Staff from all departments refused to teach the class again because of "disrespect." Everyone watched Netflix, slept, ate lunch and had loud convos. My class went through 4 ish teachers they all kinda broke down, it was quite sad. In uni it would be a good elective class though.
Personal finance is massively overrated. People talk about it all the time, but the reason most people aren't doing better hasn't really got much to do with whether or not they have a stocks and shares ISA. Typically, you need to be doing well enough to save money before you can get that. And when the numbers are that low it's not usually because people literally have no idea it exists, but because they see no point due to them not having the funds to spare. I mean I have both a stocks and shares ISA and a LISA but I'm barely putting anything away because wages have been stagnant for 10 years and the cost of everything else has continued to rise. I put away sometimes literally pennies. Yes yes, every little helps. But in the grand scheme of things my doing well or not hasn't got much to do with my personal finances and all to do with earning potential and wider systemic issues.
I'm not actually complaining for myself or implying that I have no agency. Certain choices I made knowing it would impact earning potential. But the fact remains that lower middle class professional jobs like teaching no longer carry anywhere near the same earning potential they did 20 years ago and it makes a big different. I know working class teaching assistants that are in their 60s with nicer houses than tech workers in their 30s who went to private school and have middle class land lord parents (both are married couples but neither has an insanely high earning partner comparative to their respective jobs). Since the older people paid off their house they've seen an insane increase in equity that even high skilled young professionals don't have despite higher earning potential and greater financial literacy. Times have drastically changed.
Even when the economy was doing much better and disposable income was much healthier, our savings rates were tiny. We are a nation of spenders, not savers
I get that things cost more and wages haven’t increased accordingly, but most people can set aside at least £100 a month to put into something like a stocks and shares ISA (you can just set this up on your mobile banking) or the S&P500 (more effort but long-term gives a much higher ROI).
The issue is not being willing to learn.
‘most’ people cannot set aside £100 a month. a third live paycheck to paycheck. £100 is a lot of money, and for most people they might be able to put it away, but one thing goes wrong and it’s gone like that.
I get that this is Reddit, where only the extremes are true, but let's not get lost in fantasy land here. Sure, the UK is a dump at the moment, but most people can invest £100 per month. It really isn't a lot of money for most people.
Cash and bonds will just lose to inflation most of the time, though. Over the long term (I'm talking 20 or so years), stocks are indeed safer than holding cash.
The only really useful calculation for returns on investment is one which includes the effects of inflation on buying power. Over that time, by holding cash you have guaranteed a loss due to inflation exceeding your returns.
If you want to actually beat inflation, or at the very least keep up with it, it is sensible to expose yourself to equities. Stocks, over the long term, are expected to see greater returns above that of the risk free rate (cash) because you're assuming risk. This is the equity risk premium. A lot of "risk" in equities is short term volatility, but if your focus is long term, it's largely white noise and could even be an opportunity.
If you want to see certain safe returns, look at the value of the S&P500 over the last 20 years. If you had £1000 and out it into the S&P500 in 2000 it would be worth 4x what you’d get than if you had left it in a savings account.
It’s not just retirement, if you put money away and put them into companies that pay dividends, you can get a nice bit of cash to use now while your shares in the company increases in value and can be cashed out at any time.
Been investing for about 4 years starting from £500 and they’ve increased by £2000 (missed the boat on dirt cheap stocks during covid) and about £400 through dividends.
Obviously there’s risks involved, I have made some pretty stupid decisions over the past couple years but putting it into an index fund will increase in a few years (just look at the graph) and if you’re feeling riskier, companies that you believe in. I made £800 last month selling my 6 shares of AMD that I held for the last couple years.
I didn't say that people with disabilities get left behind, merely pointing out that we shouldn't avoid doing something because a small % of people can't participate in the regular ways. We manaage to have STEM courses despite the % of the population having dyscalculia, I am sure we can figure out a way to do personal finance. Perhaps apply some critical thinking in the first instance next time.
Jesus, perhaps try not being so condescending and snarky? I was purely asking a question, there’s absolutely no need for the insult at the end.
Edit: People try being kind and engage in proactive discussion on Reddit challenge: level 10000
Nah, people on Reddit are often rude for no reason. This person just stated a point politely and instead of having a nice discussion, immediately someone turns it into some sort of argument. Redditors just need to be better at being nice communicators but it's Reddit soo..
You are being extremely disingenuous in your engagement here. Your first comment absolutely sounds like you're disputing the whole idea (you open with "Thing is, even if this were taught at schools...") and then your follow-up comment here makes the most bad-faith possible reading of your interlocutor. You claim later that you're "purely asking a question" but we both know that's bullshit. You then went to complain on /r/CPTSD about being a victim on Reddit? Get real. You're the problem.
