What did you do (or are you doing) after leaving compulsory education?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. I know some people on the forum are still in compulsory education at present, but many of us have either left compulsory education or are at a stage where you’re deciding what to do once you’ve left compulsory education. I don’t know about other countries, but here in the UK, one has to stay in some form of education until the age of 18 (well, I did at least; I know that for some of you, this may have been 16, as I believe that law only changed fairly recently). So my question to you today is; what did you do once you no longer had to stay in education? Or if you’re still in compulsory education, what are you planning to do once you’re not? Did you go to university, or was college or an apprenticeship more your thing? Or did you go straight into a job? Or did you just stay at home? Or did you do something else entirely that I haven’t mentioned here? (Do tell me if you’d like an option added to the poll that isn’t there, as I’d be more than happy to add it provided the forum will let me!)


As for me; I only left compulsory education in May of this year when I finished my A Levels, and I decided to go to university. In terms of what course I’m doing; I opted for a Computer Science course at the University of Gloucestershire, and thus far, it’s looking like a promising choice for me. Admittedly, we haven’t done too much yet (I only started last week, and so far, it’s mostly been ice breakers and team building activities), but my first lecture was today, and it was an interesting one on Computational Maths, which bodes well! I’m intrigued to see what my other modules for the week (if you’re wondering; Computers & Security tomorrow, Principles of Programming on Thursday and Systems Design on Friday) are like…


But what path did you take (or are you choosing to take) after leaving compulsory education? Did you take the same path as me, or did university not appeal to you?

 

[JAperson]

I'll finish college in the summer and so cannot answer the poll yet as I haven't fully decided what I'm going to do.
I will shortly begin the application process which my college make you do even if you don't want to go to university. At the moment I'm looking at university but at the moment haven't decided what I'm going to be doing.

 

[Matt.GC]

Left school at 16 years old in May 1999. Got a full time job right away for the summer for £3.80 an hour (good money for 16 back then). Didn't turn up for one of my GCSE exams (knew I would fail it). Didn't go to collect any of my certificates either as I knew they were rubbish, my mum sent my brother to get them. To this day I still haven't seen my GCSE's actually, I only know what I got through my dad shouting at me about them.

Tried an apprenticeship with the company I had the summer job with. Hated every minute of it and quit within weeks. I was told I had to do it by my dad but hated it. I also had a part time job in the local supermarket which I loved (I worked 7 days per week then, Mon - Thurs apprenticeship, Fri, Sat, Sun supermarket). Had the spiel about being a shelf filler all my life blah blah so moved out as soon as I passed my driving test, taking all the overtime I could get to pay for a place of my own.

Still scared of educational establishments to this day. Get an anxious feeling even when doing seminars and stuff at work, as if someone is going to shout at me and tell me I'm s@&# if I don't understand something. Walking round my son's senior school for an open evening and I even try to stay away from the teachers there, as if someone was going to do something to me. It's silly as of course they spoke to me as a middle aged father rather than a snotty 15 year old who's making their league tables look bad but the ghosts are still there and hard to shake.

I'm very jealous of the educated elites for being bestowed with academic intelligence. That's why I find it incredibly insulting when I hear things like "I ONLY got a B" or "I ONLY got in to my second choice Uni". Be greatful that you have such a brain, not all of us are that fortunate.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere, but I damned if I know what it is.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

I left school in 1997 with poor GCSE’s (best was C in technology and D Maths) got a Apprenticeship in toolmaking where I worked 4 days a week and went to college once a week for 4 years.
I been working for 24 years and only been out of work for 6 weeks during that time.

 

[Matt.GC]

I left school in 1997 with poor GCSE’s (best was C in technology and D Maths) got a Apprenticeship in toolmaking where I worked 4 days a week and went to college once a week for 4 years.
I been working for 24 years and only been out of work for 6 weeks during that time.

Wow! My best grade was a single C (English I think?) and my apprenticeship was also in Toolmaking!

 

[delta79]

Left school and started on a electrical maintenance Apprenticeship.


