0:00 Intro
1:10 Meet Selena and Rupa
8:42 Using children’s interests to unlock learning
12:40 Teachers are handcuffed to the system
16:01 Does education prepare children for life?
20:23 The factory model, mental health and teenage sleep
24:13 What parents should look for in schools
26:14 Ofsted, paperwork and performative inspections
33:21 Early years, language and local culture
39:16 Oxytocin, childcare quality and staff retention
43:58 A healthier inspection system
47:47 Funding, early years and the cost of quality
51:19 Children’s mental health and the social media black hole
57:00 Why education starts from birth
1:02:08 Special needs, school readiness and early development
1:08:30 Parents, devices and emotional regulation
1:15:15 Redesigning education from scratch
1:20:54 Movement, music and bringing back childhood
1:40:20 AI, apprenticeships and future-ready learning
1:46:51 Wrap up

Intro

And in terms of in the curriculum, anything that you think should stay circle time even for our secondary school students cuz it’s oxytocin. It’s rapport. So why shouldn’t we have these conversations with our children? Why shouldn’t we audit the classroom? What are you interested in? What are you not interested in? Do you think the current education system actually prepares children properly for life? There needs to be a massive shift in the curriculum. But it’s not just the curriculum. It’s the schooling system that needs to change. We’re losing teachers in the droves. Teachers [music] want that mindset, but they’re handcuffed to the system. It’s no longer the case that oh, you you you do your A levels and then you go on to do a degree, then [music] you get a job, and then you get a job. It’s become far more serious because now we are losing children.

I’m telling you as someone who works with schools, [music] who works with parents, children are killing themselves, [music] the Education Lounge podcast. [music]

Meet Selena and Rupa

So, last month’s episode, which on the day of recording went live yesterday or the day before, I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet. Um, well, in true neurode divergent style, you said you were gonna send me the link. [laughter] I’m supposed to be neurotypical. Um, it went live yesterday. I will send you the link after this. Um, and the episode was one of our longer ones and even then we ran out of time. Yeah. So, we’re back again this month. Um, do you want to reintroduce yourself quickly? Yeah. And what you do? You’ve got your I’ve got my I’m branded up. So, my name is Selena. I am uh the founder of Neuro Inc. and that’s a CIC a community interest company that is a social enterprise essentially. It works for predominantly neurodyivergent individuals. Uh we’re trying to establish a cradletograve service.

So from the time moms and dads, parents, birthing circles recognize that their child they’re involved with is neurode divergent all the way through the school system if we can. And then I’ve got some good news. I am now officially partnered up with TLS, who’s the Thoric Lifestyle Solutions CIC. And in September, we will be starting ADHD Works, which is now to help ADHD individuals either start their own business or get into work and stay in work or find work. So, hold on. Yeah. So, we’re doing that now. And um yeah, so a cradle to grave service. So we try we’re going to try and build an organization that supports individuals all the way through but it’s changing a bit because now we are also being asked to be involved in the misogyny field which um I’m sure we’ll touch on if we come back on a later date but yeah so Selena Neuro Inc. I found a teacher for 27 years now. Showing my age.

And um I’m a mom of two, one autistic, one ADHDer, and uh I have two cats and a rabbit. We’ve not met We’ve had the children. We’ve not met a cat and the rabbit. No. [laughter] Um and speaking of starting businesses, hi, my name’s Ruper. Um I start I’ve started several businesses uh most of which are still running. um children’s nursery that we initially bought and then I rebranded and moved locations and re-registered and it’s a completely new enterprise. We doubled it in size. Had it for 25 years. Uh had a lot of challenges through those years, but it’s been a hell of a journey. Started Redbridge Tuition um as a hobby. I just wanted to to teach and I couldn’t finish my PGCE for personal reasons. Um I literally had the last placement to go and I I when I went back they said no you’ve taken too long. Uh you have to do the whole thing again. So I thought I’m not doing that. Um but I still wanted to teach.

And so a friend of my daughters, her mom said, “Oh, can you help her with her maths?” I thought, “Oh, okay. I’m quite good at this.” And then it just grew from there. And that was in I think with her it was in 2004. and then formed Redbridgeidge Tuition from my dining table with two boys that I started to tutor and they both wanted 11 plus um in 2007 and we’ve gone from strength to strength. Um, we did look at and in fact we were ready to franchise this just before the dreaded lockdowns and honestly during lockdown I just lost steam so the lads have basically taken over um and I’ve moved on to [laughter] surprise surprise another project another two projects property development and public speaking. Both of which are still in their infancy and not much has gone on with those two yet, but give me time. Would you consider yourself neurode divergent? I’m constantly being told I am.

I’ve never been tested, but I’m sure I’m on the spectrum somewhere. Very mild, but I think I am on the spectrum. Yeah, you seem to have a mus [laughter] as mild as you think it is sometimes. Okay. Not a bad thing though. But it’s a it’s a it’s a superpower. I tell all my kids it’s a superpower. Absolutely. It does. As with all super What does Spider-Man say? With great responsibility. I should know that. I’m a Marvel fan. Yeah. So am I. [laughter] Um I really like I really like Rupart. I think you did say that last time. I thought you Yeah, we thought you we thought you John behind the camera there. We thought that it’ll be a good conversation. They don’t know why you’re waving. They can’t see you. There are not many women older than me who are into Marvel. And even my age, they kind of look at me like, “Seriously, you’re 46. Like, get over it already.” They they My kids got fed up with me watching it. I never got into it.

How many times have you watched them games? Or are you into They have uh No, I prefer the the sort of uh where they started with Captain America. Yeah. that first one where the AI phase three phase three. Yeah. And where the AI wasn’t quite right where you know when they’ve gone back and you can see that it’s not quite but I loved it. Loved it. I loved everything from the iron the first Iron Man all the way through to Endgame. That for me is my that’s my focus. That’s my area of love. Yeah. After the phase seven everyone’s kind of saying they’ve lost it a little bit. Yeah, they have. Yeah. because I was there was no emotional connection. No. And I really don’t like what they did to the Scarlet Witch because I thought she was an awesome character and then they made her evil and then they killed her and I’m like, “No, I know.” Um, so yeah. So I agree. And then before that they were building. So that that from phase three on Yeah. Yeah.

It’s it’s it’s that buildup that I’ve really enjoyed. Yeah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched any games. Me too. Yeah. It’s my favorite. So the score system [laughter] But can I just say I’ve moved on [snorts] to detective stories. I not um and my current and it it’s it’s something quite new cuz I was never into it but Michael Connelly his books oh my is American. and it’s all based in Los Angeles. But the depth at which he writes, I absolutely love. And he’s written 25 books. So they did a series and sort of amalgamated the books on and it’s on Amazon. Uh and then on Netflix they’ve got the Lincoln lawyer and that’s him as well.

Using children’s interests to unlock learning

Oh wow. So I will tie this back to the schooling system in a second because this is but this is what this is my point. Okay, we can’t necessarily do it with maths or maybe we can you can but English and science why can’t we have conversations that are around Marvel if that’s what’s going to get them understanding abstract concepts? I I love Shakespeare but I’m one of the few I think you do. And do you know what? In my experience of teaching English, I re I say to all my students, by the time I’m done with you, you will love Shakespeare. Not because you’re it’s being forced down your neck because you have to do a GCSE on it. But it’s still relevant. But not only is it still relevant, but you will start to respect Shakespeare for the artist he was. Yes. Not because you have to learn about it, but because just like when you write a piece of work and your teacher doesn’t check it, what happens?

There’s a part of you that feels like, “Oh, well, I made bother.” Yeah. And so even though he’s long gone Shakespeare, but his legacy lives on through you guys. So the fact that you’re still um respecting his work and forget the fact that you’re studying for an exam, look at the themes. Where have you been betrayed, McBth? Where have you made decisions that you weren’t particularly proud of? McBTH Hamler can go on. Um, groups of friends much to do about nothing. Like it it and I so my favorite and all my kids they literally their jaw drops when I tell them this, but I said Romeo and Juliet is not a love story. No, it’s not. It’s a story of epic parenting fail. And they all go, “What?” I’m like, “It is.” Because all the adults in their lives, one gives them drugs, the other the other parents are so busy with their ego and arguing that they forget to look at what their children are getting up to.

And they were like, “Oh, but it’s it’s a good perspective.” Yeah. Um and I think it’s well, it’s different, but it’s also none of the themes have died. The universal themes that have carried on over the I mean, you talk about mental health and look look at Lady McBth and that’s actually a syndrome now, isn’t it? Lady McBth syndrome for people who feel so much guilt that they don’t stop washing. Yeah, that’s a natural clinical term now because of her. Cuz not I don’t not everyone knows about Lady McBth, but she she when she encourages her husband to kill King Duncan. Is it Duncan? King Duncan.

And then the guilt she starts to slowly go insane because the guilt of taking someone’s life especially someone who technically according to Shakes was divinely chosen selected that guilt uh creeps up on her and at one point she just can’t stop washing cuz she just constantly sees blood on her hands and then eventually she commits suicide um even though her husband doesn’t really care about it when it does happen but um yeah so that’s now actually used in the medical field as the lady McBth syndrome. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I didn’t know that. But you see, this is where his legacy, if we peel away the pressure and the oh god, it’s Shakespeare. If we actually reintroduce this guy wrote well, you know, and I always um I tell them that um the FBI and the CIA in America use poetry and Shakespeare as a means of training on how to decode because you have to decode Shakespeare. you have to decode it.

