Latest / Thick No More / The School System Failed My Son | ADHD, Autism & the Fight for Support with Danielle Broadbent

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The School System Failed My Son | ADHD, Autism & the Fight for Support with Danielle Broadbent · Thick No More

• 0:01
  Hi everybody, welcome back to another episode of Thick No More
• 0:06
  Season 3 episode 2. And yeah, I am joined by
• 0:12
  somebody today and I really need to give her a really, really big
• 0:16
  introduction. So Daniel Broadband has become
• 0:19
  someone I've seen frequently on Instagram.
• 0:22
  I've seen her on the news as well and I every time I watch
• 0:26
  her, it's emotional for me. She's a massive advocacy
• 0:30
  advocate for the secondary school struggles, alternative
• 0:35
  pathways. And I think the reason I wanted
• 0:38
  her on a podcast is she kind of touches on the growing
• 0:43
  frustration that families are feeling with the system and the
• 0:50
  general concerns. I think that there are a lot of
• 0:52
  families believe that it's a system which is linear and
• 0:55
  doesn't work for their children. And I think the biggest things
• 1:00
  I've taken away from watching some of Daniel's content and
• 1:04
  listening to her is it's not about anger and it isn't with me
• 1:09
  either, as you guys know, but it's exhaustion, as we all know.
• 1:13
  We see exhausted parents, exhausted children and exhausted
• 1:17
  families who are well, frankly fright fighting to be heard.
• 1:21
  So today is a completely open and honest talk, as it always
• 1:25
  is. We're going to talk about
• 1:26
  pressure. We're going to talk about
• 1:27
  schools, of course, and also why so many children are falling
• 1:32
  through the cracks. So Danielle, welcome to Think No
• 1:36
  More. It's a pleasure and an honour to
• 1:39
  have you on. Thank you SO.
• 1:41
  Much for having me, it's a pleasure.
• 1:43
  No, no, you're welcome. Now, listen, don't think you're
• 1:45
  going to get away with this because you're you're a real
• 1:47
  big, big person in my in my eyes.
• 1:50
  I really look up to what you shout about.
• 1:53
  You still get the same questions that everyone else gets, right.
• 1:56
  So just for today, I'm a magician.
• 1:59
  And for the rest of today and the rest of your life, every
• 2:02
  time you throw a door open, a song's going to play.
• 2:06
  What's the song and why? Oh, do you know what?
• 2:11
  If you'd have asked me this a couple of years ago, I'd have
• 2:13
  said like Beyoncé and who run the world girls, you know,
• 2:16
  something like that. But now because everything
• 2:19
  that's been going on over the last couple of years, me, I'd
• 2:21
  say, well, David Guetta and see a titanium.
• 2:24
  Oh, great track. Yeah.
• 2:27
  The words to that as well. Yeah, no, that's, that's how I
• 2:30
  feel at the moment. And some weeks I don't feel like
• 2:32
  that because as you know, it's, it's difficult.
• 2:35
  But the way I feel is, you know, with everything that you know,
• 2:38
  we've been through over the last couple of years with the
• 2:40
  education system, that's probably what I more relate to
• 2:43
  these days. OK, well, it's a wonderful track
• 2:45
  that is. And I'm, I'm a I'm from the
• 2:48
  generation when dance music was really, really, you know, house
• 2:52
  music was it was a was a big thing.
• 2:53
  So yeah, I love that track. I.
• 2:56
  Love. That as well, yeah.
• 2:57
  Yeah. What I like to do really, before
• 3:00
  we really get into it, I kind of like to paint a picture of, of
• 3:05
  the individual that the audience is listening to.
• 3:09
  So as I've explained, I've seen your campaign and I've seen some
• 3:12
  of your petitions, which I've also signed prior to prior to
• 3:17
  all this, who was Danielle prior to all this?
• 3:20
  Just give the paint a picture of who you were and your.
• 3:23
  Background Danielle was, you know, the most important title
• 3:27
  I'll ever have his mother. So I've always, you know,
• 3:29
  that's, that's who Danielle is. But, you know, a good friend, a
• 3:35
  loving partner to my partner Mike of over 20 years, but a
• 3:40
  hard worker, you know, and some a passionate person again, who I
• 3:43
  still am. But IA dabbling radio.
• 3:47
  I do a bit of recruitment on this, you know, in the American
• 3:51
  divisions of the, well, divisions in America.
• 3:54
  Yeah, I like to keep busy, but I will say that with everything
• 4:00
  that's been going on with education, it's kind of, you
• 4:02
  know, anything that I've been passionate about over the years,
• 4:05
  which has been like a positive mindset and body confidence and
• 4:09
  things. I'd say this is the most
• 4:10
  meaningful work I've probably ever done because it's very
• 4:14
  personal. And but Danielle is the same
• 4:18
  person. You know, I am very ambitious
• 4:20
  and passionate and I like to, I like to try and make the world a
• 4:24
  better place. Good on you.
• 4:25
  And you know, you mentioned there about it is it is sapping
• 4:31
  this isn't it? You know, it draws every ounce
• 4:35
  of energy you've got. And I speak to so many people
• 4:38
  day in, day out, you know, but masking, I have this
• 4:43
  conversation nearly every time I do this podcast, and I'll share
• 4:47
  it with you. There's a guy that listens to
• 4:48
  this podcast who's a similar age to me, who does his day job.
• 4:52
  He's been doing the same job for years and years and years as
• 4:56
  ADHD and dyslexia. He's too scared to tell his boss
• 4:59
  of that. And I think to myself, that's a
• 5:03
  grown adult masking and hiding. I know what it was like as a
• 5:06
  child. I also know what it's like as a
• 5:10
  parent and how difficult it is when you have children in that
• 5:12
  situation and it just, it pulls. And you said that you like to
• 5:16
  keep yourself busy and everything.
• 5:18
  It takes up a lot of your memory and your mind, doesn't it as
• 5:20
  well? It's it's really, really hard on
• 5:22
  you. It does, I think with, with, you
• 5:25
  know, everything that you have to think about in day-to-day to
• 5:31
  be able to, you know, support your child and, and to, to be
• 5:36
  the advocate that they need you. You try, you know, I am really
• 5:41
  like passionate about other things as well, But I do think
• 5:44
  that that always takes the front seat.
• 5:45
  And sometimes you feel like you're not giving everything
• 5:49
  that you should be giving to other things as well.
• 5:51
  But I just think there's only so much your mind can take.
• 5:54
  So when I've got an extremely like it's exam season right now.
• 5:57
  So for me, I feel like I've been so engrossed in, you know, exam
• 6:04
  season plus 16, you know, college, all that stuff that I
• 6:09
  haven't been able, I haven't physically had anything else to
• 6:11
  give to anything else over the last four weeks.
• 6:16
  And I think it's, and I'm glad you've said that because you
• 6:19
  know, when we spoke for a couple of minutes beforehand, I said
• 6:21
  the vast majority of my listeners are parents.
• 6:23
  And it's important to know that you're not alone.
• 6:26
  And when you have those moments when you feel like you're
• 6:29
  getting pulled from one thought and one emotion to another, you
• 6:33
  kind of can really get on top of you.
