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Blackboard to Boardroom: How Teacher Alison Goulden, Became a Business Powerhouse · Work It Like A Mum

0:00
Elizabeth Willetts: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
0:14
Elizabeth Willetts: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
0:22
Elizabeth Willetts: In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
0:29
Elizabeth Willetts: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
0:43
Elizabeth Willetts: Shy away from the real talk?
0:44
Elizabeth Willetts: No way.
0:45
Elizabeth Willetts: Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all.
0:50
Elizabeth Willetts: Think of this as coffee with your mates, the mixed with an inspiring TED talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
0:57
Elizabeth Willetts: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and make sure you cozy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
1:07
Elizabeth Willetts: This is the Work it Like a Mum podcast.
1:10
Elizabeth Willetts: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
1:17
Elizabeth Willetts: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
1:29
Elizabeth Willetts: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
1:34
Elizabeth Willetts: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries, ready to find your perfect job?
1:43
Elizabeth Willetts: Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
1:52
Elizabeth Willetts: Now back to the show.
1:54
Elizabeth Willetts: Hello, and welcome back to the Work it Like a Mum podcast, your go-to source for inspiration, guidance and, yes, a dose of camaraderie in navigating the labyrinth of motherhood and career.
2:05
Elizabeth Willetts: I'm your host, elizabeth Willits, the founder of Investing in Women.
2:09
Elizabeth Willetts: Now, if you've ever found yourself scrambling through homeschooling while managing a job, or if you're knee-deep in textbooks trying to prep your kid for those luminary exams, boy, have we got a treat for you today.
2:21
Elizabeth Willetts: Meet Alison Golden, co-owner of Golden Brain Academy and a true champion for children's education.
2:27
Elizabeth Willetts: After over two decades of in-school teaching, alison opted for a change, diving into the world of tutoring for a much-needed work-life balance.
2:38
Elizabeth Willetts: Now she successfully runs a booming education business, with her husband offering over 250 lessons to 500 students every week.
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Elizabeth Willetts: Talk about juggling family, career and, yes, even some me time with a glass of chilled Savion Blanc.
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Elizabeth Willetts: Alison has cracked the code on how to help kids thrive in today's education system, even in the midst of a pandemic.
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Elizabeth Willetts: From creative writing to GCSE prep, she's got insights you won't want to miss.
3:04
Elizabeth Willetts: So grab your go-to mum fuel be it coffee, tea or perhaps something stronger and let's dive right in to this enlightening conversation.
3:13
Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you so much, alison, for chatting with me today.
3:17
Elizabeth Willetts: It's such a pleasure to obviously learn.
3:19
Elizabeth Willetts: What about you and Golden Brain Academy?
3:21
Alison Goulden: Thank you for that lovely intro.
3:23
Alison Goulden: I listened to that as though I was here talking about someone else.
3:26
Elizabeth Willetts: It's like the eulogy or something.
3:28
Elizabeth Willetts: Am I really doing it for that long?
3:33
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, people haven't heard of Golden Brain Academy.
3:35
Elizabeth Willetts: Do you want to give them a bit of an overview as to who you are and what you do?
3:39
Alison Goulden: Yeah.
3:39
Alison Goulden: So basically it's probably easiest to explain it from the beginning, really.
3:44
Alison Goulden: So what started out basically as me just doing a bit of tutoring which we can come to why I got to that stage later but basically I was doing one-to-one lessons from my home, face-to-face usual, and I basically had too many children.
4:01
Alison Goulden: So I decided that maybe I could do put them into little groups instead.
4:05
Alison Goulden: Of.
4:06
Alison Goulden: That way I obviously had more time.
4:07
Alison Goulden: So I started doing that in a little sort of community hall, really local to us on a Saturday, and I had sort of throughout the day, about 60 children by the end, lots of different year groups.
4:20
Alison Goulden: I did one, yeah, an hour of year one, an hour of year two, an hour of year three and so on, and it was absolutely brilliant and I loved it, Absolutely loved it, and it was sort of everything that I wanted from teaching really.
4:32
Alison Goulden: And then good old COVID came along and obviously I couldn't do it anymore.
4:36
Alison Goulden: I sort of had a couple of lessons a couple of weeks left, of sort of the half-term.
4:40
Alison Goulden: I thought what am I going to do, Because obviously I can't teach live.
4:45
Alison Goulden: So I thought, oh, maybe I could try online.
4:48
Alison Goulden: I had never done it before, was quite skeptical, to be honest, having spent 20 years teaching in a classroom.
4:54
Alison Goulden: But I thought, well, I'll give it a go and see, sort of see what happens.
4:59
Alison Goulden: And obviously it was completely new to everybody.
5:01
Alison Goulden: At this stage no one had done it.
5:03
Alison Goulden: This was just before the actually actually locked down actually.
5:07
Alison Goulden: And so I did it.
5:09
Alison Goulden: So I basically rehearsed with my own daughters on a Friday night, panicking, thinking, oh.
5:15
Alison Goulden: And then basically that Saturday I just taught all day online and I thought, cool, this is quite good, I can sit in my pyjama bottoms.
5:23
Alison Goulden: You know it's this is actually quite nice and it worked really well and the kids loved it and, yeah, there was.
5:29
Alison Goulden: It was basically no different to being in the school as well.
5:32
Alison Goulden: I was obviously still a novice at that stage and sort of, with zoom I'd never, ever used and never even heard, I never heard of zoom, just you know, it was a complete baptism of fire really, I guess.
5:44
Alison Goulden: And then obviously we had the lovely joyous news that we were, the schools were closing and I we were sort of watching with my daughters.
5:53
Alison Goulden: I can remember sitting in the lounge in a social and they were like, yeah, I mean, god, I knew they'd know.
5:58
Alison Goulden: And I said to Richard, my husband, I said, oh, you know, maybe I could do some lessons for children.
6:05
Alison Goulden: You know, the children that I teach, I could teach during the day Because obviously at this point the schools were you working as a teacher at this point, or were you?
6:14
Alison Goulden: No, no, I was only tutoring.
6:16
Alison Goulden: And yeah, basically I just said, well, maybe I could sort of, you know, teach the children because they were getting nothing.
6:24
Alison Goulden: The schools closed and that was it.
6:25
Alison Goulden: I know some of the private schools launched straight into some form of online lessons.
6:29
Alison Goulden: 90% of children basically were on holiday, as it were.
6:34
Alison Goulden: So I sort of sent a message to some of the parents, to my parents, and said, look, I'm really happy to teach the kids, I'll do it for five parents an hour Just so they just get something during the day.
6:48
Alison Goulden: So I did that and basically I had no idea and I'm not surprised, having trying to also homeschool three quite reluctant daughters Everyone loved it and they, everyone just sort of signed out and before I knew it, I'm sort of calling my teacher friends who eat like weren't working hard for them, like were basically not doing very much.
7:09
Alison Goulden: I was like, can you help me?
7:10
Alison Goulden: I need people to take groups and people to do this.
7:12
Alison Goulden: And it just basically went from there.
7:14
Alison Goulden: It was just primary.
7:15
Alison Goulden: We then expanded into secondary as well, not so much that stage and I just I taught all day, every day, all throughout lockdown, and, as I said, I absolutely loved it.
7:27
Alison Goulden: It was brilliant and I just feel it was like my little way really of making a bit of a difference and I thought you know, like Joe Wicks?
7:35
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, I was a wicks of you, non P version of Joe Quite as well, but it was, you know, it was just something.
7:43
Alison Goulden: So the kids had some a bit of structure, I guess, in their day and and it was lovely and they all got to know each other and the loveliest thing is, I mean, it's quite sad actually, but some of them I've just lost actually because they've gone to secondary school, but something might.
7:59
Alison Goulden: I had my year threes at that time basically stayed, have stayed with me all the way through, and they've just started year seven now.
8:07
Elizabeth Willetts: Were you a primary schoolteacher then, when you were in school yes, I'm a primary schoolteacher.