And if you’re really good at unpicking the themes in poetry and Shakespeare, that’s one of the parameters to being a good detective. Going back to Michael Connelly. Yeah. So, why shouldn’t we have these conversations with our children? You know, why shouldn’t we audit the classroom? What are you interested in? What are you not interested in?

Teachers are handcuffed to the system

They they it it’s very challenging because one most teachers don’t think like that. No, that’s true. Uh and two, they want the education system or they do have the education system which in my opinion is needs updating. It’s not fit for purpose. Not fit for purpose. I was going to say that and I thought no, let me hold. Oh, I’m really horrible. Oh, no. I I say this with the most love because I love I would say that I would actually say teachers want that mindset, but they’re handcuffed to the system. Absolutely. And I took a massive financial risk when I walked out of my job that was paying me. Now, it’s going to sound like a lot, but it was well above the average person because but I was working 70 to 80 hours a week. So when you spread what I was working by what I was earning, I was probably earning like a five an hour. But the point is is I was earning um I had no life but I was earning.

Now the problem is I think teachers want to Yeah. but a don’t know how don’t have the time to. But that’s where things now I know there’s ethics around whether people agree with AI or not but AI chat GBT I’m going to mention that even though there’s many like Claude and Doula and all of these other ones. Da I’ve never heard of that. Yeah my nephew introduced me to that. I didn’t get on with it, but it’s Yeah, it he he swears by it. And you know what? He’s got a million followers on YouTube, so he must be doing something right. But um anyway, so what I’ve done is is every time I do a creative piece of work with my kids, as a teacher, I’m very well aware that even with my 27 years of experience, I’m not going to catch every nuance. No, you won’t. And so I feed their work into Chat GPT and it gives me such a great breakdown. I’m like, and then the rest I do and then I know what to do next.

So, it just picks up on the grammatical patterns that I may miss over like three pieces of work. So, it speeds my teaching up because rather than faffing around with trying to figure this kid out, it figures it out for me. But the creativity and the love and the empathy and that comes from a human being. Yes. So, how many hours does that save you? Oh, billions, I would say. Like so when I’m teaching I literally feed it. It’s and it’s immediate as well. So the minute they’ve done a piece of work I read it I put it into chat GPT and chat GPT I have a file per child. So it knows each child well. Picks up and says Selena S you’ve got this kid and he’s got these patterns. Um here are my suggestions but off you go. And then sometimes the suggestions are great, sometimes they’re not so great because Jack GPT isn’t a teacher. No. And um it’s food for thought.

It’s food for thought, but it has helped me teach my neurode divergent children faster and more efficiently, but the rest is down to my personality and that rapport. Yeah. Without the connection, it doesn’t work. No, absolutely. And we we go we mentioned oxytocin last time, didn’t we? So I won’t go off on a tangent. I’ll I’ll hold fire for a bit.

Does education prepare children for life?

We’ve kind of touched on the bits of what you think needs to be changed in the schooling system. Um and we mentioned it last time as well. Um let’s start with from your perspective. You obviously know early years and you’ve you know started several businesses as we’ve spoken about. Do you think the current education system actually prepares children properly for life at the moment? Yes and no. I mostly know. Um, so again, I’ll go off on a tangent. So for a while, for example, um, children were not taught how to multiply. the schools went through a phase or or you know the curriculum went through a phase where the the the the idea was well you’ve got calculators that will do it for you. And my argument was always how do you know when you type in 2 * 2 that it’s four unless you know how it works um at at this basic level. Obviously, you drive a car, but you don’t know how it always works.

That’s a different thing cuz it’s a lot more complicated and a lot more nuanced. But with the base, with the foundations, I think it’s important that they understand. And that has stood me really well. So, if I’m working with numbers, which I do a lot, and spreadsheets, the managers are sick of me with and my spreadsheets, but it it’s a wonderful tool. I can I can see if there’s a pattern and I can look at a number and think that doesn’t look quite right without having done the calculation because I’ve got so many years of having done the calculations. So I think in terms of foundations, yes. But I think that in terms of where society is going, um, probably not. Cuz if you think about it, the first and second industrial revolutions is when really schooling started. Yeah. And it was to have people who could read and write to work in places like factories and offices. That’s right. That’s what it was set up for.

We’re now heading to the fourth or in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution, but the school system is still working. Yeah. We’re moving into second digital age now, aren’t we? Yeah. So, so I think that there needs to be a massive shift in the curriculum. Um, and I’ll be honest, I I’m my focus is now early years, so I don’t know what’s going on in primary and secondary anymore, which I did, which I used to, um, but I don’t really pay much attention to it now. And I think that it’s the perfect time to make some changes and actually move on. The number of I say the number of I know of several 20 year olds um who cannot even get apprenticeships. Yeah. And [snorts] and every industry is short staffed. I know in early years there’s a chronic shortage of trained staff but it’s very very difficult less so in early years but it’s very difficult to get apprenticeships in whatever it might be plumbing or engineering or that sort of thing.

So I think there’s there’s there’s a lot of room to move the curriculum in the direction it needs to go to because it’s no longer the case that oh you you you do your A levels and then you go on to do a degree then you get a job and then you get a job.

The factory model, mental health and teenage sleep

Well I think the the original setting up for the factories and stuff was more about routine and obedience and that sort of thing. Submission. Yeah. So, but if you think about how the school system set up, you know, in the factories, you’d have bells of originally, you’d have bells of when you’d get your break. You’d have bells for when the day finishes, you’d clock in and out. No different to a school system. No. And I mean, look, we we do need to when you’ve got 600 kids in one place, you do need some sort of semblance of order, otherwise it’d be completely cha chaotic. So I don’t I agree with you in the sense that but what what is in the sense that it needs to change but it’s not just the curriculum it’s the schooling system that needs to change. We’re losing teachers in the droves. And why is that? Because the system is not only not fit for purpose for the children because we’re seeing a massive mental health epidemic.

Self harming is through the roof. Suicidal ideiation is through the roof. I deal with hundreds of cases a week that I can’t get to. Um, and nearly every child I meet has some sort of scarring. That that’s like you go into a school and I would argue that 40% of the populace has scars from self harming. It’s that bad. Wow. I’ve um I deal with um situations where children are reporting planned rape. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that online, but probably not. Probably not. Might need to get that bleeped. But yeah, it’s um or planned, you know, sexual har forms of sexual harassment because there’s a massive issue. I know we’re dealing with the manosphere and cells and all of that in incels or whatever they’re called. and and it’s become a buzzword, but the they’re buzzwords for a reason. They’re buzzwords because this is what’s happening in our schools, especially more so in the inner cities.

But going back to but the science has to marry up with the with the way we educate our children. So melanin the the hormone for sleep we know in teenagers now because brilliant neuroscientists I’m a neuroscience researcher have discovered that it’s released in teenagers around 1:00 in the morning well if that is the case then it doesn’t it is not really going to imps have to go to work any anyway and I would say we’re actually putting more pressure on parents because they have to get the kids to school and to work in a short two-hour period between 7:00 in the morning and it was 8:30 now the start. Some schools start at 8:00. Um, so why not move the school day so it starts at 11:00. Giving parents more time to get to their Well, it’s not 9 to5 anymore. It’s more like 8 to 6. 8 to 6. Yes, there are parents who work on shift, nurses who work on shift, but by the teenage years predominantly they can get to school on their own. So why not?

I think only one school has managed to do it. Has shifted to a 10:00 start or an 11:00 start. Sweden, Norway. Uh, no, it’s one in this country. I should have done the research, but I’ve forgotten. Um, and what’s happened is the grades. The grades have gone up. It’s not rocket science. What time does it finish? So, it finishes much later. So, if it starts at 11, it may finish about 5 or 6. But if the grades have gone up by just that one shift that doesn’t require the you could still have the teachers in at 8 if you want, you know, cuz let’s face it, we’re not leaving the building anyway, but then they’ve got longer to prepare. Yeah.

What parents should look for in schools

I mean, I I have a very interesting idea. If I had my own school, I really would love my own school. And I’ve pitched it to a couple of people and they were like, “Oh my god, why is no one thinking of this? It’s actually the simplest form of teaching, but it will a retain staff. And I said to you last time when I speak to my parents and they’re always like, “Oh, we’re going off to secondary school, starting a new primary school. How can we tell?” I said, “Forget the Offstead banner for a second.” Well, I said, “Don’t don’t forget it, but don’t look for a school that has a one-off outstanding or two off outstanding labels. Look for a school that’s consistently good because consistently good is outstanding.” And I said, “The other thing you want to ask is what’s your staff go in when you see the head?

What’s your staff retention like?” And they won’t expect it, but if they’re constantly getting in supply teachers, if the children are constantly having to deal with staff that they have no rapport with, no ability to build oxytocin with, then there’s a problem with the senior management team. and that that and that will filter down to the quality of education your child will be receiving cuz supply teachers aren’t the schools that I know of. They’re not um expected to plan because you know it could be 7:00 in the morning, right? You need to be in the school in half an hour and they don’t know what the class is going to be like. They don’t know what the issues are in that class. And most of them deal with terrible behavior because there’s no rapport. Yeah, there’s no respect and the children will naturally want to see how far they can push the boundaries. Yeah.