• 6:34
  So I'm really glad you shared that.
• 6:36
  So OK, let's let's without going into too much detail or as much
• 6:40
  detail as you want to go into, it's entirely up to you.
• 6:43
  If I'm right, you have two children.
• 6:44
  Is that correct? Yeah, I have a son and a
• 6:46
  daughter and one of them absolutely thrived in the
• 6:50
  education system, in the education model that we've got
• 6:53
  GCSEs and stuff, and the other one just simply done.
• 6:56
  And it's been so it's it's been wild actually, because obviously
• 7:02
  when you know, when one of them was in education, I never had
• 7:05
  to, you know, I never called him for a meeting.
• 7:08
  I would never there were nothing.
• 7:09
  She sailed through GCS ES, no stress, no drama.
• 7:13
  But my second child has been a completely different journey.
• 7:16
  And I don't think unless you live in that journey, anyone can
• 7:20
  really prepare you no, for some of the the battles that you that
• 7:25
  you face. And I don't think that like in
• 7:28
  primary school, it wasn't really I, you know, it was just quite
• 7:33
  plain sailing actually. I think in primary school it's a
• 7:35
  different experience. But when they get to, you know,
• 7:38
  high school, it all changed. It really did all change and.
• 7:43
  So is that is that the moment when you as a family realized, I
• 7:47
  mean did you have any indication in primary or it didn't hit in
• 7:51
  until until secondary? No, you know, and, and even in
• 7:55
  in primaries, teachers didn't, you know, because a lot of time
• 7:59
  a teacher will sort of pull you aside, won't they, and say,
• 8:01
  look, I just want you to, to know about.
• 8:03
  But they were always a very popular and he still is very
• 8:07
  popular, loads of friends and really fun loving and, and just
• 8:11
  out there. And there were nothing really in
• 8:15
  primary, you know, bit boisterous, but you know, you're
• 8:19
  one of them. Oh, he's just a boy.
• 8:20
  He's just a boy. And it will when we got to high
• 8:26
  school where the expectations are a lot bigger, you know, like
• 8:30
  where there's a lot more rules. Step up and do you mind me
• 8:33
  asking what what year is this now?
• 8:35
  Where are we now that time wise? Yes, Evan, that's when they go.
• 8:39
  Year 7 and what year is in? Was in 2020 What 20/19/20?
• 8:45
  Where are we now? This is how like this is how
• 8:47
  brain dead I am sometimes. Yeah, you have to count
• 8:49
  backwards. I know.
• 8:50
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:51
  So what are we now? 2026 and he's in year 11?
• 8:54
  Yeah, I think 2021-2022 maybe. OK, so so 6656 years ago, so
• 9:00
  we're not talking, we're not talking someone who's gone all
• 9:03
  the way through school and left school.
• 9:04
  We're talking about some of the, IT is quite recent and
• 9:08
  technology and alternative ways to learn are available, right?
• 9:13
  I know that you know that and we're going to come on to that
• 9:15
  for sure, but I'm just trying to paint a picture.
• 9:17
  So we're only talking 5 or 6 years ago, right?
• 9:20
  We're now in 20/26/20. 2022, you know, started high school and
• 9:26
  let's be honest, even for children that aren't
• 9:28
  neurodivergent, that is a big change.
• 9:30
  You know, we've just gone through COVID.
• 9:33
  So he had all of year 6 off, you know, like they'd not had that,
• 9:37
  you know, preparation into high school.
• 9:41
  So they'd had all of Clovid off. And then this young 12 year old
• 9:45
  boys flung into high school where, you know, you're not
• 9:49
  allowed to wear your jacket, you're not allowed to, you know,
• 9:52
  it was just a lot of. Yeah, You know, a lot of
• 9:56
  boundaries and rules that aren't necessarily in place in high
• 9:59
  school that aren't a big deal. You know, you're not allowed to
• 10:02
  go to the toilet in lesson, whereas in primary school, if
• 10:06
  you need toilet, they'll just let you go.
• 10:08
  You know, like there's so many things.
• 10:11
  So at first in Year 7, you know, we were lying.
• 10:15
  He's just having a bit of trouble adjusting.
• 10:17
  You know, he's been off for a full year in COVID.
• 10:19
  It's just a big change. Yeah.
• 10:21
  And then the more and more it went on and he would get in
• 10:24
  into, you know, all these behaviour points or he's been
• 10:28
  late to his lesson or he's not doing much in his lessons.
• 10:32
  Never, like never really big issues like, you know, fighting
• 10:37
  or being argumentative, stuff like that.
• 10:40
  We're always late to lesson and not doing much when you were in
• 10:44
  them, you know, that was always the problem.
• 10:47
  So I would like saying to him loads, come on, you know, why
• 10:50
  can't you just, you know, play the game, Just do what you need
• 10:53
  to do, turn up on time. And it became apparent then that
• 10:58
  you were you want the he genuinely didn't realise like
• 11:03
  these boundaries were so in why they were so important.
• 11:06
  And that's when we started digging a bit deeper.
• 11:09
  And one parents evening, one of his teachers did say to me,
• 11:13
  because I said, I actually think he might have ADHD.
• 11:17
  And she said I actually think he's autistic.
• 11:20
  And that I went really because it, I'd always associated autism
• 11:26
  with, you know, you know, like there's different, like severity
• 11:31
  of, of autism in the end, there's different forms of ADHD.
• 11:34
  But you know, my son's got an autistic child who, who can't,
• 11:38
  you know, communicate properly. You know, he's, he always has to
• 11:41
  have his headphones on. And I just didn't realise how
• 11:45
  many, you know, I won't say types of ADHD, but how many
• 11:50
  different, you know, how it can affect people in different ways.
• 11:53
  So when she said that, I was thinking, no, I don't agree with
• 11:56
  you. I don't.
• 11:57
  But the more and more I looked into it, I thought, you know
• 12:00
  what? Yeah.
• 12:02
  You know, because Mike, he's always been, you know, if he, if
• 12:05
  he knows, you'll make eye contact.
• 12:06
  But if you don't know yet, he really struggles with eye
• 12:09
  contact. And he got into trouble so much
• 12:11
  at school for that. They found it disrespectful that
• 12:14
  he wasn't taking things seriously.
• 12:17
  Yeah. Yeah, so it, it were very the
• 12:21
  more research and he always loved to wear his his coat.
• 12:25
  And I used to say to him, Mikey, it's red hot.
• 12:27
  Why you wearing your coat all the time?
• 12:29
  And I realized now actually that we're like a sensory comfort
• 12:33
  thing for him. Which is?
• 12:35
  It's a safety zone. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:37
  Which is which we're getting like it got fully excluded from
• 12:42
  school over the jacket, you know, because it didn't want to
• 12:46
  take it off. So I just started to really
• 12:49
  research a lot of stuff and it would.
• 12:51
  Then I realized that my son had all these behaviour points.
• 12:55
  He'd been put in isolation day after day.
• 13:00
  I started to really get angry about him and fight for him.
• 13:03
  And then it took years for the CAMS assessment.
