Shadowing Practice: The TRUTH About British Schools! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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In this episode of the English Right Now podcast, we're explaining the British education system in a simple,

clear way, from primary school to secondary school exams, school culture, and what it's really like to grow up in the UK.

This is an English learning podcast.

My name is British English teacher Roy, and joining me is my dear friend Rob.

Hello.

Good afternoon, Mr. Woodhouse.

Good afternoon, sir.

good afternoon everybody good afternoon mr carter

good afternoon oh that's that's the first thing we should say

um how are you today first of all yeah very good

thank you roy i hope you're good as well look feeling

wonderful fighting fit good i don't know who fit is but i'm fighting him so education system

so we started off there that's a very you know that's a common way in schools

that they do it good morning everybody and then the students especially

if they're in assembly which is

that kind of uh meeting uh where all the all the school get together usually in the school hall

and they'll reply good morning mr carter

or good morning everyone you know these kind of things they'll sort of reply we don't often say sir

or ma 'am do we to teachers not anymore no It tends to be Mr.

or Mrs. or Miss or something like that, that kind of thing.

With their surname as well.

Yeah, their surname.

Yeah, exactly.

But I mean, I've got firsthand experience of this, partly because I went to school, like you did.

I don't know, I might have been dragged up, but yeah, go on.

And I worked as a primary school teacher, so I've got some recent experience of primary school, certainly.

Not secondary school.

Secondary school is too big and scary, I think.

Yeah yeah

but of course it's before before the kids come to primary

school either they may have just been at home for five years

but most children these days they go to nursery don't they

and then or pre

or preschool as well the year before they start primary school they've got preschool as well

so they've been in a sort of classroom environment yeah for a few few years haven't they yeah

so they start like kind of is it like two three

when they they start you know usually they can go to nursery pretty young on uh pretty young uh

and there it's more it's educational based games for a lot of it

but they're mainly just kind of keeping them happy keeping them entertained keeping them clean uh trying anyway um

and then you start you know

so nursery is it's usually paid isn't it although we do

get some government funding for certain hours yeah the nurses are run privately yeah

but you get some government funding to help i think i don't It's gone up over the years, hasn't it?

15 hours is for most people, and then you get more if you are, depending on your circumstances.

Yeah, because my kids started nursery when they were one because we were both working.

So, you know, they started very young indeed.

But, yeah, we had to pay for some of that, plus we've got some government funding, as you say.

Yeah.

And then once they've done with the nursery thing, they move into preschool, which is sometimes known as reception, and that's the first it's not year one of school um

and technically you know they're in there usually in there normally

and they're playing maybe education -based games kind of learning through

there's a lot more to it it's like the fundamentals the alphabet the numbers uh the colors

and things like this but there's a lot of kind of learn with play

and that that sounds really dismissive but it's this idea

that we can make education fun uh it's not it's not like proper base sit down at the desk

and write uh because try teaching a four or five year old

in a kind of like formal lesson environment

but it's about it's about interaction social interaction isn't it

and working together

and also loosely following a timetable rather just being random there's a structure to the day isn't there

that that sort of thing um yeah learning manners

and learning how to go to the toilet

and all those sort of things you know you're basics it's it's changed yeah yeah yeah

and they're expected to be they're hopefully like toilet trained uh by the time they go into reception

but some of them aren't

and you know all children have their own kind of delay uh not delays

but their own kind of their own speed

um so yeah but uh so we have reception

and then we have the first few years of what we call primary school now

when i was a kid back in the victorian age and

when i was a kid on the isle of white we didn't have primary

and secondary we had primary middle and high ah yeah they got rid of

that system to bring it more in line with the rest of the uk

so now we have primary and secondary

so you go to primary until year six yeah

so it goes from year one to year six yeah that's right What's the name today?