So to get supply teachers in all the time and we we faced this at the nursery is, you know, when we’ve got staff shortages and we get supply in um and this is probably a gross generalization, but there supply for a reason. Yeah.

Ofsted, paperwork and performative inspections

I’m going to be honest and say I so when I left I left my very good job as head of science and I left because I was sick of not I was spending more time proving I was a good teacher than actually just being a good teacher. The paperwork was insane. The workload was insane. And I actually my class was an afterthought. It was the thing I did. Yeah. and around everything else that I had to do. So, I got so upset. There’s no posh word for it. I was just so upset that I was being taken away from the thing that I came into teaching for that I literally just walked into um I was telling the guys that it was I had an offstead the offstead inspector. I broke the rules. I went I was doing something to do with piracy. He walked in, saw that I was completely off curriculum in because I I was in a a school where you had a cohort of four classrooms. It’s quite a large private school.

So, technically, you’re supposed to march along together because you plan together as a year group. But my class was different. Their classes were different. So, I just thought, “No, excuse me. I’m going to Well done you. But I I that was a massive risk. That could have cost me my job.” And well it did in the end but not in the way that you know you thought it would have.

So he came in and we were doing piracy third prototype should have just all done one prototype but then there’s no learning in that no there’s no progression there’s no assessment there’s no research there’s no detailed insight into the materials we were using but I had done by that point piracy in mathematics piracy in on the seas piracy with music and films and so he came in and he spent way too much so I was panicky I was like why is this dude in my classroom for Lord and he after the lesson I thought oh that’s it cuz they had stopped grading teachers individually by that point that’s how long in the tooth I am gosh and he just said I’ve stayed behind don’t worry cuz he knows I know it’s really nerve-wracking he said I stayed in because I’ve not had this much fun in years were wellversed in everything experts I would say I learned from them and he said from the the the the lower attaining children to the highest attaining children.

He said, “I’ve I couldn’t tell the difference.” Isn’t that interesting? This is exactly what Ian did. So Ian’s a friend of mine who was an English teacher. He’s been on this before. Yeah, he’s been on here before. And um he had a similar story of when Offstead came in and he had no paperwork and the the the heads were jumping up and down saying, “What on earth?” Yeah. And I get that. I get that. It’s pressure. Absolutely. and he, you know, Offstead said fairly much a similar thing of this is an outstanding teach teaching environment. Yeah. Um but it just goes to show that just boxing everything in isn’t always the way. It isn’t it isn’t the way. And and so he went and spoke to my headteer who then started pinging me out to different schools to do. But then I thought, no, hang on a minute, my lovely. I can do this for myself. And um and also you’re still expecting me to run a full-time classroom. And there was also the the tug of war.

Well, I need to invest in my own children cuz I have I had two by that point. And so I decided to go into supply and whilst I built up my consultancy and I ended up getting a couple of schools to outstanding but I didn’t feel good about it because I had to kind of that must have been some amount of work. It was a huge amount of work, but it was also them taking my information and then making decisions to do I’m just going to say patchwork. Yes. And I walked in one day and they had the two assistant heads and a they had brought lots of teachers over from the sister school to to backdate the marking. Oh, I kid you not. There were hundreds of books in that room. My goodness. And this is what I’m currently working with. Two people investigating the truth behind Offstead’s effect on schools. I’m not here to insult schools to poo poo them in my children’s words. I get it. The pressure. Look what happened to Ruth Perry. The pressure is real.

We do have a collection of superheads that go around collecting outstanding titles and then going to the next school and the next school and whatever their agenda is, it’s not right. But I get that as well cuz everyone needs to put food on the table. And if that’s one way of doing it, I’m one of those people where I walked out from once they got that inspection, I they wanted me to continue as a consultant and I just refused because it was against my ethics. Um, but I’ve done seven offsteads in my time and I’ve researched offstead and I get why they do what they do and we need a check and balance. Absolutely. But what they don’t realize is is the very thing they don’t want which is teaching to the exam. They don’t want their children, our children to be taught to the exam. But they’re creating a system where the schools are adapting to their framework and doing whatever they can in order to avoid required to improve. Yeah.

So they have then they’re overly inspected because I I do have solutions but I I won’t go into them because they’re quite deep and lengthy but um what they’re currently doing although yes a check and balance is needed is they’re creating not all but most schools to pander to their narrative and paper and plaster over things. I was present when I saw certain types of behavioral children collected. Yes. happens in early years as well. Put in a separate place in the school that would not be seen. Yes, that is not right because Offstead need to see without blaming the school the reality of the situation because then it feeds back to local government who have not local government, centralized government who have zero frontline experience but have people in offices making decisions about the education system without having frontline experience of the realities of the classroom and that is the problem.

Early years, language and local culture

Yes, I it happens in early years as well. It’s exactly that I was reading an Offstead report of a nursery, not ours, another one. Uh and it got requires improvement and one of the comments was and this happened to us when we failed our offstead, but we failed for different reasons. Um it’s the first offstead I have ever failed in 25 years. Wow. But um one of the comments was that the ch the child says or the baby the toddler says nana and the um practitioner is not correcting to say banana. I kid you not. It’s on the Offstead report. I still call them nanas. But my point is so so my nursery is in Yorkshire. It’s not here. Oh, and the language, the accent will be But did you know that there is um at least one grade difference between the average in Yorkshire, one grade lower in GCES than down south?

I mean one what does that say about teaching two what does that say about the education system three if offstead are going to come into my nursery touchwood it won’t happen and say you should be saying nana uh you banana instead of nana but if the local two things if the local dialect is something slightly different there’s no there’s no point in trying to box them into a middle class expectation of education. We should be celebrating the local culture and and I’m sure there are things that are, but this is just one example of streamlining. I did a whole lesson on Cockney. I invited the pearly whites in and I said because you’re in London, yes, we want to speak correctly and present ourselves professionally. However, when I’m with my friends, my my accent completely relaxes and I wouldn’t call myself a cocky and my partner will be watching this laughing because he is from East London and he does have that accent, the Dellboy accent.

My other half had the same. It’s funny and and it’s very strong. But co Cockney life and the Cockney accent for me is a language in its own right. It has its place and it needs to be respected and recognized. It’s part of British culture. And you know, the I’m I’m going to say this carefully, but the kind of Americanized hiphop slang has leaked into the English language. Now that’s fine for American culture because America has their own version of English not only just with the spelling but you know with even their indications like sidewalk because you know Michael McIntyre I mean I never laugh so hard as when I watch that um thing but so you know you respect that version but what I what I don’t like is when I hear my youngsters adopting Americanisms in you’re British so like you can have a joke but we have our own slang and you know the cocknney culture is being lost. Yes.

And it was very much a part of East End London and it should be kept alive. But yes, don’t go into your work interview and start you know speaking like the pearly whites because that won’t go down well. But um there’s a there’s a place for it. Yeah. My daughter’s the same. When she’s at home, her lang her her her um pronunciation cuz I’m always saying, “You’re not annunciating cuz I can’t understand you cuz you speak so quickly.” Um is very different to when she’s at work. Yeah. you know, it it’s definitely a lot more relaxed, a lot more not so much East End, but definitely not the city city language. So, yesterday Penelope uh died, didn’t she? The act the actress, is it Penelopey Reed? I think her son is Yeah, she she was she’s an actress from the 60s and the 70s. Keith Keith, that’s it. She died. She died yesterday and I loved her. What was it? Good. The good the good life. The good life. That’s it. I think she was in the good life.

She was. And and and she was the primman proper. That’s right. But my mom brought me up on all these 70s kind of um programs. Uh some mothers do have that sort of thing. And anyway, but my daughter was listening because they had her on the news and um she was like, “Gosh, listen to the way she speaks.” And I said, “But it’s beautiful.” Joanna Lumley is another one. I listen to her all the live long day. Um the thing about Joanna Lumley is she can switch it on and off. Oh yes. I mean, what she does in Abfab is just brilliant. And um yeah, but she can switch it on and off. But um and I said, “But isn’t it funny? Uh my daughter can listen to um David Atenburgh all the live long day because his voice is just so soothing. It is. And and I said but there you go. Your voice and how you speak invest in it. And I just think I know we’re going off on a tangent now but in going back to

Oxytocin, childcare quality and staff retention

school I think some failing or giving someone required to improve because of Nana. But you see, my daughter couldn’t say milk for the longest time, but I never corrected her cuz I thought it was cute. She could she could say she kept saying milk, milk and hotel and things like that. But by the time they 30, they’ll figure it out. And that’s why I say to my moms who are panicking over potty training and I say to them, listen, in the grand scheme of life, by the time they’re 18, they’ll know how to use a toilet. So chill. Doesn’t matter. Even if okay it does make life a bit difficult if they’re going to nursery at 4:00 and they can’t use the toilet but the school won’t accept them. I know but why you know and because it’s too much work for the teacher. It is but then because the ratios are different. Yeah, because we go from 3 to one, don’t we? In your early years, babies is 3 to one. 3 to one. Yeah. And then toddlers is 5 to one.