8:12
Alison Goulden: Yeah.
8:13
Elizabeth Willetts: And why did you leave then full time teaching in a school to become a tutor?
8:17
Elizabeth Willetts: Children?
8:18
Alison Goulden: my own children, basically completely in utterly work life balance.
8:23
Alison Goulden: I mean, that's when I saw about you and everything I thought this, this actually is me.
8:26
Alison Goulden: I am that woman.
8:27
Alison Goulden: So I started teaching once straight out of university.
8:30
Alison Goulden: Obviously, we all know teaching is quite a challenging career in terms of the hours actually spent.
8:37
Alison Goulden: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:39
Alison Goulden: No such thing as going in at nine and finishing at half three is very much what you put into it.
8:43
Alison Goulden: And I am a bit of a workaholic, I will be the first to admit that.
8:48
Alison Goulden: And it was fine when I obviously didn't have children of my own and to work my way up.
8:53
Alison Goulden: I was head of pre prep at the school I was as work was working at, and then I got pregnant with Lucy and I kind of I went straight back to work pretty much.
9:02
Alison Goulden: This year was five months old when I went back to work, but actually she was three and a half months old when I went back for a bit before the summer holidays and I don't think I was completely unprepared for what that meant really.
9:16
Alison Goulden: You know, getting up in the morning taking like my I was.
9:19
Alison Goulden: Some days Lucy was with my parents, Some day she was at the childminder, started off at nursery and then she got pneumonia so she couldn't go to nursery anymore.
9:28
Alison Goulden: You know, it was just one of those days.
9:30
Alison Goulden: You're still expected to be that person at work and I was, you know, obviously running a department and teaching all day and I have these, these children.
9:38
Alison Goulden: But then I also have my daughter, who I'm trying to sort of.
9:41
Alison Goulden: I felt like I was just shoving her around, really trying to get her to fit in, and I can remember I think the worst one was I got home from school once and I had her in the car and had all my books and everything else and I put Lucy and Lucy, I think, was about eight months old and I put her in there.
10:00
Alison Goulden: You know those doorbouncers yeah, she's like Fluffing away in a doorbouncer and I went back outside to get all my books and everything in to plow on with the marking, and the wind blew the door shut.
10:15
Alison Goulden: Yeah leaving Lucy and so, and the outside, no way of getting in.
10:21
Alison Goulden: So she's quite happy to start with bouncing around and I'm calling through the letterboxes.
10:25
Alison Goulden: Hey, I'm tired.
10:28
Alison Goulden: I mean, you know, it's been a long day at school and I'm starting to get a bit panicky.
10:32
Alison Goulden: Neighbors trying to bash the door in, and, long story short, after about 40 minutes of trying to get in, I had to call the fire brigade, by which point Lucy's bright, red in the face, screaming for all she's worth.
10:47
Alison Goulden: Anyway, they had to let me in and I thought, yeah, this kind of working and mothering things quite hard.
10:52
Alison Goulden: So there was that.
10:54
Alison Goulden: Then obviously the others came along.
10:56
Alison Goulden: I carried on working throughout all of them, but by the time after Lucy was born I had well, I didn't realize them, but post-natal depression, but it wasn't so bad.
11:07
Alison Goulden: But then I got pregnant with Emma again quite soon after Mm-hmm.
11:11
Alison Goulden: It sort of really kicked in then and I realized that I really wasn't gonna be able to to do it all.
11:17
Alison Goulden: So I I had a small break, but not very long.
11:20
Alison Goulden: I went back to work part-time.
11:22
Alison Goulden: I know I was six months old.
11:23
Elizabeth Willetts: Was that in a school or was that two school?
11:26
Alison Goulden: Yeah, all in school, still in a school.
11:28
Alison Goulden: I loved it.
11:28
Alison Goulden: I just didn't feel and I know that you know people don't always appreciate that, the fact that we do want both.
11:34
Alison Goulden: I loved being a mom yeah, you look, being a teacher.
11:37
Alison Goulden: I didn't feel complete when I wasn't teaching, but you know, that was my thing and that's when I whatever was going on around me, I could be in the classroom and nothing else mattered.
11:46
Alison Goulden: Really and it sounds a bit corny, doesn't it?
11:49
Alison Goulden: But you know that that is how it was and I wanted, I desperately wanted to keep doing it and trying to find a way and thankfully, you know I had my parents were absolutely amazing and really helped out with the children and you know I couldn't have done that without them and the schools that I worked in.
12:03
Alison Goulden: I ended up sort of working in schools that were able to offer part-time.
12:08
Alison Goulden: Unfortunately and this is still true, and I'm sure any teacher moms out there will know that they don't like part-time teachers- my friend had to leave because they rejected her part-time request and I never, I've never been able to understand that from being, like you know, sort of running a team myself.
12:26
Alison Goulden: Would you rather have two brilliant teachers who are you know job, who are sharing, or somebody that more mediocre, just because they can do full-time?
12:36
Alison Goulden: It's just never been something that I've been able to get my head around, but that's what it was, and so I was kind of a little bit taking jobs that I could really, that were localish, that would Offer me part-time.
12:47
Alison Goulden: It wasn't perfect, but we kind of made it work.
12:50
Alison Goulden: And then we moved to Dubai for five years with Richard's job and the plan wasn't really for me to work.
12:57
Alison Goulden: But then it turned out that we couldn't get the children into school, and the one way that we could definitely get the children into a school was if Muggins here got a job.
13:06
Alison Goulden: So I did and it was brilliant.
13:09
Alison Goulden: I loved it, but I have never worked so hard in my entire life.
13:13
Alison Goulden: Luckily the kids were at the same school as me, so you know I was still able to sort of be part of it, because the other thing, when you're teaching you can't just say sorry, everybody, my daughter's got a harvest festival but I can't come in today.
13:26
Alison Goulden: You know, it just doesn't, it just doesn't work.
13:29
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, it's the job where you have to be very present, isn't it?
13:32
Alison Goulden: You can't and you feel so guilty.
13:34
Alison Goulden: I cannot tell you how guilty you feel if you can't go in, because you know what a hassle it is to school.
13:40
Alison Goulden: They've got to get a supply teacher, They've got to do this.
13:43
Alison Goulden: It's not one of those jobs we can just run up and say oh yeah, I feel a bit old today.
13:46
Alison Goulden: Yeah, I'll catch up tomorrow.
13:47
Alison Goulden: I'm not coming in, you know, I'll catch up tomorrow because there's like 30 children that are relying on you being there, and it's that horrible night before when you know that you're pretty sure you're not going to be able to go in and you know You're gonna have to phone the the head in the morning, and so I'm really sorry.
14:02
Alison Goulden: Anyway, so in Dubai we came back after five.
14:06
Alison Goulden: Get works.
14:07
Elizabeth Willetts: I honestly never come back and ask you remind me when we'll get to how you mean so, to tutoring.
14:13
Elizabeth Willetts: But it was so interesting to hear about your experiences of teaching in Dubai, so we will definitely come back to that I loved it.
14:19
Alison Goulden: It's a whole different thing.
14:20
Alison Goulden: Very close to me, you see, lovely absolutely loved the job, love the people I work with.
14:25
Alison Goulden: It was brilliant.
14:26
Alison Goulden: But, oh my god, did I work hard and I know my.
14:30
Alison Goulden: I was basically running on a journal in and again, I'm sure that loads of mums listens this will know exactly what I mean Just totally running on a journal in, and then every single Holiday I would stop and get really ill.
14:44
Alison Goulden: It was just like I was in this cycle of just work, work, work, work, work, get ill, be forced to stop working, just about get myself Ready to go again, and then I'd go straight back in and it was just.
14:56
Alison Goulden: I was in this vicious cycle.
14:57
Alison Goulden: I was getting really bad migraines, like terrible, terrible migraines, and I had no time for the children.
