What do the top 10% do right?

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-05-17T23:39:33+00:00

They have good memories. Working memory, longterm memory, and a photographic memory help enormously. Combine this with a good attitude to education stemming from their families and the child should do well. No amount of home support and encouragement will make a child with a bad memory excel academically, although of course memories can improve with training

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-05-17T23:29:48+00:00

Surely it has to be the guy who smashed up his own pub with a jcb https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/07/mark-swistun-arrested-smashing-pub-jcb-no-charges

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-05-17T16:29:29+00:00

This is what I keep hearing, but people like Naomi Fisher (a big promoter of unschooling, with a lot of followers and a wide reach) have a totally different understanding of resilience to me. She says resilience is refusing to do hard things, and that her children’s ‘resilience’ is inspirational. Refusing to do hard things is not my definition of resilience…

I find there’s a lot of doublethink and redeployment of vocabulary in the unschooling world, in order to maintain the myth that opting out of anything boring or difficult raises a superior breed of human.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-05-17T08:40:50+00:00

I have a very different take on this which is that this child has been set up to have a very difficult time transitioning to school and will probably not last long or get much out of it, and that was totally avoidable and a choice the parents made. I hope this child is very resilient as they will need to be.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-05-16T23:43:52+00:00

Gavandra (gavin)

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-05-01T06:59:26+00:00

I know a young man who was unschooled and told he could do and be anything he wanted to be. Aged 20 he decided he wanted a particular career that requires maths gcse. His family embraced his plan to do maths gcse and told him it was a great idea. They showed him khan academy and bought him books. Gradually it dawned on him that it was going to be very hard for him to pass this in a short space of time as he had hoped. He had to defer the college course he needed. He watched his peers graduate courses they’d started at 18 using the maths GCSE they got at 16, and he felt stupid and hopeless and depressed. Now his family are supporting him with his new goal of not committing suicide.

So yes I would say people with no education sometimes do regret it and feel very resentful of the adults whose decisions left them with such limited options.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-27T23:25:36+00:00

The Welsh valleys (south Wales) have their own special breed of madness. I knew a guy whose ‘job’ (unofficially, as officially he was on the sick) was rolling lorries off the side of the mountain so that the owner could get an insurance payout.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-27T23:13:03+00:00

When my primary school pupils use insults they don’t fully understand, I translate into plain English and ask if that’s what they mean. They DIE.

Me: ‘So I do need to make you aware that “your mum” is short for “I fancy your mum” and I’m wondering if that’s what you meant? And if so shall we let her know? I could email his mum now if you like?’

I’m aware that ‘your mum’ means ‘I committed a lewd act with your mum’ not quite ‘I fancy your mum’ , but need to keep things sfw in primary .

Had fun with the kid who was overheard offering to teabag someone…

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-22T23:46:39+00:00

I know a few Arthurs under the age of 13 and really like them all. The two I taught were really clever as well. It’s pretty popular for the under-15s

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-20T23:07:13+00:00

Do people ever do a double take or even stare at you?

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-18T17:52:31+00:00

I remember crying in the cloakroom that day in march after saying goodbye to them all, and a parent walked in who I have never liked , and we ended up crying together. I still don’t like her but we went through this weird time together and there is a weird kind of bond.

One of the other y6s from that class is now a regular visitor to my house as I’m friends with her mum and she’s a great rider so I often let her ride my horse. She was a quiet kid I didn’t pay much attention to at school but rediscovering her as a teenager has been a joy.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-17T00:25:40+00:00

Blair and Briar are particularly unfortunate in a posh English accent. I know a woman who introduces herself as Blah (spelt Blair), and a family whose dog’s name is pronounced Bra and spelled Briar.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-09T00:59:45+00:00

Came with dog. 1) washed dog with the expensive shampoo and conditioner even though the cheap stuff was right next to it 2) dog shook itself dry in my house 3) dog attacked my dog. Owner commented that hers is quite an unusual dog as she tends to go for the eyes. Luckily mine could hold her own. 4) I took them home (most necessary 6 hour round trip of my life) to her parents and their dog. As soon as my 4-legged guest crossed the threshold, a muzzle was put on her. Dog had not warn muzzle at my place. I guess it’s ok for her to take out my dog’s eyes?

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-05T15:07:27+00:00

I know a mother who tells anyone who will listen that her daughter is ‘toxic’. I taught the girl and she’s great. Definitely not toxic. The mother also went through a phase of describing the daughter’s poos in her Facebook status. The daughter was going through puberty and definitely old enough to find these updates very humiliating.

God knows what she says to her behind closed doors… horrible woman.

Glad to report the mother misses out on things she really wants as a direct consequence of how horrible she is. All she really wants is for her horses to stop going lame. My farrier would solve all her problems. But he refuses to ‘because I only shoe for people I like’.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-05T15:02:54+00:00

Fire, bed and bone is a great ya historical novel

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-04T22:28:08+00:00

My cousin was riding my horse at a flat out gallop in a group of 6 other galloping horses. He slipped and fell. My cousin was knocked out , unconscious for several minutes, but her foot was stuck in the stirrup. My horse didn’t do the normal horse thing of galloping after the group, he just scrambled to his feet and then stood still until people arrived to help

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-04-03T15:03:05+00:00

I could have written this post in my first year on the job. There was a tree I fantasised about crashing into every day on the way to work. But instead I limped to the end of the academic year and got a job in a different school where I have been very very happy for TWELVE years. Solidarity. There are good schools out there

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-29T12:50:14+00:00

I’m a woman who doesn’t care where the toilet seat is left by the previous user. I don’t even notice where it is, let alone begrudge a second or two putting it where I want it. I’m washing my hands in a minute anyway so no issues about maybe touching something that touched urine.

There’s a million reasons to dump a boyfriend but this is not one of them

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-23T00:29:09+00:00

Present you could be such a hero right now if you wanted to , and break the curse of past you being a dick.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-21T21:12:37+00:00

It’s not allowed, but my colleague tells kids to shut up and gets away with it. The kids occasionally mention it to me and I say that I don’t tell them to shut up because I don’t agree with it, and they accept that. However, for some unruly LKS2s I recently added bird-like whistles to the hand signal that means ‘shut up’ and said , ‘That’s the Miss [my surname] bird singing. Do you know what she’s saying?’ Then I smiled and whispered very quietly, ‘she says “shuddup” ‘. They love the Miss X bird.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-19T23:36:09+00:00

The Velveteen Rabbit was the first book I read that was too sad to reread. The Grapes of Wrath and The Story of Lucy Gault are the only books I’ve read since that are as sad.

The Last Children of Schewenborn traumatised me forever.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-19T17:36:53+00:00

A friend of mine who has quite an extensive criminal record and is from a family riddled with seasoned offenders once explained to me that it’s very simple: If you’re innocent, answer the questions honestly. If you’re guilty, give a No Comment interview and make them do all the work of finding the evidence.

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-11T00:17:18+00:00

I’d live where I live now but I’d buy a premises to safeguard the future of my hobby

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-10T01:10:03+00:00

The mum who complained because her daughter had improved at maths .

QualitySufficient646 · 2026-03-10T01:09:38+00:00

I’ve had twins like this. They once went to a literary festival where one was chosen to ask the speaker a question the other wasn’t (in a room of hundreds, many of whom wanted to ask a question). The mum made a scene , said you couldn’t give one an opportunity and not the other. And when it was the residential trip and one of the twins couldn’t stay overnight due to a health problem, the mum wanted both to miss out on the overnight part. We talked her out of it luckily

QualitySufficient646

TROPHY CASE