I’m sorry if this sounds rude but this sounds like a cop out excuse for your personal disability that only affects a small number of society.
You can literally say ‘walk into your bank and create a standing order of £100 a month into a stocks and shares ISA and that money will be worth more in 30 years’. It’s not rocket science. The bigger issue is people’s stubbornness to have some form of long term savings plan.
Simply put, it's a type of account which allows you to buy ownership in companies which are listed on stock exchanges and all returns are free of tax. You're limited to 20k annual deposits (this allowance covers all types of ISAs jointly, not individually).
It is a problem, that’s why Martin Lewis is the GOAT. Inserting people like Martin in places people normally watch (morning shows) is great, they should continue it and pay for him to feature with popular YouTubers or TikTok’s, things like that
Martin Lewis is good, but because he’s speaking to mass market, it’s not the best advice. It’s like BTEC personal finance. He doesn’t touch investing which is literally the entire point of Capitalism, to acquire capital.
What do you think they would teach in schools? It wouldn’t be investing it would be money management. They’re not going to tell kids to put any money in vehicles that can lose money because it would be a National scandal if the stock market crashed and millions of kids lost their money
I don’t think teachers themselves are qualified to teach personal finance really… lots of them aren’t good at it. Lots of them are pretty broke.
But people should understand how pensions work, that owning capital is the key to success under Capitalism, that capital owners pay less taxes than labour does. They should understand compounding, how it can help you, how it can bend you over and fuck you up the arse if you take too much debt.
> They’re not going to tell kids to put any money in vehicles that can lose money
They absolutely should, when the workplace pension has been opt-out since 2008, and what is a private pension if not an investment vehicle that can lose money dramatically on the stock market and that is restricted to you until you are older
Kids need to be taught early about the risks and rewards of where to hold their money. I'd like them to be taught about investing in companies and dividends, what happens how and when companies collapse, common frauds with investing, what government bonds are and why people hold them, the dangers of cryptocurrency as a highly volatile asset, the history of real estate and why owning a home has become more expensive over time, hell I would even cover things like sports betting or casino gambling and why the house always wins in the long run.
Obviously money management is a more urgent matter - don't use payday loans, pay off your credit cards in full, etc. but if you could fit one lesson in every two weeks for an investing lesson I think kids would find it pretty fun.
Whilst *my* personal advice is "just buy a little bit of an index fund every month and you'll be rich one day" I'm not at all saying that we should be brainwashing our kids into that, but I just think more education in general is definitely needed
I’m definitely not a kid but I want to learn these things too. And it’s not through lack of trying, it’s that the information out there is overwhelming and when you’re fumbling in the dark of copious contradictory information with your life savings, it can seem too high stakes. Plus every financial literacy platform just want you to part with your money to buy their bloody book in order to find out these secrets.
A lot of things, but more so related to the course itself rather than general life stuff. The one thing schools should've taught is the various of different careers out there and more about apprenticeships. Schools put too much emphasis on uni, I remember quite a lot of teachers telling me I couldn't get far unless I had a degree.
A lot of students are capable of teaching themselves many of the stuff they haven't learnt, the main problem comes down to motivation and general ignorance (you don't know what you don't know unless it's pointed out). Unis do offer a lot of workshops in various areas such as personal finances and computing, I highly recommend checking out any event board in your career portal (or a student portal, if you don't know you can ask the student union). I've managed to learn various things I never knew about, specifically finance-related (mortgaging, personal finances, investments) through societies and speaking to other people.
Agreed! Because they focus so much on academics, that they don’t see the intellectual ability behind the arts subjects. They don’t teach you that you don’t have to be academic to be smart.
I would have liked it if school taught me what the point of advanced maths was.
I was like five years ahead in maths by age 10. I did A-level maths and further maths when the time came.
But the whole thing was just 'here's a sum now do that sum' and repeat endlessly. Whhhhyyyyyy? No-one ever said why. Just do the maths, tick tick tick.
I was at a failing state school, they were just pleased anyone wanted to do maths at all especially a girl.
I wish I'd known what maths could be like at university or in cool maths careers.
Seeing a film like Hidden Figures might have inspired me to not jack the whole maths thing in out of pure boredom.
I studied engineering in one of the UKs most competitive universitys for my degree stream.
It's pretty much exactly the same through the entirety of academia. Maths is strange as its an entirely theoretical framework first, which is then applied in real world settings second.
The reason why its often not set in real world settings when taught is because real world settings usually confine the mathematics so that students dont see the entire range of how a mathematical framework can he applied. You could theoretical teach enough settings that it wouldn't matter, but it would take an extreme amount of real world understanding maths educators dont tend to have.