15:04
Alison Goulden: I was really snappy with them.
15:06
Alison Goulden: It turned out that they were sort of distracting me from.
15:09
Alison Goulden: I couldn't get on with my work Because I had to deal with that.
15:13
Alison Goulden: You know it was just.
15:13
Alison Goulden: I just found myself in just not in the right place.
15:16
Alison Goulden: I mean, when I left that job they actually replaced me with three people.
15:21
Alison Goulden: Really, yeah they split my job in three.
15:23
Alison Goulden: So that kind of made me feel a bit better because I was starting to think why.
15:27
Alison Goulden: You know, I look at all these other women and they can do this.
15:30
Alison Goulden: Why am I struggling?
15:31
Alison Goulden: Yeah, and I loved I.
15:32
Alison Goulden: Just all I want to do is teach.
15:34
Alison Goulden: I love my job so much and it kind of just felt really sad because I thought I just don't think I can do it anymore really.
15:40
Alison Goulden: So we came back and Richard stayed for a year in Dubai and I came back with the girls, mostly so that Lucy could start Secondary school at the beginning of year seven, because we thought otherwise we're gonna have to really disrupt somebody.
15:54
Alison Goulden: So we came back and I thought, well, my mum, on my own, there's absolutely no way that I'm gonna be able to teach and look after three children and ferry them to different schools.
16:03
Alison Goulden: And so I said, right, I'm gonna take, I'm not gonna work.
16:06
Alison Goulden: So and I drove myself completely insane at home making just trying to occupy myself with you know, I love a list.
16:15
Alison Goulden: I love a list list of my.
16:16
Alison Goulden: So I'd be making lists about the list of, like writing down what I was gonna do.
16:20
Alison Goulden: You know, I was just.
16:21
Alison Goulden: I like a list to get that.
16:23
Alison Goulden: Yeah, I write lists about my list.
16:26
Alison Goulden: I write things on my list just so I can cross them out.
16:31
Elizabeth Willetts: You know I write things I've already done just.
16:34
Alison Goulden: But I was just.
16:34
Alison Goulden: I was really unfulfilled and I thought I need to do something.
16:37
Alison Goulden: And as it was my lady that lived opposite us son was going to be applying for secondary schools and she asked me if I'd do a bit of work with him and I said, oh yeah, you know, I'd love to.
16:49
Alison Goulden: I thought, brilliant, I can do this.
16:50
Alison Goulden: He just literally walked across the road and he came, and then suddenly it just started picking up and then I'm tutoring loads.
16:59
Alison Goulden: And then I'm thinking, but obviously it was difficult because I had my own children and I could only tutor when these after school, because those children were in school as well.
17:08
Alison Goulden: So it was kind of a little bit difficult.
17:09
Alison Goulden: And then, but I was sort of making it work, and then my daughter's school asked me to do some supply and because I just basically can't say no, I said yes and what I thought was going to be a couple of weeks turned into me then accepting a job, a job share for a year, and then that's when I then said, okay, I'm going to stop now and I'm just going to do my Saturdays at the thing.
17:33
Alison Goulden: And then obviously that then seeped into the whole lockdown thing and then it just sort of snowballed from there really, and I, yeah, that's it.
17:42
Elizabeth Willetts: Wow, that's crazy.
17:44
Elizabeth Willetts: That's a really great story.
17:45
Elizabeth Willetts: So we'll just reverse that, because I know the big one.
17:47
Elizabeth Willetts: Yes, rewind, how does the education systems differ?
17:52
Elizabeth Willetts: I guess in Dubai and I know you work with other tutor children from other countries as well yeah, we do so it's big business in Dubai.
18:01
Alison Goulden: They're on state schools, so obviously it's all private schools, mostly international schools, you and an international school.
18:08
Alison Goulden: I was at the Dubai British School, which is British curriculum, so it was pretty much the same as an independent school here, but they are run very much as businesses, to be honest, and the class sizes for an independent are quite big.
18:22
Alison Goulden: But I loved it.
18:24
Alison Goulden: I said that the relationships that you have with people.
18:26
Alison Goulden: Is there something very special about being an ex-pat, because you build a different kind of relationship with people, because they like become your family really and you don't have that way and there's this sort of we're all in this together mentality really and yeah, I mean the girls love it.
18:41
Alison Goulden: It is different in some ways, especially teaching somewhere like the Middle East, because the children learn it.
18:46
Alison Goulden: They have to have three hours of Arabic a week.
18:48
Alison Goulden: There's lots of years.
18:50
Alison Goulden: So I think that made it very intense because we're still teaching the British curriculum, which is, even here, very, very full.
18:57
Alison Goulden: You have to fly through at such a pace in order to get everything covered, which is something that we'll come to.
19:05
Alison Goulden: But obviously in Dubai, when you've got all these other things going on as well, and you're still trying to squeeze that in.
19:12
Alison Goulden: It's quite intense but lovely, and it's just little things that are so different, like they have red break in Dubai.
19:20
Alison Goulden: It's always red break, so where we'd have a wet play here, every single dread wet play, because you know you're just going to have hyperactive children who are basically in the classroom like caged animals In Dubai.
19:33
Alison Goulden: That's the opposite.
19:33
Alison Goulden: So once you get to May, it's too hot to go outside.
19:38
Alison Goulden: Yeah, have red break, so you have to.
19:41
Alison Goulden: They have to stay in and basically they then can't really go out again until probably October.
19:48
Elizabeth Willetts: And so let's call you the same.
19:49
Elizabeth Willetts: So it's September to September July.
19:52
Alison Goulden: When we first went there, the week ran from Sunday to, but actually subsequently they've now changed that.
19:58
Alison Goulden: Now they actually go Monday to Friday again, but they finish on Friday lunchtime instead.
20:05
Elizabeth Willetts: I was going to say they changed the time, Like do you start a bit earlier because it's so hot?
20:09
Elizabeth Willetts: I do.
20:09
Alison Goulden: Yeah, so school starts at half seven and finishes at well, the younger ones that help us to the older ones a bit later.
20:17
Alison Goulden: It's a very early start because I'd be getting into school again.
20:21
Alison Goulden: I mean it's just the length of the day I'm having to get my own children up and out and we're in school at seven, so we're getting up at sort of half.
20:28
Alison Goulden: I mean I know a lot of people do it.
20:29
Alison Goulden: It's not that much of a hardship.
20:31
Alison Goulden: But, trying to get three young children out of the house.
20:34
Alison Goulden: It was hard work.
20:36
Elizabeth Willetts: My girls.
20:36
Alison Goulden: Lucy was four when Emma was born, so I had three under four, yeah, and I thought it was quite hard then.
20:44
Alison Goulden: And then they turned into teenagers and I thought I wish I could go back to that.
20:48
Elizabeth Willetts: I was going to say mind you younger than yours, we're not going to get easier.
20:52
Alison Goulden: No, she's shaking.
20:53
Alison Goulden: No, I saw this lovely lady when I was walking the dogs yesterday and she had a four-week-old baby, beautiful little baby girl, and she was like I'm so tired I can't tell you.
21:03
Alison Goulden: I didn't realize it was going to be this hard and I said I'd love to tell you that it gets easier.
21:07
Alison Goulden: But honestly, this is quite a nice thing, you know what it is.
21:10
Elizabeth Willetts: We finished our first.
21:12
Elizabeth Willetts: I mean, the sleep deprivation is horrendous, but I do remember watching a lot of Netflix, the things that I wanted to watch, snuggled on the sofa.
21:20
Elizabeth Willetts: I can remember doing 24.
21:22
Alison Goulden: Do you remember 24?
21:23
Alison Goulden: Yeah, I love that Marathons when.
21:25
Elizabeth Willetts: I was three yeah.
21:27
Alison Goulden: And now I look back at God.
21:28
Alison Goulden: I'd love to do that now, just down the sofa watching TV.
21:32
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah.