Sent from my SM-A217F using Tapatalk

 

[Matt N]

Left school at 16 years old in May 1999. Got a full time job right away for the summer for £3.80 an hour (good money for 16 back then). Didn't turn up for one of my GCSE exams (knew I would fail it). Didn't go to collect any of my certificates either as I knew they were rubbish, my mum sent my brother to get them. To this day I still haven't seen my GCSE's actually, I only know what I got through my dad shouting at me about them.

Tried an apprenticeship with the company I had the summer job with. Hated every minute of it and quit within weeks. I was told I had to do it by my dad but hated it. I also had a part time job in the local supermarket which I loved (I worked 7 days per week then, Mon - Thurs apprenticeship, Fri, Sat, Sun supermarket). Had the spiel about being a shelf filler all my life blah blah so moved out as soon as I passed my driving test, taking all the overtime I could get to pay for a place of my own.

Still scared of educational establishments to this day. Get an anxious feeling even when doing seminars and stuff at work, as if someone is going to shout at me and tell me I'm s@&# if I don't understand something. Walking round my son's senior school for an open evening and I even try to stay away from the teachers there, as if someone was going to do something to me. It's silly as of course they spoke to me as a middle aged father rather than a snotty 15 year old who's making their league tables look bad but the ghosts are still there and hard to shake.

I'm very jealous of the educated elites for being bestowed with academic intelligence. That's why I find it incredibly insulting when I hear things like "I ONLY got a B" or "I ONLY got in to my second choice Uni". Be greatful that you have such a brain, not all of us are that fortunate.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere, but I damned if I know what it is.

I apologise if I opened up any old wounds… your school experience sounds pretty rough from what you’ve written.

But in terms of the gist of your post; fair enough! The educational path certainly isn’t for everyone, and it certainly sounds as though you thrive and are happy in a workplace environment; for my money, there’s nothing wrong with working in a supermarket, or anywhere for that matter, if it makes you happy!

 

[Connor98]

Left school and went straight into an apprenticeship with an engineering company doing cad design. Then decided to get out of the industry and follow a passion of cooking, however the grass wasn’t greener. I’m now working as a graphic designer for a embroidery and print company which I really enjoy.

 

[John_P]

Did my GCSEs, and A-Levels. Went to university to do a degree I thoroughly enjoyed doing but which I don't use in my job. The degree certificate comes in useful as when I've applied for jobs requiring a minimum amount of GCSEs they accept that instead.

Was weird, I went to a comprehensive school so education past 16 didn't really seem an option when I was 14. Then when in year 11 I sat down to discuss courses they couldn't even guarantee they'd offer English Literature so the same day I contacted a school with a dedicated 6th form department who let me in. It was only with that school the idea of further education and university seemed like a realistic possibility.

 

[Matt.GC]

I apologise if I opened up any old wounds… your school experience sounds pretty rough from what you’ve written.

But in terms of the gist of your post; fair enough! The educational path certainly isn’t for everyone, and it certainly sounds as though you thrive and are happy in a workplace environment; for my money, there’s nothing wrong with working in a supermarket, or anywhere for that matter, if it makes you happy!

Don't worry about it, you didn't open wounds at all mate. I didn't like school and school didn't like me. I never have to set foot in that place ever again (my old school anyway as I don't live your neck of the woods anymore Matt) I never have since I walked out on my last day to retrieve my stash of booze from one of the bushes by the school gates. Cracked a can open in front of one of the teachers who was glad to see the back me too and off I went into the sunset (well, to the local park to get smashed as that was the year 11 leaving tradition at the time).

I did thrive in a work environment because I could put other talents to good use. But no, it doesn't make me happy, I actually hate my job most of the time. It has a 9/10 drop out rate for the educated (I'm not joking, the Degree Apprenticeship and graduate scheme to work for a prat like me had a 91% drop out rate it's so bad). But that's the thing with supermarket managers, it takes a very specific kind of person that you just can't find in many places. It's a money trap, they need us, but at the same time they know we're trapped and can't earn that money anywhere else.

