then so essentially you let's just call it primary school then. So you go to primary school and that ends at year six or year seven.
Kelly Rigg (08:57.108)
Yes, yes.
Ashley Vanerio (08:58.408)
So year six, so after year six, you have the SATs again, and that determines where you go for like the middle school.
Kelly Rigg (09:07.38)
It basically helps you to rank. So when you go through to secondary school and you start in year seven, clear school will have higher, middle and lower versions of certain subjects. So like maths, English, science, languages, that kind of stuff. So at some point during your early secondary school career, those grades will help to determine what level you go in at. So you might do higher or you might do middle or whatever. But what's quite ironic is I actually missed...
Ashley Vanerio (09:13.384)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (09:21.415)
Okay.
Kelly Rigg (09:36.084)
my languages year nine sat for some reason. I can't remember why, I've got no memory why, but it meant that I didn't get a grade and so I got put in the lower group for my GCSEs in German. And it was a bit weird at the time because obviously like I'd missed the exam and I was in higher in every other subject so you'd have thought that they would have just assumed that I probably should have been in the higher but they didn't put me in the lower.
Ashley Vanerio (09:49.769)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (10:03.785)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (10:05.62)
And the teacher was lovely and the level of work, like the way she taught it was much more fun, interactive, it was kept light, she didn't put a lot of extra homework in, there wasn't a lot of extra testing. And when there was a moment when it kind of got back to a year 11 time when she's like, no, honestly, I'm going to put you in for the higher paper anyway, because you're doing great. And she said, but...
Ashley Vanerio (10:14.217)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (10:30.42)
I should put you into the higher group so that you can get that extra few months worth of support. And I tried it, but it was so strict and it was so hard. And I really didn't enjoy it. And I asked to go back into her class. And she was like, well, yeah, of course, of course you can stay with me. That's fine. I can still prepare you to go through with a higher paper, which she did. And I got an A. And what's really fascinating about that is that actually that was probably when I actually reflect on this recently.
first indicator that the style of learning, it didn't need to be strict, hard, loads of homework for me to develop the skills to be able to actually pass the exams. And actually it's a really great indicator for me and a good reminder that the style of learning, the way the teacher taught it, the types of activities and stuff she did were much more interactive and it made me enjoy it.
Ashley Vanerio (11:12.265)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (11:28.98)
and enjoyment helped me to succeed. And I think that what's what I think is quite frustrating about the UK school system at the moment is that play based learning really drops off fast. So option and year one will experience a reasonable amount of play based learning. But by the time they get into year two, year three, so much more of it is sat at desks and.
Ashley Vanerio (11:44.586)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (11:55.721)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (11:57.748)
they will still have some play. They will, of course, still be doing interactive things and science experiments and going on school trips and all the rest of it. But ultimately, they will be sat down and asked to concentrate on what the teachers got to say and at the end of the day, be following a government issued curriculum as opposed to what they independently want to learn about at this point. And obviously, so much of their time is taken up with schools, obviously.
Most children will go to school five days a week, so that's Monday to Friday. They'll go between the hours of roughly 8 .30, 8 .45 until 3 .15. Also depending on the school, have different, slightly different rules around that. But then parents, obviously, if they're working, like if they need to have a full -time job, they'll be paying for breakfast clubs. So they might be being dropped off as early as seven o 'clock in the morning and then being picked up as late as six.
Ashley Vanerio (12:45.13)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (12:54.516)
So if you can imagine a child is literally going from seven until six, the parent's obviously paying through the nose for those wraparound care facilities as well, so be able to even continue to have a job in the first place. The child is obviously going to be learning, plus maybe kind of doing their homework, being in social situations which can be very taxing for young people as well. Like actually it can be quite exhausting.
Ashley Vanerio (13:12.042)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (13:19.668)
And they're probably literally coming home, if they haven't already had dinner at their after school club thing, then they'll come home, have some tea and go to bed. And that's pretty much it. Maybe they might go to another club or go to swimming lessons or some other thing that they've got to squid in somewhere. And I think that ultimately children are spending a really large amount of time in their education through the week to the point where it's almost longer than a full time job in and of itself.
Ashley Vanerio (13:34.091)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (13:47.947)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (13:48.948)
from the age of four. I mean, you've got children in nurseries and preschools who are in for that long too. Like it's, it's not a fault of the parents at all. Like it's been made necessary by the economy that we're in today that so many families feel they need to have two incomes, two full -time incomes just in order to survive, keep on top of house costs and fuel everything. But it's interesting how so many
Ashley Vanerio (13:54.411)
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (14:17.908)
children will be stuck in a situation where they are literally on and paying attention for a very large amount of their week.