Now they’ve relaxed it. Although in America it’s 6:1. And I think babies might be 4:1. I can’t remember. And then preschool is 8:1. I’m already losing my hair thinking of having five toddlers to one person, especially when they are special. Special needs. Very. That’s where I’ve broken the rules in my care. I operate on a threeto one regardless. I wish I could, but that’s because my staff are amazing. We’ve agreed to work with the funer. they’ve agreed an an hourly rate that um and it’s it’s sacrificial but the children the feedback I’ve had in 5 years of doing this or coming up to 5 years of doing this we’ve serviced 37071 children and babies for the moms matter program. Um over 5 years we’ve had 11 complaints and even those were dealable and oxytocin is at the heart of what we do. So yes, my staff have basic qualifications. their DBS enhanced checked, um, first aid trained.

But when it comes to the MVQ levels, I look for that something. I call it the the O factor, the oxytocin factor, not the X factor. The the guys that work with me, they have a level of love and [clears throat] empathy and that they just emanate. There’s one, and I’m going to mention her name, she’s going to hate me for it, Shaboo. They’re all wonderful. My But Shaboo is known as the baby whisperer. She’s a grandmother herself, but she just has this ability, no matter how irate a child is to calm down to calm them down. She has no official qualifications. But you can’t buy that quality. No, you can’t. You can’t. So, do I break the rules again? I’m a rule breaker. I’m ADHD. I’m going to do that anyway. But, um, you can’t buy that. No, you can’t. And I will not give her up for the world. Fiona’s the same. Naz is the same. Um, they’re just amazing. Shamim, I could mention them all.

They just, they deserve a shout out because they are just phenomenal in what they do. Well, you’re very blessed that you’ve got such a good team. Yes. And it’s been I will sift through the Amazonian jungle to find the people that I I constantly I’m on nextdoor.com and you know Facebook and just everywhere. And I look not just for moms but for grandmothers and yes who just they’re still fit and healthy. They’re they’ve got absolute value to give. They just have that X factor. Unfortunately, I’ve been fighting for because I’ve had a couple of really excellent male, you know, potentials, but the Mom’s Matter program only deals with women. So, we I had to let them go, which was so very sad. But, um, but that’s why I’m working on other areas. I’m telling you, I will I’m trying my best to one day either inherit a school.

I don’t want to be a head or anything like that, but I want to be a school lead that basically shapes the school, shapes the curriculum for the children, which I’ve done for the mom’s math program and various other schools, but also the teachers work life balance and I’ve come up with an idea that I think will work very well and will retain teachers just need the funders.

A healthier inspection system

Let me just jump in with a final question for the the whole after thing which links to what you just said. What is it that you would do to make uh a healthier inspection system? And should schools be judged more on like well-being, culture, long-term development, the new world that we’re moving into? What would you do? What would I do? Well, I I that’s an answer for both of us, I think. What would I what would I do? Um I’m working on things so I can’t give too much away. [laughter] Um however, it’s clearly, as we said, not fit for purpose. So, number one, I would keep the grading system because I do think that we a school needs to know where they’re at, but like but I’d use it more like the emotional cards that we have for children and not make it so much of a label, but a framework. So, for example, you’re required to improve, guys. We got you.

We’re going to send staff in, sit with you, based on our judgment, see the areas that we feel you need to work with and help get you to that point. Um, we’re going to help cuz you’re all busy you with funding. So, we’re not going to give you the funding, but we’ll help you grant, right? We’ll help you raise money and then target the areas that you specifically need help in. And guess what? we’ve got access to X Y and Zed trainers for example myself who um we can bring in to train the staff in this area.

So it’s a label but it’s a framework and then that offstead are no longer coming in as the powers that be and become the powers that are and so and not only do they give you because but essentially from what I’ve understood they give you this judgment and then they flitter off into the sunset leave you with this judgment and the head going well they what do you do now what they do is they give you however many action points and then come back. Oh, you know this. But yeah, but they come back and they just expect you to expect you to have done. But they don’t help you with the actioning. No, they don’t. So, but you’re but then but it’s hypocritical cuz they expect teachers to say to a child the exact same thing. Right, here’s what you need to achieve, but I’m going to help you achieve it. So, dude, why is this methodology and value not permeated throughout the system? Guys, here’s what you need to work on.

Yes, the the grading isn’t great, but guess what? We’ve got a team behind you, the Offstead support network or whatever you want to call it, who’s going to come in and help you get there. Then you take the pressure off of schools to fake stuff, you know, and actually just think, okay, we’ve got this grading, we can get better. So, it’s not just a judgment thing. There’s a that you get a grade, they also have a support Yeah. network to help you get to where they want you to 100%. It’s not rocket science. Yeah. If you can find money for other things, like there’s this monstrous piece of artwork in human I drive past all the time and that was £50,000 to produce like if we can find money for that although you know respect to the artist then you know which is now by the way become rusted and old and everyone thinks it’s now become an eyesore if you speak to the locals. £50,000 can be life-changing for a school. Absolutely.

So we need to reassess our We don’t need more money. We just need to reassess where we’re putting it, you know. But that’s my take on it.

Funding, early years and the cost of quality

With early years, I think I’ll I’ll disagree a little bit. So, Offstead is there at the top to say and you know, and it needs to be there because of safeguarding and and inclusion and all the rest of it. 100% it needs to be there. Um the local authority is there to support the settings particularly in early years to make sure that they don’t fall down. No, because that’s the years where the child’s neurons are developed that you’re literally in early years dealing with developing neuroplasticity. Yeah, absolutely. But the agenda is slightly different because the local council has to sign an agreement with central government to get the funding and then the likes of us have to sign an agreement with the local council every year as you well know. Yeah. And that that’s not a bad system. No, not at all. within that network. The [snorts] biggest issue in my opinion is funding. Yeah.

In early years as well as schools honey in everything education is underfunded is underfunded to the point where you’re down to the bare bones. How then can you expect whether it’s a private company or whether it’s a school to get the standards that children deserve? It’s literally a blood out of stone system. And that’s that’s I think the crux of it. Now, I’m not saying have an endless pot of cash. No. But but a decent one. But a decent one. Yeah. And it would resolve a lot of this. All that needs to be done is you need to work backwards. You want this is how you want the children to turn out and then like any budget even your Tesco budget for home you look at right this is what we need to make during the week and then this is the ingredients that we need and this is maybe a little bit extra just in case and this is what it’s going to cost. So you this is what we want the children to achieve. These are the resources we need.

These are the staff we need. It’s be realistic and say right it’s going to cost X amount and then add maybe 10% on top contingency and then that’s it. But this is this is the problem. Wages have gone up by 40%. But funding has either gone down or remain the same. Maximum you’ll get is 4% inflation. How are you supposed to reconcile the two? Yeah, absolutely. And this is this is the frustrating thing is that I’m really sorry. We we’re soon to have a new UK prime minister. I’ll talk to him directly. Um West Streeting is my local MP. You can’t expect fabulous results with minimum input. It that’s just No, it doesn’t work. You know, Einstein would turn over in his grave. You’re literally doing you’re literally the the what’s the um definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And what they don’t realize is that it’s become far more

Children’s mental health and the social media black hole

serious because now we are losing children. Children are harming themselves, harming each other. This is a life or death. I’m telling you as someone who works with schools, who works with parents, children are killing themselves. Now, the whole for me it’s good news that they’ve changed the law around social media, but but then it leaves a black hole. So now my social media posts are slowly turning towards with hey so I don’t I disagree with the YouTube thing cuz I think YouTube has done wonders for neurody divergent children but yes I can see and YouTube is not nearly as addictive as platforms like the other platforms. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to mention them but you yeah Tik Tok basically and you know because that it’s it’s designed on dopamine on dop it’s designed for that. Yeah.

So, um, what what I was trying to say is is that, right, so now we’re going to end up with a black hole of kids who all of a sudden don’t have access to all these dopamine hits. So, now we have to fill that black hole with So, yesterday I’m very lucky on my road there’s a plum tree. It’s a wild plum tree. So, and every few weeks my daughter climbs up the palm tree with the local neighbors to harvest the fruit. That was that took about an hour and a half because that it it required navigating, but that was an hour and a half. Then by the time she came in, she showered, she read a book, and we sat down and had dinner, and then it was time for bed. So that was day one. I get that parents are going to be tired. They’re going to have less entertainment. Parents are overworked and underpaid like most industries in the UK now.

I get that it’s hard, but the the harsh reality is and I and I I do love my parents, but the harsh reality is these kids didn’t ask to be born. So, we have to do something with them. And if that means that you’ve worked a 10-hour shift, but you got to replace your lap, you’ve got to replace the app with your lap, whether they’re 15, 5, 4 months, 25, then that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to be t just accept that as a parent, you’re going to be tired, challenged, and definitely underpaid. But that we’ve got to do something with these children. Children are dying needlessly. They don’t have a disease. They don’t have anything wrong with them but their mental health is deteriorating at such a rate that cams and local pastoral teams cannot cope. Yes. And it starts with early years because from 0 to 7 years old that’s where neurons are grown.

That’s where synaptic pruning happens where the brain decides what neurons it dumps and what neurons it keeps.