So stay in school (or stick at your apprenticeship) kids, it'll give you so many options in the future. I wish I could go through the nurturing and caring education system as it is now (not like it was) and have my time again.

 

[WillPS]

For me there was a pretty long crossover period between 16 and 22 where I was in full time education (college followed by university) but also doing all the hours I possibly could because I absolutely craved financial independence. I gave as much attention to my education as I absolutely needed to get to the next thing but no more. There were a lot of 5-11pm shifts at Sainsburys followed by an all night session in the learning centre.

Then my degree had a sandwich year so I stopped doing other stuff but then quickly found myself doing bits and pieces on the side, which carried on through final year and became a full time thing for a couple of years after I graduated. I was 25 by the time I took on a salaried, full time position.

I currently work in a University and it's crazy to me how many people basically never left education. I was thoroughly sick of it.

 

[Matt.GC]

I currently work in a University and it's crazy to me how many people basically never left education. I was thoroughly sick of it.

Can I ask what it was like going back into an educational setting? You seem the absolute opposite of me in that you had a good experience of what it was like outside the system before going back in and I'm just interested.

I ran away as far as I could and still shy away from any sort of class or training course to this day. I feel that my bad experiences of secondary school as it was over 2 decades ago have clouded my judgement. I can only learn by being thrown into the deep end and making hands on mistakes with he threat of loosing my job and letting my family down as the main driver for learning new things. I've been at it for so long, I surprised myself when I was able to fully help my year 8 son with loads of his homework by basically putting it into to "shop" terms. Basically, put a £ sign in front of some maths work and frame it as a profit and loss or payroll/sales/customer satisfaction/waste or whatever and I can understand it. Make it random numbers and I just don't. I surprised myself because I was never able to do any of this stuff at school but as soon as someone I love needed help, I felt the pressure and could leap into action with solutions.

On the other side, I employ people who's only experience other than this job is education. I don't want to offend anyone by saying that I often find them in complete denial about the real world. Some of them suffer real problems where the world doesn't turn out as they seem convinced it would. I don't want to stereotype but many seem to be unaware of just how ruthless the outside world is and somehow seem to be delusional about what things are actually like out there. Seeing them come to terms with this can often be a painful process where you see a decline in there mental health as they reach the cross roads and realise things aren't all they seem to think they were cracked up to be. This seems to be becoming more and more prominent as mandatory full time education to 18 has been introduced and record levels of people are going to university, racking up masses of dept just to keep their heads above water.

 

[WillPS]

Can I ask what it was like going back into an educational setting? You seem the absolute opposite of me in that you had a good experience of what it was like outside the system before going back in and I'm just interested.

Of course dude. You're right, all my employment prior to this has been private sector; making a man a $.

I'm not involved in teaching or academia at all, I function as the lead of a small group of web developers within the "external relations" (marketing) department. Even so it has been a massive shock to me how commercially naïve seemingly everything about the place is.

In general it feels like there is somehow loads of people and yet seemingly key responsibilities are not really defined, so a few people (trying their best in fairness) sort of make it up and end up doing something completely different to what their job actually is. Those people then tend to end up utterly burnt out trying to carry things along singlehandedly while other people float along delivering little value fairly unchallenged.

There is an institutional fear of making decisions which leads to everything being decided by committee and people who have, frankly, no idea what they're talking about being involved in those decisions. This means that critical decisions are poor quality and take ages. They are also subject to change or being overridden if the output does not please senior person xyz or random-hitherto-unknown-academic abc, so man-weeks of work is binned fairly often. Agile it most certainly is not.

I only joined in Summer last year so I don't have all that much experience working in and about the place, it's mostly been remote. In one way this is a shame, as the campuses are a nice place to be. In another way, it's probably a good thing because there's a whiff of privilege/elitism to the whole place which I can't say I really identify with at all, in fact it actually grates on me.