Ashley Vanerio (14:27.052)
Yeah, yeah, that's it's similar in the US as well. And with the after school programs and cases where a parent might have to work or something, and slightly different in Italy because their school days are much shorter. So the lower grade that you're in, the shorter the days that you have. So in like first and second grade, so yours two and three, you might have class from
eight to one and somewhere in there you're having a snack. So you are bringing, you know, some food with you and, you know, usually around like 10 or 11, somewhere in there, the teachers of that grade will decide when the snack time is. And they'll, that just means that for that hour class that you have 15 minutes of it as a snack. And then your parents kind of pick you up, but it often means that depending on where you live and if your school is,
you know, close to you or not, you might not be eating lunch until 2 to 30 by the time you're getting home. So it can be kind of long. And then usually you'll have one day a week where you do lunch at the school, whether you buy it there, bring it, and then you have class until three or four. So it can then be a very long day if you're there from like 8am to 4pm. It's just just long, but
Yeah. So those, I thought that half day approach was really cool until I learned how much homework the children have. So, so in fact, while you are going home and I think that's a lot, you know, culturally lunch is very important to Italians. And so I think that that it's a much larger meal than, than it is, I think for Americans or even here in the UK.
So whereas like we're happy to grab a sandwich, Italians are not happy to grab a sandwich. So I think culturally they kind of just like, yeah, worked that in. And then we're able to kind of wrap the school day around it. But yeah, it does mean that grandparents tend to be heavily involved and or some kind of babysitter is going to have to be involved in that. But in the US, there are preschool and afterschool programs that.
Kelly Rigg (16:24.564)
Thank you.
Ashley Vanerio (16:48.27)
students can, you know, the parents can put them in to, to allow them to be able to accommodate their work schedules, which, you know, can be quite demanding again, especially if you're thinking about having to manage traffic and all of that as well to get back to the school to pick them up. And it's funny because some of these after school programs, if you're even a minute late and they are charged by the minute. So the stress that the parent has for getting there on time is also something contributing to just that, you know,
mental load.
Kelly Rigg (17:19.572)
get there for a certain time yeah I must admit that the stuff we used or looked at especially had fees like fines and things if you were late pickups and stuff like that I mean I can understand to some degree but it's yeah I used to think it was a bit harsh really like accidents happen I'm sure to be honest if they would probably have been kind if there was like I don't know like you're in some sort of pile up or something but it'd be kind but yeah anyway
Ashley Vanerio (17:21.869)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (17:30.016)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (17:37.55)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (17:45.357)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (17:48.948)
But yeah, so I think it's, in the UK, I think that education has become hugely important to this idea of being able to make ourselves, I don't know, I guess there's some sort of like an elitism that comes with the idea of academia in this country where we believe that obviously to be educated, to be the best in a class, to be highly qualified means that our word and our...
who we are is somehow elevated above other people. And that in itself, I think is one of the biggest issues I have with kind of modern education as it stands at the moment is this elitism. It's this idea that the best people on the planet are professors and you know what I mean? Like the people who have got like doctorates in those subjects. And it's like, okay, they have their, like, I'm not saying they're not.
Ashley Vanerio (18:40.782)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (18:48.436)
I'm not saying that they don't have incredible wisdom and a lot to teach other people and a lot of incredible insights and have done really important research that pushes stuff forward, but actually they are not the only people making change happen. And ultimately, I mean, I think it's something like only about 28 % of children in the UK, I think that was the latest number, go on to university. That's actually considered to be quite...
Ashley Vanerio (19:16.366)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (19:16.948)
I mean, it was quite low. I was expecting it to be higher. But only because it's literally talked about as being the pinnacle of the education. If you're not going on to university, then like, what are you doing? And I think that this is the biggest problem with academia is this idea that there is only one linear path and we put all children on the same conveyor belt and we put them through the same curriculum.
Ashley Vanerio (19:27.983)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (19:46.132)
in very similar environments, definitely not the same. I appreciate not every teacher is the same, not every school is the same, that they do their best with what they can do. But I mean, we lost something like 45 ,000 teachers in the UK last year. 45 ,000! I mean, the government were very proud of themselves for hiring, I think it was 2 ,800 more teachers than they lost. But we're literally now diminishing, like, when you've got...
