Just makes me feel so grateful that my 5 youngest grandchildren (from 3 families) have been or are being home educated here in the UK. And I'm delighted to say that they're doing well.
Just to note A'levels are not compulsory and are generally taken at around 17/19 after 2 voluntary years at college as a stepping stone to University. Compulsory secondary education ends at 16 with GCSEs.
I went through secondary (high) school from 1967-74, and was a class teacher of 4-9 year-olds from 1977-88. I got out just as the first incarnation of the National Curriculum was coming in - I could see the writing on the wall and wanted none of it 😞.
Even when I was doing my O-Levels (took them in 1972) there were certain subjects I couldn’t take together. Yesterday I spoke to someone whose 14 year old is now having to choose her GCSEs. They HAVE to take 11 subjects (!), of which 9 are compulsory (!). This girl is very sporty but not academic. If she wants to do a sport subject, the only options for her second subject of choice are…History, Classics or Latin!!! This poor girl adores football (soccer) and isn’t the slightest bit interested in amo, amas, amat…
What a waste of everyone’s time.
Oh for places (can’t call them ‘schools’ where people can go and take classes in things they’re interested in. Now THERE’S a novel idea!!!
(Incidentally, your first grade is our Year 2. Old people like me took O-Levels (O stands for Ordinary) at 16 - these were replaced in the early 1980s by GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). These are taken in Year 11 (the courses are studied in Y10-11). A-Levels (Advanced Levels) are taken in Y13. There are some vocational courses - BTECs - available post-16, and some schools offer the IB (International Baccalaureate).)
Michael Gove (horrid little man who sailed through school) certainly has a lot to answer for. The real rot started with him.
And Michael Gove's name is still mud in education circles... 😐 I was in school when the National Curriculum came in and still in school when the Standardised Assessment Tests (SATs) were introduced in Year 9 (age 13/14). I remember a particular teacher expressing their opposition to SATs at the time, but then both the NC and SATs just become part of the norm. When I was teaching Year 6 (age 10/11) in 2004-2010, neither were really questioned... Now I educate my children - and a big reason why is the National Curriculum and all of the high-stakes testing. When I tell them about the state education system, they just can't get their heads around the idea of being told what to do all the time and being constantly tested on it!
Actually, SATs = Statutory Assessment Tests! I was thinking about all the testing that happens in English state schools: there's baseline assessments in Year R (Reception - age 4/5), phonics testing in Year 1 (age 5/6), SATs in Year 2 (age 6/7), multiplication testing in Year 4 (age 8/9), SATs in Year 6 (age 10/11). Year 9 SATs (age 13/14) were scrapped, but the young people I tutor often have classroom assessments about every 2 weeks. Then there are GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education) (or sometimes equivalents) in Year 11 (age 15/16). Then young people are expected to be in education, employment or training until the age of 18, but there's no legal penalty if they aren't.
There is also a difference between the different countries in the UK. All four nations (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) have devolved powers over education and each goes its own way. So what you're describing, Peter, is actually state (government) schools in England.
Then it gets more complicated because in England we also have Academies, which are schools effectively run by businesses: they get state funding, so they're free to access, but they have more freedom (currently) to do their own thing, like not following the National Curriculum (although, in reality, many of them do). We also have private schools, which are paid for by parents or scholarships (or a combination).
Plus, the new Labour Government are currently undertaking a curriculum review. (We get a new version of the National Curriculum every time a different political party is in power.) 😵💫
Thank you for clarifying that, Beverley. It fits with what I inferred from some of what I read, but I wasn't clear on it. I realized that A levels were not compulsory, but assumed that was for the same reason that in the US school is not compulsory (in at least some states if not most) after age 16.
I couldn't agree more, Peter. Standardized testing and standards-based curriculum represent another way we are blatantly designing schools to be more like factories and less like living ecosystems. I understand standards for plugs, cables, nuts, and bolts. But for children, not so much. Ecosystems are powered by diversity. Meetups for children should work the same way.
Hi, agree with this totally. Just here to be an annoying pedant and let you know that what you’re describing is the English education system, not UK. Scottish, Welsh and N Irish education systems are run by their own devolved governments.
They’re similar but maybe less awful due to never having been run by Michael Gove. Scottish system seems a bit less rigid. (Or maybe I just want to believe this because my kids are at school in Scotland!)
It’s a very easy mistake to make because the Education Secretary in UK government is in the odd position of just making policy for England and also because many English people (including London based journalists) use UK and England interchangeably.
It’s maybe worth looking into the data on this further because it means you potentially have an education policy ‘natural experiment’ rather than just tracking changes over time. Young people’s lives in England, Scotland and Wales are pretty similar in other ways but the education systems have been separate for a long time (I don’t know if I’d compare NI as there are more cultural differences).
That said the correlation between UK data on wellbeing and English policy possibly still stands because England has a much bigger population than the rest of the UK. Something to be careful around though.
The education and mental health services need to change in the UK , The pressure that secondary school kids go through it affecting their mental health. To the point their self harm and even suicide. I know this has I lost my 12 year old daughter to suicide in January. She was struggling with school . Cahm kept refusing her saying she was fine. Teachers need how to teach kids with ADHD and autism etc and school counselor in schools. How many more family are going to go through what me and my family have been through.