• 13:08
  You know, I looked into going private and when I rang him to
• 13:10
  cancel this assessment because I would go in private, she said,
• 13:15
  oh, well, he's literally at top A list now, you might as well
• 13:19
  wait. So I did.
• 13:21
  And anyway, we finally got his diagnosis last year of ADHD and
• 13:25
  autism. And that's when, but school had
• 13:31
  already been saying to me, you know, without a diagnosis or an
• 13:35
  EHCP, there's not what we can really do.
• 13:37
  There's not what we can really do, man.
• 13:40
  Drives it insane the times I've heard this, this is just and
• 13:44
  then they stick you in a list and you wait for as long.
• 13:47
  I mean, you went you did you say you went private as well?
• 13:49
  No, I looked into going private facts you looked in and when I
• 13:52
  found that were in like the May and then he got assessed in the
• 13:57
  July. So they said well.
• 13:58
  So you actually got lucky there. You might as well, you know.
• 14:03
  But The thing is, I researched into it and I realized that by
• 14:07
  law, even without a diagnosis, if there's an indication that a
• 14:11
  child may have sent, they have to put a care plan in place.
• 14:14
  And I understand that schools are stretched.
• 14:17
  I understand resources are tough, but I do think genuinely
• 14:22
  some schools and some teachers within the schools really do
• 14:26
  want to help you and some schools are just like it's it's
• 14:30
  which parent shouts the loudest because I don't feel like and
• 14:33
  it. Shouldn't it shouldn't be for
• 14:35
  you guys to do that? And this is what I thought I
• 14:37
  shout was screaming about this on Instagram the other day.
• 14:41
  I don't understand why a parent should understand the law just
• 14:45
  to get what their child needs. But this is it.
• 14:48
  And it wasn't until I really did my son got he got excluded from
• 14:53
  school because a teacher had said to him, and this is another
• 14:57
  thing, neurodivergent or not, I feel that young adults in
• 15:02
  schools and children should be spoken to and addressed in a in
• 15:06
  a polite, correct manner how an adult would want to be
• 15:08
  addressed. So when my my son's walking
• 15:11
  through school and it's freezing cold as well, it were like, I
• 15:16
  can't remember if it were like December or January, but it were
• 15:18
  really cold. He'd come in from break and he'd
• 15:21
  kept his jacket on to walk to his class and a teacher had just
• 15:25
  said to him, jacket off. Now, now I'm sorry, but she
• 15:30
  wouldn't address me like that. And she wouldn't, you know, and
• 15:33
  I just think that no matter whether you're addressing a
• 15:36
  student without additional needs or not, you are always going to
• 15:40
  get a student who was thinking, why is she speaking to me like
• 15:44
  that? So he said I will when I get to
• 15:46
  my class. And she followed him all the way
• 15:48
  to his class, like in his ear, in his ear.
• 15:52
  And I put in a massive complaint and I copied in Ofsted and I did
• 15:56
  go absolutely bonkers about it. And I feel like that were a real
• 16:01
  turning point for me with school because they realized I want
• 16:04
  taking this a minute longer. I really want.
• 16:08
  And that's when, you know, I really did start to fight back
• 16:14
  because for a couple of years I just sort of like said, Oh, come
• 16:17
  on, you know, we'll we'll, you know, I'll speak to him how they
• 16:20
  sell that. And then I realized that
• 16:22
  actually, and I asked the headmaster at school, you know,
• 16:25
  if that were you and you'd see my son, what would you have said
• 16:27
  to him? He'd have said, I'd have said to
• 16:29
  him, come on, Mikey, you know the rules, Take your car off.
• 16:32
  And I said, would you have followed him down corridor?
• 16:35
  No, I'd have gone and walked past 10 minutes later to make
• 16:38
  sure he'd I'd given him the benefit of the doubt.
• 16:41
  So I do feel like there's a lot of schools that will really try
• 16:44
  and help, but there's some schools and some individuals
• 16:47
  within it that I just don't agree with.
• 16:50
  How, how, how, how they are. But I do appreciate as well that
• 16:55
  schools and funding is stretched and and it's a difficult place
• 16:59
  to be. I agree and you're right, but
• 17:02
  here's the thing, and again, this is something I told you
• 17:05
  before we started. Everyone that listens already
• 17:07
  knows this. But on foot, it's really
• 17:10
  unfortunate and as an adult, sometimes you don't realise when
• 17:15
  you say words to a child, particularly if that child is
• 17:18
  neurodivergent, that that branding or that label that
• 17:22
  you've given them sticks with them and it sticks with them
• 17:25
  for, and this is no word of a lie, it took me, I'm 54 in July,
• 17:31
  it took me 49 years before I had the confidence to even put my
• 17:36
  hand up and ask a question. I always believed, I always
• 17:40
  believed that I was thick. I always believed that I was
• 17:42
  lazy and I always believed I was done because that's what was
• 17:45
  said to me every single day growing up in school.
• 17:50
  And I think, I think, yeah, you're dead right.
• 17:55
  It's it's schools. Schools are are are are in this
• 18:00
  absolute battle at the moment. The education system is, excuse
• 18:05
  my French, on its arse. We're still on a linear learning
• 18:09
  path and we're going to come on to this in a moment because I
• 18:11
  know this is something I loved him when you were talking about
• 18:14
  this. It's linear learning.
• 18:15
  It's one type of learning style. You're absolutely expected to
• 18:19
  sit and pass an exam to be deemed successful.
• 18:23
  But what happens if that environment doesn't suit you?
• 18:26
  And that was me. I had a fear of the Red Cross
• 18:29
  used to freak me out. And the moment the word test or
• 18:32
  or pass, you know, pass or fails mentioned and you always done
• 18:35
  for. But this is what concerns me
• 18:37
  when things like that, I hear things like that that'll stick
• 18:41
  with him for a long time. That that emotion and that that
• 18:43
  memory. And it shouldn't be like that.
• 18:46
  No. And he then became very
• 18:49
  reluctant to go to school, very reluctant to conform because
• 18:54
  they were like, well, they don't like me anyway, so why am I even
• 18:57
  bothering? Why am I trying?
• 18:58
  But there was some, I will say there were some teachers in that
• 19:01
  school who were absolutely fantastic.
• 19:04
  And some of the student liaison officers in that school meant
• 19:07
  more to me as support than than some of the teachers.
• 19:10
  You know, like, without that, I can honestly say to you that I'd
• 19:13
  have pulled him out probably a year ago.
• 19:16
  I would have done. But what happened were, you
• 19:21
  know, we were at his wit's end. We were just getting pulled in
• 19:24
  for meeting after meeting. Mikey was so reluctant to go to
• 19:26
  school. We were at breaking point.
• 19:30
  And it puts so much pressure on a family that your relationship
• 19:33
  with your child because they're like, you know, you always stick
• 19:36
  up for school. And you know, you are, you don't
• 19:38
  listen to me. And it's hard.