Ashley Vanerio (20:00.847)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (20:15.252)
that many teachers leaving positions and you've got schools with positions that can't be filled that are like literally whole subjects that are being taught by agency staff because it's just it's just falling apart and so ultimately I feel like the consistency isn't there the experience isn't great like there's I mean it's fraught with with bullying obviously the bullying that we experienced at school like
Ashley Vanerio (20:28.08)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (20:36.783)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (20:45.204)
I was bullied pretty much on and off throughout my entire school career. I definitely had my run -ins with not very nice children. But when I went home, it went away. Like when I walked out, it went away. And now it follows them home. Now they're literally, like it's scary. And I think that there's so much here that's going wrong that can't be supervised and can't be dealt with in any kind of real capacity because...
Ashley Vanerio (20:58.032)
Yeah. Yeah. Social media and everything, yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (21:14.32)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (21:14.996)
teachers are not being given enough money because the environment isn't great, because the working environment isn't great for teachers. They haven't got great leadership, they haven't got people who are caring about them and actually doing anything about it. They're being blamed for mismanaging their classrooms when actually, at the end of the day, they're being asked to take bigger and bigger classroom sizes, filled with children who, I mean, in our borough,
My children are both very likely ADHD, autistic, some combination of the two. And in our borough now, we can't get a diagnosis. There is no NHS referral pathway. They're only accepting children at risk of exclusion. So I mean, you've got teachers who are dealing with children who are not receiving a diagnosis for mental health.
Ashley Vanerio (21:54.256)
Bye.
Kelly Rigg (22:05.524)
mental health conditions, but also psychiatric conditions like ADHD, etc. They're not getting support. They're not getting teachers, they're not getting help in the classroom. They're not getting the right resources. They're working crazy hours. Like, I think at the end of the day, the experience for teachers, obviously, and I'm only talking from obviously my experience of talking to teachers and hearing what they've got to say, was still in the system and the ones who have left. There's thousands of them.
Ashley Vanerio (22:08.528)
Right.
Ashley Vanerio (22:27.312)
Right.
Kelly Rigg (22:34.804)
who are disillusioned and frustrated and have spent a career trying to do better, trying to push the system, trying to talk to their hires up, trying to get change made, trying to make it better, and they're not being listened to. And if we're not gonna listen to the people who are actively face -to -face with our children, helping them to grow and learn, we can't trust a system where we're putting children on this conveyor belt, asking them to go through this linear process, being promised.
success being promised like if you get good grades and you go on to university or go wherever you're going to have an amazing career you're going to have a wonderful life but it's not true like that's not a guarantee it doesn't necessarily lead to anywhere if you literally think to yourself you've got hundreds of thousands of kids all going through exactly the same thing getting exactly the same qualifications at the end that does not just make them distinct and set them apart for many right like it's not like i'm not being
Ashley Vanerio (23:20.368)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (23:29.168)
Right.
Kelly Rigg (23:33.012)
horrible, it's just the way it is. And so parents then have to compensate by offering their kids extra curriculars and extra tuition, extra things outside of school, which taxes the family and over taxes the kids. And it just creates a bit of a disaster, doesn't it? This this hustle culture. I don't know, I feel like I'm going on a rant now. I really have to do this, haven't I? But I don't know how you fix this. Like it's, it's frustrating. It's just...
Ashley Vanerio (23:35.856)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (23:42.576)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (23:56.69)
No.
Ashley Vanerio (24:02.771)
Yeah, and there's a lot of contributing factors, right? Because like, as you mentioned, bullying and student interactions look very different now with social media than they did 10, 20 years ago. Teachers' roles are way more complicated than they were 10, 20 years ago. They're being asked to do more with less in environments in the United States, anywhere where the parents have a very large influence. They have access to the teachers. They are able to kind of...
go at them with their questions, interrupt them on the weekends, things like that. And I know that schools and teachers put things in place to prevent that from happening. I think that that does work in some instances, but I know that the teachers are getting very burnt out. They're being asked to do an impossible job for very little pay. And it's arguably the most important job, right? We're talking about educating the next generation and that should have a very high salary attached to it, in my opinion.
Um, but it's not, and it's, yeah, it's a thankless job. And so there, there are a lot, a lot of things that I think contribute to the current school system. Um, and one of the things that I wanted to ask you in talking about kind of like preparing for, for university, um, because you're in the States, we, we interchangeably use college and university. Um, but.