well start you start year one when you're roughly five years old don't you yeah

and then year six by the time you leave primary school

you're 11 ready to go on 11 to 12 yeah yeah

um the primary school is also sort of broken into two

two halves in a way isn't it there's two key stages

they call them now you've got your infant uh part

and then you become juniors don't you yeah or key stage two

yeah

so yeah it's basically tested all the way through the major the major exams are not till later on uh

but they are tested so my my son is currently in primary school um

and he's going through all

that kind of you know he's now he's now learning all these kind of wonderful things

and i'll be honest some of the stuff you teach in

primary school i'm like oh my god did i learn

that i can't remember learning

that you know they were learning about the uh wonderful teacher

he's got a wonderful teacher they were learning about the um

ring of fire not the johnny cash song they were learning about the volcano rings of volcanoes

and i was like and if i learned

that can't remember it i i find

that primary school now they teach a lot more higher level stuff than

when i was at school

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when it for me it was just times tables always learning

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my times tables you know two plus two is four all

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that kind of stuff and some basic grammar

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but not always yeah yeah stuff

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which is great isn't it um yeah i know i mean

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they do they teach reading based early on uh with phonics uh

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which i've got my own kind of gripes with

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if i'm totally honest i'm not not a big fan

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because it's hard it's like a halfway house between what we had to do

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which was when we were kids we did rote learning

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which is where you just read and somebody goes nope that's how you say

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that over time you memorize it um which is because english is not a phonetic language

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um in english there are 44 sounds

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but phonics is kind of a halfway house it kind of goes oh these letters are quite often this sound

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but it's it's not a kind of it's it's a tricky one

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because like for example my son he read the word park

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and he went ah ark park so

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when he read it he pronounce the r but

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when he says it he doesn't say the r

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so it's it's kind of a you know there's a lot of what they call tricky words

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so um that's that

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and then eventually in around year three they kind of start

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to get rid of phonics yeah i think it's yeah i

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mean this idea of phonics it works better with foreign languages other languages spanish

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and you know the idea that

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if you see a you know this letter it's going to be this sound

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so on yeah i'm sure i'm sure there's some reason behind it

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or thinking behind it i don't know

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but they do get tested on these things you have you mentioned testing sat they call it sats don't they

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which is standard assessment tests

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they have um at the end of the sort of key stage one

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and then later on the end of key stage two

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um so they are they are tested to make sure they know this stuff don't they

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so yeah and then after that

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when they get to year six we're talking very much about

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state school at the moment by the way we need to

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we need to start talking about the other types of schools um

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but state school at the end of year six they then go off to secondary school

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or some people call it high school still uh

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or they go into a college some people call these places colleges

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and i think it's quite it's quite a big jump isn't it because you've gone from being the oldest kid

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at the age of 11 to the youngest kid

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and suddenly you're 11 and you're seeing kids that are 16

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and 17 and that's it's quite a job yeah yeah

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and the difference as well

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because primary school you have one teacher all year doing all the subjects don't you you have your class teacher

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and he or she will teach you your science and your geography

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and your maths and your english

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when you go to secondary school suddenly you start specializing in subjects

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and you'll go to an english class

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and have an english teacher then you'll go to your maths class

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and have a maths teacher so you're moving around the school

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so you have a lot of different teachers to meet

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and as i say the secondary school as well is a

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bigger school all the local primary schools feed into the bigger school

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so you're suddenly surrounded by 2 000 children yeah yeah

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and big kids you know so it is a big big step

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which isn't great for everybody is i mean on the isle of wight there are there's not

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that many the population is not that big

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so uh they are actually closing some schools some primary schools

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because there's not enough kids to go into it um

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which is it's quite sad actually if suddenly your child has got local school here

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but they have to go to a school further away um

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that's the same here i think The birth rate's going down, isn't it?

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We've got an ageing population.

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There are actually more old people than young people.

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Well, look at us.

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Yeah, look at us.

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We are the ageing population.

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But it's a big, you know, my kids have been through this.

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They've already gone to secondary school.

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And in certain parts of the UK, like here in Kent, we have another test called the 11 plus.

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You're familiar with that?

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Yeah, the 11 plus, which you do at the end of primary school.

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And if you get past your 11 plus, then you have a choice of going to a grammar school as opposed to a...