• 19:42
  So it was around Christmas time I decided, do you know what, my
• 19:46
  son's in year 11 now. And if I because I did get him a
• 19:50
  tutor in year 10, but he hated, he hated the, he hated the idea
• 19:54
  of going to school every day, coming home at 3:00 and then
• 19:57
  starting again. He would like, it's so unfair.
• 20:00
  You know when you finish work, you don't go back to work and.
• 20:04
  You know, he, he sees home as his freedom and as his safe
• 20:08
  space. So for me to then be bringing a
• 20:10
  tutor to our home two days a week, 3 till four or half three
• 20:14
  till half hour, I hated it and it was just making him so
• 20:18
  miserable. So I decided we're already on a
• 20:21
  reduced timetable because at Christmas school had said, you
• 20:24
  know, this isn't working, going to put him on a reduced
• 20:26
  timetable just studying his core subjects.
• 20:31
  So I said, right. And at that point I were
• 20:34
  relieved because I thought I can't do this anymore either.
• 20:39
  So I decided in December, January, I'm going to get him a
• 20:44
  tutor in school time so that Mike is on board with it.
• 20:50
  And yeah, it's going to cost a lot of money, but that's the
• 20:52
  sacrifice I'm going to have to make because it's not forever.
• 20:55
  And that's it. So I managed to get him, he were
• 20:58
  going to school 2 hours a morning and in the afternoons he
• 21:02
  were going to a tutor to do maths, English and science, a
• 21:06
  tutor locally to us who they're fantastic.
• 21:09
  They're called sowing seeds and they, they're changed my whole
• 21:15
  like outlook and everything and Mikey's future, you know,
• 21:18
  because within two weeks and owing him she, she just said
• 21:22
  even with us here now for the next 6 months, Mikey is not
• 21:26
  suited to GCS ES You know, we, we can give him all the training
• 21:31
  in the world, but he's too far. He's too far gone, you know, to
• 21:36
  to to the. System had already broke and
• 21:39
  failed in a long, long time ago, yeah.
• 21:41
  Exactly that, she said. He'd be better suited to
• 21:43
  functional skills. And I was like, oh, I've never
• 21:46
  heard of it, What is it? She said.
• 21:47
  Yeah, she said it's it's widely comparable to a GCSE really.
• 21:52
  If you pass it at a level 2 in English and maths, it's seen,
• 21:56
  you know, to some colleges and apprenticeships as the
• 21:59
  equivalent of a grade 4, which would be like AC grade in in my
• 22:02
  day. And she went, have you not heard
• 22:05
  of it? And I were like, no, I am.
• 22:06
  And that infuriated me because I thought my son's been excluded
• 22:11
  from schools hundreds of times. He's been in isolation hundreds
• 22:15
  of times. He's now on a reduced timetable.
• 22:19
  And no, not one person in that school had sat me down and said,
• 22:23
  you know what, he's going to fail all his GCSEs.
• 22:26
  But if we get him on this, he's got a chance.
• 22:29
  So, but what? I've spoken to loads of teachers
• 22:32
  over the last few months and they've taught they would love
• 22:34
  functional schools in schools because they're being pushed.
• 22:37
  It's like AI think it's what we call is it entertainment a or a
• 22:42
  figure a or something like that. And the schools are so judged
• 22:47
  on, you know, these GCSE grades that the the success of the kids
• 22:51
  goes out of a window. They're only bothered about the
• 22:54
  rest of the school and this is higher than the school.
• 22:56
  It's what they're, they're told to put, you know, perform to
• 23:00
  which they can't unless they're an Independent School, they
• 23:03
  can't really do much about it. So they'll push somebody like my
• 23:06
  son to try and just get a low level past GCSE, even though
• 23:11
  it's breaking him inside and he's he's deflated.
• 23:14
  They'll push him to just get even a low level pass because
• 23:17
  it's still a GCSE pass and it looks good on like rather than
• 23:20
  being and then and then the laughter because he wants to go
• 23:24
  to college or do an apprenticeship.
• 23:26
  He'll have to reset him anywhere to get that C grade R level 4.
• 23:31
  That's completely unachievable. Rather than saying do you know
• 23:35
  what, let's help these kids out because thousands of kids every
• 23:39
  year fail the GCSE maths and Englishes.
• 23:41
  It's a fact. And they'll make them reset it
• 23:43
  and reset it and reset it. And the question I ask myself
• 23:46
  is, what must that be doing mentally to these kids to know
• 23:50
  that they've gone from school from age of what, 5 right up to
• 23:54
  16 and come out with fails? You're setting them up for
• 23:59
  depression, anxiety, not even unemployment because they're not
• 24:03
  even going to want to go to a job interview because they don't
• 24:06
  have the confidence to do it. So when she told me about
• 24:09
  functional skills, I obviously marched into school.
• 24:12
  I were furious. And then?
• 24:14
  Basically quick question, sorry to interrupt a quick question.
• 24:18
  Why? Why do you think in your opinion
• 24:21
  and it is just your opinion so you you can you can swear,
• 24:24
  shout, say whatever you want to this question.
• 24:26
  Why do you think that alternative pathways and I put
• 24:31
  my fingers in the air still feel hidden from parents.
• 24:34
  Do you think there's there's a there's a much bigger picture
• 24:36
  here? Yeah, it's all, it's all for the
• 24:40
  school statistics and league tables.
• 24:42
  They don't want to tell you about them because they can.
• 24:45
  They don't have the resources and funding to to and knowledge
• 24:49
  to teach them in school. So when I were at school, I
• 24:51
  think they were known as like key skills and and B techs and
• 24:54
  stuff like that. And all that funding years ago
• 24:57
  got pulled. So they don't tell you about
• 25:00
  them because it doesn't hold anywhere in their league tables.
• 25:03
  But what as teachers and as you know, people who have gone into
• 25:08
  a profession to want kids to be successful on parents option
• 25:13
  evenings in year 9, even if it don't hold anywhere in your
• 25:16
  league tables, morally, I could not stop myself saying to a
• 25:20
  family, look, we can't teach functional skills here.
• 25:23
  But I really do recommend you research it and look into it
• 25:26
  because it could be a better route.
• 25:27
  And that's what struck me. I understand that schools, a lot
• 25:31
  of them don't have the funding, but at least give parents the
• 25:33
  option to to research it and look.
• 25:36
  Let them know because thousands of families have never heard of
• 25:40
  it and they only introduced functional schools skills.
• 25:43
  Sorry once the kids failed a GCSE but they've already failed.
• 25:46
  The confidence is already shattered.
• 25:48
  They're already upset. We need to be.
• 25:51
  You touched on something else there as well.
• 25:54
  Well, you touched on a couple of things which which really worry
• 25:58
  me. So first of all, your dad,
• 26:00
  right? I also believe that when you get
• 26:05
  to a point as it as it as a child to step up from primary to
• 26:10
  secondary, we send the effect that has, you know, the masking
• 26:15
  being overwhelmed. He talked about the jacket
• 26:17
  scenario. That's a safety, safety measure.
• 26:20
  So all these things happen. That's the first thing.