It perhaps wont come as a surprise to you that I'm currently serving my notice. If I cared less about my career prospects in general and I was a less honest person than I am, I could stay in the position I'm in, work a lot less harder than I have done and coast through several years of fairly easy work on too much money and a ridiculously good pension and annual leave entitlement, before eventually being made redundant. I'm not that guy tho (at least not yet).

This is an old red-brick Russell Group university, I'm quite sure things are different in other/newer universities.

Like you I had a similarly horrible experience of secondary school in particular. By some quirk of I ended up doing an 'industry day' type experience in another secondary school in another city while I was freelancing after university about a decade ago, and I found that experience to be quite triggering for want of a better term. I'm not sure I could stand to be in an environment like that where disciplining children is quite such a feature.

In truth I think one of the reasons I'm not keen on having children myself is having to indirectly live through that again. It's some reassurance that you feel things have changed for your own, that said.

I ran away as far as I could and still shy away from any sort of class or training course to this day. I feel that my bad experiences of secondary school as it was over 2 decades ago have clouded my judgement. I can only learn by being thrown into the deep end and making hands on mistakes with he threat of loosing my job and letting my family down as the main driver for learning new things. I've been at it for so long, I surprised myself when I was able to fully help my year 8 son with loads of his homework by basically putting it into to "shop" terms. Basically, put a £ sign in front of some maths work and frame it as a profit and loss or payroll/sales/customer satisfaction/waste or whatever and I can understand it. Make it random numbers and I just don't. I surprised myself because I was never able to do any of this stuff at school but as soon as someone I love needed help, I felt the pressure and could leap into action with solutions.

On the other side, I employ people who's only experience other than this job is education. I don't want to offend anyone by saying that I often find them in complete denial about the real world. Some of them suffer real problems where the world doesn't turn out as they seem convinced it would. I don't want to stereotype but many seem to be unaware of just how ruthless the outside world is and somehow seem to be delusional about what things are actually like out there. Seeing them come to terms with this can often be a painful process where you see a decline in there mental health as they reach the cross roads and realise things aren't all they seem to think they were cracked up to be. This seems to be becoming more and more prominent as mandatory full time education to 18 has been introduced and record levels of people are going to university, racking up masses of dept just to keep their heads above water.

Yes, it seems to be more and more of a culture shock to people coming out of education, people are seemingly totally unprepared for the realities of a work environment.

Good on you for giving people in that situation the opportunity though.

For what it's worth, I really value the time I did in retail alongside my studies. I think you learn a lot both in terms of what hard work looks like and in terms of interaction with people, in particular an appreciation for how being pleasant really goes a very long way. Whenever I'm having what I feel like is a crazy day I remind myself of a long Saturday in December on the tills at The Entertainer, or an evening shift during freshers week (urgh) at Sainsburys Local. Suddenly whatever I'm doing sat on my arse with a computer feels cushy after that.

I honestly look back on going in to town with my pile of CVs after my 16th birthday, getting a job and the graft I put in at that time being quite defining events for me as a person. No regrets at all.

It's a shame that this sort of work-alongside-study thing appears to be something happening less and less for whatever reason. When I'm recruiting I look out for these sort of candidates especially because of that work ethic I think it suggests.

 

[Tim]

Reading your post WillPS reminds me of the old idea I had when I started my first job; that we should have the equivalent of a military service in which everyone has to spend at least 6 months working in a shop or customer facing role. Really opens your eyes to what the world is like. And once you've had that first experience of an unpleasant customer it makes you think twice before acting that way to someone else.

For my own education I went the university route. In the long term it worked out well for me, but it took a long time to find my feet when leaving education.
I don't think University is for everyone, even 6th form for that matter. I was glad I was in one of the last years that had a choice. Some of my friends chose an apprenticeship at 16 and it worked out well for them. I'd like to see more people get that option as it is a really good way of hands on learning.

 

[Danscott22]

Just completed an undergraduate law degree and I'm currently doing the Legal Practice Course before heading into a training contract to be trained as a solicitor. I plan to do some teaching in the two year gap it takes for the training contract to start.