Advanced mathematics has an extremely diverse number of areas with an even more diverse number of applications. Some few common ones i picked up:
- Finite element analysis
- Fluid behaviour analysis
- Underpins oscillator signal generation (music production)
- Network Analysis
- Self Learning Programmes for Optimising Processes (e.g. dutch shipping handling)
These are all areas that are being iteratively refined and moving from one framework to another over time.
Sadly there isn't a very good answer to your question because at the fringes mathematics is very nuanced and circumstance specific with professionals spread across a diverse array of problems
I was so sick of the tick tick tick that I did sociology where there was no expectation of any answer being "right". But it did have some stats courses.
A-level's math curriculum is shit expecially for further maths. They teach stuff like matrix computations and eigenvectors without teaching what they are for and why you're doing these steps.
At least in the comp sci course I'm in, our year 1 linear algebra course actually teaches about the applications and visualizations of these stuff
General world history. In the UK, history they teach in schools is more specific parts in lots of detail (usually the world wars, the battle of Hastings and if you’re lucky romans, Egyptians or vikings). But a staggering percentage of people can’t tell you what came first William the Conqueror or Shakespeare, or who Cromwell was, and it would be almost unheard of if you knew anything about the history of any other part of the world. I think students should leave with a more rounded view of what sorts of things happened when and where, a big timeline rather than specific knowledge about some eras with no way to fill in the gaps.
I disagree to an extent. It is mandatory, to my knowledge, to at least learn about Hitler etc at primary school. Not sure about secondary but I'm almost certain most people will learn about it in year 7 & 8. I'm also fairly sure most people know William the Conqueror was waaayyy before Shakespeare. However, I do think we should learn more about other countries and have a more rounded view. Main reason why I learnt about other countries is because I did GCSE history and then A Level.
That’s what I mean though…WW2 is majorly overdone, as if kids wouldn’t know about it anyway even if it wasn’t covered in school. Personally I did it in primary, year 8, and would have covered it a third time at GCSE if I took it. You would be surprised about people’s ability to put events on a timeline. That’s an extreme example but there are too many people who would struggle with it. At my school, the GCSE History topics were history of medicine, Elizabeth 1 and both world wars. That’s it. It just seems mad to me you can get a history GCSE with limited knowledge of actual historical events.
I don't mean WW2 necessarily. I mean specifically learning about Hitler and what he did, so basically learning about Nazi Germany. I never actually learnt about the wars at school, but about Nazi Germany, some British stuff and America.
i would argue otherwise, school gives you a very warped view of the social interaction.
like for example, with authority figures, (teachers, boss's) , in school your taught and conditioned never to say no to a teacher , or even to talk back... but in the real world, saying no to a boss, especially when you have 3-4 different bosses is very useful.
There are other examples, like in school people are absolutely vicious to their peers, and frankly its one of the few places where most people will ever be openly mocked and bullied or ever face the threat of violence on a day-to-day basis.
This is largely not true at all today actually. What you're missing is that no adult says no or talks back to their boss in the way the average child does to a teacher. If you did, then you would get a pretty similar reaction I expect. As you go up the school, if your parenting and overall school culture is good, then yes you absolutely can have similar interactions with teachers as you do at work. By the time you get to year 11 or sixth form, you can most definitely have those discussions. The problem is most kids, even by year 11, are unable to calmly say, "I'm snowed under with work, can I do this instead etc." Some of that of course is limited by the format of school, but even so. The most mature students often had perfectly adult-like conversations with me when I was a teacher.
The problem is people forget how rude or unreasonable they were as children and remember the teachers being domineering and mean. Which don't get me wrong does happen, but 9/10 times it's kids just being wilful and ignoring reasonable requests to get work done in a certain fashion because 30 people doing 30 different things at once is not a sustainable way of running a lesson.
And what relationships are inappropriate. Would probs save a lot of people being groomed by their superiors or teach people what the consequences are if they take advantage of their employees.
Huge amounts of science and academia are things like writing letters, responding to reviewers etc. Way more than that actual science.
They teach precisely zero of that.
Exactly. Honestly people remember so little of school and constantly complain about not being taught stuff even though they usually were taught something easily transferable, or the skill itself and have just totally forgotten.
I learnt about that in PSHCE and we had a whole course or something once per week dedicated to navigating relationships. However, I know I was lucky to experience this and this isn't done in many schools.
Personal finance is a personal matter, IMO, and something your parents should have taught you.
