Education system let me down

I agree. Back then, teachers didn't have much accountability for grades. If you failed, you failed. That said, we assume children know how to learn simply because they have been in school since 4. The reality even today is very different. Just today, I have done a study skills lesson with my 6th form students. Similarly I am struggling in my Masters at the moment because I don't know how to learn at a masters level because no one has taught me. How do you keep track of 50 different journal articles each 10-15 pages long for example?
But equally, education is what you make of it. You are in your 40s but it is not too late. You can still go to college or university. I am doing a masters right now and loving it. Go for it!

It's not something I really want to do to be honest.
I'm more concerned about my ability to remember useless bits of information that I've not even tried to remember but instant forget things that I try to learn.

Going back a bit I would also say that in my opinion my personal decision to never pursue art or drama or music at school has hindered me later in my career.
I used to coach medical school applicants prepare for their interviews and one of the best candidates I ever met was someone who had studied drama at A level (obviously in conjunction with the usual subjects needed to get into med school). I have never had any personal focus on anything creative at any point and it was then I began to reflect that actually that may not have been optimal in the long run.
People with a well-rounded academic background I think possibly have a better range of skills to apply in the real world. Candidates with a private school background applying to University- especially the competitive courses at Russell group institutions- I think overall might have better soft skills overall which is why they seem to do well in applications. I know several people who attended private school and having had discussions with them at length they seem to have a few things in common:
I am thus firmly in the belief that one can only get out of school what one puts into it. I enjoyed a degree of success at GCSE and I would attribute this to a few things. Firstly, I did well in the subjects I found interesting and in the subjects taught by teachers I liked. Secondly, in the harder or more challenging subjects, I spent the bulk of my time sat next to or alongside very gifted and academically hardworking individuals who were perennial class leaders. Looking back I did this mostly because of social anxiety and the need to be sat with people I knew well rather than people I did not know well. However, this that the beneficial side effect of causing a degree of competition between myself and the people I was sat with. Working through questions or workbooks and other tasks became what I could only describe as an arms race whereby we had a competitive spirit amongst ourselves. This went on irrespective of the nature of the content or what year of study. Also, this seemed to deter other members of the class who would simply spend their time messing about. You're less likely to be bullied if you're part of an identifiable group and it somewhat deters you if you see several members of a class being given extra work or harder content knowing they have already completed the work you've all been set.

What you say about private school and soft skills is what I'm getting at. I've worked with plenty of people who went to private school and 9 times out of 10 I can tell they did as soon as I met them.
What you describe is more or less what was lacking from my school experience. To me a rounded education isn't making everyone an expert in every subject, it's teaching people how to tackle each subject to the best of their ability.
On the subject of sports, lets just say I don't have the best body frame for them. As a result I was actively discouraged from playing them. I wanted to join the cricket club but wasn't allowed.

My point was that you can't get out what you don't put in.
When I was in school there were a certain proportion of people there who in all honesty didn't want to be there, put no or very little effort in or whom would have been better off being put straight into college learning vocational skills for whatever it is they wanted to do. It would have been less disruptive for the remainder of us that is for sure.
A lot of parents don't take education seriously and won't accept any negative feedback about their child. As I said in my day if the school had contacted my parents to report poor conduct or attainment on my part it would not have gone well for me. Today some parents will not accept that and will instead argue back that it is the school's or individual teacher's fault.
If your parents are stumping up thousands of pounds in fees there is surely more emphasis on getting your child to knuckle down and take the job seriously. I'm not sure that the actual teaching in private schools is magically hugely better, they study the same curriculum in many subjects I am sure? Perhaps others can comment.

There were people like that at my school too. Quite a few of them went on to prove you can be successful without an education. Either they came from rich families and already had connections or they were already learning a trade on the side and were already making good money before they were 20.
The curriculum may be the same at private school but most people I've met who went to private school are full of confidence. My parents would always accept negative feedback about me but in a way that meant the teachers could get away with treating me the way they did safe in the knowledge there wouldn't be any backlash from my parents.
When a teacher tells you you'll never get to university, or tell you that you need to put lots of effort in but will most likely get nothing out of it, or in the case of my head of year tell you it's nothing to do with effort you're just not capable it doesn't do your confidence much good. Yes I proved the teachers wrong by going to university and getting my degree but at the same time I had serious imposter syndrome when I was there and at the back of my head was what if the teachers were right.