I know here in the UK, that's not the case. And so when you're going through, like, so you go through like primary school, secondary school, and then for us, you know, we have high school, which is, you know, four years, which is for us, you know, nine, 10, 11, 12. So for you 10, 11, 12, 13, I guess, do you have a 13? Like, what is that?
Kelly Rigg (25:53.332)
Yeah, so 12 .30 is going to be six. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (25:56.82)
Okay, and why is it sixth form? Like what does the sixth have to do with it?
Kelly Rigg (26:02.292)
don't know, I've never asked that question, I'll have to look that up. I know that it's essentially, it's the same as, so interchangeably we kind of call it sixth form college or just college, so children are expected to now go on to do some form of further education after GCSE until the age of 18, they should stay in full -time education, so a lot of people don't realise this hasn't, I don't think this has been fully written into law yet, so...
Ashley Vanerio (26:05.939)
Ha ha ha!
Ashley Vanerio (26:15.046)
Okay.
Kelly Rigg (26:30.036)
Children don't literally have to. They can, I think, go and get paid employment at this point, but I think they have to be doing some sort of further education qualification or something. But from the age of 14, and this includes home -educated children as well, they can actually access college courses. So you can actually move to being full -time educated. There is funding for that to be...
Ashley Vanerio (26:41.844)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (26:51.124)
Okay.
Kelly Rigg (26:57.268)
literally given your full GCSE access and everything in college from the age of 14. So say for example a child isn't getting on great in a secondary school environment, something's not been going great for them or whatever, a parent could pull them and they could put them into a local college instead. So what I find is really frustrating is actually when I was 14 I literally didn't realise, like there were children who then in year 10 -11
so just before I did my GCSEs, I then realised we're leaving school and going and doing courses at a local college during the week, but I'd honestly never had it suggested to me, I never had anybody mention it and there was obviously like, goodness knows how many thousands of little colleges, like NVQs and other kind of qualifications I could have.
like if I'd been interested in them and I was very interested in like animal management and wildlife conservation and anything to do with that, that potentially that could have been a great app week for me. It could have given me some practical hands -on experience, shake things up a little bit more self -directed learning. But actually I didn't realise. I was on an academic pathway. I was doing pretty well academically, so they just didn't mention it to me. So it was something which I just carried on and just did school like you kind of expected to do.
Ashley Vanerio (27:42.677)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (27:49.781)
Hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (27:53.653)
Sure.
Ashley Vanerio (28:11.572)
Mm -mm.
Kelly Rigg (28:12.628)
And so I think there's an awful lot of option out there that we don't actually realise is an option. And another thing that's frustrating me about school these days, when I was reaching the point of doing my GCSEs, so I'm 34, so it wasn't a huge amount of time ago, like I would have been doing them about, what is that, 18 years ago? 19 years ago I was doing my...
GCSEs, so it's not a ridiculous amount of time, but back then you would have had to do your course subjects. So I think did 10 GCSEs in total and you would have gotten to choose four of them. So you would have been able to pick from subjects that were being offered to you and you'd have gotten four options. Now it's two. And I find myself thinking sometimes like that is a horrendously small amount of self -interest based...
Ashley Vanerio (28:54.742)
Mmm.
Kelly Rigg (29:03.412)
And also, it's not going to be anything crazy, like anything really completely independent learning -wise. That's not you being able to say, do you know what, I've got two hours a week that I'm allowed to put wherever I want. That is into, I don't know, like a language, or it could be into doing kind of religious studies or psychology maybe or whatever, right? So it's actually got, you've got very small windows, little things that you can then expand your horizons a little bit.
But I think we kind of expect that young people are going to finish school with an idea of who they are and what they want to do next and where they want to go with their lives. And they're being put under pressure at this point, like, in terms of how we feel as teenagers as well, school can feel quite infantilizing. It can feel quite...
Like you can't contribute to society yet, you can't offer any value. You're just expected to just go to school, get your grades and just behave yourself. And literally it's just like, just stay outside, get on with your job and like, you can come and join society later, like in your place. And I think that this creates an actual problem for teenagers because if you think...