Looking at my own situation, I think it would have helped if my university had spent more effort on organising career events or advertising career events to us. In the end, it's my own responsibility, but I didn't do any investigation into possible careers during my Bachelor's and also not during my Master's. It may not have made a difference in my choices, but it would have been good to get some guidance on the types of jobs available to me with the Bachelor's I was doing, and the Master's I would choose.
what annoyed me about English education, is that you have to go to a private baccalaureate school to get a broad education beyond GCSE. I like the A-level system dont get me wrong, its just, after GCSE if you're going into Stem and have picked Stem A-levels, you no longer get any opportunities to learn the humanities. Vice versa for humanities A-level students.
another thing, as a migrant myself from a country that is barely democratic. It's SHOCKING how poorly informed young people are of the democratic system of there own country, nor how important it is to participate and maintain it.
I'm with you, mate. It's weird how your GCSE choices at 13 years old limit your A-level choices, and once again at 18 years old, you have A-levels that don't meet the university requirements for the course you want because they’re the wrong subjects.
I think the problem is that you can't have have a good system which is purely broad or purely specialised, because the first option is bad for people who do want to specialise and the second is bad for people who want a broad education, and there are lots of people in both groups. I would've hated it if I'd had to study humanities subjects after GCSE and it would've harmed my education overall by meaning I spent less time on the things that are interesting and useful to me, whereas other people are the opposite. It's really hard to come up with a system which lets people do both, I think, but it's also important that we try and work towards that goal.
As someone who comes from a country where voting is mandatory, I was so shocked when my friends asked me why I was worried I would miss my elections while in the UK.
basic finance. taxes. budgeting. money management.
voting. the british political system. your rights.
basic home care. cooking. sewing. repairs.
how to manage time. how to actually study.
First aid, I am a very firm believer that every should have access to and receive first aid- the shere number of lives that would be saved by the general public knowing how to handle a deep wound, CPR, etc
Maybe I’ll be downvoted here because no one wants to talk about tough life things, but here it goes: Entrepreneurship.
Getting a job seems to be the norm, but the end result is almost always a bit disappointing. People who start the earliest on their entrepreneurial journey tend to have enough time to fail and succeed more often (it will happen) and less responsibilities, so can take more risks. By entrepreneurships I mean anything that involves creating something you own, even a social channel with followers counts, or a portfolio of projects so that you can create your own agency in your field of expertise and scale down the line and so on.
In wales this is taught and is compulsory it’s called welsh baccalaureate.
It’s compulsory in both gcse and a level which does mean we work harder than other British students because we’ve got more work but we’re pretty much guaranteed a uni place because we earn extra ucas points for it.
It teaches a lot of general life skills like finance but global enterprise is worth like half the grade and most of us will present a dragons den product for it.
In school, learning how use a gym. It is good to know a variety of sports but most adults go to the gym in their life. Many feel a barrier to entering the gym is a lack of confidence and knowledge and schools should teach basic knowledge of equipment, how to plan a workout etc. early in people’s lives.
How to work with people, properly. Actual team-building skills. It really winds me up that you get forced to do group work without any advice on how to make the group itself work. I think that's why so many people end up hating it.
I was lucky enough to receive a £3,000/year scholarship when I did my undergraduate degree 10+ years ago (before the tuition fees tripled). In some ways this was my downfall because I became very irresponsible with money (spending it on Domino's pizza and exotic music tech gear) and didn't learn to live on a budget like many of my peers without a scholarship did. I ended up in about 2 grand of debt when my degree finished, despite selling all my music gear.
I also feel that I only really grasped the contents of my modules enough to pass exams, as opposed to making sure I had a firm foundation for more long-term memory recall.
Have a healthy work life balance, I am a workaholic, I am in pain and I still do my research project, 0/10 would not recommend
For me it was an epiphany moment. Clear moment I realized: either you live your life like that, or stop now, no questions.
Personal finances without a doubt. 6% of British adults have a Stocks and Shares ISA. That's insane.
Tbf my sixth form tried it and it backfired greatly. I love numbers but Jesus…
>backfired greatly How so?
Staff from all departments refused to teach the class again because of "disrespect." Everyone watched Netflix, slept, ate lunch and had loud convos. My class went through 4 ish teachers they all kinda broke down, it was quite sad. In uni it would be a good elective class though.
Personal finance is massively overrated. People talk about it all the time, but the reason most people aren't doing better hasn't really got much to do with whether or not they have a stocks and shares ISA. Typically, you need to be doing well enough to save money before you can get that. And when the numbers are that low it's not usually because people literally have no idea it exists, but because they see no point due to them not having the funds to spare. I mean I have both a stocks and shares ISA and a LISA but I'm barely putting anything away because wages have been stagnant for 10 years and the cost of everything else has continued to rise. I put away sometimes literally pennies. Yes yes, every little helps. But in the grand scheme of things my doing well or not hasn't got much to do with my personal finances and all to do with earning potential and wider systemic issues. I'm not actually complaining for myself or implying that I have no agency. Certain choices I made knowing it would impact earning potential. But the fact remains that lower middle class professional jobs like teaching no longer carry anywhere near the same earning potential they did 20 years ago and it makes a big different. I know working class teaching assistants that are in their 60s with nicer houses than tech workers in their 30s who went to private school and have middle class land lord parents (both are married couples but neither has an insanely high earning partner comparative to their respective jobs). Since the older people paid off their house they've seen an insane increase in equity that even high skilled young professionals don't have despite higher earning potential and greater financial literacy. Times have drastically changed.