The lack of proper support for kids with neurodiversities is a whole other kettle of worms - it's appalling how they and their families are treated by the education system. I'm so, so sorry you lost your daughter. My son was suicidal by the age of 10 in primary school, but thankfully his oncologist consultant managed to winkle him into CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and we had a lovely autism specialist nurse that worked with him for months. He's still broken by school 3 years on, but he's happy at home teaching me history and geography and keeping up with world politics and current affairs. How society treats kids and what it expects of them has really got to change.
The outcomes of decreased life satisfaction and stress on our children, we can agree are detrimental. What is the proposed solution? I'm of the opinion that assessments are a important tool to advance learning. Is the issue here the standardisation of these assessments, or their current content?
Here is feedback that follows on from my comments yesterday here about the vicious cycle of capitalism and morality. Paste this in to a markdown site such as https://markdownlivepreview.com/ to see this formatted.
## Pressures on Childhood Education: The Unrelenting Drive of Capitalist Growth
Capitalism’s unrelenting need for **constant growth**—more profits, higher productivity, endless innovation—casts a long shadow over childhood education. What should be a time of discovery and development is increasingly warped into a high-pressure proving ground, where kids are molded to meet the demands of an ever-expanding economy. Below, I’ll explore how this growth imperative fuels an intense push to achieve, reshaping schools, straining students, and redefining success in ways that prioritize output over well-being.
### 1. Education as a Workforce Factory
The capitalist engine runs on a steady stream of skilled workers, and education has become its assembly line. Schools face immense pressure to produce kids who are **job-ready**, often at the expense of broader learning.
- **Skills Trump Exploration**: The focus shifts from nurturing curiosity to drilling market-friendly skills—think STEM programs in preschool or coding classes for tweens. Achievement is measured not by imagination sparked, but by how well kids align with economic needs.
- **Early Tracking**: Children are pushed to specialize early, funneled into “lucrative” paths before they’ve had a chance to explore their interests. The pressure to achieve a predefined goal—employability—overrides the freedom to grow as individuals.
This relentless drive turns education into a race to the finish line of productivity, sidelining the joy of learning.
### 2. The Achievement Arms Race
Capitalism thrives on competition, and its growth obsession transforms education into a battleground. The pressure to achieve escalates as schools, parents, and students chase ever-higher benchmarks.
- **Testing Frenzy**: Standardized tests dominate, with success tied to scores that signal a school’s—or a child’s—worth. Teachers, under pressure to deliver results, prioritize test prep over creative or critical thinking, amplifying the stakes for kids.
- **Parental Push**: Parents, caught in the same growth-driven mindset, pile on the pressure—tutors, extracurriculars, and packed schedules become the norm. Achievement isn’t just encouraged; it’s demanded, as a ticket to elite colleges and high-paying jobs.
This arms race leaves no room for missteps or downtime, turning childhood into a relentless quest for the next milestone.
### 3. Mental Health Under Siege
The constant push to achieve, fueled by capitalism’s growth demands, takes a brutal toll on kids’ mental health. The mantra of “more, better, faster” seeps into classrooms, creating a pressure cooker environment.
- **Rising Stress**: Even young children feel the weight of performance expectations, with stress over grades starting in elementary school. By adolescence, it’s an epidemic—studies show skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression linked to academic pressure.
- **Fear of Falling Short**: In a system where achievement is everything, failure becomes a catastrophe. Kids internalize this, avoiding risks and losing the resilience that comes from trial and error.
The drive for constant growth doesn’t just demand success—it punishes anything less, leaving kids fragile and overwhelmed.
### 4. Inequality Amplified
The pressure to achieve isn’t felt equally. Capitalism’s growth imperative widens gaps, with resources and opportunities skewed toward those already ahead.
- **Uneven Playing Field**: Affluent schools pour money into advanced programs, tech, and small classes, boosting achievement for some. Underfunded schools, meanwhile, struggle with basics, leaving students to fight an uphill battle.
- **Privilege Perpetuated**: High-achieving environments—think private academies or enriched districts—become pipelines to top universities and careers, while others are left scrambling. The pressure to succeed is crushing when the tools to do so are out of reach.
This isn’t a fair race; it’s a system where achievement reflects wealth as much as effort.
### 5. Success Redefined, Choice Constrained
Capitalism promises that hard work and achievement lead to opportunity, but the reality is narrower. The growth obsession distorts the purpose of education, locking kids into rigid paths.
- **Debt and Dead Ends**: College, sold as the ultimate achievement, often buries grads in debt, tying them to jobs that pay bills rather than fulfill dreams. The pressure to “make it” comes with a lifelong catch.
- **Limited Horizons**: The push for marketable skills sidelines diverse talents—art, philosophy, or trades get devalued if they don’t promise immediate economic returns. Achievement becomes a one-size-fits-all metric, dictated by profit.
Far from liberating, this pressure traps kids in a cycle of striving for a success that’s predefined and often unattainable.