• 26:24
  Then what happens is is you have individuals that fall through
• 26:27
  the cracks and there was a study not so long ago and don't go and
• 26:33
  have a look at this about dyslexic children that go to
• 26:38
  secondary school, that leave secondary school without
• 26:41
  qualifications. The percentage of them that end
• 26:46
  up in juvenile centres and become petty criminals is
• 26:51
  through the roof. Yeah, and I can still see that.
• 26:54
  Yeah, and it's because it's exactly what you just touched
• 26:57
  on. What they do is they believe
• 27:01
  that they're not good enough and they, they're being told, well,
• 27:05
  this is the standard that you're supposed to be at Danielle.
• 27:09
  And this is what we deem a pass. Unfortunately, you're here.
• 27:14
  So you know what, you're not good enough.
• 27:16
  And, and if you get told that enough as a child, you believe
• 27:20
  it. You believe that you're the
• 27:22
  problem. And I and I, I, I absolutely
• 27:26
  take my cap off for you for what you're doing and highlighting
• 27:29
  this. And I, I can, you, can you sort
• 27:32
  of give these people that are going to be listening to this
• 27:36
  story right now in your story. Can you tell them kind of how
• 27:40
  they go about looking into this, what maybe the cost implications
• 27:45
  are, what the time implications are and who they'd need to speak
• 27:49
  to to start this process if if this is an option for them?
• 27:53
  Yeah, I mean, like I said, a lot of schools will tell you about
• 27:56
  functional skills because it doesn't stack up on the lead
• 27:58
  tables. But since I did my interview
• 28:01
  with BBC Radio Leeds, it went absolutely viral.
• 28:04
  It had millions of hits and I've had like 20 odd thousand inbox
• 28:09
  messages. I'm trying to reply to all of
• 28:11
  them. Yeah, because I don't want
• 28:14
  anyone to feel like alone in it, you know, And so many people
• 28:17
  have not heard of them. And then I'm looking at them and
• 28:19
  really feel there's hope. So what I would say is I'd first
• 28:22
  approach the SENCO team at your child's school and ask them
• 28:26
  about functional skills, if it's an option.
• 28:28
  And a lot of schools will probably say to you, do you know
• 28:30
  what we can't teach here? But they'll be able to point you
• 28:33
  in the right direction maybe of where can a lot of colleges do
• 28:36
  functional skills? You can maybe do it online.
• 28:38
  And yeah, I understand it might be a cost to the parent and, and
• 28:42
  not everyone's in the position to be able to, to do that.
• 28:46
  It's tough, it's really hard. But I pushed and pushed and
• 28:51
  pushed my school, my son's school who said that they
• 28:54
  couldn't teach him it, but they would pay for him to sit the
• 28:56
  exams. So, you know, definitely if you
• 28:59
  think your son or daughter is going to fail their GCSE maths
• 29:03
  and English and you think that, you know, because functional
• 29:07
  skills, it's just a more practical paper.
• 29:09
  You know, it's the, you know, there's a lot of the GCSE ones,
• 29:13
  you know, definitely, you know, more theory based academic, you
• 29:18
  know, kind of paper, whereas the the functional skills is just a
• 29:21
  much more practical paper. And so many kids pass that after
• 29:26
  failing their GCS ES. So you can research it online.
• 29:29
  You can speak to your school's local send Co team, but also
• 29:33
  local tutors in your area will be able to give you information
• 29:36
  or even like send the ass, you know, get in touch with them,
• 29:39
  ask them about it. And if you push and push and
• 29:41
  push, the school may say to you, look, we, we can't teach it, but
• 29:46
  we will pay for them to sit the exams.
• 29:48
  And that's what that's what my school son's school are doing.
• 29:51
  And it will just give you a whole new lease alive because
• 29:55
  I've, you know, my son, it was, it was so drilled into him, are
• 30:00
  you going to fail everything? But it wasn't that you were
• 30:02
  failing. He just needed a different
• 30:04
  option. He just needed a different
• 30:05
  pathways, just a more practical learner, you know, and.
• 30:09
  This is it is you're dead right. Every child you have, you have
• 30:15
  academic learners, right? And then you have children that
• 30:19
  learn in a different way. And I, I picked up on something
• 30:25
  you said about you kept going into school.
• 30:27
  And what, what upsets me the most about this is you, you find
• 30:31
  out that parents start to think that they're the problem, you
• 30:35
  know, because their child doesn't fit the way the school
• 30:40
  expects you to learn. And you're dead, right?
• 30:45
  It is, it is. And I've been saying it for for
• 30:48
  a long, long, long, long time. You know the system, something
• 30:53
  needs to change as a country. I understand that you talked
• 30:59
  about money. Things cost everything costs
• 31:01
  money these days. But I just don't see the sense,
• 31:06
  the pressure that children under that are under now compared to
• 31:09
  my age. And your age group is completely
• 31:12
  different. They are, they have social media
• 31:16
  in front of them. They have the news in them, in
• 31:18
  front of them on hand 24/7. Bullying and mental abuse
• 31:24
  doesn't stop in the school. It continues outside of school
• 31:27
  because of mobile devices. I think the pressure that kids
• 31:30
  are under, you know, we need to look at the education system and
• 31:34
  what I'll do if it's all right with you.
• 31:36
  And I will get all of that information and I'll put it in
• 31:41
  the bottom of the podcast so I know how busy you are.
• 31:46
  But then people can hopefully comment on there and either you
• 31:50
  or I can pick the comment up and we can help them point them in
• 31:53
  the right direction. Anything that's happening, I
• 31:56
  always try and respond to any message I get might take me a
• 32:00
  few days, but I always respond to it because I, I really want
• 32:05
  as many families as possible to know that GCS, ES are not the
• 32:08
  only measure of intelligence when it comes to your children.
• 32:11
  You know, we've got more school exclusions than ever, reduced
• 32:14
  timetables, you know, parents having to leave jobs because
• 32:18
  they can't be there every day because the kids are booted out
• 32:21
  of school left, right and centre.
• 32:22
  Yeah. I just feel like as parents
• 32:25
  we're becoming researchers, caseworkers, advocates,
• 32:28
  emotional support teams. Lawyers.
• 32:30
  Mum and dad now. Yeah, that's it.
• 32:33
  That is. That is a beautiful statement
• 32:36
  right there. You just want to be mum and dad.
• 32:39
  You don't, You don't want to be a scriber, a reader, a lawyer,
• 32:45
  you know, a doctor just want to be mum and dad.
• 32:49
  And, and I think those days are long, long gone, you know, and
• 32:54
  the sooner people start to realize that the, the, the
• 32:57
  emotional effect it's not only having on children that it's
• 33:00
  having on, on parents as well. And, and teachers.
• 33:06
  And yes, I know there are some teachers that literally for
• 33:11
  them, and there's not many because I know a lot, some of
• 33:13
  them really struggle with it. But This is why they're leaving
• 33:16
  the profession. They're leaving.
• 33:17
  The profession. Because the amount of pressure
• 33:20
  they're under is ridiculous. I have a question for you.
• 33:23
  So we talked at the start about you and, and what you do is a
• 33:28
  day job and you would do it. You said I was, I was just done
• 33:31
  now. So how did Danielle go?