Ashley Vanerio (30:06.262)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (30:15.158)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (30:18.9)
They're very physically capable. I mean, my seven year old is very physically capable, let alone what he must be like when he's 12. I mean, I can't even wait to see how grown up he'll be at that point. I mean, this kid's got incredible skills already that I suspect that he will want to be making stuff, doing stuff, going out and maybe like doing a part -time business or doing something that's actually going to make him some money. Like he's already getting that.
desire to contribute and to earn money and to be part of society at the age of seven. Like I can't even imagine how frustrating it must be by the time you're fully capable. And in a lot of cultures, like people come of age at the age of 12, 13. But I appreciate we obviously we're trying to prevent child labour and I'm not saying that more for children being able to opt out of school at the age of 12. Like I do appreciate that he's too young.
Ashley Vanerio (30:48.919)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (30:58.264)
Right.
Kelly Rigg (31:10.292)
I also do think that to some degree, by the age of 12, they should be being given more freedom. They should be being given more opportunity to direct their learning and to decide where it goes next. And certainly by the time they're 14.
Ashley Vanerio (31:17.784)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (31:26.228)
I would be expecting for your average child obviously notwithstanding obviously special educational needs and children who have got developmental delays etc who might need some more support with these sorts of decisions but your average child probably at the age of 14
could start to make some sensible decisions about what subjects or things they might want to go and learn about and start to actually direct their next steps. And the problem is if we ask them to sit tight and just learn whatever they're told to learn by adults in a hierarchical structure where they don't feel like they're able to deviate from it, or even offer suggestions, even offer things that they want to do, then actually...
Ashley Vanerio (31:47.864)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (32:06.612)
they would just leave school at 18 now, 18 years old, when they're considered a fully fledged adult, where they're supposed to be able to go out, get a job, drive a car, get married, even have kids at this age. And they've never had to be responsible for themselves, for anything in society at all at this point, if they don't want to have been. Like they can literally have just been in school. And this, I think, is stopping them from having an opportunity to flex those muscles.
Ashley Vanerio (32:30.167)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (32:36.375)
Well, it's interesting because it sounds like, so the 14, 15, 14, 20, 15, 15, 20, 16 for us, that's, that's yours ninth grade and 10th grade, which is the first two years of high school. High school is four years you graduate at 18. So in our high school experience, not to be wrong, there are a couple options which I can talk about later, but generally it's a very kind of generic education, well encompassing.
and not very specific, but you do have a lot of flexibility in terms of the classes that you choose to take. Obviously there are some requirements in there, but that said, it sounds like what you're saying is that for those two years, you are studying specific things of which you only have a choice of two, and those are the classes that you're studying to then take those GCSEs when you're like 16.
Kelly Rigg (33:32.148)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (33:35.575)
Okay, and then once you take...
Kelly Rigg (33:36.436)
And if you don't do well in those GCSEs, then you will then struggle to get into whatever college courses or universities and stuff you wanted to do next. So you know you're under supreme pressure to do well at those standardised subjects that everybody has told you you must be good at, that you feel a ridiculous amount of pressure to make sure that you get good grades on those exams to be able to allow you to progress.
Ashley Vanerio (33:46.551)
Mm -hmm. Great.
Ashley Vanerio (34:02.103)
Well, because it's interesting because it sounds like maybe then, while exactly like we're saying a little bit more independence would be nice, the ability to kind of choose the path where you're interested in. But it's also almost like they're being told you better know what you want to do with the rest of your life because let's say you change your mind at 17. Well, now it's too late because you already committed with those two GCSEs. And now if you thought you wanted to be a psychologist, but you change your mind and now you want to.
you know, be a veterinarian, like that's a different, that might be a different path. Like you should have been doing different sciences or who knows. So, um,
Kelly Rigg (34:41.716)
would have had to prioritise certain subjects at that point, you would have had to choose the right A levels to do at that point, so changing at that point would delay your entry into university. You would have to potentially enroll for the next year to be in a different class group to be able to get the A levels that you need to be able to go on to do those higher education courses.
Ashley Vanerio (34:44.727)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (34:56.791)
Mmm.
Ashley Vanerio (35:02.263)
Cause that's a lot of pressure then to really be able to, I don't know many 14 year olds that are making those decisions about what GCC is they're doing that know what they want to do with the rest of their life. And actually stick to it, right?
Kelly Rigg (35:15.028)
Yeah, you need to help them really at that age to just be interested in stuff, right? Like you just expect them to have some interest or maybe you'd hope by that age that they'd have some things that they weren't interested in doing, but not necessarily know what they're doing. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (35:22.007)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (35:26.135)
And they want to explore more. Yeah. To see if it's a good fit, not knowing like, is this their bust? That's, and then, okay. So they take their GCSEs then depending on those, how that turns out, what, what marks they get on that, they then either go and apply with those to a college, which is where they would be like 16, turning 17, 17, turning 18, or they go to sixth form.