---
## A Call to Rethink
The unrelenting need for growth under capitalism has turned childhood education into a pressure cooker, where achievement is king and kids pay the price—mentally, socially, and creatively. The costs are clear: burnout, inequality, and a generation robbed of wonder. But it’s not inevitable. By rejecting the idea that education must serve endless growth, we can reclaim it as a space for curiosity, resilience, and humanity. Achievement should mean more than feeding the capitalist machine—it should mean growing into a whole, thriving person. That’s a future worth building.
Peter, are you looking into the influx of educational technology pushed by those that funneled significant funding into the common core standards? I believe they go hand and hand. These tech giants are also behind the significant testing and constant progress monitoring using online testing platforms. Results are often tied to teacher evaluations and school ratings. As an educator I am now inundated with AI products and webinars pushing these products. The harm we are doing to children in schools is not sustainable yet the tech industry continues to profit significantly.
Denise, are you required to use these tech products? If so, from where does the requirement arise? Is it part of your school system's drive to meet government requirements?
Hi Peter, yes schools are required to use these products. I have been writing about it on my substack, https://www.public.news/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind The tech industry has captured the education system. Curricula is now often provided in a digital form, even to students as young as K. It is destroying the development of foundational skills and was ushered in with the adoption of CCS. Tech truly has a death grip on education and the relentless push for AI in schools is terrifying.
I finished school in the UK in 2002, after doing my A-Levels. I found my entire experience of school to be the worst of my entire life. Peter, if you see this comment, I'd like you to know that your comparison of school to a prison at the beginning of "Free to Learn" was a perfect articulation of many of my feelings about the experience and I had to set the book down for a while before I could continue.
As the parent of a toddler, I am now worried about what options I can expect for them in the future. I had hoped that the state system for primary (pre-11 education in the UK) would be okay and that my main worry would be secondary education. I am now torn between private (probably unaffordable and maybe not better), homeschooling (possibly not practical), and some kind of home curriculum to try and deprogram the effects of the state system (I have no idea if this would work). I hope by the time my child is older that the system will have seen the light, but I doubt it.
Your letters are very enlightening. Do you have plans to publish a collection of them as a book anytime soon? In any case, I just upgraded my subscription to “Founding” in support of your work. Keep it coming!
Michael, thank you for your founding subscription!. Yes, I am under contract to complete a book, with working title "Restoring Childhood" that will include much of what I have been writing about in these Substack letters.
What a wonderful title! I teach HS 11th and 12th grade students interested in education as a career. Anyway, many have chosen to read your letters and were excited to learn of a future book release. Thank you.
As the parent of 4 young adults who had to endure the school system in England I can confirm that it is pretty awful!
The results of the GCSE and A-level exams are used to make league tables showing how ‘good’ the schools are. So in addition to the external exams the children are constantly being tested/examined to make sure they have had plenty of practice before the real thing. It’s ludicrous how much teaching time is lost to this!
Thanks for this. No surprises here, merely what John Holt was warning about sixty years ago--folks dreaming up "better" systems of education, but who "know" children only from textbooks rather than from sitting and watching them learn, try, fail, try again, and (eventually) learn, because they are trying something that interests them.
I am more thankful than I can express that we were able to homeschool our daughters, as are they. And I am v. thankful for your work--"Free to Learn" was required (and subversive) reading for my education students.
Peter thank you so much for putting these ideas into words!
Oftentimes the most severe problems that we will have in life are exactly those that seem somehow just beyond our expression -- the problem is there and yet we cannot quite express it intelligibly. That clearly applies with education. We are so programmed that education is good and education is the only way for us to have a future and yet there are then all of these deeply submerged doubts that are never able to reach our consciousness. Having someone who is able to articulate these concerns is then invaluable.
I have a fair amount that I could add to the conversation, though I will be brief so as not to take up too much space. I will stray somewhat from the exact topic at hand but my comments will speak directly to many of the issues that you have mentioned.
The breakthrough idea that has changed my perspective over the last few years is genetics. I have had my full genome genotyped and have received hundreds of polygenic scores. This has
provided me with transformative insight into the nature of my psychology and how I interact with others. I would strongly encourage others to also fully genotype. After receiving my polygenic scores I have begun to realize how hopelessly flawed the standardized educational system is. I do not see how it can possibly continue given the current genetic knowledge we have available to us. It will simply become too widely understood and obvious how damaging mass schooling is for many of the children.
If children were to reveal their actual genomic sequences to others I suspect that most of the children in the schools would immediately flee in terror. I suspect others would flee in terror from me. This is basically an inevitable result. Take 300 polygenic traits and independently roll the dice for each of them. 30 of them would be expected to be in the top 10% of the population distribution. 3 of them would be in the top 1%. The traits involved include major depressive illness, antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, IQ, etc. etc.. It would not be easy to unsee the results after they were revealed. It is very unclear to me how the bricks and mortar town school house will be able to survive the opening of this Pandora's Box. One could well imagine that even the most progressive activist would shift uncomfortably in their seats if they suggested that a 1% polygenic score for antisocial personality disorder should simply be ignored. School choice would then follow almost in a straight line from such disclosures. I think discussing polygenics in a blog post would be a very very good idea. Children are exposed to the full range of human diversity in a way that does not often occur at any other time in one's life. One can then imagine how largely pretending that such diversity does not exist can be highly destructive for the lives of children.