 

[Jonathan]

Mine's a little unorthodox, so here goes.

Left school in 2009 with a string of good GCSEs, and moved on to college, where I gained A Levels and another GCSE, before going to university to study law. Big mistake. Basically had a meltdown during my second year that I never recovered from, failed my exams, and subsequently dropped out. Wound up working for Sainsbury's, where I've been for the past eight years. Tried to get out a few times over the years, but had no success. Started studying Maths with the OU last January/February, and I finished my second year last week. So far, so good, and having a degree will definitely help get a better job further down the line. However, I need to get something better - primarily so I can more easily support myself if it hits the proverbial fan and changes at home subsequently put me at risk.

 

[pluk]

I half heartedly did A levels after school with no particular idea at what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I still think it's mental to teach to such tiny specialisms at such a young age with no life experience. Who really knows themselves or what they want to do with the rest of their lives at 16/17. I sure as hell didn't, and almost everyone I know who went to university now works in a profession that has nothing to do with their degree.

While at college I had a Saturday job at the local Safeway (ask your mum), when I left college I kept it on full time with most weekends off so I could go and visit my mates at uni scattered across the country. I feel like I had quite a good uni experience with out any of that tiresome lecturing getting in the way and no debt.

Safeway then had me working nights (time and a third pay), then said come back on to days but keep your night enhancement built into your hourly rate for low level supervision, then a mix of days and nights, then back on to full days, again keeping the night enhancement. This was also the days of double pay Sunday, triple pay bank holidays. So within a decade or so I had worked in pretty much every department from shelf stacking to merchandising to admin and was a manager.

There wasn't really anything in the store I hadn't done or didn't know how to deal with. The work to me was therefore very easy, well paid, and close to home. Not what I'd have chosen to do with my life and not very fulfilling, but this level of comfort is not good for ones motivations.

Then Safeway went bust (possibly because of how much it was paying some of us!) and we were bought out by Morrisons, had to reapply for my job. Then our Morrisons got sold to Sainsburys, had to reapply for my job. I survived both applications (where many others didn't and were demoted), and while my contract was protected it was made clear it would be eroded over time with a reduction in benefits in any way they could until we accepted their far less lucrative contracts. But the biggest thing was how insecure the job now felt, twice in a couple of years I'd come close to redundancy and with the volatility of retail it was easy to foresee more of the same. With a wife and the prospect of kids this felt like a bad position to stay in, so I jumped ship to something I'd been wanting to do for years and joined the police. The job is now far more taxing, I have to commute, the pay in real terms is lower, but I love it. I get to really meaningfully help people, to make a huge difference to their lives, so it can be incredibly rewarding and am a lot happier (if not richer) for it.

So don't worry too much about uni, about specialising at such a young age, about planning your life out. You'll find a way through. Just keep trying to do something that makes you happy. You'll spend more time working than pretty much anything else so best to find a way to enjoy it!

 

[Matt.GC]

You know it took Morrisons 10 years to get every Safeway colleague onto a Morrisons contract. They red ringed them from annual pay rises for years and the amount they offered to buy them out every year got lower and lower until it was no longer financially viable to stay on Safeway T&C's. All long gone now though, flat rate 7 days and bank hols, small supplement for nights (I think it's less than an extra £2 per hour).

They binned off the Safeway pension scheme finally around 4 years ago and replaced it and all the other group schemes with a significantly crappier one. They got away with all this by pay rises. Everyone voted for the headline grabbing hourly rate rises without considering the erosions of pension schemes and premiums and the new flexibility requirements until it was too late.

 

[pluk]

You know it took Morrisons 10 years to get every Safeway colleague onto a Morrisons contract. They red ringed them from annual pay rises for years and the amount they offered to buy them out every year got lower and lower until it was no longer financially viable to stay on Safeway T&C's. All long gone now though, flat rate 7 days and bank hols, small supplement for nights (I think it's less than an extra £2 per hour).