21:34
Alison Goulden: So how's your?
21:35
Elizabeth Willetts: work-life balance transformed.
21:36
Elizabeth Willetts: Now Now you, I mean, I suppose it's a bit different because you're now running a business and the business is growing, which is great.
21:42
Elizabeth Willetts: But I suppose you know, when you were tutoring before you became a business owner, how did your work-life balance transform?
21:49
Alison Goulden: So, as I said, during lockdown Foothill, richard was made redundant just before lockdown actually, and he was sort of thinking about what he was going to do and then obviously, lockdown happened and I was basically just tied to the computer all day, every day, which was great in some ways because I was responsible for other people's children's learning and I didn't have to deal with my own, which completely, and I see, fell on Richard, which is quite nothing, and I think that was fine.
22:17
Alison Goulden: Then the difficulty, I think, with the nice thing about the tutoring is I take the kids to school in the morning.
22:22
Alison Goulden: I can be there for them.
22:23
Alison Goulden: I make their breakfast, I can be there, I can also.
22:26
Alison Goulden: It's slightly different for me, but because I've got all the admin to do as well, but I can pretty much teach around things.
22:34
Alison Goulden: Do you still teach?
22:35
Alison Goulden: Yeah, so I teach about 25 lessons a week.
22:38
Alison Goulden: Oh, yeah, still, yeah, so, and that's obviously predominantly in the evenings, but because we're lucky, because I've managed to bring across quite a lot of students that I taught in Dubai sort of recommended.
22:51
Alison Goulden: So we've got quite a lot of students in the Middle East and in Asia as well, which works really nicely because we can obviously do them during the day, because in Asia we can start teaching from half nine our time.
23:02
Alison Goulden: That then moves into Dubai and then the UK students and actually we've got some we've even got some students in America now that we teach at like.
23:10
Alison Goulden: Some of our teachers teach at like nine o'clock but that works really well for them because if they've got children, their children have gone to bed, so actually it's not impeding on their family time.
23:21
Alison Goulden: It is a juggling, I would say, because I'm not around.
23:26
Alison Goulden: I am basically at the computer.
23:27
Alison Goulden: I mean, my poor family have to listen to me all day, every day.
23:32
Alison Goulden: I haven't got the quietest voice in the world and they just have to listen to me droning on, but it just works really nicely and I'm not stressed anymore.
23:41
Alison Goulden: And you know feedback from my teachers as well is as I said.
23:44
Alison Goulden: You know people are so over listening to teachers whinging about how hard they work.
23:48
Alison Goulden: I know, but you know it is so intense People don't always realise how.
23:54
Alison Goulden: You know it's the parents' evenings, it's the shows in the youth, it's the marking, it's the putting displays up, it's all of these things that you know take a lot of time.
24:03
Alison Goulden: And you know you've got constant being reviewed, people taking your books in to check that you're marking properly.
24:10
Alison Goulden: You've got people coming round and checking, you know, randomly walking into your classroom to check that you're teaching what you're supposed to be teaching and doing it properly.
24:18
Alison Goulden: And you know it's.
24:19
Alison Goulden: You're constantly feeling like you're being watched all the time and judged.
24:23
Alison Goulden: And teachers on the whole, you know, take their job extremely seriously.
24:28
Alison Goulden: You know take great pride in what they do.
24:30
Alison Goulden: So it adds a lot of extra pressure.
24:33
Alison Goulden: And the beauty of now is that I went into teaching, as we all do, because I love teaching, I love making a difference to children, I love seeing their faces when they get it, I love being on that journey with them.
24:44
Alison Goulden: And now that is all I do.
24:46
Alison Goulden: I don't have to do parents' evenings, I don't have to, you know, I don't have to do any, not that I'm not being mean about parents' evenings, but it's.
24:52
Alison Goulden: I don't have to do any of that stuff, that report, you know like with everything, so much paperwork now, and is that really what is benefiting the children?
25:02
Alison Goulden: Because what they need they need a happy, enthusiastic, you know teacher who's going to motivate and stimulate them, Not an exhausted teacher who's constantly feeling that you know they're being judged and someone's telling them they're doing something wrong and so I don't have that anymore.
25:17
Alison Goulden: So now I just, literally I can plan what is best for the children.
25:21
Alison Goulden: You know I don't have to whiz through the curricula.
25:23
Alison Goulden: I mean so many parents phoning up and saying you know he's so behind in man.
25:29
Alison Goulden: You know I don't know what to do and I know why.
25:31
Alison Goulden: It is because I've been there and I've done it and it's because they have to.
25:35
Alison Goulden: Teachers have to move so quickly through everything and if children don't get it, there's no time to say, oh, do you know what?
25:41
Alison Goulden: We'll go over that again tomorrow, because there's just no time, because then they'll get behind on the other things and they won't get through everything, and it's just this vicious circle.
25:49
Alison Goulden: And so obviously, these poor children are just being moved on and on when they haven't really got it and the gaps are getting bigger and bigger.
25:56
Alison Goulden: Throw COVID in there, which obviously made what was already a nightmare even worse, whereas for me I can say oh, I did a long division yesterday with a group and you know they really found it difficult, despite my and I'd find it difficult, I'm stretching and I know, I know that probably half of them, some of them just completely, were like looking at me, like what are the others?
26:22
Alison Goulden: Others were close but they didn't quite get it and if I'd been in school I would have moved on to the next thing, whereas I said to them look, you know what, let's just stop there, let's do a game, let's just have a bit of fun and let's revisit this again next week, and and that's what we'll do, and we'll do it next week.
26:39
Alison Goulden: And you know, obviously I'm in the situation where I can do that, because what I'm doing is what's best for the children.
26:45
Alison Goulden: Always I can move at their pace, I can make sure that, whereas in school, unfortunately, it's not anybody's fault but there just is so little time these children to really secure the objectives really before they move on.
26:59
Elizabeth Willetts: I don't know how I got to that but anyway, no, no, I mean this is obviously getting a bit political.
27:03
Elizabeth Willetts: You know, if you, it's Jolene Keegan, it's like the education secretary.
27:06
Elizabeth Willetts: If there was somebody here that actually was responsible for schools and national curriculum, you know what would you say to if you had a stake in that and could say this is, you know what I think would make education better for our children.
27:19
Elizabeth Willetts: What would that be?
28:11
Alison Goulden: I think possibly just to relieve some of the stress.
28:16
Alison Goulden: I mean, the difficulty is, you know, teachers don't have the respect that they used to have.
28:22
Elizabeth Willetts: Is that from the parents or the children?
28:24
Alison Goulden: Yeah, from everyone, from parents as well.
28:26
Alison Goulden: You know, like if if I saw it it was a cartoon, actually, I think, and it sort of said it was along the lines of something to do with the teacher said I'm going to call your parents and the kids, like children would be like oh my God, please don't tell my parents.
28:40
Alison Goulden: And they'd phone the parents and the parents would be like how dare you do that at school?
28:44
Alison Goulden: You need to be like.
28:46
Alison Goulden: Now, if a teacher says I'm going to phone your parents, they'll be like, yeah, go on then.
28:50
Alison Goulden: Because they know the parents will be like well, no, no, no, no, it's not their fault and you know it's, there's, there's a real, there's been a real shift in and children will very much know their rights now.
29:00
Alison Goulden: You know, you can't make me do that.
29:01
Alison Goulden: I don't want to, you know, but never happens.
29:03
Alison Goulden: And in a classroom of 30 children it only takes a couple of children who are not from their own full tall, may have difficulties, and the teacher's attention is going to be mostly put on them.
29:16
Alison Goulden: And you know, you've got this core group of children in the middle.
29:19
Alison Goulden: You've got your really bright ones.
29:21
Alison Goulden: They'll do well, whatever.
29:22
Alison Goulden: You could plump them in the middle of the desert with a book and they would learn.
29:25
Alison Goulden: And then you've got your weaker children who generally are well supported.