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how else do you describe a comprehensive school sort of regular secondary school

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or a grammar school but that's not throughout the uk

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which it is a bit no we don't have them here

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we don't have grammar schools on the isle of wight as

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far as i know it's quite an old -fashioned system

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but yeah but some some people choose not to go for state school

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which is the government funded school they go to public school

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which is a bit confusing yeah uh

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so public school is similar to private school in the uk uh

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so public school is kind of an elite private school usually

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but it's something about the board as well depending on whether it's privately owned

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or it's board owned these sort of things

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but we have some elite private schools public schools uh eton comes to mind

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so a lot of politicians a lot of prime ministers they

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go to eton yeah that's right the school of hard knocks

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is it what a what a mess yes yes exactly very

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good i like your your pun there we should do a podcast about puns um yeah yeah the public school

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or private school is what they are basically yeah the elite

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ones obviously very expensive fees to go there you supposedly have

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a really good education yeah life's quite rules are quite strict aren't they

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and you know i think i think in state schools rules are quite strict as well to avoid truancy

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and things like this um

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so i i mean i think they can be quite strict i i would say

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that probably private school oh obviously you pay you pay for

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private school it's got uh it's got trickier of late

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because they've added uh quite heavy uh the fees have had to go up

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because of bat changes uh governmental rules um but i would say probably

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that private schools instill a sense of confidence in the child like a sense of anything is achievable yeah

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that would be my yeah yeah yeah maybe i mean you could you could argue that

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but also i think it's um it's sort of yeah yeah

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i i think there's a lot of benefits to to both um

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yeah

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so yeah i i you know we've got i've never been

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to one have you been to one roy yeah you are privately educated yeah

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so no i was i was um towards the end uh so first So I've had a taste of both.

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I started off in state.

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It sounded like I started off in prison.

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I started off in state until the age of around 13, I guess.

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So I had a 12, 13.

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When they would go to a secondary school now, I moved to a private school for the last four years before GCSE.

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And then I left at GCSE.

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We can talk about that in a moment.

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And I would say the education...

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in terms of education, I think it's, you know, a teacher is a teacher and you can have good teachers.

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You can have bad teachers.

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Uh, you know, ones that take, you know, I think if they've not got the drive and the passion and the joy for it, they're probably not going to pass that on.

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I had some really kind of amazing teachers in state school that really inspired me.

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So one of the best teachers I ever had was my French teacher.

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Uh, and he, you know, he was brilliant.

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Uh, he made me learn French.

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He made me like excited about the language

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that was in state school um but i think that

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so in terms of the education i think it's i think you're splitting hairs

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if you want to say oh you know it's based on

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what who the teacher is uh possibly a private school would be

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because they're independently hiring uh you know

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and it's they sometimes i believe they pay more yeah i

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think i mean the teachers themselves have been through the same

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training haven't they yeah i mean another advantage maybe of private

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school we can have a whole debate about this couldn't we

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but uh is they have have smaller classes

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so you get more individual attention don't you

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so yes typically a state school school class would have 30 pupils you know be fewer than

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that in a yeah in my class it was about 20 15 15 to 20 um

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and i think it's but what i mean is i think they give you this feeling

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that you are they really push this idea of your part of something

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because you're there for a long time as well some of

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these kids are there from start to end they're there from four to 18 in the same private school uh

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and it gives you this kind of feeling

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that anything is possible i think that's the the key difference i felt

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because probably because of the smaller classes i felt more like i would learn it more engaged

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and everything like that

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and i felt like i had more attention whereas in state

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school i felt more like one of a number i think you're

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so much more successful than me roy because of your private education okay

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so you just absolutely ripped apart my argument well done

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well i went to good old -fashioned what we call comprehensive school yeah which is obviously girls and boys mixed Thank you.

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uh all different abilities and um and uh different

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or you do all the different subjects don't you

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but you do get put into different like for maths

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and english put into different sets we call them sets different groups based on your ability

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so if you're really good at maths you'll be in the top set

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and if you're struggling you'll probably be in the bottom set so you get more specialist

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attention yeah yes and this is the thing as well

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and i think like this is um you know your ability set your group

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so we we did have

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that for like in in in most schools have been out where you have a set set a

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and set b i think those terms can be really detrimental to a child's confidence actually

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because if they think they're set b then not as good

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and they kind of maybe look down and look down a bit

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so yeah that's that's another thing as well i think most yeah and i think that's more

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again

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that goes for things like special needs whereas i think in

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my day you know anyone with the special need would go to a special class, and we'd all know that was a special needs class, whereas now the idea is to integrate specials.

