Your article resonates deeply with me because my son is one of the children who paid the price for a school culture that prioritises excellent exam results above all else.
At his previous school, the relentless pursuit of academic accolades under the headmaster’s leadership came at an enormous cost to his wellbeing. The school’s rigid policies and unyielding focus on performance created an environment where children like my son - who needed support, understanding, and encouragement - were instead left to struggle, isolated and marginalised.
My developed severe PTSD as a result of the bullying, neglect, and systemic failures he endured. His once vibrant spirit was crushed by a school that only valued him for his academic potential and disregarded his emotional and mental health. The headmaster’s drive to boast about his school’s "excellence" led to policies that harmed many children, prioritising results over their humanity.
My son’s experience is a stark reminder that the cost of these policies is not hypothetical - it’s real. For every student celebrated for their grades, there are others suffering quietly, their mental health shattered in the process. The headmaster should be held accountable for the harm inflicted on children under his care, all for the sake of bolstering his school’s reputation.
The wellbeing of our young people should never be collateral damage in the pursuit of excellence. It’s time to rethink what we value in education and ensure that no child is left behind or broken in the name of test scores.
“The cost of these policies isn’t hypothetical - it’s real.”
One of the saddest aspects of education policy is that change only comes when there is sufficient numerical evidence to support an idea. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t paint the whole picture but it is needed for us to understand why we see what we see. Your story is an important one and I hope your son is improving.
I really agree with everything you’ve written Naomi. What I can’t quite get my head around is that sooo many of us feel like this and yet the system still exists. I was hoping, post covid, schools would meaningfully put the well being of students first. Instead I feel they have tightened sanctioning and behaviour management - so odd. Like you say high marks come at a cost.
What also gets my goat is the fact we know all of this, and INSET training often focusses on wellbeing or creativity or self motivation AND YET everyone filters back to the classroom (not having a go all teachers here - more the delivery) and does the complete opposite.
It’s actively undoing the innate power to learn children have and worse still…is making them ill.
It's always so disappointing to me when I see some claim that we should be worried about students today and then it's just about worsening exam scores and not any of the many far realer challenges students might be facing in their lives. It feels like we're pretending to care about students' well-being in ways that actively works against it.
The education system is a sausage factory and anyone not sausage-shaped ends up squished or ejected. There is no room for curiosity or following interests, so how can true learning and understanding happen? And homework ends up taking over the lives of kids and parents alike outside school, leaving no room for any other form of learning and development. Best thing I ever did was take my son out.
What perturbs me is that anyone might think the purpose of school is anything other than the torture and disempowerment of young people in order to crush their spirits.
I've come back to this post three or four times this week. I just love your outlook and dream day after day of a transformation to education and a focus on people and the journey over data and the end goal.
I see this real cost in my current job within the Youth Justice Service. Every child within our service has had a horrible experience of education because they didn't fit the model. They weren't able to get the results and therefore they were discarded by the provision. There's far too much pressure from the education system for schools to be excellent exam result-producing machines.
Jordan Peterson recommended in his "12 Rules for Life", for very good reasons: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today." One should add that "whether you compare at all is up to you."
The described damage in well-being and the created pain by exams are, in my opinion, further amplified by considering that there is complete arbitrariness involved in those tests. Take, for simplicity, a "adding small numbers" test, and give it to 15-year-olds. Most if not all will have no problem whatsoever with the test. If you give it to 2-year-olds, anyone will struggle, but, hey, we wouldn't do that, right? So, depending on a million circumstances, we can shift tests and the corresponding topics back and forth between "impossible for all" and "trivial for all", and thereby make it arbitrarily(!) easy or hard, or move young people arbitrarily from the "achievers" to the "failures" and back. Things become even more obvious in "soft subjects" like essay writing etc. So, it's not even some sort of "objective reality" that we're testing young people against.
Your article resonates deeply with me because my son is one of the children who paid the price for a school culture that prioritises excellent exam results above all else.
At his previous school, the relentless pursuit of academic accolades under the headmaster’s leadership came at an enormous cost to his wellbeing. The school’s rigid policies and unyielding focus on performance created an environment where children like my son - who needed support, understanding, and encouragement - were instead left to struggle, isolated and marginalised.