29:29
Alison Goulden: I mean, that's a whole nother issue, but you know, generally and the teacher will be forced really into paying them a lot of attention Most of our children, my children, are sitting in the middle and they are left to fend for themselves.
29:41
Alison Goulden: That is an issue that I think, if I had more, say I would.
29:45
Alison Goulden: What are we really doing about just these children in the middle?
29:49
Alison Goulden: And these are the ones that come to us mostly and they're children who probably would and that's a huge thing in secondary school as well.
29:56
Alison Goulden: But these are the children who probably would do really really well with the right input.
30:02
Alison Goulden: How you know, as you said, we know that money is really tight for these schools there.
30:05
Alison Goulden: They're having to.
30:08
Alison Goulden: Unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of their expensive.
30:11
Alison Goulden: Older teachers with more experience are leaving younger, cheaper, weren't coming in.
30:17
Alison Goulden: You know, it's just such a well, I speak to parents day in, day out, every single day and they're just like I don't know what to do.
30:26
Alison Goulden: Really, there is.
30:27
Alison Goulden: I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do think we need to stop kind of not being so competitive, but I think we just need to try and put the children first a bit more and actually what they genuinely do need to know, because children learn if they're having a good time and if they're inspired.
30:44
Alison Goulden: You know, like middle-doughty, you know she'll come home and say, oh, we did this and we did that and we've been talking about feminism, and then she was talking about bringing even stuff like about.
30:52
Alison Goulden: They've had this discussion about Angie Tate and you know she was really going really, really in depth, whereas Lutty will come home and I said she'll be like I don't know, she's just not really inspired in the same way and I think if we could somehow get back to you know, I don't know it's so so I wish I had a better one and I could.
31:14
Alison Goulden: But for me I just feel that what we're trying to do is just, in our own little way, just make that difference.
31:20
Alison Goulden: You know, a child could be in school all day and, just you know, not be noticed at all, and then they can come to us of an evening and, just for 45 minute, you know, feel that they've actually seen.
31:30
Alison Goulden: Yeah.
31:31
Alison Goulden: Do you know what Feel seen.
31:33
Alison Goulden: That's exactly right, absolutely spot on.
31:36
Elizabeth Willetts: How many children are in your groups that you teach?
31:39
Alison Goulden: Though it's a maximum of eight, and sometimes parents, how do you, you know?
31:43
Alison Goulden: How can you see whatever you know?
31:45
Alison Goulden: Just, and I said, when you're teaching, we used to teaching 30 children and you have eight.
31:49
Alison Goulden: It's an absolute dream, and you know.
31:51
Alison Goulden: That's what we do.
31:52
Alison Goulden: It's by use of questioning and we use a lot of interactive tools so I can see the children's screens.
31:59
Alison Goulden: They're constantly engaging.
32:00
Alison Goulden: They're constantly engaging with each other.
32:02
Alison Goulden: You know, they get to know each other.
32:04
Alison Goulden: It's lovely, actually, because some of my year sixes went to a an open afternoon for their new school and they saw each other there.
32:13
Alison Goulden: They'd like known each other just for a while Zoom class and they actually saw each other in real life and it's so lovely, they were so excited.
32:20
Alison Goulden: Yeah, one of the moms said, you know, he was so nervous about going because he didn't know anyone.
32:25
Alison Goulden: No one from his school was going there, and then he went in and then learned behold, and there's something really special about that and the fact that, you know, on a Saturday morning I teach a creative writing class and I've got two children in Hong Kong, one in Beijing, two in Dubai and three in England and they're all learning together and it's so nice, it's just love and you know it's.
32:46
Alison Goulden: They come from all over.
32:47
Alison Goulden: I've had children teaching in a hotel room in the Maldives.
32:50
Alison Goulden: I've had.
32:51
Alison Goulden: I've had one child I taught a lesson to who was at the Grand Prix in a tent.
32:56
Alison Goulden: Oh yeah, nice, they were at the Grand Prix so I could hear the Roar, roar.
32:59
Alison Goulden: Yeah, I still didn't do it.
33:01
Alison Goulden: I think it's amazing.
33:03
Alison Goulden: They teach the car on the way to swimming.
33:06
Alison Goulden: They're doing their lesson and it's just, it's really fun.
33:10
Elizabeth Willetts: What sort of families come to you then?
33:11
Elizabeth Willetts: What sort of backgrounds the?
33:13
Alison Goulden: children, all different, all different People always say to me I see you don't have any private school children.
33:18
Alison Goulden: I said, well, you'd be really surprised the number.
33:21
Alison Goulden: It is a complete mishmash of some people who themselves but a lot of parents who speak English as an additional language are finding it really difficult to support their children because they don't have a strong enough class.
33:35
Alison Goulden: I mean, goodness me, the way that English is taught.
33:38
Alison Goulden: Now you know talking about subordinate clauses and fronted adverbials and you know most people that speak English as their first language have no idea what are.
33:47
Alison Goulden: Yeah, do you?
33:47
Elizabeth Willetts: realise that's gone over my head.
33:48
Elizabeth Willetts: I lost your, I lost your, I lost your.
33:52
Alison Goulden: I tend to lose people at fronted adverbials.
33:55
Alison Goulden: So a lot, of a lot of those parents and especially for for English related subjects, very often masses they can kind of do themselves because it's sort of, but again, parents will say, well, we didn't do it like this when I was at school.
34:08
Alison Goulden: Yeah, what is this weird chunking thing or this, you know, with bar modelling stuff and so?
34:14
Alison Goulden: And the nice thing is because in school you send your child to school and the door shuts, yeah, and that's it.
34:20
Alison Goulden: And they come out at the end of the day and you are pretty much relying on them telling you you know what happened and they're not going to, you know God.
34:28
Alison Goulden: Mostly it'll just be like I'm hungry or like, yeah, don't get a lot.
34:31
Elizabeth Willetts: How was your day?
34:32
Elizabeth Willetts: Bye, yeah, fine.
34:35
Alison Goulden: I pretend to get from teenage daughters, whereas this way parents can be involved in it as much as they like.
34:42
Alison Goulden: Some parents sit next to their children and do the lessons.
34:45
Alison Goulden: We have a nice bit of banter with them.
34:47
Alison Goulden: Sometimes they float around in the background.
34:50
Alison Goulden: Some parents go woohoo, I've got 45 minutes to myself.
34:53
Alison Goulden: I'm going to go and, you know, do whatever lay down in a darkened room, but you know.
34:59
Alison Goulden: Or they can do some work themselves.
35:01
Alison Goulden: But they all say that the beauty is they suddenly able to see how children learn in school and see the method, so that when the children then bring homework home, they can go.
35:12
Alison Goulden: I'll hold on a minute.
35:13
Alison Goulden: I know this.
35:14
Alison Goulden: So you don't get this.
35:15
Alison Goulden: Children saying well, my teacher doesn't do it like that, although my children say that to me, we don't do it like that at school.
35:21
Alison Goulden: Well, I'm like yes, you do.
35:22
Alison Goulden: I can't say that to me because I know so.
35:26
Alison Goulden: I think that's a huge benefit of it and also for busy.
35:29
Alison Goulden: Most of our children have two parents working Very few of them and mums are, you know, juggling and, you know, trying to do this.
35:38
Alison Goulden: Oh, I've got to take into this.
35:39
Alison Goulden: You know these children do so much.
35:41
Alison Goulden: Now They've got karate.
35:42
Alison Goulden: So the lovely thing about this is they can.
35:47
Alison Goulden: You know, it can be squeezing, no one has to drive anywhere to do it, you don't have to take them, you don't have, it's just all there and it's just so easy.
35:55
Alison Goulden: And you know, on the flip side, for us, teacher wise, it's brilliant because you can have a teacher.
36:01
Alison Goulden: You know one of my teachers, harry.
36:03
Alison Goulden: He lives in Devon.