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You know, everyone's in together.

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Special educational needs can be everything from, you know, complex learning needs to...

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I think it's, yeah, I think it's changed a lot.

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I think these days, you're right.

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They try and get people more integrated, more sort of, yeah, you're right.

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But, yeah, so in terms of that, we've got primary, secondary, and then we've got sixth form.

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sixth form is your 17 and 18 which usually prepares you now you finish what we call compulsory school at 16

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which is with the big exams your GCSEs yeah we used

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to call them o -levels in our day in my day

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but yes GCSEs are the big exams at the end my

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son's just about to do them right now in fact he's been revising hard yeah day

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and night how's he feeling he's quite calm I'm glad to say at the moment

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but he hasn't actually sort of done them yet maybe he might go into a state of panic

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when they actually start

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but at the moment he feels he's doing enough revision you

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just don't know do you there's a lot of pressure i find on those exams

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because they're basically like this is the beginning of the rest

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of your life uh that's that's the kind of way they make it

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and it's like if you

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if you mess them up they they make it sound like your life is over

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but it's not people fail they come back

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and it's it's yeah you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna encourage your son to fail at all

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but uh you know i think there's so much pressure um but at 16 you can leave school

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um but you have to do something uh

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so there are there are choices aren't there you have to do one of three things

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which is at 16 you either stay in full -time education for example at a school

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or college you can start an apprenticeship or you can spend 20 hours

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or more a week working or volunteering while also in part -time educational training

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so you've got options uh it opens up

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if you stay in full -time education you're probably likely to do your a levels

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which are another exam so your gcscs you usually take around nine

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or ten i think nine uh and they're the core ones like maths english

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and then you've got sciences biology what was your strong suit at school

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uh did you have one yeah i've always liked geography actually

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um geography i've always particularly enjoyed um it wasn't very how did

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that shape your career uh i've done a lot of traveling

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i've been on a lot of holidays you should write a

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book you could be the you could be the new bill

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bryson yeah right okay i couldn't write though that's the problem

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yeah do you know do you know the difference between a uh a spit

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and a head i don't know yes you got you got a spit

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yeah or yeah we could talk about plate tectonics

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if you want oh so

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when i'm there gibbering away about rings of fire you're like

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oh my speciality yeah exactly i knew exactly what you meant um we'll we'll do a podcast about geography

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if you like sometime i'd be happy to be really quiet i'll be really quiet during

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that one do capital cities i love capital cities anyway capital

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cities i'm good on capital cities yep i'm good at capital

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cities uh my wife hates it fine what's the capture of malta luciana she's quiet um

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so uh we could do a whole could do a whole quiz yes see

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if you can know the titles yeah you're right

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so yeah i mean i did a gcse o level at the time geography uh

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and then i moved on i did an a level geography

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and then when i went to after

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that university half my degree was geography not the other half was radio

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and television oh

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so at least you followed half of your path yes you

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could have been a weatherman you could have been perfect wouldn't

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it oh it would have been yeah you could have been

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one of those people popping up on the tv documentaries going well actually

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The capital of Nigeria is no longer Lagos or Lagos, isn't it?

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It is Abuja.

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You know, you could have been all there.

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You could have been there.

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The capital of Brazil is Brasilia.

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Brazil was named after the...

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You could have done the whole...

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You could have been like the David Attenborough of geography.

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Oh, well.

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I'll stick to these podcasts, Roy, don't worry.

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Well, you know, effectively, you are the David Attenborough of these podcasts.

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Yeah, I am the elder.

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The elder.