My developed severe PTSD as a result of the bullying, neglect, and systemic failures he endured. His once vibrant spirit was crushed by a school that only valued him for his academic potential and disregarded his emotional and mental health. The headmaster’s drive to boast about his school’s "excellence" led to policies that harmed many children, prioritising results over their humanity.
My son’s experience is a stark reminder that the cost of these policies is not hypothetical - it’s real. For every student celebrated for their grades, there are others suffering quietly, their mental health shattered in the process. The headmaster should be held accountable for the harm inflicted on children under his care, all for the sake of bolstering his school’s reputation.
The wellbeing of our young people should never be collateral damage in the pursuit of excellence. It’s time to rethink what we value in education and ensure that no child is left behind or broken in the name of test scores.
“The cost of these policies isn’t hypothetical - it’s real.”
One of the saddest aspects of education policy is that change only comes when there is sufficient numerical evidence to support an idea. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t paint the whole picture but it is needed for us to understand why we see what we see. Your story is an important one and I hope your son is improving.
Sue you have so beautifully, thoughtfully and eloquently echoed my son’s experience of school. Sending love x
This piece needs to be read alongside Peter Gray's #61 BLOG "VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION" - also published today
Both brilliant!
I really agree with everything you’ve written Naomi. What I can’t quite get my head around is that sooo many of us feel like this and yet the system still exists. I was hoping, post covid, schools would meaningfully put the well being of students first. Instead I feel they have tightened sanctioning and behaviour management - so odd. Like you say high marks come at a cost.
What also gets my goat is the fact we know all of this, and INSET training often focusses on wellbeing or creativity or self motivation AND YET everyone filters back to the classroom (not having a go all teachers here - more the delivery) and does the complete opposite.
It’s actively undoing the innate power to learn children have and worse still…is making them ill.
Huge respect for your work.
It's always so disappointing to me when I see some claim that we should be worried about students today and then it's just about worsening exam scores and not any of the many far realer challenges students might be facing in their lives. It feels like we're pretending to care about students' well-being in ways that actively works against it.
Another brilliant piece Naomi! What a colossal and destructive waste of energy, mental health, money and time the whole edifice has become!
The education system is a sausage factory and anyone not sausage-shaped ends up squished or ejected. There is no room for curiosity or following interests, so how can true learning and understanding happen? And homework ends up taking over the lives of kids and parents alike outside school, leaving no room for any other form of learning and development. Best thing I ever did was take my son out.
What perturbs me is that anyone might think the purpose of school is anything other than the torture and disempowerment of young people in order to crush their spirits.
I've come back to this post three or four times this week. I just love your outlook and dream day after day of a transformation to education and a focus on people and the journey over data and the end goal.
I see this real cost in my current job within the Youth Justice Service. Every child within our service has had a horrible experience of education because they didn't fit the model. They weren't able to get the results and therefore they were discarded by the provision. There's far too much pressure from the education system for schools to be excellent exam result-producing machines.
A great read Dr Fisher, thank you ❤️
Jordan Peterson recommended in his "12 Rules for Life", for very good reasons: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today." One should add that "whether you compare at all is up to you."
The described damage in well-being and the created pain by exams are, in my opinion, further amplified by considering that there is complete arbitrariness involved in those tests. Take, for simplicity, a "adding small numbers" test, and give it to 15-year-olds. Most if not all will have no problem whatsoever with the test. If you give it to 2-year-olds, anyone will struggle, but, hey, we wouldn't do that, right? So, depending on a million circumstances, we can shift tests and the corresponding topics back and forth between "impossible for all" and "trivial for all", and thereby make it arbitrarily(!) easy or hard, or move young people arbitrarily from the "achievers" to the "failures" and back. Things become even more obvious in "soft subjects" like essay writing etc. So, it's not even some sort of "objective reality" that we're testing young people against.
For German-speakers (or auto-translaters), I had written up some thoughts in this direction over at https://danielkarrasch.substack.com/p/ich-wei-es-nicht ("I don't know") and https://danielkarrasch.substack.com/p/allgemeinbildung-allgemeine-bildung.