36:04
Alison Goulden: You know, he is amazing, like the most incredible teachers, completely opposite to me, whereas I'm like, he's completely chilled, calm, really patient with the kids.
36:16
Alison Goulden: They just love him.
36:18
Alison Goulden: But I know we worked together in Dubai, that's where I met him and he wouldn't be.
36:23
Alison Goulden: You know, these children wouldn't have access to the Harries of this world if it was only face to face, whereas, you know, because we can literally pick the best teachers wherever they are, which is, you know, our French teacher spends half her time in France.
36:38
Alison Goulden: She's from France, she's from France.
36:41
Alison Goulden: You know you can do it.
36:43
Alison Goulden: You can go on holiday and still do it.
36:44
Alison Goulden: You know it's, when it comes to flexible working, it's just the absolute best, really.
36:50
Elizabeth Willetts: The people that your tutors do.
36:51
Elizabeth Willetts: They give up there.
36:52
Elizabeth Willetts: Do you have some people that are doing teaching in the day and then do teaching on the evening, or do you have other people that are full time in your?
36:59
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, a complete mix, total mix.
37:01
Alison Goulden: So I've got some teachers who teach full time, so someone like Laura, who's our second teacher, and Harry.
37:07
Alison Goulden: They both pretty much teach about 30 lessons a week.
37:09
Alison Goulden: And then we've got other teachers that do two hours a week who you know they might do.
37:14
Alison Goulden: They might it might be because they're still teaching full time in school Quite a lot of them will be doing part time in school and then do a little bit of tutoring extra, but many, many of them have actually started to have actually stopped and are now just tutor, although I have this kind of difficult thing and I was saying this to somebody the other day and I'm like these teachers should be in school, these teachers we've got these incredible teachers make such a difference.
37:45
Alison Goulden: And you know, even myself sometimes I feel bad because I think you know, but we really should be in school, but you know, for one reason or another it just doesn't, you know, it just doesn't suit.
37:56
Alison Goulden: So we're just, we're still helping, but just in a different way, really.
38:00
Alison Goulden: And what subjects do you teach children?
38:02
Alison Goulden: So, personally, I do primary, predominantly 11 plus in creative writing, but we teach absolutely everything, and mainly English.
38:13
Alison Goulden: Maths and science obviously are the key ones.
38:15
Alison Goulden: But we've got our Arabic teacher is in Dubai.
38:18
Alison Goulden: We've got Japanese teacher, we've got you know French, german, geography, you name it, psychology, sociology.
38:29
Elizabeth Willetts: So we teach everything, I suppose, if someone's doing a GCSE in geography, so they may might want additional support.
38:35
Alison Goulden: Yeah, I mean I think secondary wise it's more intense and I think people get quite.
38:41
Alison Goulden: I think children sort of drift towards GCSEs and they're generally quite unprepared.
38:46
Alison Goulden: They've never had to really do anything.
38:48
Alison Goulden: I mean, they do the sats obviously, but then between sats and GCSEs there's very little they do in terms of preparation and it can.
38:58
Alison Goulden: I mean I call it with my own daughter who's in year 13 now.
39:01
Alison Goulden: She had absolutely no idea about revising, she didn't know how.
39:05
Alison Goulden: I mean, that's probably her excuse, she just didn't like revising but she had no idea how to do it.
39:10
Alison Goulden: There was you know, she just hadn't, whereas our teachers are able to say, you know, help them with revising and just give them that extra boost.
39:19
Alison Goulden: Really, I think they just need I said, most of these children just need a little bit extra time to make such a big difference.
39:27
Elizabeth Willetts: And you've mentioned how important you think creative writing is and what a skill.
39:30
Elizabeth Willetts: Why is it so important?
39:33
Alison Goulden: I'm very biased, obviously because it's my favourite Saturday.
39:36
Alison Goulden: I think when people say creative writing it actually covers so much, not just about writing stories.
39:43
Alison Goulden: So the curriculum is you know there's many different genres.
39:48
Alison Goulden: There's like persuasive writing, discussion text, everything else.
39:52
Alison Goulden: And I think the biggest impact that creative writing has is it does impact all other subjects because you have to be able to write.
40:00
Alison Goulden: You can have all the best knowledge in here about, I don't know, global warming, for example, but if you can't get that down on paper in a coherent and structured way, you don't get the marks.
40:13
Alison Goulden: And I think this is the biggest benefit of creative writing is it actually teaches you about structuring your writing and how to put your point across in a coherent way.
40:25
Alison Goulden: And actually it's another thing that in school has fallen by the wayside, really, again, not by anybody's fault, but there's just no time for it.
40:33
Alison Goulden: So you know, at best a child will have time to write a paragraph.
40:38
Alison Goulden: Maybe in creative writing they'll be like a set less than a week for it and there's just no time.
40:44
Alison Goulden: And so children are losing the ability, sort of the stamina, to write.
40:49
Alison Goulden: Really they're just not used to writing very much at once.
40:52
Alison Goulden: So then suddenly, when they've got like 18 mark questions to answer in their GCSEs.
40:57
Alison Goulden: They're like whoa, what is this?
40:59
Alison Goulden: Whereas we sort of getting them used to writing early on and, to be honest, it's a life skill being able to write, even if it's just you're going to be emailing whatever.
41:10
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, absolutely, even the physical writing.
41:13
Alison Goulden: it's just obviously it's typing or whatever, but it's just about being able to put words on paper that make sense.
41:20
Alison Goulden: And also, you know I say to the children of the time it's, you know it's about entertaining.
41:24
Alison Goulden: You're writing to entertain your reader.
41:26
Alison Goulden: It's you know you want the person who's reading it to enjoy what they're reading and engage with it.
41:31
Alison Goulden: And that's the same if you're preparing someone, you know, for an exam, if you're an examiner, you want to be reading this, you want to be absorbed in it, you want to you know, understand it and this is that's why I just I love it so much, because it's just such a, it's a great skill.
41:45
Alison Goulden: And kids love it because I say to them there's no right or wrong.
41:48
Alison Goulden: You know, in maths you can get the question wrong, but in creative writing you know there's things you can do to make it better, but it's not wrong.
41:55
Alison Goulden: Yeah, it really allows all children.
41:58
Alison Goulden: You know, whatever their ability level, wherever they're coming from, they can all.
42:02
Alison Goulden: They all actually like writing, they like using their imagination.
42:06
Alison Goulden: And again, with I mean a whole nother topic, screen time.
42:10
Alison Goulden: You know, I was listening at the other day to something and they're saying that children just don't use their imagination at all anymore.
42:16
Alison Goulden: Apparently, daydreaming is out.
42:18
Alison Goulden: Children just don't know how to daydream anymore.
42:20
Alison Goulden: Well, that's a shame.
42:21
Alison Goulden: My daughter would go against that grade.
42:25
Alison Goulden: Yeah, now children are losing the ability.
42:29
Alison Goulden: They just don't daydream anymore because they're constantly like no divide, divide, divide, divide.
42:35
Alison Goulden: They don't just sit and do nothing ever.
42:37
Alison Goulden: Yeah, that's when you use your imagination really.
42:41
Alison Goulden: So it's just my.
42:42
Alison Goulden: I feel like my creative writing lessons are just this little bubble of time.
42:45
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, it unlocks that piece of our brains that we obviously use to use a lot, but maybe you know we're losing.
42:50
Elizabeth Willetts: What is your opinion?
42:51
Elizabeth Willetts: Because I've been sitting in the news recently about some private schools that are ditching GCSEs and starting, I think, their own qualifications.
42:59
Elizabeth Willetts: What do you think about?
43:00
Alison Goulden: GCSEs.
43:00
Alison Goulden: It is a difficult one, I think, because there has to be some kind of something, I guess.
43:08
Alison Goulden: I mean, it has been said that you would sort of ditch GCSEs altogether and just go straight into A-levels.
