Taking GCSEs early

[kenyancowgirl]

...Which is fair enough, but if he is that committed to the career, I suppose I am questioning why you not let him do the research? And please take this in the spirit it is meant, MSD, genuinely not having a go, just really flummoxed! It does sort of appear from all the research that you are doing, that you have far more investment than he does!! Do you not trust his ability to sort the wheat from the chafe? I suppose I am wondering why, he is a bright boy, by your own admission, would you not allow him to forge his own path of research?

Genuinely, I am astonished at how much you are doing for him - honestly? Because a) I, personally, think it is the wrong approach - his career idea - his future - he needs to find out about it and work it out for himself - and because b) I think, blimey if this is what other parents are doing then my son has no chance as we have not done anything apart from drive him to Open Days that he found and booked! But I am very much a hands off parent in that respect - I am not aware any of the parents I know in real life who would do this either. But, it is no surprise as you were very invested in his GCSEs too, in a way that I did not recognise in my own sphere. I appreciate that you see it as a "team effort" so come from a different viewpoint. If you feel you need to do this then that is your choice, but I suppose the Careers Adviser in me would say be careful that your enthusiasm isn't persuading him that it is something you want him to do and therefore he wants to please you, if you see what I mean?

Partly, it has to be said, as professionally, I spend a fair amount of time unpicking the damage parents/teachers etc have done - well meaning undoubtably but often totally inappropriate. I would generally say that parents, teachers and peers are the worst people to give careers advice, as none of them are truly independent!!!

Incidentally, the stat for Medicine "drop out" I was given at a CA session last year, was 1 in 3 - which is hideous - but this accounts for both those who start a degree course and drop out at any point during the course and those who leave the career before full qualification. "Burn out" and the "wrong course/job" were the main reasons for leaving. I think there are lots of reasons for the crisis in Medicine - one of them is certainly related to pressure to go into it in the first place, others may well be financial, or the realisation that the job is very different (it is possible to get work experience that gets you into a degree course but does not really expose you to life in Medicine). It's one of the reasosn I suspect that graduate entry will become more of the norm, going forward. Appreciating the NHS and its' workers both as employees (terms and conditions) and by the public needs to be improved - but that is another topic completely!

Apologies OP as we appear to have moved well away from taking GCSEs early to Medicine/drop out etc and that is not fair!

[MSD]

...Which is fair enough, but if he is that committed to the career, I suppose I am questioning why you not let him do the research? And please take this in the spirit it is meant, MSD, genuinely not having a go, just really flummoxed! It does sort of appear from all the research that you are doing, that you have far more investment than he does!! Do you not trust his ability to sort the wheat from the chafe? I suppose I am wondering why, he is a bright boy, by your own admission, would you not allow him to forge his own path of research?

Genuinely, I am astonished at how much you are doing for him - honestly? Because a) I, personally, think it is the wrong approach !

KCG, I might have misunderstood but which research do you refer to. I provided two sets of factual stats here.

a) FOI stats for Oxford medicine - those were found by my son and forwarded to me. And used here to back what Eccentric had to say

b) Medicine drop out rates - I just googled it to get them as they were widely reported in media. That was published on this thread to make it clear that not all drop outs are medicine related. In fact quite low as compared to other courses.

Is there anything else I have missed that I researched for my son?

[kenyancowgirl]

Right....must be my mistake - apologies. As you were.

[MSD]

Right....must be my mistake - apologies. As you were.

That’s fine KCG!

I did get a chance to scan through your post though. I am not entirely sure if we can have blanket rules on what ‘parental guidance’ should look like. As I mentioned previously, no two parents or children are alike, and it’s only right we collectively celebrated that diversity of thoughts, without being increasingly judgemental.

But on a general note, as a parent, I believe it’s my responsibility to guide my children through the thick and thin of life, and essentially allow them to realise their true potential, whether that’s in becoming a better human being, or fulfilling their potential on the educational front for that matter.

We essentially send our children to school to provide them with a conducive teaching environment that allows them to learn, and effectively reach their true potential. Similarly, parents take over that responsibility for the children who are home-schooled. Are we essentially implying that children who are not home-schooled, must not be getting best of both worlds? I would be doing injustice to my children, and not fulfilling the role of parent by denying them the opportunity to learn from parents’ experience and wisdom. Yes, I understand all children do not get the same opportunity, and I am sympathetic towards it.

Don’t get me wrong - I firmly believe we must not spoon-feed our children and deny them the opportunity to become independent and learn the much needed art of creativity, decision making, critical thinking etc. but at the same time we must also guide them and allow them to further explore all of the above attributes.

[Moderators]

This is way off topic. Please stick to the topic in hand.

[kenyancowgirl]

I think my issue is that my experience shows that "the opportunity to learn from parents' experience and wisdom" when it comes to careers advice, is flawed. Parents rarely have a truly impartial opinion - they rarely have a truly wide experience - they may have wisdom in some spheres and they may have opinions, but these are not necessarily the same thing or indeed conducive to decent careers advice! I think most teachers would agree that their experience can be limited, but a decent teacher understands this and acts as a signposter to someone or somewhere that can be useful.

One of the most astute things that a parent can do or be when it comes to "helping" a child in this context, is to understand that they are probably not the best person to "advise" their child - even if they get on famously and are in the same line of work (instinctively, a Careers Adviser would challenge anyone who wanted to be just like mum or dad, to make sure they had fully explored alternatives, for example). Family can be useful, but sometimes they are too close to be useful - as I said, well meaning, but not always appropriate. To fully allow a child to explore, understand and consider all the alternatives, is not truthfully something that a parent can do with a child - they always have a vested interest one way or the other and can never be truly impartial.

Home schooling is an aspect I have had experience of - done well it is superb - but often it is done very badly - again, well meaning parents who are of the opinion that they can do it better than anyone else - this does not mean they are skilled or able, however - I am not saying you need to be a teacher to home school effectively, but I have definitely come across people who should not be home schooling!

[kenyancowgirl]

Apologies moderators - I was too quick to click....

[MSD]

Incidentally, the stat for Medicine "drop out" I was given at a CA session last year, was 1 in 3 - which is hideous - but this accounts for both those who start a degree course and drop out at any point during the course and those who leave the career before full qualification. "Burn out" and the "wrong course/job" were the main reasons for leaving.!

KCG - May be we can start a new thread in ‘Universities’ section to discuss the ‘drop out rates’ as I realise it’s off topic here, but there is no way 33% students drop out of medicine over the entire course. Are there any reliable stats to back this info other than some hearsay on TSR? Even on TSR these figures had a unanimous disapproval.

Everything I have come across so far suggests around 5 to 6% drop out over a period of 5 or 6 years, which is lower than most other courses where it happens in the first year alone.

https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/ar ... 6920-13-13" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I raise this as I am mindful that we must not be publishing any numbers here, which are not backed by reliable research. Future medics may be misled reading this information.

[Moderators]

This is still way off topic and I am locking this thread as its original purpose was lost quite a few pages ago.