• 33:34
  How did Danielle handle public speaking and and shouting loud
• 33:39
  on on radio stations and on TV? How, how, what was that like for
• 33:43
  you? But did it make you feel
• 33:45
  uncomfortable or? No, I've been.
• 33:47
  I've been doubling in radio for a few years now, so public
• 33:50
  speaking were always something that came naturally.
• 33:54
  The thing I've found so hard in this though is because it's so
• 33:57
  personal and quite emotional being able to speak about it
• 34:01
  without bursting into tears. Because.
• 34:05
  It's, it's, it's awful. You know, it's, it really, it
• 34:08
  is. So you can speak on radio.
• 34:10
  And I think sometimes when you speak about these topics, you
• 34:13
  know, that really means something to you.
• 34:14
  It's hard to channel the emotional side out and get it
• 34:18
  over as I'm speaking. So parents know this rather
• 34:22
  than, you know, thinking too much of my, my God, what has my
• 34:25
  son been through? What have we been through?
• 34:28
  You know, and this is, you know, it's been really hard and you
• 34:31
  know, and so many families, the more messages I received, I've
• 34:36
  gone to hell and back and it's, it's, it's, it's so destroying.
• 34:41
  Like I, I know families where relationships between parents
• 34:45
  have broken down because of the pressure, you know,
• 34:48
  heartbreaking. People literally are breaking
• 34:51
  point and trying to hold the families together and then
• 34:56
  advocate for their child to get, you know, the best possible
• 34:59
  chances and the best possible life.
• 35:01
  Honestly, I will honestly say the years ago, I'm going back
• 35:05
  now, eight years ago, I worked in a call centre.
• 35:08
  And if I still worked in that call centre, there's no way I'd
• 35:11
  still be at work there because the number of phone calls I've
• 35:15
  had from school to come and pick Mikey up, because he's not, he's
• 35:19
  been late to his lesson and or he's refusing to go to his
• 35:21
  lesson. It's always about the they go
• 35:24
  down the behaviour route when actually I'm asking the question
• 35:27
  of, well, why is he avoiding his lesson?
• 35:29
  You know, you're not looking at why he is avoiding his lesson.
• 35:33
  You know he's not aggressive. He's not, you know, and I get
• 35:36
  it, You know, sometimes children become frustrated and aggressive
• 35:39
  because they're so, you know, lost with it all.
• 35:42
  But we didn't really have that. So to be called the amount of
• 35:45
  times I walk called and the amount of meetings I had,
• 35:48
  there's no way I'd have been able to hold a 95 down now, no.
• 35:52
  Do you, do you think that the because again, I have my opinion
• 35:58
  on this, but I'd love to hear yours.
• 35:59
  Do you think there's some cheap children are almost failing or
• 36:04
  labeled as failing because the system only recognizes one type
• 36:09
  of intelligence? Yeah, 1,000,000% And, you know,
• 36:13
  I think that there's some teachers out there that really
• 36:15
  and, and people within the education system who really want
• 36:17
  to make a difference. And there's some people, I mean,
• 36:20
  this GCSE model, we, we did it, Yeah, you know, this what we
• 36:23
  were studying and the kids now have evolved, have changed.
• 36:26
  It's, you know, my son don't care if Matt Beth we're having a
• 36:29
  good day or not. You know what I mean?
• 36:31
  And, and here's the thing, I'll make you laugh.
• 36:33
  I'll show you my age now. I was, we were the Guinea pigs.
• 36:36
  So we were the first year to ever do GCSE.
• 36:40
  We went, we were the year that went from O levels to GCSE,
• 36:44
  right. So I totally feel for Mikey
• 36:49
  because not only had I had the worst experience in primary
• 36:54
  school, I then went to secondary school and was told, oh, by the
• 36:57
  way, everything's changed. We're not doing O levels now.
• 37:01
  We're going to do something called GCSE.
• 37:04
  And yeah, I mean, I will keep my voice down.
• 37:09
  I will keep my voice down because my eldest is kind of in
• 37:12
  the other room. Let's be honest.
• 37:15
  Let's if we're really honest about this, you go into a job,
• 37:20
  right? So Danielle gets a job back in a
• 37:23
  call centre. What does Danielle do?
• 37:25
  She's expected to fill in a piece of paper with her date of
• 37:30
  birth, her e-mail address, what school she attended, what
• 37:35
  qualifications she got. So are we also judging adults on
• 37:42
  how well they did at school, not how well they could actually do
• 37:45
  a job? So it's all to do with because
• 37:50
  someone has drawn a line in the sand and gone.
• 37:52
  This is the start point, this is the middle point, which is your
• 37:55
  GCSE exams. And the end point is you either
• 37:58
  going to be really successful in your workplace because of what
• 38:01
  you've got on that piece of paper, your CV, or fail in life.
• 38:05
  I I I think the system is just. I do and change is change is
• 38:10
  really needed. You know this awareness matters.
• 38:13
  There's so much talk about education reform at minute, but
• 38:17
  I really feel like with education reform, real lived
• 38:21
  experiences really need to be included in them conversations
• 38:24
  because. Totally.
• 38:26
  Parents, carers, young people, we need seats at that table
• 38:30
  because we really do need how how can they change things
• 38:35
  without listening to to real people who are living this?
• 38:38
  And I have I have wrote to Bridget Phillips and so many
• 38:42
  times not got anything back. Don't get me wrong, you know, on
• 38:45
  Instagram, but not get anything back.
• 38:47
  Anna Dixon, my local MP has been magnificent.
• 38:49
  She's trying to get. That's nice to hear.
• 38:51
  I encourage any Sun parent. I'm glad you did that.
• 38:56
  One of the things I've put on recently is speaking to your
• 39:01
  local MP and asking and you mentioned it earlier legally
• 39:06
  about identification and ECHP and the start and the other why
• 39:10
  am I being made to wait when it's law?
• 39:13
  You know, it's just bonkers. I, I, I'm yeah, don't even get
• 39:18
  me started. On Bridget for my son's EHCP,
• 39:21
  you know that hasn't been a walking path.
• 39:23
  It got. So the first time it got
• 39:24
  rejected because they didn't feel like school were doing
• 39:28
  enough to support him. The second time it got rejected
• 39:31
  because they said that school didn't provide adequate the
• 39:34
  information in time. So then it went to car school
• 39:37
  didn't even come to the well. It went to what's it called, a
• 39:42
  tribunal or something like that. Yeah, well, it were it were like
• 39:47
  an appeal, A tribunal and. I bet you won it right?
• 39:50
  You are? I wonder.
• 39:51
  Did you win the tribunal? 3 * 3 times.
• 39:55
  Tells you everything you need to know right there right I I'd
• 40:00
  again have a look that the percentage of people that win
• 40:02
  tribunals is through the roof and that's because it's it's
• 40:07
  law, right you're supposed to get it so.
• 40:10
  Why? You've been made to do this.
• 40:12
  It's almost like a stalling process to stall you as a
• 40:15
  parent, to stall you as a family and to put your child through
• 40:17
  more emotional tormail. I really don't get it.
• 40:21
  I, I I don't. Get.