To put this into some context I will include one of the results from my personal genome that will help to illustrate the implications of genetic diversity in a large school environment. This genotype had a substantial implication for how I experienced my school environment. Yet, at the time I was genotype ignorant, so I went through school without any insight into what was driving my behavior. As a student I had an intense level of competitiveness. This is exactly what you mentioned in your post and how this competitiveness can be so harmful for children. For me it was a pathological competitiveness; I developed severe hypertension even in high school. I was not deterred. After graduating from primary school I understood school as centrally about competing with other children. Developing serious medical conditions such as hypertension etc. did not deter me. None of the medical doctors could explain why I would behave in such a way but instead treated me with many medications to treat the symptoms. Without a genome seqeunce I doubt whether this mystery would have ever been solved.
Yet, polygenics provided me a very powerful insight about this mystery: I scored out at the 100th percentile polygenically in testosterone level! Interesting!!! This might not be a definitive proof, though it certainly could not reasonably be discarded as meaningless. In a school of 1,000 children you would expect ~5 of them (in particular the males) to have a similar level of testosterone (and probably as have pathological competitiveness). In fact, in a large school you would have a fairly stable distribution of various traits through time. Importantly, it is then not merely the system itself that is causing the stressors for the children, but population genetics as well. If I had known about my genotype for testosterone I potentially could have changed my behavior and asked for assistance from the school.
However, some of my other challenging polygenic traits do not seem to have an easy workaround. This one genotype alone caused me quite a bit of medical risk and my behavior clearly helped shaped the school experience of others. I gasp when I think how polygenics is working at a global scale to put billions of children at risk from the many other genetic risk and largely no one has the bandwidth to anything to help the children out. Do they actually allow thousands of children to develop severe medical problems because they are genetically programed to behave in certain ways? If this were a corporation I would be suing for millions of dollars in civil and punitive damages for what I went through. Yet, with government there is typically never any expectation that they will ever be held to account. And yet, you can go into almost any mass scale type school and instantly identify at least 10% of the students that likely have a range of polygenic challenges that are causing them self-apparent distress. Notably a few of my very high achieving friends did not survive high school. I would be very interested to learn of their polygenics scores. The stakes involved with polygenics are truly that high. Interestingly with me having a very high testosterone level is somewhat less visible, though still hard to overlook.
I have four children who thankfully are all thriving in good schools in England. Mainly because we are fortunate in the schools they now attend and the school and us encourage lots of extra-curricular to make the outdated and failing education system more palatable. They’re still learning lots of content that I learnt when I was at school. A little of which I have never needed to call upon as a functioning adult in society. I worry that my younger children will never see a change in secondary education and that we will be lucky if our grandchildren do. I do feel frustrated by the way they’re expected to work in shirts and blazers, sat at desks like full time jobs and not being equipped for the 21st century. However mine are happy being there with their peers, so homeschooling is not necessary for now. They occasionally get burnt out and that is sad but we try to recognise, prevent and support them as much as possible. This is not the case for many others. There is a huge amongst of SEN children who are being failed, kids who fly under the radar, kids who have huge potential for life but are learning the wrong topics. I really have no faith that a government or minister will see a positive change out. I certainly can’t see this happening with the current government who have made changes to private schools resulting in potential increased admissions in already overstretched state schools, a negative mindset towards home educators and high charges towards taking time off from school. Thank you for your work in highlighting these matters.
Firstly, it is true that England's system caters excessively for academically inclined kids and less for creative or more practical kids. This can make it a miserable system for more than a few.
But you are not going to win friends in the international alternative schooling movement with your opposition to British style standardized exams. As students generally get their grades from standardized exams and not teachers or schools, the British exam system has become the de facto standard for alternative homeschoolers around the world (British exam boards run international versions of their exams).
These exams allow students to follow different paths while still being able to get the same qualifications as conventionally schooled kids if they decide to do so. A GCSE or A level in math, is typically 3 exams, makes no difference whether you homeschooled in another country or went to Eton.
Here are a few examples of how one can get a traditional British high school qualification:
The old "progressive" reforms de-emphasizing exams (starting with the 1878 Waddell report) resulted in kids being more frequently tested, having graded homework and teachers involved in grading students. Michael Gove's reforms abolished all that and went back to traditional end of course exams. Most people, including teachers and kids and those critical of his reforms, do not want to go back to the supposedly more "progressive" assessment regime.
Standardized exams that are not relevant to a child's needs or goals are a serious problem, this does not mean they are always to blame.
There are of course a number of problems in British education. But the fact that kids in England are not subjected to the continuous and arbitrary assessment that American kids are subjected to is not one of them.
Children are subjected to continous testing in English schools though. My daughter in year 4 decided she was going to fail her GCSEs because of a lower than usual result in the year 4 tests. Testing starts in the first term of Reception snd doesn't stop. Some schools do it well and not noticed by pupils. Too may don't manage this though.
Just makes me feel so grateful that my 5 youngest grandchildren (from 3 families) have been or are being home educated here in the UK. And I'm delighted to say that they're doing well.
Just to note A'levels are not compulsory and are generally taken at around 17/19 after 2 voluntary years at college as a stepping stone to University. Compulsory secondary education ends at 16 with GCSEs.
Thank you for this, Peter!
