I’m of the opinion that school is 75% about friendship and only 25% about education. Most of the university academics in the subject of education and successive governments have got it completely wrong as they only look at the academic side of school and fail to even consider the social side of school. Schools are actually very poor at teaching social skills as the curriculum is mostly academic and the majority of social skills that kids learn from / require at school are in reality school survival skills that have little use or relevance outside of school or for life as an adult. Despite this, countless adults strongly hold the view that school is essential for children to learn social skills – although I suspect that they conflate social skills with socialisation or social skills with discipline and conformity. More often than not the first question directed towards parents who home educate is how will their children learn social skills, as opposed to questions about the standard of academic education or practical work.


Alex Barrett makes a good point about the specific qualities of the school, et al, as I strongly believe that the other people at the school are a determining factor in how much an individual child enjoys school that is more prominent than anything academic. I have met plenty of people who were not very bright, or academically quite weak, that enjoyed school because of factors like friendships, sports, or extra curricular activities rather than the education itself.


I agree with David Houssein’s theory that lots of highly intelligent kids don't enjoy school because it's too slow and restrictive, and frustrates them. KS2 and KS3 drives students in low gear where those who are ahead of the curriculum in the core subjects for their year group become bored and frustrated that they aren’t being stretched. Gifted and talented only really applies to sports and music. If a 10 year old is a talented sportsman or musician then they are a superstar but if a 10 year old is proficient in higher level GCSE mathematics then they are a problem child as schools do not have the facility for accelerated learning in mathematics and teachers have to teach the National Curriculum for the year group that the student is in. Most year 5 teachers do not want a kid who is doing quadratic equations and trigonometry in their class.

I’m of the opinion that school is 75% about friendship and only 25% about education. Most of the university academics in the subject of education and successive governments have got it completely wrong as they only look at the academic side of school and fail to even consider the social side of school. Schools are actually very poor at teaching social skills as the curriculum is mostly academic and the majority of social skills that kids learn from / require at school are in reality school survival skills that have little use or relevance outside of school or for life as an adult. Despite this, countless adults strongly hold the view that school is essential for children to learn social skills – although I suspect that they conflate social skills with socialisation or social skills with discipline and conformity. More often than not the first question directed towards parents who home educate is how will their children learn social skills, as opposed to questions about the standard of academic education or practical work.


Alex Barrett makes a good point about the specific qualities of the school, et al, as I strongly believe that the other people at the school are a determining factor in how much an individual child enjoys school that is more prominent than anything academic. I have met plenty of people who were not very bright, or academically quite weak, that enjoyed school because of factors like friendships, sports, or extra curricular activities rather than the education itself.


I agree with David Houssein’s theory that lots of highly intelligent kids don't enjoy school because it's too slow and restrictive, and frustrates them. KS2 and KS3 drives students in low gear where those who are ahead of the curriculum in the core subjects for their year group become bored and frustrated that they aren’t being stretched. Gifted and talented only really applies to sports and music. If a 10 year old is a talented sportsman or musician then they are a superstar but if a 10 year old is proficient in higher level GCSE mathematics then they are a problem child as schools do not have the facility for accelerated learning in mathematics and teachers have to teach the National Curriculum for the year group that the student is in. Most year 5 teachers do not want a kid who is doing quadratic equations and trigonometry in their class.