And then you end up with some sort of teenager with you know it’s cru this is the one cruel aspect of nature is the prefrontal cortex the front of the brain that you need first where it’s emotional regulation logic is the last thing to develop you know and that’s just horrific biological downside but it is what it is but the but the point is is that we didn’t see this in the 80s Not because oh well you know autism ADHD didn’t it did exist it just wasn’t recognized but the reason we didn’t see this sort of an epidemic in the 80s is because the outdoors was a massive feature community was a community was a massive feature so let’s not just say hey guys I’m giving what was the quote I’m giving children back their childhood well you yeah in a way you are but what are we going to now do with this social black hole that you’ve created. How would you how would you deal with that? Pour money into that. There is I’m so sorry. There is money.

I saw and you know what one thing that made me really resentful is I’m bucket long in the tooth in education. I was there when they rebranded the national curriculum. Yes. And they did that twisty turny logo. £95,000. I mean the graphic designers must have been skipping with joy. £95,000. Well, I I I don’t know if that was the precise, but that was the that was the information at the time as a teacher that I was told it cost. So, we can find money. Of course, we can. And so, what would I say to government? I would say fund CIC’s, fund social enterprise. If you don’t want to do the leg work, let us do it. We’re happy to run the programs to build the communities to work frontline. We want to do it. You will give jobs to the local economy with the moms who don’t want a full-time job but are happy to do a daytime job and take children to the zoo or neurode divergence to a plaster scene making session or whatever it is.

Let us do it but fund us and we don’t actually need a lot. Pockets of 2030,000 which sounds like a lot but actually isn’t. We’ll do it. It will pay for a lead. It will pay for a small team and we will bring these communities together. Fund fund us and we’ll do it. Without that, the children are the future. Yeah. What future do we have? This is this is my big bug bear that they don’t fund early years and primary in particular

Why education starts from birth

well enough because that’s your foundation. Yeah. that that’s this country. The GCSEs start at zero. I’m so sorry. They do. They do. Of course they do. Because at zero when your baby your baby’s birthing circle without that skin oxytocin, without that healthy uh introduction to life, how can they be open to algebra algebra later on if you don’t like you’ll probably know I say to my parents, don’t teach the times tables. Don’t teach all of teach. teach them that number one means one thing. That number two means you’ve got two things. Once they associate an actual value to a number, then when they double that number two, they’ll get that it’s four and it won’t be abstract. But how many children you see? No. That just don’t when you say to it takes them so long to get the the times tables because they don’t understand value the actual amount something is. And that starts very early on.

And that’s I will say that’s the one thing I think the ears curriculum in particular has got right that they that they do talk about you know not just numbers but bringing all sorts of maths height weight counting um measures of all sorts in at a very very early age. eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s that’s um that’s the way to go really 100%. I mean my both my children were reading by one and a half. Yes. So they were on CVC words and the teachers were shocked because they went into nursery reading given that one was autistic and one was ADHD. But I didn’t bash them. I’m not an academic mom but the written word is the language of communication. So I introduced it really early. So it would be chop chop chop chopping the carrots carrot. It would be on the fridge. It would be on the floor. We’d do phonics hunts.

And they didn’t take me much time, but it meant that the BIF the BIF the BIF books. they were able to read it early and then access the learning objectives quickly because we still do the whole thing where the learning objectives on the board but the children that struggled were the ones where I had to read it to them. They couldn’t just read it off themselves. Yes. And so and that connection then doesn’t happen earlier. Yeah. So it’s not about pushing academia down their throat but English and maths and science are the basis for functioning. So, as an adult, I say to them, you will eventually have to pay your own council tax. You’ll have event you’ll eventually have to email the local plumber because something’s gone wrong. How are you going to do that? Yes. How are you going to man manage your budget? So, one of my children was very stubborn, just so demotivated. So, you know what I did? I I worked backwards from her dream.

So, I said, “What’s your dream?” She said, “My dream is to have an apartment in Australia.” So we went on to chat and Google and we Googled the cheapest apartment, looked at the pictures and she said, “Oh, that’s still quite nice. It was x amount of thousands of pounds.” I said, “Right, what would you need?” She said, “Well, I’d need food.” We worked out a budget for food for one person. I’d need, you know, a car cuz Australia’s big. Worked out that budget. And then friends.

I can’t just work and not have friends and have a budget for going out or a budget for when something goes wrong. a budget for petrol and I literally listed an adult’s bank account and I said right and we added it all up and it came to x amount of thousand pounds a year and then I said right so you need to be earning this go to Google and say Google how what jobs do I need to have to earn this sort of money to have this dream that I’ve built or it was chat GPT or whatever and chat GPT made a list of all these jobs and and I said, “Right, what qualifications do you need to have these jobs?” Went through all the qualifications and I said, “That’s why it’s called a general certificate of secondary education.” She went, “Oh, oh, I get it.” But we s I It wasn’t an English lesson.

Even though I was her English teacher, I spent the whole lesson because if I didn’t unlock her want for learning, it doesn’t matter how many English lessons I did for her. It doesn’t. She was a stubborn 14-year-old girl. Yeah, but I worked backwards from her dream because I found a way in. And even though chat GPT supported me with that, it couldn’t do it for me. No, of course not. And so this is what Offstead need to recognize. We need to build rapport and connection. We cannot do that if we are panicking over frameworks that are just going to come in, make a judgment, tell us what we need to do, and then leave. And then we’re left alone with no money and all of these tick boxes to tick. And that’s where you get patchwork education. Yes. It’s not it’s really not rocket science.

Special needs, school readiness and early development

I just want to touch on the early years because we’ve spoken quite a lot about um secondary and primary. Um are you seeing that children are arriving less [snorts] less regulated, less independent than they used to into nurseries? We’re certainly seeing more children with special needs. Um, we are seeing them develop this the start of that lack of normal development earlier. Um, for example, we’ve got one little girl at the minute who has to have a onetoone who is non-verbal. I think she might have just started speaking a little bit. She’s uh she’s about to turn three and she’s been with us since she was a baby. Um and um she suffers from don’t know whether it’s s I’d call it sensory overload or sensory deprivation. Um, so she still has that um, you know how babies feel with their mouth and everything goes into everything goes through the mouth.

At three she’s she’s still showing signs of that. 5 years ago even we would have had maybe four children with special needs. Last year we had 11. all with differing various needs and that’s probably the worst. Um and then eventually they do grow out of them. And a lot of it is is down to well actually it’s unfair to say it’s down to parenting but I think lack of lack of the knowledge that is needed to say okay you know parents will sometimes come in and say we think there’s something not quite right but you know we it It takes time to diagnose and obviously the the and it’s very hard between zero and you you won’t present um everything very early on. So yeah, we are seeing um more and more children that need uh additional care shall we say. Yeah, I I was going to say I mean this could be a whole another episode, but based on being a neuroscience researcher, there is something going on.

There are more and more children coming through the system with special needs. And I would say, and this is just my personal opinion as a scientist, it’s a combination of look, you can’t vote until you’re 18, but you can become a parent of 16. Yes. If you have an unhappy accident, that is a societal role. You should be at 16, if you’ve been educated well, you should absolutely be able and should be allowed to make a choice on who governs you as a young person in this country. And the government are not getting that right because they want young people to be involved, but they don’t want them to be involved. So, they want them to be educated. We do PSH citizenship and all of that, but no, you’re not allowed to have an opinion properly until you’re 18.

So, it needs to be reversed, I think. things have become over sexualized in society and and I mean that not because I’m not loving and accepting of all sexual orientation but when I speak to children sex is a massive subject but we so we’ve reduced the human condition to sex and achievement when actually the human condition has so many facets to it and we should allow children to explore every thing about the human condition and not focus on that one thing. So, I’ll give you a funny story. I won’t name that person because they’re very close to me and they’ll know who I’m talking about. But they said to me, they’re very young, 14, I’m asexual. And I laughed cuz she thought I was going to have this massive reaction to it. And I went, you’re 14, you should be asexual. Uh, you know, you that is the last thing you should be worrying about. go out, climb trees, like um find bake cakes.

If you don’t like that, knit if you don’t like that, try jiu-jitsu. Try there’s so much more to you, you know. So anyway, going back to what I was saying, I think it’s a parenting thing because parenting is difficult and it requires studying. It doesn’t just oh I’m a mom and dad and first of all relationships need to be looked at and the health of those relationships that needs to be worked on then that will filter down to the child and create a healthier environment whether you’re co-parenting or you’re still in a relationship relationships need to be worked on and in addition to that nutrition can’t be taken out of the context and and and how that nutrition is processed and packaged I think has a chemical effect on how children are developing in the womb all the way through childhood.

So I think it’s a parenting thing, it’s a nutrition thing, it’s a chemical imbalance thing and I think it’s an environmental thing as well where you’ve got not just the socials but the level of pollution. It doesn’t if you look this has slowly happened over a few decades. Well evolution that’s exactly how it works. Yeah. Isn’t it? So we start off somewhere and then we end up somewhere else. Yeah. Except all this has happened so much quicker than we can evolve to keep up with any Exactly. Yeah.

