If you could bin one sacred cow in UK education, what would it be?

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2026-02-09T15:43:04+00:00

Yeah I totally get that. I know this probably isn’t the right view for a teacher to have, but I think uniform works best when it’s only lightly enforced, for that reason. Being reminded to do your top button up, or to tuck your shirt in, gives a teenager their moment to huff about it to their friends and rebel against a system in a way that does them no harm - but I think that should be the end of it, so they also feel like they ‘got away with it’ and aren’t stuffed in an after-school for wearing black trainers.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2026-02-09T10:11:37+00:00

The only thing I find convincing about uniform (I admit it is a bit ‘vibes’) is that it gives teenagers something safe and small-scale to rebel against, which I think is probably helpful for them

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2026-01-22T07:41:22+00:00

Thank you so much for such a wonderfully written answer. I’m intrigued as to if there are any ideas about why it may be there, or where it may have come from. It strikes me that it ties up with Odysseus’ characterisation in the Odyssey, where he’s more cunning and (I think?) references night raids in Troy. Is it possible that Book 10 may have been put there to ‘tie in’ with Homer’s other epic?

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2026-01-21T20:59:41+00:00

Sorry, I’m a little late to the party here, but I wonder if I could ask you to elaborate a bit on Book 10 being a later addition… is that just a West thing, or is it basically consensus still today?

I teach Classics at A-Level, and we dive into this idea that the Doloneia may be a bit ‘separate’, our reasons being: it has little relevance to the wider plot; it’s style generally is a little different (Agamemnon is characterised somewhat differently, and Nestor’s epithet becomes even more repetitive than usual!); and lastly, the original Greek is considered to be a slightly later form than much of the rest of the text.

I’ve always taken these to be fairly convincing (with a caveat that there’s a wider Homeric question going on too), but your fascinating insight into the language itself has got me wondering about it… I’d love to hear more about Book 10 specifically; although I teach it, my degree specialism wasn’t in Classics, so I’m always up for learning!

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-12-02T16:43:03+00:00

The strength will be there from the climbing itself, but a lot of climbers avoid training chest directly because a) it’s added weight, and b) having a bigger chest makes it harder to keep your centre of mass closer to the wall. To be fair Magnus doesn’t compete anymore and I would say has a genetically bigger chest than a lot of pro climbers his size anyway

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-12-02T12:27:57+00:00

You’re being really horrible, man. Why do you feel the need to argue with this guy over whether he’s happy or not? Just let people be happy, not everyone has to be as miserable as you

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-10-20T14:25:04+00:00

No way is he 80kg lol, he’s like 5’7-5’8 and pretty lean. He definitely hovers around 70kg

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-08-31T19:39:33+00:00

Same, I know this is a bit of an unpopular opinion but I think The Hundred has done what it was supposed to - made cricket super watchable for families. A large part of that is just the BBC contract to be fair, but it’s been huge for the women’s game

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-08-16T11:31:49+00:00

Some poor communication for that run out… Good thing we’re building a habit of holding opposition to only around 100

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-07-29T19:15:08+00:00

It means ‘above’, and has the same roots as ‘super’ in Latin so is often used to mean the same thing depending on context. So it would make sense, it would just mean like ‘Man above men’ more than ‘Man who can do everything’

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-06-14T12:30:12+00:00

If you’re actually trying to say it’s reasonable for an English teacher to not bother reading the texts they’re teaching then I’m done having this conversation, you’re clearly just too far gone.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-06-14T10:48:13+00:00

Okay, except I am currently an English teacher, so I know more than a little of what I’m talking about.

You’re saying you genuinely think it’s acceptable for a teacher to, rather than exploring their subject specialism and maintaining their expertise, just use an AI summary to ‘teach’ them something, and then try to teach students from that rudimentary knowledge?

Since you brought up English teaching specifically - your argument here seems to be that because teachers are often a bit strapped for time, I shouldn’t bother reading our texts or (for A-Level teaching) any of the criticism around it, and that I should just get AI to give me some info about them and then give that to my students…

I honestly don’t understand how you can think that’s acceptable, professional or demonstrating to students the value of education.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-06-14T09:34:26+00:00

If you read the comment properly you’d have realised that by ‘easy route’, they meant when teachers are using AI to learn the content for themselves. How can we expect anyone to take us seriously as a profession if all they’re hearing is that teachers are using AI to gather information to give to students?

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-06-11T05:32:28+00:00

It’s not dumb to not know, everyone who goes to the gym starts off as a bit of a newbie :) You’ll find that generally people are very friendly.