• 40:23
  It it's bonkers. And I feel like they reject him
• 40:25
  and reject him and reject him because they don't want you to
• 40:28
  appeal. They don't want you to to.
• 40:31
  I spoke to a parent of the day and said, oh, it got rejected
• 40:34
  and because I was telling her I've got mine and she said I've
• 40:38
  rejected mine. I said you have appealed and she
• 40:40
  went, oh, she's just so long winded.
• 40:42
  I because this did the you know, it's a long process and I said
• 40:46
  you must, you must because you've got to.
• 40:48
  That's what they. Want you to do for anyone to do
• 40:50
  that. You're dead right?
• 40:51
  So do you think another question for you?
• 40:54
  Then again, it's something else I would love to dig deep into.
• 40:58
  I'd love to understand how many families you think are burnt out
• 41:02
  before support even arrives. And I can't even, I can't even
• 41:07
  1,000,000 millions, like judging by the thousands of comments and
• 41:12
  messages I've received, every single one of them being at
• 41:15
  breaking point. I, I couldn't even put a number
• 41:18
  on it because there's so many and, and parents are exhausted.
• 41:21
  They give a lot of them give up because let's be honest, right,
• 41:24
  they're trying. They've got all the children as
• 41:26
  well who need their attention and support.
• 41:28
  You know, they're trying to keep a household together, they're
• 41:30
  trying to keep a job down. They're just trying to keep the
• 41:33
  necks above water. So people are so burnt out.
• 41:37
  And that's why I'd been to that stage.
• 41:41
  And I couldn't believe that I were only finding out about
• 41:43
  functional skills when my son were four or five months off
• 41:48
  sitting his actual GCS ES, you know, when I'd had all this time
• 41:52
  to be told about it. And it's, you know, I just want
• 41:55
  to raise as much awareness as possible for these parents who
• 41:58
  are exhausted and they're at breaking point to let them know
• 42:00
  that GCS, ES are not the only model of intelligence and that
• 42:04
  you, your son or daughter's world won't just collapse
• 42:06
  because they haven't got GCSE. Because I've, I've spoken to
• 42:09
  nurses who have gone on to do degrees and work in hospitals
• 42:13
  who got there due to functional skills.
• 42:16
  You know, it's opened so many doors as you know, my son and we
• 42:20
  didn't even know it existed. And I just think practical
• 42:22
  learners are often overlooked and vocational pathways.
• 42:26
  They deserve equal respect because because of them, my
• 42:28
  son's got now not one, but two college office offers for
• 42:31
  September. There you go skills.
• 42:34
  When we were told that it wouldn't have a hope in hell of
• 42:36
  getting into any colleges. They love saying that and you
• 42:39
  know, you tell you tell you some this from me, right, some of our
• 42:44
  brightest brains in the world on your divergent and again, I
• 42:49
  don't know what the percentage is, but it's extremely high of
• 42:53
  CEOCFOCTIS and you, you name it across the board on your
• 42:58
  divergent as well. They always they always get to
• 43:01
  the top. They fight to get to the top,
• 43:03
  and it shouldn't be like that. All right, here's a good one for
• 43:06
  you. Then you mentioned Bridget, God
• 43:07
  lover, and I said I wasn't going to be a magician again, but I
• 43:11
  am. So here's my magic wand.
• 43:13
  Bang. You are now in charge of the
• 43:16
  Department for Education. Tell me 3.
• 43:18
  Tell me 3 things you change tomorrow morning straight away.
• 43:23
  Oh, what would I change tomorrow morning?
• 43:25
  Straight away Never been asked this question.
• 43:27
  Well, what the big thing that I'm talking about at the moment?
• 43:31
  Bringing in B techs and key skills and function.
• 43:34
  Well, the functional skills into mainstream education so that
• 43:37
  practical learners have a different route.
• 43:39
  Because I'm telling you now, if they did, I bet the school
• 43:43
  attendance would be up. I feel like EHC PS: claims will
• 43:47
  be down. Yeah, cost saving straight away.
• 43:50
  Yeah, I really, I mean, I know that they'd have to, you know,
• 43:54
  obviously put a lot of funding into doing that.
• 43:56
  But if if send reform is a thing, functional skills are
• 44:00
  going to have to be brought into the equation because, you know,
• 44:04
  we need to stop treating GCS, ES as the only definition to
• 44:07
  success, you know, So I would bring in alternative ways of
• 44:11
  learning, alternative educational pathways.
• 44:14
  I would bring in real life people who are living this, who
• 44:18
  have got this real lived experience to have a seat at the
• 44:21
  table when we're looking at, you know, the ways we're going to
• 44:24
  improve education. That's what I'd be doing and
• 44:27
  speaking to about. Exams.
• 44:28
  Would you get rid of exams? I do, it's a funny one this for
• 44:34
  me because I do think the exams do I think we should abolish the
• 44:40
  whole education GCSE system? Not necessarily, you know,
• 44:44
  because I think that we need to get, you know, still give kids
• 44:46
  something to, to work towards and to, you know, to believe in
• 44:50
  themselves to to work for, because we don't want them to
• 44:53
  think that, you know, we don't have to to work towards certain
• 44:55
  things. But would I make it so that kids
• 44:58
  doing exams that the exams that we're taking were more suited to
• 45:02
  them and how they learn 1,000,000% I don't know if I'd
• 45:05
  get rid of them full layer, but I won't.
• 45:06
  I don't think I'd be modelling it as much as your whole life
• 45:11
  depends on it. You know this is.
• 45:12
  Just. What's the part you need?
• 45:15
  The nail on the head there because that one day, that one
• 45:20
  moment, that one hour, whatever it might be, as I said a bit
• 45:24
  ago, determines the rest of your life on a piece of paper and
• 45:28
  hold the whole thing when they bought GCS ES in was that it
• 45:33
  would be made-up a percentage of your score would be made-up over
• 45:36
  a period of time of your school journey.
• 45:39
  And yet the exam still holds them all the most weight.
• 45:44
  So, you know, you take my key, take me, take all these other
• 45:51
  children that struggle, that do not suit that situation of
• 45:55
  having a piece of paper put in front of me.
• 45:57
  There's a pencil, Off you go. Your whole world crashes.
• 46:02
  Yeah. I love the things you've come
• 46:04
  out with there. I, I, I, one of the questions I
• 46:08
  would love to, to know if I had five minutes with, with, with,
• 46:12
  with the Department of Education is, is they made a change when
• 46:16
  they got in, was one of the first things they did is they
• 46:18
  put VATS on independent schools, right?
• 46:21
  So 20% VAT and said that that money would go back into the
• 46:26
  school system, would go towards send, etcetera, etcetera.
• 46:31
  And then we saw this campaign the other day, nothing against
• 46:35
  Gemma Collins at all, but we saw this campaign the other day,
• 46:39
  which was just frankly outrageous.
• 46:42
  I want to know where all that money's gone, like because we're
• 46:45
  still, we're still seeing people like Mikey falling through the
• 46:49
  cracks every day. We know there is an alternative
• 46:54
  way to learning an alternative pathway.