I went through secondary (high) school from 1967-74, and was a class teacher of 4-9 year-olds from 1977-88. I got out just as the first incarnation of the National Curriculum was coming in - I could see the writing on the wall and wanted none of it 😞.
Even when I was doing my O-Levels (took them in 1972) there were certain subjects I couldn’t take together. Yesterday I spoke to someone whose 14 year old is now having to choose her GCSEs. They HAVE to take 11 subjects (!), of which 9 are compulsory (!). This girl is very sporty but not academic. If she wants to do a sport subject, the only options for her second subject of choice are…History, Classics or Latin!!! This poor girl adores football (soccer) and isn’t the slightest bit interested in amo, amas, amat…
What a waste of everyone’s time.
Oh for places (can’t call them ‘schools’ where people can go and take classes in things they’re interested in. Now THERE’S a novel idea!!!
(Incidentally, your first grade is our Year 2. Old people like me took O-Levels (O stands for Ordinary) at 16 - these were replaced in the early 1980s by GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). These are taken in Year 11 (the courses are studied in Y10-11). A-Levels (Advanced Levels) are taken in Y13. There are some vocational courses - BTECs - available post-16, and some schools offer the IB (International Baccalaureate).)
Michael Gove (horrid little man who sailed through school) certainly has a lot to answer for. The real rot started with him.
I could go on!! So I’d better stop now…
And Michael Gove's name is still mud in education circles... 😐 I was in school when the National Curriculum came in and still in school when the Standardised Assessment Tests (SATs) were introduced in Year 9 (age 13/14). I remember a particular teacher expressing their opposition to SATs at the time, but then both the NC and SATs just become part of the norm. When I was teaching Year 6 (age 10/11) in 2004-2010, neither were really questioned... Now I educate my children - and a big reason why is the National Curriculum and all of the high-stakes testing. When I tell them about the state education system, they just can't get their heads around the idea of being told what to do all the time and being constantly tested on it!
Actually, SATs = Statutory Assessment Tests! I was thinking about all the testing that happens in English state schools: there's baseline assessments in Year R (Reception - age 4/5), phonics testing in Year 1 (age 5/6), SATs in Year 2 (age 6/7), multiplication testing in Year 4 (age 8/9), SATs in Year 6 (age 10/11). Year 9 SATs (age 13/14) were scrapped, but the young people I tutor often have classroom assessments about every 2 weeks. Then there are GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education) (or sometimes equivalents) in Year 11 (age 15/16). Then young people are expected to be in education, employment or training until the age of 18, but there's no legal penalty if they aren't.
There is also a difference between the different countries in the UK. All four nations (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) have devolved powers over education and each goes its own way. So what you're describing, Peter, is actually state (government) schools in England.
Then it gets more complicated because in England we also have Academies, which are schools effectively run by businesses: they get state funding, so they're free to access, but they have more freedom (currently) to do their own thing, like not following the National Curriculum (although, in reality, many of them do). We also have private schools, which are paid for by parents or scholarships (or a combination).
Plus, the new Labour Government are currently undertaking a curriculum review. (We get a new version of the National Curriculum every time a different political party is in power.) 😵💫
Since 2013, it’s compulsory to stay in ‘education, training or employment’ until age 18 😞.
Thank you for clarifying that, Beverley. It fits with what I inferred from some of what I read, but I wasn't clear on it. I realized that A levels were not compulsory, but assumed that was for the same reason that in the US school is not compulsory (in at least some states if not most) after age 16.
Sorry Beverley that's not correct. Education or training - at least part-time - is compulsory until 18, but doing A-levels is not.
Since when? I missed that change - even my university days are long behind me lol!
I couldn't agree more, Peter. Standardized testing and standards-based curriculum represent another way we are blatantly designing schools to be more like factories and less like living ecosystems. I understand standards for plugs, cables, nuts, and bolts. But for children, not so much. Ecosystems are powered by diversity. Meetups for children should work the same way.
Hi, agree with this totally. Just here to be an annoying pedant and let you know that what you’re describing is the English education system, not UK. Scottish, Welsh and N Irish education systems are run by their own devolved governments.
They’re similar but maybe less awful due to never having been run by Michael Gove. Scottish system seems a bit less rigid. (Or maybe I just want to believe this because my kids are at school in Scotland!)
It’s a very easy mistake to make because the Education Secretary in UK government is in the odd position of just making policy for England and also because many English people (including London based journalists) use UK and England interchangeably.
It’s maybe worth looking into the data on this further because it means you potentially have an education policy ‘natural experiment’ rather than just tracking changes over time. Young people’s lives in England, Scotland and Wales are pretty similar in other ways but the education systems have been separate for a long time (I don’t know if I’d compare NI as there are more cultural differences).
That said the correlation between UK data on wellbeing and English policy possibly still stands because England has a much bigger population than the rest of the UK. Something to be careful around though.
Thank you, Annie. I'm going to have to look back at some of the research I found to see if it was limited to England or to all of UK.
Its almost like autocracy is bad
The education and mental health services need to change in the UK , The pressure that secondary school kids go through it affecting their mental health. To the point their self harm and even suicide. I know this has I lost my 12 year old daughter to suicide in January. She was struggling with school . Cahm kept refusing her saying she was fine. Teachers need how to teach kids with ADHD and autism etc and school counselor in schools. How many more family are going to go through what me and my family have been through.