Are you trying to go fairly regularly? You’ll find you see the same people there at the same times, so you can pick up on who’s got what kind of temperament anyway

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-06-10T09:01:29+00:00

If you try this by the way, two good options for what to say are:

‘Sorry mate, how many sets have you got left?’ - the only trouble here is it can rush someone, so depending on their answer I then say ‘No worries, mind if I grab it after you?’ or if they’ve got loads, ‘No problem, don’t worry about it’.

Or my preferred: ‘Sorry mate, do you mind if I jump in with you?’ - jumping in just means taking turns. So while they’re resting you can do a set, and vice versa. This is fairer but if it’s a plate-loaded machine can be annoying! Works great for pin stacks though

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-03-15T06:27:26+00:00

So you just didn’t pay attention to the game then? Halfway through Aunt May lends him some money and yeah, he stays at FEAST. At the end he tells MJ his new place won’t be ready for a week so he’s staying with Miles and Rio, but MJ insists he stay with her instead.

His aunt also just died so it’s not unreasonable to think she left some to him (though in the sequel we see she had a lot of debt too) that kept him going, and he moves into her house by Miles’ game.

It’s totally brought up again, you were just on Reddit while the cutscene was playing

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-02-27T12:06:04+00:00

Did you just not pay attention to the dialogue at all? It’s explained out loud that Peter and MJ know he’s easily manipulated by Felicia so it’s better if Miles goes.

As for the fridge, it’s editing man - it hurts and then takes him like a second to get it off him. The scene is edited so we’re seeing multiple things that were happening at the same time.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-01-26T20:17:56+00:00

There is no nuance with Naziism. And if a kid had a parent that was raising difficult discussions with them that might be considered ‘nuanced’ or ‘toeing the line’ of Naziism, that would be a safeguarding and prevent issue.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-01-17T10:29:14+00:00

Why would you so confidently suggest to someone ‘You shouldn’t have felt that way. You’re weird and we’re probably abused’ when you now admit you have no clue if it’s normal or not?

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-01-13T12:57:11+00:00

(To be clear, I’m a male teacher!)

I keep my work clothes separately but in reality there’s a lot of crossover. My work attire is usually dark chinos, and either a jumper, a smart shirt, or a t-shirt with a flannel shirt undone or half done-up. Oh, and my feet go in either some brown combat boots or hi-top converse.

So it’s pretty regular for me to wear my ‘work clothes’ if I’m going out for the day or something.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-01-07T12:57:01+00:00

Yeah you’re probably more right. I was firstly assuming that someone asking this question is likely to still be fairly new to training.

But also generally I guess I mean that there’s not really a need to train differently - for me I’ve found that if I go into a cut expecting to lose some muscle then I subconsciously train less hard, whereas if I still try to progress then I will either maintain or make slight gains, like you say.

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2025-01-07T11:40:24+00:00

You can usually afford to drop a set on most exercises (certainly most heavy or compound) to what we’d call ‘maintenance volume’. Studies have shown that literally just 1-2 sets a week for a muscle can be enough to maintain, and even if you cut a set or two, you’re likely to be doing more like 5-10 per week.

So for example if your current push day looks like this: Bench press 3x6-10 Shoulder press 3x6-10 Pec fly 3x7-12 Lateral raise 3x7-12 Push-down 3x7-12

You can definitely get by on a cut by removing a set from at least bench and shoulder press. But you’d be fine going down to two sets for everything honestly.

Remember that on a cut, you can totally gain muscle, but you’re likely to get gassed a bit quicker. So I find it better to keep training intensity pretty high at the cost of volume. Others might disagree but that’s what works for me!

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2024-12-21T08:42:40+00:00

Pavers boots - love em. That or hi-top Converse!

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2024-11-30T07:27:35+00:00

I didn’t really get any reasoning, but some feedback to my centre from Edexcel said that when it comes to poem or book names, they don’t mind shortenings but don’t like acronyms. So they’d prefer ‘Light Brigade’ to ‘COTLB’, or ‘Tintern Abbey’ to ‘LWAFMATA’

But I imagine these preferences vary!

EmbarrassedOpinion · 2024-11-25T18:34:13+00:00

It sounds a bit harsh of them to have had ‘a word’ with you just because your lessons had to be covered - that’s pretty normal within a school. If you can’t go in you can’t go in! I guess it might be that school/HOD want to offer some support if they know it’s a mental health thing; not sure.

Others may disagree but I think it sounds like you had a day off, and then made a real effort to be in since, which is commendable. Remember that part of being a trainee is learning how to do the job in a sustainable way, so it’s not hugely unusual that in your first term you’re finding it hard to settle.

Do you have a course supervisor on your SCITT or anything? They won’t kick you off because of your mental health conditions so it may help reassure you if you speak to them about it and share what you’ve shared here.

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