And is there like a reason you would choose one over the other, like a, like a college versus sixth form, or is there, are they the same?
Kelly Rigg (36:02.9)
My understanding, a sixth form college is typically attached to a school. So that would be you'd probably stay at your school that you're at already and you would do the academic subjects. So for example, I went on to do my sixth form and I did, gosh, now I just have a memory. I think it was biology, physics, English literature and philosophy, I believe. So that's what I chose to do at.
Ashley Vanerio (36:08.439)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (36:12.599)
Okay.
Kelly Rigg (36:29.876)
A level so that meant that I obviously was doing reasonably academic subjects almost like an extension of GCSE subjects whereas college tends to be more vocational and so you'll have those options as well like you'd be able to do those sorts of things but you'll do you'll have options to do I don't know as I say like animal welfare or
Ashley Vanerio (36:48.151)
Or if you wanted to be like a chef or something, would that be a college you'd go to? Okay.
Kelly Rigg (36:50.516)
Yes, or a best -in -the -shop, or you learn how to do a trade like plumbing or woodwork or whatever. And obviously probably millions of other things that I'm just not aware of because I didn't actually go that route myself. But yeah, you can access all kinds of different courses, get NVQs, childcare, hairdressing, like more vocational things typically. So I think what's quite frustrating when I was in that age group is I could recognize that it was almost considered...
Ashley Vanerio (36:54.743)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (37:00.951)
Of course.
Ashley Vanerio (37:08.567)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (37:19.604)
that children who were going that route were just not academic and are therefore not doing that great in school and so needed to go do something to learn with their hands. And it was quite derogatory. Like it was genuinely like that you are less than if you choose that route, which is just, oh, it makes me so angry now that I had that messaging around me at that age that...
Ashley Vanerio (37:27.223)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (37:38.711)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (37:42.263)
We have that same messaging.
Kelly Rigg (37:44.18)
with my hands and learning how to do a skill of some description would have made me less than somehow. Like it's just so insulting and so factually incorrect. I mean, the skill and the like expertise, like if you have like a plumber come into your house to fix something, my goodness, you're grateful that they took their hands and they went and learned a skill with it for crying out loud. Like, do we really think the entire world could be fixed by academia? Like, absolutely not. Like you need...
Ashley Vanerio (37:55.895)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (38:05.591)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (38:11.38)
You need all kinds of skills and people who are passionate about having all kinds of skills to make a whole community of human beings. Like we can't all do the same thing. And it should be encouraged and supported and championed that people are actually recognising that this is something they're interested in and want to do it. Like that's amazing. And so, yeah, I think from my perspective, like to kind of...
Ashley Vanerio (38:11.383)
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (38:19.351)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (38:26.327)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (38:37.46)
I just believe that, I mean, my experience of school, at the end of the day, I had a difficult time at home when I was a kid. And so I personally found school to be, I mean, I wouldn't, like, if I could go back to my childhood, I love my parents dearly, I wouldn't choose to be home educated in that environment. They were both working three jobs each and my sister was always having a hard time. And actually, I would not have had a supportive environment that way. Like, it would have been very, very difficult.
Ashley Vanerio (39:01.431)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (39:06.9)
for my parents to make it happen and for me to actually find joy in it, I suspect. Hopefully it wouldn't, obviously not that way, but if they were in the situation I'm in where we'd have enough money and I'm able to work part -time and be home with my kids, then absolutely I think it could have been very different. And I probably would have been open to it as an option to try. But school was a safe place for me and it is a safe haven for a lot of children. And so...
Ashley Vanerio (39:28.567)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (39:35.348)
This is not in any way, but everything I've said, I'm frustrated with the school system because I believe that it's got some fundamental issues that are failing our children and our teachers and actually therefore our society as a whole. I just believe that we deserve better and with the smartest minds supposedly, like when you take the irony.