I am so sorry, Amanda. My heart is with you. I hear of way to many instances of what you went through.
The lack of proper support for kids with neurodiversities is a whole other kettle of worms - it's appalling how they and their families are treated by the education system. I'm so, so sorry you lost your daughter. My son was suicidal by the age of 10 in primary school, but thankfully his oncologist consultant managed to winkle him into CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and we had a lovely autism specialist nurse that worked with him for months. He's still broken by school 3 years on, but he's happy at home teaching me history and geography and keeping up with world politics and current affairs. How society treats kids and what it expects of them has really got to change.
The outcomes of decreased life satisfaction and stress on our children, we can agree are detrimental. What is the proposed solution? I'm of the opinion that assessments are a important tool to advance learning. Is the issue here the standardisation of these assessments, or their current content?
Here is feedback that follows on from my comments yesterday here about the vicious cycle of capitalism and morality. Paste this in to a markdown site such as https://markdownlivepreview.com/ to see this formatted.
## Pressures on Childhood Education: The Unrelenting Drive of Capitalist Growth
Capitalism’s unrelenting need for **constant growth**—more profits, higher productivity, endless innovation—casts a long shadow over childhood education. What should be a time of discovery and development is increasingly warped into a high-pressure proving ground, where kids are molded to meet the demands of an ever-expanding economy. Below, I’ll explore how this growth imperative fuels an intense push to achieve, reshaping schools, straining students, and redefining success in ways that prioritize output over well-being.
### 1. Education as a Workforce Factory
The capitalist engine runs on a steady stream of skilled workers, and education has become its assembly line. Schools face immense pressure to produce kids who are **job-ready**, often at the expense of broader learning.
- **Skills Trump Exploration**: The focus shifts from nurturing curiosity to drilling market-friendly skills—think STEM programs in preschool or coding classes for tweens. Achievement is measured not by imagination sparked, but by how well kids align with economic needs.
- **Early Tracking**: Children are pushed to specialize early, funneled into “lucrative” paths before they’ve had a chance to explore their interests. The pressure to achieve a predefined goal—employability—overrides the freedom to grow as individuals.
This relentless drive turns education into a race to the finish line of productivity, sidelining the joy of learning.
### 2. The Achievement Arms Race
Capitalism thrives on competition, and its growth obsession transforms education into a battleground. The pressure to achieve escalates as schools, parents, and students chase ever-higher benchmarks.
- **Testing Frenzy**: Standardized tests dominate, with success tied to scores that signal a school’s—or a child’s—worth. Teachers, under pressure to deliver results, prioritize test prep over creative or critical thinking, amplifying the stakes for kids.
- **Parental Push**: Parents, caught in the same growth-driven mindset, pile on the pressure—tutors, extracurriculars, and packed schedules become the norm. Achievement isn’t just encouraged; it’s demanded, as a ticket to elite colleges and high-paying jobs.
This arms race leaves no room for missteps or downtime, turning childhood into a relentless quest for the next milestone.
### 3. Mental Health Under Siege
The constant push to achieve, fueled by capitalism’s growth demands, takes a brutal toll on kids’ mental health. The mantra of “more, better, faster” seeps into classrooms, creating a pressure cooker environment.
- **Rising Stress**: Even young children feel the weight of performance expectations, with stress over grades starting in elementary school. By adolescence, it’s an epidemic—studies show skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression linked to academic pressure.
- **Fear of Falling Short**: In a system where achievement is everything, failure becomes a catastrophe. Kids internalize this, avoiding risks and losing the resilience that comes from trial and error.
The drive for constant growth doesn’t just demand success—it punishes anything less, leaving kids fragile and overwhelmed.
### 4. Inequality Amplified
The pressure to achieve isn’t felt equally. Capitalism’s growth imperative widens gaps, with resources and opportunities skewed toward those already ahead.
- **Uneven Playing Field**: Affluent schools pour money into advanced programs, tech, and small classes, boosting achievement for some. Underfunded schools, meanwhile, struggle with basics, leaving students to fight an uphill battle.
- **Privilege Perpetuated**: High-achieving environments—think private academies or enriched districts—become pipelines to top universities and careers, while others are left scrambling. The pressure to succeed is crushing when the tools to do so are out of reach.
This isn’t a fair race; it’s a system where achievement reflects wealth as much as effort.
### 5. Success Redefined, Choice Constrained
Capitalism promises that hard work and achievement lead to opportunity, but the reality is narrower. The growth obsession distorts the purpose of education, locking kids into rigid paths.
- **Debt and Dead Ends**: College, sold as the ultimate achievement, often buries grads in debt, tying them to jobs that pay bills rather than fulfill dreams. The pressure to “make it” comes with a lifelong catch.
- **Limited Horizons**: The push for marketable skills sidelines diverse talents—art, philosophy, or trades get devalued if they don’t promise immediate economic returns. Achievement becomes a one-size-fits-all metric, dictated by profit.
Far from liberating, this pressure traps kids in a cycle of striving for a success that’s predefined and often unattainable.