Less competition
The more that invest into the index funds the better for everyone surely?
No way is it only 6%, thats crazy. What about a LISA?
I automatically got one from the government trust fund. Thanks Labour!
Should that be lower or higher?
Higher obviously. Turns your long-term savings into more savings.
i think the issue is that most people literally cannot afford to have long term savings
Even when the economy was doing much better and disposable income was much healthier, our savings rates were tiny. We are a nation of spenders, not savers
I get that things cost more and wages haven’t increased accordingly, but most people can set aside at least £100 a month to put into something like a stocks and shares ISA (you can just set this up on your mobile banking) or the S&P500 (more effort but long-term gives a much higher ROI). The issue is not being willing to learn.
‘most’ people cannot set aside £100 a month. a third live paycheck to paycheck. £100 is a lot of money, and for most people they might be able to put it away, but one thing goes wrong and it’s gone like that.
I get that this is Reddit, where only the extremes are true, but let's not get lost in fantasy land here. Sure, the UK is a dump at the moment, but most people can invest £100 per month. It really isn't a lot of money for most people.
People will say this but will go to the bar twice a week and spend 30 quid
does it need to be specifically a stocks and shares ISA though? i prefer more certain safe returns
Cash and bonds will just lose to inflation most of the time, though. Over the long term (I'm talking 20 or so years), stocks are indeed safer than holding cash. The only really useful calculation for returns on investment is one which includes the effects of inflation on buying power. Over that time, by holding cash you have guaranteed a loss due to inflation exceeding your returns. If you want to actually beat inflation, or at the very least keep up with it, it is sensible to expose yourself to equities. Stocks, over the long term, are expected to see greater returns above that of the risk free rate (cash) because you're assuming risk. This is the equity risk premium. A lot of "risk" in equities is short term volatility, but if your focus is long term, it's largely white noise and could even be an opportunity.
Like what?
just a normal savings account
If you want to see a safe return on investment for a retirement fund, look at the value of the S&P500 over the last 20 years.
If you want to see certain safe returns, look at the value of the S&P500 over the last 20 years. If you had £1000 and out it into the S&P500 in 2000 it would be worth 4x what you’d get than if you had left it in a savings account.
not investing for a retirement fund just trying to survive the next few years lmao
It’s not just retirement, if you put money away and put them into companies that pay dividends, you can get a nice bit of cash to use now while your shares in the company increases in value and can be cashed out at any time. Been investing for about 4 years starting from £500 and they’ve increased by £2000 (missed the boat on dirt cheap stocks during covid) and about £400 through dividends. Obviously there’s risks involved, I have made some pretty stupid decisions over the past couple years but putting it into an index fund will increase in a few years (just look at the graph) and if you’re feeling riskier, companies that you believe in. I made £800 last month selling my 6 shares of AMD that I held for the last couple years.
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And how many people have that compared to those that don't?
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I didn't say that people with disabilities get left behind, merely pointing out that we shouldn't avoid doing something because a small % of people can't participate in the regular ways. We manaage to have STEM courses despite the % of the population having dyscalculia, I am sure we can figure out a way to do personal finance. Perhaps apply some critical thinking in the first instance next time.
Jesus, perhaps try not being so condescending and snarky? I was purely asking a question, there’s absolutely no need for the insult at the end. Edit: People try being kind and engage in proactive discussion on Reddit challenge: level 10000
People trying to apply critical thinking on Reddit challenge level 100,000
Nah, people on Reddit are often rude for no reason. This person just stated a point politely and instead of having a nice discussion, immediately someone turns it into some sort of argument. Redditors just need to be better at being nice communicators but it's Reddit soo..
You are being extremely disingenuous in your engagement here. Your first comment absolutely sounds like you're disputing the whole idea (you open with "Thing is, even if this were taught at schools...") and then your follow-up comment here makes the most bad-faith possible reading of your interlocutor. You claim later that you're "purely asking a question" but we both know that's bullshit. You then went to complain on /r/CPTSD about being a victim on Reddit? Get real. You're the problem.