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um so anyway back to school yes back to school

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so yeah so you do your 16s your gtse's

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and they are usually six core subjects the sciences the english maths uh

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and then you have some i think french is a it's french anyway the six core

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and then there are three elective uh ones

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so you could choose things like spanish and uh drama

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and things like this so you do six that you have to do

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and three that you can do and then

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when you go to your a levels they are all your own choice

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so you know you uh you can continue doing english like i did i did english literature media studies

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and acting i think drama and creative drama

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and acting i don't know drama

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and theater studies i think uh explains a lot doesn't it perfect yeah

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and you do you can do three

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or four a levels where my son hopes to go at

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sick form he's got to do four a levels quite tough actually

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but um see what happens yeah yeah i did i did

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four i did history as well all right wow i did

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history yeah there's there's no future in it back to the podcast back to the podcast um

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but yeah so you know but you don't have to do

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that you could do an apprenticeship which is where you basically learn on the job and you work

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so you could do an apprenticeship in engineering an apprenticeship in whatever

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lots of different things like that so there are options but it's still that angle of education

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you've still got you know until you're 18 and after 18 you're free to go into the wild

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so a couple of things to mention term time we have term time we have three terms a year

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with a break in the middle yet called what's the break in the middle called Half term, which always takes you by surprise.

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Half term holiday, yeah.

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As a parent, it seems to come around bloody quick.

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It comes around bloody quickly.

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Every time I'm like, oh, there you go, back to school.

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Have a nice time.

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Oh, is that half term next week?

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Oh, God, I didn't know.

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And then half term is usually a week.

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Yeah, but that's at the end of the academic year, which is in July, isn't it?

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Then you get that nice, well, it's good for the kids, not for the parents.

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You get a nice long six -week summer holiday.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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although my private school we had six weeks at state school

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and private school was about eight

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and a half nine wow what were your parents meant to do with you then and only

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when you become a parent do you suddenly realize oh my

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gosh they're now back what do i do with them yeah yeah you've got to keep them entertained

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but you've got to work at the same time uh so it's tricky but

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yeah child care that's another issue we can talk about

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that another time as well yes yeah i think so yeah

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and i think a couple of things

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that really took my wife by surprise uh was uh the times of school

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so my son starts at 8 30 and he finishes at 3 10

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so it's quite a long day uh compared to where what she's used to

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and also they quite often have uh have after school clubs yeah yeah that's right extracurricular activities yeah like dancing

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and mardi gras

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and yeah yeah the other thing that's kind of changed over

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the years as well as now there's more kind of wraparound care

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so they might have a breakfast club at your school

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so you can drop the kids off early they basically eat

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breakfast play some games before the actual school day starts

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and again there might be an after -school club where the

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kids go from school to this kind of club where they're looked after for another hour

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or so you know until you get home from work

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so that's quite useful isn't it also the breakfast club is

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name of an amazing film with emilio estevez in it i

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think yes there's no brilliant film no connection at all um

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but yeah so school we go from around we start in nursery we go to

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primary secondary and we can leave as 16 and later on

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but there's a lot of things we can talk about we didn't talk about the uniforms

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that they have to wear the clothes they have to wear uh we didn't talk about punishment uh

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which is going to be the next one

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because nobody likes a detention did you get detentions do you

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get detentions in primary school yes we had to attend oh at primary school not

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so much you more had to stay in during lunchtime

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if you were in trouble

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but okay secondary school it was more yeah you had to

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stay after school it's like an hour after school isn't it yeah yeah

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and if you had to get the school bus home

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that was a problem because you've missed the school bus home so you'd have to I don't find your own way home.

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And the other thing we didn't mention, of course, is that the whole education system is sort of not controlled.

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It's monitored, isn't it?

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By the government.

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Yeah.

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Ofsted.

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It's a government body, isn't it?

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That they come around and they give ratings on how good the school is. So, yeah.

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And if they're doing their jobs, if the students are doing well in exams, there's a lot of pressure on teachers as well to make sure,

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you know, the students aren't passing you know these guys and

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and they're a constant like this idea of the the phonics

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that i'm not a big fan of um teachers were basically forced to teach

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that whether they like it or not

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so it's it's all part of what we call the curriculum

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which is a set guideline of things

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that they need to learn uh the national curriculum uh

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so yeah so there's a lot and i will leave it on that note

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and say to you by the way the tensions my school

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my my my the school i went to at the end had saturday detentions oh

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if you were really bad your weekday detentions weren't enough your

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lunchtime detentions weren't enough saturday detentions you would have to come

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in on saturday i'm not going to tell you whether i

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ever had one that's going to keep my halo there in your opinion that's what that's worse than the cane