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## A Call to Rethink
The unrelenting need for growth under capitalism has turned childhood education into a pressure cooker, where achievement is king and kids pay the price—mentally, socially, and creatively. The costs are clear: burnout, inequality, and a generation robbed of wonder. But it’s not inevitable. By rejecting the idea that education must serve endless growth, we can reclaim it as a space for curiosity, resilience, and humanity. Achievement should mean more than feeding the capitalist machine—it should mean growing into a whole, thriving person. That’s a future worth building.
Peter, are you looking into the influx of educational technology pushed by those that funneled significant funding into the common core standards? I believe they go hand and hand. These tech giants are also behind the significant testing and constant progress monitoring using online testing platforms. Results are often tied to teacher evaluations and school ratings. As an educator I am now inundated with AI products and webinars pushing these products. The harm we are doing to children in schools is not sustainable yet the tech industry continues to profit significantly.
Denise, are you required to use these tech products? If so, from where does the requirement arise? Is it part of your school system's drive to meet government requirements?
Hi Peter, yes schools are required to use these products. I have been writing about it on my substack, https://www.public.news/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind The tech industry has captured the education system. Curricula is now often provided in a digital form, even to students as young as K. It is destroying the development of foundational skills and was ushered in with the adoption of CCS. Tech truly has a death grip on education and the relentless push for AI in schools is terrifying.
I finished school in the UK in 2002, after doing my A-Levels. I found my entire experience of school to be the worst of my entire life. Peter, if you see this comment, I'd like you to know that your comparison of school to a prison at the beginning of "Free to Learn" was a perfect articulation of many of my feelings about the experience and I had to set the book down for a while before I could continue.
As the parent of a toddler, I am now worried about what options I can expect for them in the future. I had hoped that the state system for primary (pre-11 education in the UK) would be okay and that my main worry would be secondary education. I am now torn between private (probably unaffordable and maybe not better), homeschooling (possibly not practical), and some kind of home curriculum to try and deprogram the effects of the state system (I have no idea if this would work). I hope by the time my child is older that the system will have seen the light, but I doubt it.
Your letters are very enlightening. Do you have plans to publish a collection of them as a book anytime soon? In any case, I just upgraded my subscription to “Founding” in support of your work. Keep it coming!
Michael, thank you for your founding subscription!. Yes, I am under contract to complete a book, with working title "Restoring Childhood" that will include much of what I have been writing about in these Substack letters.
What a wonderful title! I teach HS 11th and 12th grade students interested in education as a career. Anyway, many have chosen to read your letters and were excited to learn of a future book release. Thank you.
As the parent of 4 young adults who had to endure the school system in England I can confirm that it is pretty awful!
The results of the GCSE and A-level exams are used to make league tables showing how ‘good’ the schools are. So in addition to the external exams the children are constantly being tested/examined to make sure they have had plenty of practice before the real thing. It’s ludicrous how much teaching time is lost to this!
Dear Peter (if I may),
Thanks for this. No surprises here, merely what John Holt was warning about sixty years ago--folks dreaming up "better" systems of education, but who "know" children only from textbooks rather than from sitting and watching them learn, try, fail, try again, and (eventually) learn, because they are trying something that interests them.
I am more thankful than I can express that we were able to homeschool our daughters, as are they. And I am v. thankful for your work--"Free to Learn" was required (and subversive) reading for my education students.
Thanks again.
fred
Peter thank you so much for putting these ideas into words!
Oftentimes the most severe problems that we will have in life are exactly those that seem somehow just beyond our expression -- the problem is there and yet we cannot quite express it intelligibly. That clearly applies with education. We are so programmed that education is good and education is the only way for us to have a future and yet there are then all of these deeply submerged doubts that are never able to reach our consciousness. Having someone who is able to articulate these concerns is then invaluable.
I have a fair amount that I could add to the conversation, though I will be brief so as not to take up too much space. I will stray somewhat from the exact topic at hand but my comments will speak directly to many of the issues that you have mentioned.
The breakthrough idea that has changed my perspective over the last few years is genetics. I have had my full genome genotyped and have received hundreds of polygenic scores. This has
provided me with transformative insight into the nature of my psychology and how I interact with others. I would strongly encourage others to also fully genotype. After receiving my polygenic scores I have begun to realize how hopelessly flawed the standardized educational system is. I do not see how it can possibly continue given the current genetic knowledge we have available to us. It will simply become too widely understood and obvious how damaging mass schooling is for many of the children.
If children were to reveal their actual genomic sequences to others I suspect that most of the children in the schools would immediately flee in terror. I suspect others would flee in terror from me. This is basically an inevitable result. Take 300 polygenic traits and independently roll the dice for each of them. 30 of them would be expected to be in the top 10% of the population distribution. 3 of them would be in the top 1%. The traits involved include major depressive illness, antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, IQ, etc. etc.. It would not be easy to unsee the results after they were revealed. It is very unclear to me how the bricks and mortar town school house will be able to survive the opening of this Pandora's Box. One could well imagine that even the most progressive activist would shift uncomfortably in their seats if they suggested that a 1% polygenic score for antisocial personality disorder should simply be ignored. School choice would then follow almost in a straight line from such disclosures. I think discussing polygenics in a blog post would be a very very good idea. Children are exposed to the full range of human diversity in a way that does not often occur at any other time in one's life. One can then imagine how largely pretending that such diversity does not exist can be highly destructive for the lives of children.