Parents, devices and emotional regulation

Yeah. So you think in terms of the early years it’s again the the relationships and the communication 100 emotional regul So that’s because they’re still you know it’s very very early days at the age of two they can’t emotionally regulate all the time. There shouldn’t be. But it requires Exactly. But it requires the parents and the I guess up and and we have we do get this. A parent will pick up a child, a toddler, but because they don’t really because whatever the reason, you know, it could be that the journey’s difficult in the car. Yeah. You know, they might have had a tough day. Back in the car in in the back seat, in the car seat, iPad on. Yeah. No conversation. No. Yeah. Well, how how is that child going to build the bond with the parent? They’ll have a stronger bond with their device with Yeah. Exactly. But I am seeing fouryear-olds with levels of addiction that is comparable to cocaine.

Like, and I say to my parents, and I know this is harsh. I said this on the last time we were together. There is zero difference between that device and leaving your child with it and a bag of cocaine. Yeah. There’s zero. It’s just one is legal and one is not. Yeah. But when you’ve got so ADHD works that are now being commissioned to run. Why am I doing that? Because we’ve got a bunch of 25 year olds who cannot leave their bedroom. So, and that is the same effect with a class A drug and with that. There’s a great Michael Connelly book on this. Oh, is there? Yeah. I’ll tell you about it later. Well, it’s not it’s not just that. It’s so whatever they’re watching on there the media and everything else, that’s what’s bringing them up. So, you talk about like over sexualizing this and that, like whatever programs and TV films that you watch.

Not just that though, even the games that are on it, like the I mean, look, in the 80s they were worried about um the um video games. Yes, there was the whole thing quite rightly so and the horrific, you know, information around James Bulier and and and and that. But actually, when we look back, they really need not have worried because it was I mean, yes, you will always have gamers in comparison to the time it was in comparison, you know, can can anything be unhealthy? You can eat unhealthily. You can play video games unhealthily. It’s down to the you can socialize unhealthily. You can be overly addicted to socializing and then end up as your life changes and because your social life changes end up in depressive states because you were addicted. So it it’s the concept of addiction, but as parents, you’re responsible to strike that balance. And if you’re just I get it. It’s hard.

You don’t, you know, but if you’ve spoken to your colleagues at work all day via teams or via the office, then shouldn’t you take a little bit of that energy and put it in the car ride home? Yes. Well, exactly. And if you’re but the one thing I see a pickup parents are so on edge irritated but if we don’t learn to emotionally regulate and calm then how do we expect our child to be because they’ll pick up on it. Yeah. Well, if you’ve been communicating on Teams or Slack or whatever it is all day, you don’t have you don’t really have the chemicals that go off when you interact with somebody in person. No. But you do get the dopamine hits and crashes of pings and whatever else messages coming through. Yeah. Um so I think a lot of it is to do with that and then that gets put onto when you get home for example. Well there’s different chemicals between reading on a a Kindle or an iPad or reading an actual book.

So I was um on the train at the weekend and uh the weekend before that I was also traveling because I went to visit the awareness key. you met the young lady um Harry Mansfield. She’s the mind champion. Deals with specializes in suicide prevention and the four key areas of the mind. She separates the mind from the brain. So we work very well together. But when I was on the train, I was the there was only one other person reading a book. Everyone else was on a device.

And when you look at the school run, you’ll see parents just down. kids maybe holding on to their not even the hand sometimes anymore but that what’s the first thing they do when you give birth skin to skin yes why because bond so if you’re decide and I’m I do mean this with the most love I’m not holier than now or judging but if you’re if you’ve ended up becoming a parent by accident you still have a responsibility of course but if you’re planning to become a parent and you do and you are blessed with children. Please do your research before it is a 24-hour a day job. It is the hardest thing ever. Never ends. My parents will argue they still parent me to a degree. Same with me. And I’m 64. Yeah. Same with me. The roles are reversed slightly. I think I’m parenting them a little bit now. [laughter] Mine are getting there. Yeah.

Yeah. because they’re just not equipped for the digital age and I feel so sorry for them but they they do drive me nuts on occasion but um it it’s remind you of someone I am parenting them but that’s okay that’s the natural transition of life and I I did I said to my children the other day I said if mama ends up doing x y and zed get a wet kipper and smack me over the head with it because there’s some things that I do I want to be the the the gym grandma the grandma who’s traveling and yes I will look after grandchildren but within reason I still want my own life. I’ I’ve told my two the minute you have children, I’m immigrating. Oh, no. I really do want to be Yeah, I know. I really want to be a grandmother, but I’m not going to be the mom, can you watch? Mom, can you watch? Mom, can you watch? It will be maybe three times out of five that I’ll agree. And then there’ll be that twice where I’m like, uh, I’m off away. I’m doing this.

I’m doing that. Because also I want my grandchildren, my children to respect me. That grandmother’s cool. She’s got she does amazing things and I don’t plan on retiring. So, you know, what’s that David Williams book with the cool grandma? Oh, yeah. Gangster Granny. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be um gangster granny but in a nice way. Yeah. I want to be gym granny.

Redesigning education from scratch

So, just to round it off a little bit, I’m going to go through if we could redesign the education system from scratch. Firstly, what would stay? We’ll do some quickfire rather. I was just going to say that’s a deep question. You want No, we’ll do we’ll do some quick fires. Uh what would stay? You can say more than one thing. Teachers obviously teaching time, the actual time teachers get to just teach and not do everything else. Okay. Uh and in terms of in the curriculum, anything that you think should stay basics, math, English, science for sure? I would say circle time even for our secondary school students. And I think what a great idea cuz it’s oxytocin. It’s rapport. And these the teenagers I spend time with are so funny. Like my daughter said something in the car with me yesterday and it was absolutely hilarious. When you spend time with them, they’re funny. They’re actually really cool to hang out with.

I enjoy it far more than adults sometimes. and um but circle time and I would actually take the primary school system and make the secondary school system more like the primary school system where there are parent WhatsApp groups yes they can be a bit challenging at times parents come in they know each other um they’re interacting there’s more parent parent days I would have but not parent days for inspection parent days for baking and cooking and knitting and just having a chat not necess necessarily a parents evening, a parent more parent days because we do a lot of that cutesy stuff um in primary school and even world book day. Why are our teenagers not dressing up? Have you been to ComicCon? Like like my daughter will world book day. Why are you going in uniform? Oh, we don’t do it anymore. What? Why are we not dressing up? Why are we not walking into school like Wel? Okay, that’s too old for them.

Um, like, oh, they did a remake, gangster granny or who am I thinking here? A Captain America. Why are we getting them to be self-conscious? Breaking the rules when we can and living life vicariously is one of the joys of life. Absolutely. Break the rules. I think two things and they’re along the same vein. I think that [clears throat] secondary school children are expected to grow up very quickly. Yeah. So sad. And they need to be children longer. Yeah. Now I know that um physically children are developing a lot more quickly. Maybe because of the foods, maybe for whatever other reasons, but I think that secondary school children, which goes back to your point, need to be children longer. And I think that the schools need to be smaller so there’s a community. Yeah. They’re far too big. Which is why I said they should the primary school system should it primary school should be turning into secondary school. It should be all the way.

Yes. All the way. So that community stays and that you grow up with that same group of children and you build bonds for life not just with the with your with the other children but with the families. Yeah. So I would in the other thing I would do is I would install silliness. Not immaturity, that’s different. Silliness. So I would still have water fight days, playing with bubbles, uh, foam parties. I would have people I would have, you know, we have dress down Fridays. Why? What? What’s wrong with that? Why can’t we have dress down? I’m not saying get rid of the uniform, but dress down Fridays every two weeks. Why are we not um having pling days, clay making? Um, why are we not silly string? Why? Why are we not, you know, basically just a load a load of things that will increase the neuron activity? Yeah. Like but a dopamine but in a healthy way.

Let them know that cuz in one way children are developing faster but they’re incredibly immature. Their maturity levels aren’t matching their growth rate. Exactly. But there’s maturity within silliness because teenagers are becoming far too self-conscious. Yes. And that then makes them feel like they have to permeate this persona when it’s a persona. It’s not their actual true self. Now, as you said that, immediately knife crime came into my head. Yeah. Why? Because they got to protect a Yeah. Gang gang culture, it’s reputationbased. Yeah. I’m not saying this is the answer to the world’s problems. But if you change the system like Ruper said, so we we elongate the primary school experience, the early years experience whilst we make more serious the level of education. So yes, you still have to study deep science, deep mathematics, um deep English, whatever. I’m not saying take that side away. But around that there has to be a balance.

So then then we’ve kept the community small. So there is an actual community because most secondary schools they like to think there’s a community but they’re far too big and everyone peters out and there’s no sense of togetherness. And this might be a little left field but I’m going to say it anyway.

Movement, music and bringing back childhood

One of the things that a lot of the Asian countries do is they um make the children exercise in the morning. And yeah, I do that. Well, I used to I used to have the 5minute run. We go out into the playground. People thought I was nuts. What are you doing? We’re just doing a the mile run. And it it endorphins. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the sort of Asian schools I think still do that. And the other thing and this is I think definitely yoga and pilates. You know what I introduced yoga into our early years for the preschoolers. There you go. Um it didn’t last because of a whole load of other issues. But it is coming back in. Yeah. Because when I did it, the parents thought it was a religious thing. Yeah. And they didn’t like the culture. So and the school kind of agreed with them. So I had to stop. But then I would do stretching instead. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. just musicified stretching or whatever I called it at the time.