They binned off the Safeway pension scheme finally around 4 years ago and replaced it and all the other group schemes with a significantly crappier one. They got away with all this by pay rises. Everyone voted for the headline grabbing hourly rate rises without considering the erosions of pension schemes and premiums and the new flexibility requirements until it was too late.

Yep, I've still got good friends in that world and I was right to get out of it. Similar stories for those who ended up at both Sainsbury's and Morrisons. Sainsburys have just decimated their management with huge amounts of better paid jobs gone and those that are left have an unmanaged workload, while Morrisons have shot themselves in the face by closing their food counters. One of the main reasons I drive passed an Asda and a Sainsburys to get to Morrisons, not sure I'll be bothering in the future. My mate who's a highly skilled butcher will be making pizzas for a fraction of the pay. Madness.

 

[Matt.GC]

Yep, I've still got good friends in that world and I was right to get out of it. Similar stories for those who ended up at both Sainsbury's and Morrisons. Sainsburys have just decimated their management with huge amounts of better paid jobs gone and those that are left have an unmanaged workload, while Morrisons have shot themselves in the face by closing their food counters. One of the main reasons I drive passed an Asda and a Sainsburys to get to Morrisons, not sure I'll be bothering in the future. My mate who's a highly skilled butcher will be making pizzas for a fraction of the pay. Madness.

That company was ruined mate the second a certain chairman and CEO turned up with all their Tesco chums. During the early 2000's, Safeway purposely spent money so that their share price went below the asset value of the company, hence why Morrisons, a much smaller company and very asset rich, were able to buy them. Anyone who was around in those days (the few that are left) saw striking similarities a few years ago between that and the current strategy. Then low and behold, look at what's just happened! Very clear from the inside that this was a sell up job.

We all kept telling ourselves every year at bonus time (they kept pumping us with LTIP's every April to get us to stay another year) that it couldn't possibly get any worse and yet it always seemed to. The heart has been ripped out of the company and the stores are shockingly poorly operated. Last year's restructure was the biggest bloodbath I've ever seen. The whole process was swift and brutal, we binned off or demoted almost half our loyal and skilled managers in Q1 last year. They pretended they were getting rid of Team Managers and giving us giant senior teams. But the effect was actually a demotion. Pathetic £25k salary, no training just straight in the deep end.

No Grocery Manager anymore, so the new "Replenhment Manager" just spent all his days smashing booze back stock or working unworked load the extremely under-resourced night crew had left from the night before. No Produce or FF Manager anymore, so the new "Fresh Manager" now spends all day working bananas and milk. No Checkout or PFS Manager anymore, so the new "Customer Service Manger" spends all day running the main bank and covering kiosk and petrol breaks. Etc Etc Etc. No senior team in real terms to rely on any more so you'd walk into the store in the morning as SM and they're all busy doing manual task and the shop is a bin. Only Store Manager and "Ops Manager" (deputy managers without the pay and benefits) looking at the store as a whole.

That was one of my descions to leave after years and years of loyal service. That and being sick of emergency conference calls on a Thursday about last minute payroll pulls, having to pull the demoralised and knackered managers in to the office one by one and telling them to pull all the hours out of the weekend then hitting the phone lines and telling people with 4 hour contracts and families to support that we no longer require them for the weekend. Pure slash and burn, cruel and utterly demoralising. Final straw was opening my Q3 payroll bridge and seeing a quarter of my store payroll gone in just one swoop, no explanation, no push back - "just deliver it". Then trying to make decisions of what to cut completely (whole department closures were considered, self service only after 6pm and before 9am, closing half the petrol pumps and single manning PFS all day, faking plant breakdowns in ISB and ordering in frozen doughnuts and prepacked rolls that we no longer had the manpower to make ourselves) and then going down a list of people on temporary contracts and having to let them go, whether they were good or not.

My parents always used to say "everyone will always need food". When I chose this I never thought the industry would go this way. The future now looks very insecure and scares me alot. I know pretty much nothing else and still have half my working life left.