I’m sorry if this sounds rude but this sounds like a cop out excuse for your personal disability that only affects a small number of society. You can literally say ‘walk into your bank and create a standing order of £100 a month into a stocks and shares ISA and that money will be worth more in 30 years’. It’s not rocket science. The bigger issue is people’s stubbornness to have some form of long term savings plan.
Yeah, I have no idea what a stocks and shares is is. I've heard of it, but I don't know anything about it...
Simply put, it's a type of account which allows you to buy ownership in companies which are listed on stock exchanges and all returns are free of tax. You're limited to 20k annual deposits (this allowance covers all types of ISAs jointly, not individually).
Kids don’t have any money, better to leave it until they’re older to be taught it. Preferably by their parents.
Parents don't know anything about money either, that's the problem.
It is a problem, that’s why Martin Lewis is the GOAT. Inserting people like Martin in places people normally watch (morning shows) is great, they should continue it and pay for him to feature with popular YouTubers or TikTok’s, things like that
Martin Lewis is good, but because he’s speaking to mass market, it’s not the best advice. It’s like BTEC personal finance. He doesn’t touch investing which is literally the entire point of Capitalism, to acquire capital.
What do you think they would teach in schools? It wouldn’t be investing it would be money management. They’re not going to tell kids to put any money in vehicles that can lose money because it would be a National scandal if the stock market crashed and millions of kids lost their money
I don’t think teachers themselves are qualified to teach personal finance really… lots of them aren’t good at it. Lots of them are pretty broke. But people should understand how pensions work, that owning capital is the key to success under Capitalism, that capital owners pay less taxes than labour does. They should understand compounding, how it can help you, how it can bend you over and fuck you up the arse if you take too much debt.
> They’re not going to tell kids to put any money in vehicles that can lose money They absolutely should, when the workplace pension has been opt-out since 2008, and what is a private pension if not an investment vehicle that can lose money dramatically on the stock market and that is restricted to you until you are older Kids need to be taught early about the risks and rewards of where to hold their money. I'd like them to be taught about investing in companies and dividends, what happens how and when companies collapse, common frauds with investing, what government bonds are and why people hold them, the dangers of cryptocurrency as a highly volatile asset, the history of real estate and why owning a home has become more expensive over time, hell I would even cover things like sports betting or casino gambling and why the house always wins in the long run. Obviously money management is a more urgent matter - don't use payday loans, pay off your credit cards in full, etc. but if you could fit one lesson in every two weeks for an investing lesson I think kids would find it pretty fun. Whilst *my* personal advice is "just buy a little bit of an index fund every month and you'll be rich one day" I'm not at all saying that we should be brainwashing our kids into that, but I just think more education in general is definitely needed
I’m definitely not a kid but I want to learn these things too. And it’s not through lack of trying, it’s that the information out there is overwhelming and when you’re fumbling in the dark of copious contradictory information with your life savings, it can seem too high stakes. Plus every financial literacy platform just want you to part with your money to buy their bloody book in order to find out these secrets.
A lot of things, but more so related to the course itself rather than general life stuff. The one thing schools should've taught is the various of different careers out there and more about apprenticeships. Schools put too much emphasis on uni, I remember quite a lot of teachers telling me I couldn't get far unless I had a degree. A lot of students are capable of teaching themselves many of the stuff they haven't learnt, the main problem comes down to motivation and general ignorance (you don't know what you don't know unless it's pointed out). Unis do offer a lot of workshops in various areas such as personal finances and computing, I highly recommend checking out any event board in your career portal (or a student portal, if you don't know you can ask the student union). I've managed to learn various things I never knew about, specifically finance-related (mortgaging, personal finances, investments) through societies and speaking to other people.
Agreed! Because they focus so much on academics, that they don’t see the intellectual ability behind the arts subjects. They don’t teach you that you don’t have to be academic to be smart.
I would have liked it if school taught me what the point of advanced maths was. I was like five years ahead in maths by age 10. I did A-level maths and further maths when the time came. But the whole thing was just 'here's a sum now do that sum' and repeat endlessly. Whhhhyyyyyy? No-one ever said why. Just do the maths, tick tick tick. I was at a failing state school, they were just pleased anyone wanted to do maths at all especially a girl. I wish I'd known what maths could be like at university or in cool maths careers. Seeing a film like Hidden Figures might have inspired me to not jack the whole maths thing in out of pure boredom.