So we’d do they’d come in, they’d line up, I’d wait for everyone to go to their classrooms. I say, “Right, I didn’t even get them to run in. I want you to run however way you want to run. You can run with a mate. You can jog. You can skip to the side. Whatever you need to do. You got 5 minutes.” Yeah. Yeah. Come in. And then we’d sit in the classroom. We’d go straight to the car carpet. We do our stretches and funny faces, you know, all these different. So, because face yoga. Yeah, face yoga. But it was 20 years ago I was doing this. God, it sounds awful, doesn’t it? Um, but you know, and I’m not saying but it I very rarely had behavior issues in my classroom. The uh Yeah, exactly that.

But the other thing I would bring in particularly with children with ADHD or other issues is meditation. if 10 minutes just deep breathing not not visualization and all of that breathing I I I would agree but I think it has to be adapted meditation because the problem with the ADHD brain is like I said to you when I walked in I have too many I have 50 Google tabs open in my head and one of them is always playing music it is very hard to shut them down however I have found a way so I had brain tapping the other day and these are private therapies I do to see how I can help myself and then see if I’ve heard of EFT. I’ve not heard of brain tapping. Oh my god. It only lasted for 2 days, but I was in heaven. So it it’s it’s part of a bio-ressonance therapy scheme that I’m looking into. It’s noninvasive. It doesn’t require retraumatization. So you have to relive your trauma and talk therapies. So they very against talk therapies anyway. Yes.

Um for some people it works but most people it doesn’t. For me it didn’t work. It just retraumatized me. So it’s a machine. You stick your thumb and your finger in at different points like you like you’re having your fingerprint taken and it it measures your resonance because we all emit light, you know. And then from that it decides what program you need. And it’s just literally a headphone with glasses attached. A bit like um idea. I don’t know if you know stuff. Well, you’ll have to come with me one day. Um in fact, I could probably get her here cuz it’s honestly it worked. I had a few therapies done and I’ve got six weeks off it. I can’t wait. But um do you remember Star Wars the original? Yeah. Uh the Empire fight. Is that the one where he flies and he’s got a hit the Death Star? Yes, I think so. Do you remember his helmet with the the orangey? Oh, you guys may be too young.

I’m talking to your mom [laughter] and and anyway, so you remember so it looks a bit like that. So, and you don’t have to do anything. So, she just looks at your bio resonance. The computer knew all of my health issues without me speaking a word just through my frequency. Isn’t that incredible? I can believe it. And then and I’ve got it all on camera and I sent another podcaster from Fatal TV there. She was like, “Oh my god. Oh my god.” But anyway, so then from that, so then I lie down, put this Star Wars helmet thing on, and it’s very comfortable because it doesn’t go all the way through the back. They get you to lie down and they That would be enough for me just lying down and then they put brain frequency vibrational music. So it sounds like music and a melody but it’s not. It’s frequencies and vibrations by neural beats type. Yeah.

But it’s measured it the machine measures it based on your personal bio resonance from what you’ve just been you’ve put your basically it measures your vibrations then the opposite. So then the lights then the the glasses emit light frequencies again tapped into your bio resonance and from that you just lie down and and when you so she said every person is different but when I did it and I closed my eyes the light frequencies even though it looked like flashing lights if you were to open your eyes but actually cuz your eyes are closed it makes the shapes look like a kaleidoscope. Oh wow. I’ve got to try this. Oh my god. When I came out, she said to me, “You got to text me later and tell me how you’re feeling.” I came out and normally I I love playing loud music in my car, buzzing. You know, my brain is going, I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to do that and oh, there’s that project and this project and whatever.

I came out and I was a little bit giddy, which I will explain later. And I felt a sense of quiet and calm. I felt like I was floating. I was like, “Oh, is this what it’s like to be neurotypical where you only have one or two thoughts in your head?” And I was just driving. I didn’t feel the need for m in fact, I felt the need for Mozart and Beethoven. So, I had that going on in the background. And I just felt energized, but in a calm way. And so, but I felt giddy. So, I was a little bit shaky. So, I messaged. I said, “Is this normal?” She said, “I’ve halted your paras your paras your sympathetic your sympathetic nervous system so there’s no more adrenaline coursing through your system.” Wow. This is how I out of a sound bath. Yeah. That’s how I felt. Not on the last toilet, but the And so she said, “You’ll feel a little bit shaky, but that’s just cuz there’s no more adrenaline in your system.” So it’s a withdrawal symptom.

But by the time I got home and for two days, I was like, “Yeah.” And it comes back again. Yes. So you do need So that’s the only thing. However, if we can fund ADHD children and young adults to have weekly sessions, but if you you’re spending lots of money on cams and all of these things and all that medication and all that medication, that’s why that’s exactly why I’m not going to fund it. I I know. I know. But if we the people can get together and fund these things, if the National Lottery can fund or these other, if we can find a way of making brain tapping, buying a load of brain taps and just putting them in the classroom. So you do your run, you do your stretching, and then everyone has 10 minutes with the brain tapping. Even the neurotypicals, who cares? Let’s all have at it. How different would the world be? It’s not rocket science. I love this. I I got to try this. Yeah. So, quickfire. [laughter] Um, what would you add?

He says with baited breath. What would you add? I I can I’m going to put on my first my first thing is is to add knowledge of like finances and investments and all the stuff that they don’t do. Crypto because that’s a thing that goes on. Not not crypto, but like Oh, but [clears throat] it’s a danger and the kids are talking about it. So, yeah, I think it should be part of Well, teaching you how to invest and learn about money and taxes, all the stuff they don’t teach you on purpose and get you into debt very quickly when you turn 18. Teaching people about all of that before it happens. Yeah, I would add that. Um, yeah. What would you guys add? I think we’ve I’ve already said what anything else that you would because well, the first question was what would stay, but we kind of did all of it. Was there anything else you’d add? Brain tapping thing.

I definitely like bio-ressonance therapies that are non-invasive and non retraumatizing because I don’t know if you’ll agree with me but alongside the special needs increasing ace children are a massive that’s definitely increasing. I don’t really Yeah. adverse childhood experience children coming through the system. That sort of makes sense, I suppose, because remember, we don’t quite know where ADHD and autism comes from. Some have linked it to trauma in the in the womb. But the biology, and this is where I I’ll click the avatar in you, when you look at especially Avatar 2, the the boy spider, he awarf infuses his body with the biochemistry of Pandora. And so we don’t actually know the biochemistry properly between mother and child in the womb. So if there’s a toxic environment, how is that not triggering or pre-triggering epigenetics? So if you’re naturally disposing, there is some research on this. Yes. Not enough though.

Not enough. No. But but if a child is in the womb and in a mother’s in a toxic environment or a stressed environment or I don’t necessarily mean the partner, but it might be work cuz we’ve got to work really right up until the end. Um, how do we know that that’s not triggering a predisposed child whose genetics are there for ADHD, but then triggering their epigenetics because they’re in their mother’s in environment, therefore her biochemistry is different, therefore it’s triggering the child and that brain chemistry and and those genes. We don’t actually know. We have research and it is pointing in that direction. It is. Yeah. But we don’t actually know like there’s no you know like how if I um cut myself I’m going to bleed. It’s a certainty isn’t it? Yes. Right. So we don’t have that absolute certainty yet. It’s too complicated and too difficult to find out. I think it’s probably a lot of it is down to I disagree.

It’s just we’re not investing in the right scientists. So clear depends what because I think a lot of it will be down to like your gut gut biome probably and that’s more unique than a fingerprint. And I think also obviously the neurons in the brain, they’re not exactly easy to look out what connections are are formed and what connections aren’t formed. There’s millions of different possibilities. It’s very difficult to actually find out what causes what. I I don’t think I I I don’t disagree entirely, but I do think because of and I don’t want to go into conspiracy theories, but there is an agenda, especially with farmer companies. That’s a that’s a given. Yeah, the right scientists are not being invested in. So the other very famous podcast who I I won’t I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention. Yeah, you can say. So Draio, he had someone Sinclair on. He’s the anti-aging doctor. I think we spoke about this last time.

But he’s doing more than that. He’s effectively found how to renew cells. Oh, I’ve seen like the sound bite of it. I’ve not watched. Right. He’s done it. It’s done. So what started off with anti-aging because you know we want to be healthier and fitter for longer um has actually turned into potentially cancer say cancer treatment because if you can renew a cell there’s no cuz cancer is what it’s a mutation of the cells. But if so, if you can renew a cell and retach a cell to go back to its default settings where it was fresh, then by default it kills cancer without all the dangerous tablets and chemicals and chemo. And you can almost hear pharma companies screaming in the background. But pharma companies, and he said this in that particular podcast, came after him. Oh, I’m surprised he’s still alive. Yeah, he I’ll bet. So suicided, right? So yeah. Um, so it’s the right scientists we need to be investing in.

So your microbiome, if you’re taking that with a supplement that helps your cell renewal, will work together, you know, and so yes, this is a but perhaps they’re allowing or it’s being allowed for children to become ace or special needs through what’s available to the populace. Because I can tell you something, most of the social media moguls who created Facebook and Tik Tok don’t allow their own children on socials. That that is telling. Yeah. I think the whole thing needs to go back to a smaller community where the children have time to breathe and not jump through hoops all the time. I know when you two were growing up, it was just that it was I wouldn’t go to secondary school now. I would elect for homeschooling, you there is no way I’d survive that environment.