• 46:57
  And I'm so glad that you as a person, a champion in it.
• 47:01
  And I think it's amazing. And I love everything I see and
• 47:04
  I love everything about you. I think you're wonderful.
• 47:07
  And I'll make you have my promise that I will put
• 47:09
  everything in the bottom of the podcast for people to start
• 47:12
  digging deeper into this. I, I, I, I, I, I don't know if
• 47:21
  you can answer this, but if we've got someone listening
• 47:23
  right now who's completely overwhelmed, what you know, what
• 47:27
  would you come? What would your advice be to
• 47:29
  that parent or that child? Just again, to to to not stop
• 47:34
  believing that you know, you're not if it's if it's about if
• 47:40
  you're like I had a message from somebody the day it was it was
• 47:42
  child hadn't been in school for like nearly a year.
• 47:45
  You know that they've not been going.
• 47:47
  Yeah. And and I was speaking to them
• 47:49
  about that and it's really difficult, but let's not focus
• 47:54
  too much emphasis on, you know, Oh my God, they aren't meeting
• 47:57
  school for a year. Let's focus what we could be
• 47:59
  doing at home. You know, there's so many on on,
• 48:02
  you know, on line learning things.
• 48:05
  It does these GCS, ES and the this school time isn't going to
• 48:08
  define their whole future. Like I have a really close
• 48:11
  friend, Gareth, that less, you know, in my day when it wasn't
• 48:15
  heard of to leave school without GCS ES and you know, stuff with
• 48:19
  nothing. And he runs one of the most
• 48:21
  successful businesses. He has a beautiful home.
• 48:24
  You know, I just think that we we are putting so much pressure
• 48:26
  on these kids to be in school and to to really focus on these
• 48:30
  exams because it's going to determine your whole life.
• 48:33
  When the truth of the matter is some of the most successful
• 48:35
  people I know, I've got to where they are due to just their the
• 48:38
  person they are and their character and their drive and
• 48:41
  ambition. And I would encourage parents to
• 48:44
  be focusing on keeping their child's character, keeping that
• 48:49
  that personality, keeping that their them as they are, rather
• 48:54
  than trying to mould them into a box that they're not meant to
• 48:57
  fit in and just celebrating the wonderful things about them
• 49:01
  already. And you know, if, if you get in
• 49:04
  a hard time or you know, like I got letters about attendance, I
• 49:07
  got letters about all sorts. And I, I said openly, I will
• 49:10
  happily come and sit with you and tell you why my son hint in
• 49:13
  school, you know, because I think that more parents are
• 49:17
  realizing that we actually, and some people might not agree with
• 49:21
  me about mice. I own my son, not the local
• 49:25
  authority. And I will decide what's right
• 49:27
  for him. And I think a lot more parents
• 49:30
  are becoming adapted to that mindset.
• 49:33
  So, you know, I would just encourage you to not give up the
• 49:37
  fight and to not focus so much on the things that your son or
• 49:40
  daughter isn't doing and achieving.
• 49:42
  Let's look at all the brilliant things that they are.
• 49:44
  And it doesn't always just come from that classroom environment.
• 49:48
  Like my my friend's son, he wasn't milk, you know, made for
• 49:53
  the classroom. And he is now, you know, he's 16
• 49:56
  and he's working at a local stables, you know, like looking
• 50:00
  after horses and, and doing something that he's passionate
• 50:03
  about and he's thriving. So I just think that people just
• 50:06
  need to get out of that mindset that your whole world will come
• 50:09
  crumbling down if you don't get these GCSEs in maths and English
• 50:13
  because some jobs and, and, you know, pathways that you're going
• 50:17
  to go down don't necessarily need that.
• 50:20
  I mean, obviously some do when I would encourage parents to check
• 50:23
  with their local colleges depending on, you know, what
• 50:26
  their kids want to take because I don't want to say to you or
• 50:28
  you might not need them when if. No, correct.
• 50:31
  If you do, but there will be an alternative, you can 100% say a
• 50:35
  functional skills exam alongside a course you know that you're
• 50:39
  doing and it's just not the end of the world, is it, You know?
• 50:43
  It is. You're right.
• 50:44
  They they, they stick so much emphasis.
• 50:47
  Yeah, no child should feel that they failed just because the
• 50:50
  route wasn't right for them, because there's so many other
• 50:52
  routes that they can take. And as I refer to you, trust me
• 50:56
  from someone that knows you know, it sticks with you for a
• 50:59
  long, long time. And I don't, I don't want
• 51:02
  anybody. I don't want any child in 2026
• 51:07
  to to still go through these emotions and take so long to be
• 51:11
  afraid to put your hand up to ask a question or to speak
• 51:14
  publicly or do a podcast or go on the radio like you do because
• 51:18
  you're too scared of of the end result.
• 51:20
  You're too scared of failure. Failure is a horrible thing to
• 51:24
  have embedded in your brain, stamped across your forehead.
• 51:28
  Listen, I want to thank you because I know how busy you are,
• 51:32
  right? You are a beautiful, beautiful,
• 51:33
  wonderful person. Please do not stop what you're
• 51:37
  doing because your passion is unbelievable.
• 51:40
  We are. Everyone is, is fully behind
• 51:42
  you. I've got one more question for
• 51:45
  you that I always ask everybody and it's a personal one for me,
• 51:49
  but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
• 51:51
  So what does the threat? What does the phrase thick no
• 51:55
  more mean to you personally? I'd say for me, it means, you
• 52:01
  know, refusing to accept the labels that other people and
• 52:05
  society put on you. You know, whether that's
• 52:06
  children being told or, you know, like yourself, a younger
• 52:09
  person, you know, back back in that day told that you're not
• 52:12
  academic enough. You know, it's refusing to just
• 52:17
  be stuck in that box because I think so many children and
• 52:19
  families are put into these boxes by a system and they're
• 52:22
  labeled and just trying to constantly live up to other
• 52:26
  people's expectations. I think it's about finding your
• 52:30
  own way and your own path, and realizing that different doesn't
• 52:34
  at all mean any less. No, that's beautiful.
• 52:37
  And there's a light. There's always a light at that
• 52:39
  end of that tunnel. There always is.
• 52:40
  You're dead right? You've give some beautiful
• 52:42
  examples of people that have gone on to do great things and
• 52:46
  you know, there are people out there doing wonderful stuff,
• 52:49
  technology, you know, and neurodivergent minds that are
• 52:52
  excellent at thinking outside that box.
• 52:55
  So what a great statement. Listen.
• 52:56
  Thank you so very, very much. I will put all of the details
• 53:01
  that Danielle has spoken about in in the podcast at the bottom
• 53:06
  links. As you heard from Danielle,
• 53:09
  she's had thousands and thousands of messages, but you
• 53:12
  can reach out to either of us and one of us will try and guide
• 53:16
  you. But please Danielle, honestly
• 53:20
  from my heart and everyone else that listens, please don't stop
• 53:22
  because the stuff your voice is so loud and it's amazing.
• 53:25
  Please continue. Thank you so very much for
• 53:27
  joining me. It's my pleasure.
• 53:29
  Thanks for having me.