43:14
Elizabeth Willetts: But that would actually provide even a bigger gap, because you said there's a gap between traps and GCSEs Exactly that.
43:21
Alison Goulden: Then you've suddenly got 18-year-olds being forced into doing it.
43:26
Alison Goulden: Sounds like they've got no experience on it.
43:28
Alison Goulden: I completely understand it.
43:30
Alison Goulden: I can see that there's a lot of benefits to it, because what people are saying is that for many, many children, gcses do not show what they're actually capable of.
43:41
Alison Goulden: I've seen this a lot.
43:44
Alison Goulden: I've taught children who they've got so much about them, but they just they're not academic.
43:52
Alison Goulden: Answering questions, as I was saying about so much of it, is about being able to structure an answer.
43:58
Alison Goulden: A lot of children I have just completely crumble under pressure, under time pressure.
44:03
Alison Goulden: These things GCSEs don't necessarily reflect what that is.
44:10
Alison Goulden: In this day and age as well, we're turning where everything has switched a lot into.
44:14
Alison Goulden: It's not all about I got this.
44:16
Alison Goulden: Companies now are now much more looking for much more rounded individuals with experience.
44:22
Alison Goulden: They're saying they want people to come in at the bottom and work their way up.
44:26
Alison Goulden: They train them.
44:27
Alison Goulden: It's not all about coming in with a master's in whatever.
44:31
Alison Goulden: There's so much more to it.
44:33
Alison Goulden: My own philosophy has changed.
44:35
Alison Goulden: I always just imagined that my daughters would all do what I did, which was just go to school, go to college, go to university.
44:42
Alison Goulden: I just assumed that that's the path that my daughters would follow.
44:47
Alison Goulden: My youngest probably will, the other two it's just not the thing.
44:52
Alison Goulden: I think there's.
44:53
Alison Goulden: So many children now are in the same thing.
44:55
Alison Goulden: This is this big thing about.
44:57
Alison Goulden: There's a really famous quote you might have seen it I can't even remember if it took my head, but I think Einstein said it.
45:05
Alison Goulden: I can't remember if someone said it about you can't judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree or whatever.
45:10
Alison Goulden: It's got all these different animals.
45:12
Alison Goulden: And it's basically saying you've got a fish and obviously the fish isn't going to be able to climb a tree, but the fish can see it.
45:17
Alison Goulden: There is a lot of that.
45:20
Alison Goulden: Rgcse is becoming a little bit outdated and people are saying why am I learning?
45:24
Alison Goulden: My daughter will say well, have I got to learn this chemistry?
45:27
Alison Goulden: I'm never going to use it again.
45:30
Alison Goulden: There is maybe a switch.
45:31
Alison Goulden: There is.
45:32
Alison Goulden: People are moving more towards.
45:34
Alison Goulden: My daughter is doing digital design at college, for example, which would never have been an option before, because she's learning how to use Canva and stuff that will be really beneficial to her that she'll be able to take to a company.
45:47
Alison Goulden: So I do this.
45:48
Alison Goulden: Is that more beneficial to her than doing a history, a level which maybe she's not going to use.
45:53
Alison Goulden: It's really hard.
45:55
Alison Goulden: It is difficult.
45:56
Alison Goulden: Again, I don't know.
45:57
Alison Goulden: I have a feeling that GCSEs days are numbered across the board, but it's what they're going to.
46:02
Alison Goulden: I mean, they said, you know, obviously they did the teacher assessment after COVID and then, rather than so, maybe there's going to be a more of a thing of like it's judged over a longer, like a lot of MVQs.
46:15
Alison Goulden: You know you do four assessments over the two years.
46:20
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah.
46:21
Alison Goulden: So, rather than it so much of it being on one exam, maybe that would be a fairer way of assessing, because obviously there are so many children who really struggle under exam conditions.
46:33
Alison Goulden: But then other people will turn around and say, but in the business, you've got to just get on with it and it's difficult.
46:39
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, I suppose chatGVT has made it very difficult now for coursework and setting coursework and marking coursework.
46:45
Alison Goulden: Like for things I say to my children all the time you have no idea Like Emma will come home and say, right, I've got to do a poster about I don't know, it's an artist or something, so she'll just get straight on Google and then there we are, it's the unshifted book.
47:01
Alison Goulden: So you have to go to the library, yeah, and then everyone will be trying to get the same book and you'd have to get in there first.
47:08
Alison Goulden: Yeah, and we've had, you know, people pay a lot of foreign students, pay people to write essays for them.
47:16
Alison Goulden: That's just crazy.
47:17
Alison Goulden: That is crazy.
47:18
Alison Goulden: And I haven't had any issues with AI, with chatGVT, at all, apart from the other day.
47:23
Alison Goulden: We did creative writing and I can't remember what it was, but it was one of my Hong Kong students, actually, and I asked them to do a paragraph about something.
47:32
Alison Goulden: I can't remember exactly what it was and I can see it on their screen, so I could see what she'd done.
47:39
Alison Goulden: And I said, oh, can you read it out, timmy?
47:42
Alison Goulden: So I was thinking I don't even know what that word means.
47:44
Alison Goulden: So I said, oh, can you read it out?
47:46
Alison Goulden: And she was just going to read it at all and I said what does that word mean she's like I don't know.
47:51
Alison Goulden: I said, well, you read it.
47:52
Alison Goulden: I didn't pull around, I didn't want to embarrass her, but blatantly she'd just put in I need to write a paragraph on a tree describing a tree or whatever it was, and then just basically brought up this.
48:06
Alison Goulden: I mean, I don't know how teachers or markers now can get around this and, as you say, that's an issue with maybe doing more coursework, and the fact is that it's all a bit too easy to get someone else to do it for you.
48:20
Elizabeth Willetts: So, if you're a parent listening to this, what advice have you got?
48:23
Elizabeth Willetts: Any tips on how to support your children through their education?
48:27
Alison Goulden: I can give tips as a teacher, but I'd say, whatever you do as a mum, don't do what I do, because I'm not sure if that's a mum.
48:33
Alison Goulden: It works very well.
48:34
Alison Goulden: It's so bizarre because I've taught God thousands of children in my family and, honestly, even the most reluctant kids I've managed to well learn.
48:43
Alison Goulden: And then I'd say, and people say, oh, your kids are so lucky, they've got a teacher.
48:48
Alison Goulden: As a mum, I'm like, no, if anything, it's a curse, because I cannot understand why my children won't work for me.
48:55
Alison Goulden: And then I'm trying to move and thinking if I had my friends when I was 15, just here on my phone all the time, that's all I would have done.
49:09
Alison Goulden: I can't even pretend that I would have been sat doing my.
49:13
Alison Goulden: Yes, I did do my homework, but I didn't really have anything else to do.
49:16
Alison Goulden: I didn't have, like, netflix, I didn't have TikTok, I didn't have any of that.
49:23
Alison Goulden: So there was not really that much else to do.
49:25
Alison Goulden: So doing my homework wasn't really that much of a big deal.
49:28
Alison Goulden: My children, why would you want to do homework when you've got?
49:32
Alison Goulden: I mean, I caught Lottie the other day watching somebody on TikTok washing a doll's hair.
49:38
Elizabeth Willetts: And she was like you thought I'd get in trouble and he'd do it.
49:41
Elizabeth Willetts: And I was like what, like this, and the sister likes it.
49:44
Elizabeth Willetts: She says they're very relaxed.
49:47
Alison Goulden: You've got English homework to do and she's just sitting like and it's so hard, and I talk about this with my mum friends all the time and I've got my mum's therapy group with all mums of teenage daughters and we walk our dogs and we just basically go help me, please, guide me through this.
50:04
Alison Goulden: And everyone is in exactly the same boat with it.
50:08
Alison Goulden: And we haven't got, we didn't have it.
50:11
Alison Goulden: So it's so hard because I know it's all well and good for me saying well, I didn't think that, which is what my mum used to say to me, but the thing is I didn't have this phone, I didn't have this here, and it's so difficult for them to understand.