I never said anything about being successful in life or otherwise. I just think such people shouldn't dump on the students who actually want to be there because they need the results out of the other end of it. For some people an A in GCSE maths or Science is important.

OK there was certainly some people who would give others a hard time for wanting to do well academically but I don't think that was really an issue. I never had that problem though some might say I was one of the disruptive students who didn't want to be there. I can't say I particularly enjoyed any of the subjects except PE.
Aside from those who were clearly more clued up about the real world than me I can understand why at least some of them were disruptive and didn't really want to be there.
It's the idea that there's some sort of magical formula that accurately tests ones ability when I don't think that's really the case. You're told your predicted grade and that's your target and no amount of effort will get you a higher grade. I was predicted 6 Cs and 2 Ds. With 4 of those Cs it was impossible to get a higher grade because I was put on the foundation paper and comfortably got it. With another I probably tried a bit harder and got a B. With the other C I ended up with an E but this was a Mickey Mouse subject they were teaching for the first time and lots of people did badly at it. With the 2 Ds I thought what's the point, though I did retake one of those at college and got a B.
Some people would of been told put some effort in and you could get a D for most subjects what do you do. Sure it's better than getting a U. By the same token getting to the final stage interview for a job is a better achievement than getting rejected at application stage, but unless you get offered the job you're in the same boat as the candidates who were rejected at application stage but at least they didn't have to waste their time going through the process.

I'm still not clear on what exactly you are saying. Are you saying it was the school's fault you did not achieve high GCSE grades?

I'm still not clear on what exactly you are saying. Are you saying it was the school's fault you did not achieve high GCSE grades?

Basically what CrockMock said.
What I was saying in my last post is that for a number of disruptive people who didn't want to be there it was largely the schools fault. Yes I am a bit lazy and wasn't particularly well behaved but I made much more effort than was made out. Maybe it was the same for others too. Trying and failing has been a constant theme throughout my life and when I have succeeded I have no idea why.

You realise that for a school to actually expel anyone is extremely difficult?
If I was a teacher, I'd have no trouble suspending folk repeatedly, believe me. Because I know first hand how much just a small number of pupils who don't know how to behave ruin the educational journey for the entire class. Persistent bullies can ruin an entire school in some cases.
Parents would soon get bored of having their kid stuck at home for 2 weeks at a time not learning anything.
Primary and secondary schools should be extremely strict. No ifs, no buts. It would aid the rest of society as well having adults who understand the need for respect and decorum in everyday life. As a country I fear we have lost a lot of this.

It might be now but enough people got expelled when I was at school to suggest it wasn't that difficult.
These people were never a problem for me, some were my friends.
The stories I hear about schools these days do imply their not strict enough now. My school certainly was strict enough but that was part of the problem. At the time I trusted it was for my own good, as I've got older I question whether it really was. There were certainly times where the punishment didn't fit the crime.
Also just because they're a teacher doesn't mean they're always right. When I think back to all the times when I got into trouble I did deserve it sometimes but most of the times I have no regrets and would do the same again. Some teachers really were that bad.

Trouble makers not being a problem for you personally doesn't mean they weren't a problem for the class/school at large though.
Whether the teacher is/was right or wrong in your view is basically immaterial: they are the person employed to teach pupils and they are to be granted respect by virtue of their position alone. Teachers are the people with the experience and training to deliver teaching. Very few parents possess this same distinction. In a way you are perhaps highlighting a core issue here. If one does not respect teachers, then by extension one's children will never respect them either. And, if they have no respect, they won't be able to direct a class and they won't be able to deliver any education worth it's name. This means you are left with only two far less palatable options: home educating or no education at all.
I have not met all of the individuals involved in the education of my children but I can tell you now as I sit here that I have absolute confidence in them and their team: they are certainly going to be far more able to teach my children than I could myself and they are doing a very difficult job for a not particularly attractive salary.
All children should respect all adults by default I feel. If that kind of respect for others is not installed at a young age, I fear it is a recipe for problems later in life and then for society as a whole. In dealing with the public day in and day out I see a wide variety of behaviours and attitudes towards others so the way of society today is certainly no mystery to me.