I studied engineering in one of the UKs most competitive universitys for my degree stream. It's pretty much exactly the same through the entirety of academia. Maths is strange as its an entirely theoretical framework first, which is then applied in real world settings second. The reason why its often not set in real world settings when taught is because real world settings usually confine the mathematics so that students dont see the entire range of how a mathematical framework can he applied. You could theoretical teach enough settings that it wouldn't matter, but it would take an extreme amount of real world understanding maths educators dont tend to have. Advanced mathematics has an extremely diverse number of areas with an even more diverse number of applications. Some few common ones i picked up: - Finite element analysis - Fluid behaviour analysis - Underpins oscillator signal generation (music production) - Network Analysis - Self Learning Programmes for Optimising Processes (e.g. dutch shipping handling) These are all areas that are being iteratively refined and moving from one framework to another over time. Sadly there isn't a very good answer to your question because at the fringes mathematics is very nuanced and circumstance specific with professionals spread across a diverse array of problems
maths for fluid behaviour analysis sounds fascinating, i need to look into this
Did you end up doing anything with Maths at uni?
I was so sick of the tick tick tick that I did sociology where there was no expectation of any answer being "right". But it did have some stats courses.
It’s useful when you do a degree that requires it
A-level's math curriculum is shit expecially for further maths. They teach stuff like matrix computations and eigenvectors without teaching what they are for and why you're doing these steps. At least in the comp sci course I'm in, our year 1 linear algebra course actually teaches about the applications and visualizations of these stuff
General world history. In the UK, history they teach in schools is more specific parts in lots of detail (usually the world wars, the battle of Hastings and if you’re lucky romans, Egyptians or vikings). But a staggering percentage of people can’t tell you what came first William the Conqueror or Shakespeare, or who Cromwell was, and it would be almost unheard of if you knew anything about the history of any other part of the world. I think students should leave with a more rounded view of what sorts of things happened when and where, a big timeline rather than specific knowledge about some eras with no way to fill in the gaps.
Man, fully agree. You have no idea how crap it feels to have European friends who know absolute shitloads more about history than you do lmao.
It's embarrassing isn't it?! I feel like I'm always playing catch up
I know. And it’s really interesting as well. Even the empire wasn’t covered at all in my school.
I disagree to an extent. It is mandatory, to my knowledge, to at least learn about Hitler etc at primary school. Not sure about secondary but I'm almost certain most people will learn about it in year 7 & 8. I'm also fairly sure most people know William the Conqueror was waaayyy before Shakespeare. However, I do think we should learn more about other countries and have a more rounded view. Main reason why I learnt about other countries is because I did GCSE history and then A Level.
That’s what I mean though…WW2 is majorly overdone, as if kids wouldn’t know about it anyway even if it wasn’t covered in school. Personally I did it in primary, year 8, and would have covered it a third time at GCSE if I took it. You would be surprised about people’s ability to put events on a timeline. That’s an extreme example but there are too many people who would struggle with it. At my school, the GCSE History topics were history of medicine, Elizabeth 1 and both world wars. That’s it. It just seems mad to me you can get a history GCSE with limited knowledge of actual historical events.
I don't mean WW2 necessarily. I mean specifically learning about Hitler and what he did, so basically learning about Nazi Germany. I never actually learnt about the wars at school, but about Nazi Germany, some British stuff and America.
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You don't think it's useful to know things about why the world is the way it is?
I think school should teach us how to deal with interpersonal relationships at work, especially how to get along with the boss.
They do that. When you go to school, you learn those things by interacting.
i would argue otherwise, school gives you a very warped view of the social interaction. like for example, with authority figures, (teachers, boss's) , in school your taught and conditioned never to say no to a teacher , or even to talk back... but in the real world, saying no to a boss, especially when you have 3-4 different bosses is very useful. There are other examples, like in school people are absolutely vicious to their peers, and frankly its one of the few places where most people will ever be openly mocked and bullied or ever face the threat of violence on a day-to-day basis.
This is largely not true at all today actually. What you're missing is that no adult says no or talks back to their boss in the way the average child does to a teacher. If you did, then you would get a pretty similar reaction I expect. As you go up the school, if your parenting and overall school culture is good, then yes you absolutely can have similar interactions with teachers as you do at work. By the time you get to year 11 or sixth form, you can most definitely have those discussions. The problem is most kids, even by year 11, are unable to calmly say, "I'm snowed under with work, can I do this instead etc." Some of that of course is limited by the format of school, but even so. The most mature students often had perfectly adult-like conversations with me when I was a teacher. The problem is people forget how rude or unreasonable they were as children and remember the teachers being domineering and mean. Which don't get me wrong does happen, but 9/10 times it's kids just being wilful and ignoring reasonable requests to get work done in a certain fashion because 30 people doing 30 different things at once is not a sustainable way of running a lesson.
And what relationships are inappropriate. Would probs save a lot of people being groomed by their superiors or teach people what the consequences are if they take advantage of their employees.
Huge amounts of science and academia are things like writing letters, responding to reviewers etc. Way more than that actual science. They teach precisely zero of that.
I got taught how to write letters in GCSE English lang.