50:23
Alison Goulden: I mean, I think this is the biggest thing is just that they don't understand about playing the long game anymore, and this is why children struggle with their GCSEs, so all revising full stop, because they're so used to everything happening now.
50:38
Alison Goulden: And I'm gonna have an immediate response to this and I, you know I want to.
50:41
Alison Goulden: I want a McDonald's.
50:42
Alison Goulden: So I'm gonna get on, just eat, and I'm gonna get a McDonald's straight away.
50:45
Alison Goulden: I need a new pair of glasses.
50:48
Alison Goulden: Oh, I've gone Amazon and it's gonna come.
50:50
Alison Goulden: It can even come the same day I want to watch Barbie.
50:54
Alison Goulden: I've watched Barbie the other day, fabulous.
50:56
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, I want to watch it now.
50:57
Elizabeth Willetts: Anyone has done that.
50:58
Elizabeth Willetts: I think it's on.
51:00
Alison Goulden: I wanna watch it.
51:01
Alison Goulden: Oh, I can just basically stream it immediately.
51:03
Alison Goulden: There is absolutely no waiting.
51:07
Alison Goulden: And they've completely lost the ability to look in the future and say I'm going to work now because that will benefit me later.
51:15
Alison Goulden: Because it just their brains just do not work like that.
51:19
Alison Goulden: And I think from a teacher's perspective it's really really difficult and from anyone's perspective it's really really difficult.
51:27
Alison Goulden: But I'd say to parents now there's no point in saying that do that.
51:32
Alison Goulden: Or taking the phone away.
51:33
Alison Goulden: I mean, I can know from my own children removing a phone is literally like taking their heart out and it just creates this.
51:44
Alison Goulden: Do I take them away?
51:45
Alison Goulden: I read these things all the time.
51:47
Alison Goulden: I take my daughter's phone away.
51:50
Alison Goulden: Should I take my daughter's phone away at night?
51:52
Alison Goulden: Shouldn't I?
51:52
Alison Goulden: And we're all fighting this constant battle of some people are allowed.
51:58
Alison Goulden: Some people like because I get this thing, you're so strict, you're like I'm so scared, make me do this.
52:04
Alison Goulden: And it's so difficult.
52:06
Alison Goulden: And where education fits in in all of this because they can't, they cannot see that I'm going to do this now and this will enable me to do this.
52:15
Alison Goulden: Get these exam results later, which will enable me to get this job later on.
52:19
Alison Goulden: They just just don't have it and I think, unfortunately it's just.
52:23
Alison Goulden: It's patience, really, and I've noticed this.
52:26
Alison Goulden: I try it with my, but it's just like little and often because they've got to want to do it.
52:30
Alison Goulden: And I say this to a lot of the 11 plus parents that we teachers they're like, you know, I don't know how.
52:35
Alison Goulden: You know, I say they have to want to do it because you can sit a child down and you can tie them to that desk and say work, work, work.
52:44
Alison Goulden: If they don't want to work, their head could be anywhere.
52:47
Alison Goulden: They're just not going to do it, they've got to want to do it.
52:52
Alison Goulden: I honestly, I wish someone would come up with something that would just help us all, because it's really hard, but I think our little lessons are just there because they have 45 minutes and I think they don't have to go anywhere to do it.
53:05
Alison Goulden: They don't have to, and so just for 45 minutes they can be in a little group of people or, you know, we do one to one lessons as well, but I do like the groups.
53:12
Alison Goulden: I think the children learn so much from each other.
53:14
Alison Goulden: And then you know it's good role model wise that they're with other people and they see other people doing it and you can just sort of say to them do this for 45 minutes or an hour or whatever.
53:26
Alison Goulden: And then you know that you've done something.
53:29
Alison Goulden: And a lot of our parents say it just relieves a little bit of parental guilt, to be honest, because I can't make them do it.
53:34
Alison Goulden: I can't make my daughter work.
53:37
Alison Goulden: She won't work, but you know I can, kind of we've reached a stage now where she'll do that.
53:42
Alison Goulden: And then I say, right now you can have your phone or whatever.
53:44
Alison Goulden: I think it's just we just have to try and just do what we can really and hopefully one day something will happen and all the phones will suddenly.
53:55
Elizabeth Willetts: So it's very hard because that gene is out the bottle, isn't it Very much?
53:58
Elizabeth Willetts: Out the bottle.
53:59
Elizabeth Willetts: It's difficult and you know, sometimes you know I'll go on my phone and then you feel a bit guilty and actually it must be even more extreme for the team.
54:07
Alison Goulden: I know the thing is, that's why I say it and I because I just few times I watch things on dog.
54:13
Alison Goulden: I've watched it on things that come up on Facebook.
54:15
Alison Goulden: I'm like a proper oldie and still like love my Facebook and you can suddenly realize that an hour has gone by and all I've done is basically look at dogs reacting to new babies being brought home or children opening dogs.
54:29
Alison Goulden: My dogs are like I've spent an hour doing that and then I will have a go at my girls.
54:35
Alison Goulden: She's someone put makeup on for an hour, you know, and I'm like there's not really any in this.
54:41
Alison Goulden: But on the other hand, they are also using TikTok in a positive way, in the fact they do learn quite a lot from it and there's a lot of sharing of tips and ideas for revising.
54:51
Alison Goulden: Yeah, there's YouTube.
54:52
Alison Goulden: They go on their own, they can watch YouTube videos on how to do things.
54:57
Alison Goulden: So there are some positives to it as well, but unfortunately, in most cases it's more about how to apply eyeliner.
55:06
Elizabeth Willetts: But it is, you know, I think it's very, very, very teenage girl who's like here and, you know, almost in the size.
55:12
Alison Goulden: Well, how does a stick fake eyelashes on would be even better.
55:15
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, I know I would have watched those videos If I'd have had YouTube as a teenager.
55:19
Elizabeth Willetts: I'd have to blot them on for sure.
55:21
Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, yeah, it's been so nice to chat with you today on this.
55:25
Elizabeth Willetts: Then where can people find you, connect with you and learn more about Golden Brain Academy?
55:30
Alison Goulden: So yeah, so you can find out more about us on our website, wwwgoldenbrainacademycom.
55:35
Alison Goulden: We're also on Facebook, instagram and TikTok.
55:38
Alison Goulden: We have just doubled our toes into TikTok.
55:42
Alison Goulden: So, yeah, we're really happy to obviously chat to and give anybody any advice they need about for their children's education.
55:49
Elizabeth Willetts: Brilliant, and it's obviously worldwide, isn't?
55:51
Elizabeth Willetts: It Sounds like you're teaching children in Asia, italy, newark and obviously, the UK.
55:56
Alison Goulden: And I can really vouch.
55:57
Alison Goulden: Our teachers are amazing and I can vouch for them both as a colleague and as a mom as well.
56:02
Alison Goulden: They really are fab.
56:04
Elizabeth Willetts: And I know that your recruiting is us.
56:05
Elizabeth Willetts: Is there any teachers and scientists that fancy doing what you doing, or you know, either on the side or for a better work life balance, then we'll put all our lessons and details in, definitely.
56:14
Alison Goulden: Absolutely.
56:15
Alison Goulden: Please do as I said, and we are all about flexible working, people choosing when they want to work, how much they want to work.
56:22
Alison Goulden: We literally fit around them.
56:24
Alison Goulden: So yes, get in touch.
56:27
Elizabeth Willetts: Perfect.
56:27
Elizabeth Willetts: Well, thank you so much for chatting with us.
56:30
Alison Goulden: Lovely to chat to you, thank you, thank you.
56:33
Elizabeth Willetts: Bye.
56:34
Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like a Mom podcast.
56:40
Elizabeth Willetts: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
56:47
Elizabeth Willetts: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
56:54
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56:59
Elizabeth Willetts: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.