But [snorts] it it literally was, you know, you need to be on that team and you need to be on that orchestra and you need to be doing this and you need to be doing that and it was a rat race. Yeah. Um and then you wonder why your children have turned out. I’m not saying you have [laughter] great as it was going to be the next word. I’m not saying you have. But that’s that’s exactly the reason why I dropped out of orchestras and like I started because I was fascinated by music and I just saw somebody play the violin when I was about 5 years old. And then you guys got me lessons and I started to really enjoy all that stuff. And then then it ended up being, oh, you got to do this grade and that grade. You got to learn this theory, that theory. You have to join that orchestra. That orchestra, this one needs a first violin. This one needs a second violin. There’s no trombone player over here. Join that band. And I just here to just enjoy it.

And it ended up being work. Yeah. And I dropped out of towards the end. I just got fed up with all of it. It just it literally sucked all the fun out of grades and trombone. But now well further in that actually. So now like my daughter’s doing piano lessons which is a classic but now I’m doing the same thing but just to keep them off that. Yeah. So now it’s should we go kayaking? Let’s join a kayaking club. Let’s join a let’s learn how to take piano lessons. Let’s go fruit picking. Let’s knit. Let’s do this. Let’s do that. Just cuz I don’t want them on that. I mean, they have to learn about it and they’re allowed on it to a degree, but I don’t I know that it’s not good for them. Yeah, but as long as the fun stuff doesn’t turn into another like job.

No, but again, you see, there’s an argument for that because all right, you might need to you might not need to know the theory to but if you then if you were then if you then go through that pain and get to the other end and I suppose this sort of is the whole schooling system. I’m talking about music in particular. I wish I’d had those sort of opportunities. Um, but because of the way, [snorts] you know, I arrived in this country when I was 11 and there was no money and there was no opportunities, no, none.

Um there is research that shows if you uh do music um when you’re growing up your I can’t remember what the actual outcome was but your neurons do you remember what it is they probably develop faster they develop faster or they I don’t necessarily because of the music I think it’s because of the frequencies because music is vibrational because sound is vibrational so if you’re constantly bombarding your mind with because but there is evidence to show that over exposure to violent music and it it it your your adrenal glands and they’re overactive. So it has to be the right type of music. I think there is some research to show that if you play classical music to the wound Mozart in particular, but perhaps it’s not because it’s just Mozart. Perhaps he he developed his music on a vibrational level that creates the perfect environment for neurons to develop.

It’s um well kind of a conspiracy but basically the way I think it was most of Beethoven um and a lot of more current artists in our time so like Michael Jackson and Prince and stuff they all use 432 hertz. Now that is interesting. I did a Let me tell you what I did and then I want to hear the rest of Yeah. I wrote uh I did a piece on social media the other day on why so many autistic children magnate towards Michael Jackson. My own son incl I’m ADHD and I was my mom said that she took me camping with my family. They played Billy I was six at the time. That was the year that Billy Jean came out. Took me to the children’s disco.

They played Billy Jean. and she said, “Literally, Lord knows what came over you, but from that moment on, you were in love with him and obsessed with him, and I’ve been a an MJ fan my whole life.” Now, my son, who’s not ADHD, he’s autistic, he’s an as he’s on the asperes end, um high functioning end, when I say he has a level of obsession with Michael Jackson, I’m kind of kind of not sure I should have introduced him to it. It’s insane. And and he’s not the first one. lots of autistic. So you were saying that so 432 hertz. So when music is tuned to 432 the A above middle C um all music used to be at that 432. That’s the vibration of the A below middle C. So you can have entire orchestras and pieces tuned to that. More modern music is 440. So the A below middle C is tuned at 440. Um and 432 is the natural vibration of the earth and nature.

That’s so everything we’re listening to now by Prince and few other artists is specifically D-tuned to be um the question is has that been done on purpose? That’s what it It’s kind of conspiracy, but but I mean that’s there’s only a few artists that specifically um made everything 432 and Beethoven and all the previous classical music and all that stuff was. So there you go. To answer what we would add into schools as they walk into school, we could be playing some sort of music that’s at 432. Yeah. As they come in.

AI, apprenticeships and future-ready learning

Yeah. We’re we’re literally being This is what I would do. I would literally break the mold if I had my own school. I would do every kind of research. I would have by resonance just as a normal part of the school day. I would have that I would do something which I’m planning on doing anyway with the teachers and how they teach and when they teach and I would yeah I would just literally not make it like a hippie school although that more holistic teaching so that it’s more crosscurricular rather than you’re now going to a maths lesson.

So like they teach in early years right so for example if a child is pouring water there’s a ton of lessons there that can be had you could include it’s maths it’s English it’s science it’s language development it’s physical development depending on you know it’s holistic teaching yeah because when you’re teaching algebra most algebra pertains to science so why are we not teaching a science experiment experiment where you happen to do the algebra as part of that. So it becomes lived. You know how they all say, oh you know the most valuable thing is not just the qualifications, it’s your lived experience. Well, why are we not giving children lived experience? Yeah, we don’t have to sit there and learn algebra. Thought conceptual. No. Yeah. So then it goes back to how the school system was set up that you’re all sat in rows in chairs at desks because that’s what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life.

Um, you know, well that that ties into where like all the the um future jobs and stuff are going to be with AI and all this sort of stuff like plumbing, woodwork, all this sort of stuff. It’s going to go back to the original and therefore the schooling needs to be exactly like this in order to facilitate apprenticeship aimed. Yeah. Yeah. more physical whatever else because the AI stuff is gonna take over. We’ll always need AI stuff is going to take over all the coding and all of the you know all that sort of stuff. Um a lot of the math a lot of the science it’s much better at pattern recognition than we are. So the actual schooling needs to change to be catered towards all the other stuff like art, DT, music, the physical stuff that AI can’t replicate the creativity service. So we we came away from service level jobs, didn’t we? And now service level jobs are going to come back. We’ll always need teachers.

We’ll always need plumbers, electricians, builders. And so that’s probably why now we’re finding it hard to get children into apprenticeships because it is flooded. My son, he wants to go into aeronautical science. So I happened to, and this is where I think the universe works with you, end up at a friend’s child’s birthday party. We were invited to a children’s birthday party. I had just happened to be sat on the table with someone who was employed by Heathrow airport as an aeronautical engineer and I and she was young. She was 20 and I was just like how it’s one of the rarest jobs. It’s very rare that you would bump into someone. And then she said this was the program I went through. Get your son on this program. And I just thought wow. So, but she said it’s competitive. What is What isn’t? Everything is competitive. So, do you know what else I would add?

I bring back the grant system for universities and I would push degrees in bio resonance, frequency science, um the neurode divergent science, educational neuroscience push these degrees that AI can’t do because yes AI might be able to design the program for the bio resonance but needs to be a human being that inputs the data so that you So things like that I would yeah I’d probably be actually granted less and less children going to university it’s a beautiful life experience I wouldn’t swap my uni years for anything and I don’t just mean the learnings but the learning is freer because guess what you can kind of dictate your modules kind of focus on what you want to focus on you can pace yourself I mean A levels are just horrific you know in many ways A levels are worse than degree But um you can but then it’s the community you build. It’s how life skills especially if you move out. Yeah. Life skills you get managing your finances.

Yeah. All of that. And I said to my daughter, you’ll love the societies. There’s a society for everything. Even the color green. Just go join all of them. Find your people. You know, it’s your first time where you get to choose your family. You get to choose your vibe. And yeah, so I think as long as you can go into knowing about the loans and all that sort of stuff beforehand, but that’s what I’m saying. Bring back the goss then. So when I when I went to uni, the government paid for me. Same here. I was the last generation. I know. We’re still paying for ours. It’s horrific. No, some children are like 90,000 in debt more. So yeah, we got in the year before um it tripled. Yeah. Still a lot, but not as bad as as now. No. And I so desperately want my children to have that experience, not because of the degree and all, but because it is a work, you know, work, you’re going to spend your whole life working.

The longer you can stay and be a student and experience life and make mistakes and repair them and, you know, not major ones, but you know what I mean. Test the waters and find your people. go do it, you know, travel with uni. Uni, they give you opportunities to travel. They give you still gives you that, like you say, the the the world experience. Um, and the self-confidence. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, you know, I hadn’t thought about that, but I would love to me, well, what are you going to do when you retire? And I think I might go back to uni. I would love to finish my doctorate in educational neuroscience. Yeah, you’re not going to retire. You won’t probably won’t. I probably won’t. And I’m going to become friends with your mom. So, and I’m sure we’re going to come up with stuff that won’t allow either of us to retire.

Wrap up

We’ll be wheeling one another around now. [laughter] So, thanks again for joining us this month and thank thanks to both of our guests for coming back on the um on the podcast. Thank you for having us. If you’re watching us on YouTube, give us a follow, comment. Um, if you’re listening or watching us on Spotify or Apple, give us a follow and a rating. And we’ll see you back again next month. [music] The Education Lounge podcast.