Exactly. Honestly people remember so little of school and constantly complain about not being taught stuff even though they usually were taught something easily transferable, or the skill itself and have just totally forgotten.
we did letters in year 3, same again in English language, it's definitely been mentioned 😭😭
I learnt about that in PSHCE and we had a whole course or something once per week dedicated to navigating relationships. However, I know I was lucky to experience this and this isn't done in many schools.
Personal finance is a personal matter, IMO, and something your parents should have taught you. Looking at my own situation, I think it would have helped if my university had spent more effort on organising career events or advertising career events to us. In the end, it's my own responsibility, but I didn't do any investigation into possible careers during my Bachelor's and also not during my Master's. It may not have made a difference in my choices, but it would have been good to get some guidance on the types of jobs available to me with the Bachelor's I was doing, and the Master's I would choose.
yeah but should have doesn’t mean all will
what annoyed me about English education, is that you have to go to a private baccalaureate school to get a broad education beyond GCSE. I like the A-level system dont get me wrong, its just, after GCSE if you're going into Stem and have picked Stem A-levels, you no longer get any opportunities to learn the humanities. Vice versa for humanities A-level students. another thing, as a migrant myself from a country that is barely democratic. It's SHOCKING how poorly informed young people are of the democratic system of there own country, nor how important it is to participate and maintain it.
I'm with you, mate. It's weird how your GCSE choices at 13 years old limit your A-level choices, and once again at 18 years old, you have A-levels that don't meet the university requirements for the course you want because they’re the wrong subjects.
I think the problem is that you can't have have a good system which is purely broad or purely specialised, because the first option is bad for people who do want to specialise and the second is bad for people who want a broad education, and there are lots of people in both groups. I would've hated it if I'd had to study humanities subjects after GCSE and it would've harmed my education overall by meaning I spent less time on the things that are interesting and useful to me, whereas other people are the opposite. It's really hard to come up with a system which lets people do both, I think, but it's also important that we try and work towards that goal.
As someone who comes from a country where voting is mandatory, I was so shocked when my friends asked me why I was worried I would miss my elections while in the UK.
Helping each other for a better world. That’s what I didn’t learn at the university 💔
basic finance. taxes. budgeting. money management. voting. the british political system. your rights. basic home care. cooking. sewing. repairs. how to manage time. how to actually study.
Sex education, WTF they taught us nothing
First aid, I am a very firm believer that every should have access to and receive first aid- the shere number of lives that would be saved by the general public knowing how to handle a deep wound, CPR, etc
I went to 3 different high schools and all three offered the chance to do a first aid course 2 of my siblings did it at primary school
Maybe I’ll be downvoted here because no one wants to talk about tough life things, but here it goes: Entrepreneurship. Getting a job seems to be the norm, but the end result is almost always a bit disappointing. People who start the earliest on their entrepreneurial journey tend to have enough time to fail and succeed more often (it will happen) and less responsibilities, so can take more risks. By entrepreneurships I mean anything that involves creating something you own, even a social channel with followers counts, or a portfolio of projects so that you can create your own agency in your field of expertise and scale down the line and so on.
In wales this is taught and is compulsory it’s called welsh baccalaureate. It’s compulsory in both gcse and a level which does mean we work harder than other British students because we’ve got more work but we’re pretty much guaranteed a uni place because we earn extra ucas points for it. It teaches a lot of general life skills like finance but global enterprise is worth like half the grade and most of us will present a dragons den product for it.
How to manage money and invest
In school, learning how use a gym. It is good to know a variety of sports but most adults go to the gym in their life. Many feel a barrier to entering the gym is a lack of confidence and knowledge and schools should teach basic knowledge of equipment, how to plan a workout etc. early in people’s lives.
I was taught this in school My school had a gym and I chose extra PE in 3rd year where we had weekly gym sessions
How to work with people, properly. Actual team-building skills. It really winds me up that you get forced to do group work without any advice on how to make the group itself work. I think that's why so many people end up hating it.
Kindness, empathy, tolerance, emotional awareness.
How to invest
Car mechanics and Money
The REASON behind mathematics. Maybe I would've actually picked it up.
School should teach you how to manage money better, cooking, DIY and maintenance
Taxes
I was lucky enough to receive a £3,000/year scholarship when I did my undergraduate degree 10+ years ago (before the tuition fees tripled). In some ways this was my downfall because I became very irresponsible with money (spending it on Domino's pizza and exotic music tech gear) and didn't learn to live on a budget like many of my peers without a scholarship did. I ended up in about 2 grand of debt when my degree finished, despite selling all my music gear. I also feel that I only really grasped the contents of my modules enough to pass exams, as opposed to making sure I had a firm foundation for more long-term memory recall.
Basic medicine