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which is what we used to have

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not i ever had the cane of course

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but you would be hit with a stick can you believe

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that yeah yeah yeah i know i've heard about this wasn't that in the victorian era yes right

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dickens came around

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but uh yeah no the cane went just it finished just before i started school a few years before

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so i was very lucky because i think i i was i was outspoken

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and loud enough to get the cane several times all right i would have done thank goodness it had gone

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but on that note

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if you want to support this podcast uh there is a

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cup of tea you can always buy a cup of tea

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for rob myself uh support us through our educational journey please

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do let us know um what you would like us to

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teach next we would love to hear from you i had a we had a suggestion about relationships

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and dating we'll have to do very very soon uh not

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that i think we've been out of the game for too long

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but you know try and remember we could do we could do two british grumpy middle -aged men

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judge modern dating yeah sounds good we could do

459

that we could do that on

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that note i'm going to say thank you very much to everyone for listening to this podcast

461

and thank you rob for joining me today you're very welcome see you next time take care bye bye

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “The TRUTH About British Schools!”. This video has 461 sentences and 5262 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:46. The speaker talks fast, about 189 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
podcast noun	/ˈpɑdˌkæst/	A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
geography noun	/d͡ʒiˈɑɡɹəfi/	The study of the physical properties of the earth, including how humans affect and are affected by them.
mathematics noun	/mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/	An abstract representational system studying numbers, shapes, structures, quantitative change and relationships between them.
detention noun	/dɪˈtɛnʃn̩/	The act of detaining or the state of being detained; hindrance.
exam verb	/ɪɡˈzæm/	Shortened form of examine
nursery noun	/ˈnɝsəɹi/	Especially in European countries: a room or area in a household set apart for the care of children.
grammar noun	/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/	A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
tricky adjective	/ˈtɹɪk.i/	Hard to deal with, complicated.
cane noun	/keɪn/	The slender, flexible main stem of a plant such as bamboo, including many species in the grass family Gramineae.
whereas	/(h)wɛɹˈæz/	In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although.
elite noun	/ɪˈlit/	A special group or social class of people who have a superior social or economic status and attendant power, advantages, or privileges in society; a member of…
reception noun	/ɹɪˈsɛp.ʃn̩/	The act of receiving.
strict adjective	/stɹɪkt/	Strained; drawn close; tight.
privately adverb	/ˈpɹaɪvɪtli/	In a private manner.
aisle noun	/aɪ̯l/	A wing of a building, notably in a church separated from the nave proper by piers.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come around verb	/kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/	To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first.
look down verb		To lower one's eyes; to direct one's look downwards.
come back verb		To return to a place.
drag up verb		To remind people of (something, usually unpleasant, from the past).
get past verb		To continue around a blockage; to get around (something); to surpass something that is in the way.
get together verb		To meet, to gather together, to congregate.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
go down verb		To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

We've got an ageing population.
You're familiar with that?
You know, everyone's in together.
I think these days, you're right.
It's a government body, isn't it?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you're really good at maths you'll be · if you're struggling you'll probably · if you like sometime i'd be
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	they've been · they've done · you've gone
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	have been dragged · are run · is sometimes known
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	assembly which is · preschool, which is · yeah which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 162 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, sixth /sɪksθ/, theater /ˈθi(ə)tɚ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: detention /dɪˈtɛnʃn̩/, reception /ɹɪˈsɛp.ʃn̩/, interaction /ˌɪn.təˈɹæk.ʃən/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/
Long words — get the stress right: geography /d͡ʒiˈɑɡɹəfi/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, comprehensive /ˌkɑm.pɹəˈhɛn.sɪv/, interaction /ˌɪn.təˈɹæk.ʃən/, curriculum /kəˈɹɪk.jə.ləm/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like podcast, geography, mathematics.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: The TRUTH About British Schools! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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듣고 있으면 귀가 뚫리는, 톰&샘 영국영어 팟캐스트 Ep.2 | 영국 물가가 그렇게 비싼가요? | 목소리 대박 ASMR

my school | A1 English level | improve listening & speaking with Shadowing

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Learn Basic English For Beginners - First Day At School! (Comprehensible Input) A2

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?