Ashley Vanerio (39:50.711)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (39:58.42)
of the people who have come up with the ideology of school and who make decisions about schools are supposedly the best educated in the land, I am shocked at the decisions that are made and the way that it is handled. Like when you really want to put it that way, it really does make you wonder because those of us who are doing all the things and out there making the community actually run and doing all the jobs that are required to keep making it happen,
Ashley Vanerio (40:12.631)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (40:17.783)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (40:27.956)
are sitting here going, but it's like creating depression and anxiety in six year olds and it's torturing teachers out of their jobs. And it's like these buildings are falling down and the resources are running out and the curriculum isn't being updated often enough and what is going on? And so I kind of feel like I'm kind of making a bit of a cry really out into the world that we can't just keep saying the school system is broken. Like we have to push back.
Ashley Vanerio (40:35.415)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (40:57.14)
And I think that the sheer amount of people pulling out of the UK school system right now and home educating their children, it grows by about 50 % a year right now. And obviously in America, it's already hugely established. I think it was it was it 4 million or something? I can't remember how many it was. It was a crazy amount of people who were already home educating. But obviously in the UK, the government statistics are somewhere in the late kind of 80 ,000, 90 ,000, somewhere around that. But.
Ashley Vanerio (41:11.895)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (41:22.612)
as we don't have to officially register with the local authority, I suspect if you times that by four or five, you might get closer to the number. So that's a significant number of families who are doing it. And I mean, I bump into them regularly enough now when we're just out in the park or when we just go to the supermarket in the middle of the day or whatever, that honestly, I see enough of them around just by accident that you can tell that there's a decent amount of us out there doing it. So I think...
Ashley Vanerio (41:38.455)
Mm -hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (41:48.983)
Yeah, oh yeah.
Kelly Rigg (41:51.124)
that there is this kind of almost, what do you call it, like a revolt going on. There's an element of definite withdrawal that people are waking up and they're recognising that if they have the choice and they have an option to home educate their children, then they're often seeing it as a better choice. And obviously if they're not able to do so for whatever reason, then please know that this podcast,
Ashley Vanerio (41:56.766)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (42:19.54)
The work that I do in terms of raising awareness is never to to criticize a parent for utilizing the system, but is to fight for your children too, alongside my own. I may have pulled them from the system, but I am not backing off the government, this country, with its responsibility to ensure a good, wholesome education for all.
Ashley Vanerio (42:34.24)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (42:42.26)
you can see myself like really going for this at some point. Like people keep saying to me I should just be an MP myself, I'm not sure I could bring myself to do that but I certainly will not be giving up on that. I think it's super important. So yeah, I think that's my rant for the day over to some degree. Have you got anything else you wanted to add before I wrap up actually?
Ashley Vanerio (42:45.279)
Thank you.
Ashley Vanerio (42:50.431)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (42:58.048)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (43:04.032)
No, I think, I think we covered a lot and hopefully also just gave a good glimpse for those like me who don't know what the process is for schooling here under the age of 18. Um, cause it is, it is very different than the other countries I've lived in. So yeah, no, I think it was helpful and yeah, looking forward to more good conversations.
Kelly Rigg (43:29.364)
Yeah, well we'll do the next episode guys, we'll be on the US school system. We might touch on Italy a little bit as well, just for curiosity's sake. And essentially, we are going to be doing, I think, so we've got a couple more episodes. So we're gonna get to episode 12, so just gonna let you guys know what we're gonna be doing in the next few weeks. We're gonna get to episode 12 and then we are gonna have a season break through June, July.
just because both myself and Ashley are doing quite a lot of travelling about and things so we thought we'd give ourselves a breath and so we'll be back again in August so we've got a few more left to go so I think we've got until pretty much the end of May and then we'll be taking a break for a little while so just to let you guys know that's coming so we don't just disappear and you wonder what's happening. As always I am Kelly so my handle on TikTok is banish .home .ed .burnout.
and on Instagram is at Offroading Motherhood. Ashley is at homeschool .in .progress on Instagram. So do come and follow us. As I say, always please do come and drop us your comments, give us your thoughts. We'd love to know if these resonate, if you have got any feelings off the back of them, if there's any thoughts you want to add, be kind. We appreciate some of these things are quite triggering and quite thought provoking. So we do appreciate that it's not gonna be for everyone. But...
Ashley Vanerio (44:38.977)
I'm sorry.
Kelly Rigg (44:46.548)
Hopefully you'll understand that we're actually just trying to really question the fundamentals behind these systems and try and actually move them forward into the actual future where we're actually at. So anyways guys, have a lovely week and we'll see you again next week. Bye.
Ashley Vanerio (44:58.145)
Hehehehe.
Ashley Vanerio (45:04.705)
Bye.