To put this into some context I will include one of the results from my personal genome that will help to illustrate the implications of genetic diversity in a large school environment. This genotype had a substantial implication for how I experienced my school environment. Yet, at the time I was genotype ignorant, so I went through school without any insight into what was driving my behavior. As a student I had an intense level of competitiveness. This is exactly what you mentioned in your post and how this competitiveness can be so harmful for children. For me it was a pathological competitiveness; I developed severe hypertension even in high school. I was not deterred. After graduating from primary school I understood school as centrally about competing with other children. Developing serious medical conditions such as hypertension etc. did not deter me. None of the medical doctors could explain why I would behave in such a way but instead treated me with many medications to treat the symptoms. Without a genome seqeunce I doubt whether this mystery would have ever been solved.
Yet, polygenics provided me a very powerful insight about this mystery: I scored out at the 100th percentile polygenically in testosterone level! Interesting!!! This might not be a definitive proof, though it certainly could not reasonably be discarded as meaningless. In a school of 1,000 children you would expect ~5 of them (in particular the males) to have a similar level of testosterone (and probably as have pathological competitiveness). In fact, in a large school you would have a fairly stable distribution of various traits through time. Importantly, it is then not merely the system itself that is causing the stressors for the children, but population genetics as well. If I had known about my genotype for testosterone I potentially could have changed my behavior and asked for assistance from the school.
However, some of my other challenging polygenic traits do not seem to have an easy workaround. This one genotype alone caused me quite a bit of medical risk and my behavior clearly helped shaped the school experience of others. I gasp when I think how polygenics is working at a global scale to put billions of children at risk from the many other genetic risk and largely no one has the bandwidth to anything to help the children out. Do they actually allow thousands of children to develop severe medical problems because they are genetically programed to behave in certain ways? If this were a corporation I would be suing for millions of dollars in civil and punitive damages for what I went through. Yet, with government there is typically never any expectation that they will ever be held to account. And yet, you can go into almost any mass scale type school and instantly identify at least 10% of the students that likely have a range of polygenic challenges that are causing them self-apparent distress. Notably a few of my very high achieving friends did not survive high school. I would be very interested to learn of their polygenics scores. The stakes involved with polygenics are truly that high. Interestingly with me having a very high testosterone level is somewhat less visible, though still hard to overlook.
I have four children who thankfully are all thriving in good schools in England. Mainly because we are fortunate in the schools they now attend and the school and us encourage lots of extra-curricular to make the outdated and failing education system more palatable. They’re still learning lots of content that I learnt when I was at school. A little of which I have never needed to call upon as a functioning adult in society. I worry that my younger children will never see a change in secondary education and that we will be lucky if our grandchildren do. I do feel frustrated by the way they’re expected to work in shirts and blazers, sat at desks like full time jobs and not being equipped for the 21st century. However mine are happy being there with their peers, so homeschooling is not necessary for now. They occasionally get burnt out and that is sad but we try to recognise, prevent and support them as much as possible. This is not the case for many others. There is a huge amongst of SEN children who are being failed, kids who fly under the radar, kids who have huge potential for life but are learning the wrong topics. I really have no faith that a government or minister will see a positive change out. I certainly can’t see this happening with the current government who have made changes to private schools resulting in potential increased admissions in already overstretched state schools, a negative mindset towards home educators and high charges towards taking time off from school. Thank you for your work in highlighting these matters.
Firstly, it is true that England's system caters excessively for academically inclined kids and less for creative or more practical kids. This can make it a miserable system for more than a few.
But you are not going to win friends in the international alternative schooling movement with your opposition to British style standardized exams. As students generally get their grades from standardized exams and not teachers or schools, the British exam system has become the de facto standard for alternative homeschoolers around the world (British exam boards run international versions of their exams).
These exams allow students to follow different paths while still being able to get the same qualifications as conventionally schooled kids if they decide to do so. A GCSE or A level in math, is typically 3 exams, makes no difference whether you homeschooled in another country or went to Eton.
Here are a few examples of how one can get a traditional British high school qualification:
https://wolseyhalloxford.org.uk/why-homeschool/homeschooling-whilst-travelling/
The old "progressive" reforms de-emphasizing exams (starting with the 1878 Waddell report) resulted in kids being more frequently tested, having graded homework and teachers involved in grading students. Michael Gove's reforms abolished all that and went back to traditional end of course exams. Most people, including teachers and kids and those critical of his reforms, do not want to go back to the supposedly more "progressive" assessment regime.
Standardized exams that are not relevant to a child's needs or goals are a serious problem, this does not mean they are always to blame.
There are of course a number of problems in British education. But the fact that kids in England are not subjected to the continuous and arbitrary assessment that American kids are subjected to is not one of them.
Children are subjected to continous testing in English schools though. My daughter in year 4 decided she was going to fail her GCSEs because of a lower than usual result in the year 4 tests. Testing starts in the first term of Reception snd doesn't stop. Some schools do it well and not noticed by pupils. Too may don't manage this though.