As someone from a modest income background who attended a comprehensive school, I’ve always found it really strange how ‘top’ schools care so much about sports and extra-curricular activities, and how being ‘rounded’ in this way apparently gives you the ‘soft skills’ required to do well in applications/interviews for top unis/courses/jobs etc.
Anecdotally, at the comprehensive I attended (quite a while ago now), most sporty kids weren’t very academic and most academic kids weren’t very sporty. There were exceptions of course (and of course, some kids were neither sporty nor academic. In fact, that was probably the majority).
What I’m trying to say is, the way private schools (and other ‘top’ schools) force everyone to become ‘rounded’ in this way has always struck me as being very odd and unnatural. Because life isn’t like that. We’re all into different things.
People who are ‘rounded’ in this way rarely strike me as being terribly ‘deep’ or even capable of much critical or original thought. Sure, having a string of sporting achievements and extra-curriculars to brag about might make you a ‘rounded’ person and facilitate your entry into a prestigious university and a well-paid job. But in the end, you’re just a product of the environment you were born into. (We all are to some extent, but it seems even more imposed on those at ‘top’ schools where conformity and etiquette are especially rigid.)
This is why, ironically, a lot of people who go to the best universities and get the best jobs are not very bright at all. Or, they are bright, but it’s an ‘artificial’ sort of bright. Once you get past the waltzing and the posturing, you begin to realise that none of their ‘achievements’ are based on anything intrinsic. A lot of it is manufactured by their parents and arrived at through osmosis, buttressed by their insular school environments and the extremely narrow pool of similar people they interact with.
In other words, they’re automatons. Our unequal class and education system churns out people like this and passes them off as ‘the best and the brightest’.
It's gaslighting.

As someone from a modest income background who attended a comprehensive school, I’ve always found it really strange how ‘top’ schools care so much about sports and extra-curricular activities, and how being ‘rounded’ in this way apparently gives you the ‘soft skills’ required to do well in applications/interviews for top unis/courses/jobs etc.
Anecdotally, at the comprehensive I attended (quite a while ago now), most sporty kids weren’t very academic and most academic kids weren’t very sporty. There were exceptions of course (and of course, some kids were neither sporty nor academic. In fact, that was probably the majority).
What I’m trying to say is, the way private schools (and other ‘top’ schools) force everyone to become ‘rounded’ in this way has always struck me as being very odd and unnatural. Because life isn’t like that. We’re all into different things.
People who are ‘rounded’ in this way rarely strike me as being terribly ‘deep’ or even capable of much critical or original thought. Sure, having a string of sporting achievements and extra-curriculars to brag about might make you a ‘rounded’ person and facilitate your entry into a prestigious university and a well-paid job. But in the end, you’re just a product of the environment you were born into. (We all are to some extent, but it seems even more imposed on those at ‘top’ schools where conformity and etiquette are especially rigid.)
This is why, ironically, a lot of people who go to the best universities and get the best jobs are not very bright at all. Or, they are, but it’s an ‘artificial’ sort of bright. Once you get past the waltzing and the posturing, you begin to realise that none of their ‘achievements’ are based on anything intrinsic. A lot of it is manufactured by their parents and arrived at through osmosis, buttressed by their insular school environments and the extremely narrow pool of similar people they interact with.
In other words, they’re automatons. Our unequal class and education system churns out people like this and passes them off as ‘the best and the brightest’.
It's gaslighting.

I also found one was either academic or sporty but rarely both. Part of my problem is that I love sports but was never any good at them and I hated academic subjects but was good at them. Not blaming the school for that by the way.
I agree that there are a lot of successful people who appear not to have much talent but know how to play the game. Unfortunately this is the real world that school did nothing to prepare me for.
I did extra curricular activities at university because that's what I wanted to do. Many people I knew didn't. I never thought it would be much use in the real world but then when I was having job interviews I found myself using these activities as examples because I had no work experience of any use to draw upon. I did wonder how those who didn't do any extra curricular activities could answer those questions.
One of the key differences between sports and academic subjects is that if you're good enough at the sport you should make it. With academic subjects you could be the best in the world but end up in a low paid job that doesn't require any qualifications. Simply put I would rather be stupid and rich than clever and poor.