Dee Beer - The Body Healthy

28/08/2024

Five Things All Young People (and adults) Should Know About GCSEs

1. It is not possible for everyone to succeed in their GCSEs. The exam results are referenced against earlier cohorts, meaning that around 30% will get failing results every year. This is built into the system.

2. You can take GCSEs at any age. Schools require you to take them at age 15/16 because of the league tables. Research shows that those who are older (autumn born) do better on average than those who are younger (summer born) when they take them. Those whose lives have been easier tend to do better in exams. It is not a level playing field.

3. Learning does not 'only count' if you have a GCSE in it. If you are a passionate musician or linguist or artist, this will be much more important in your life than whether you have a GCSE in music or French or art. Don't let an exam result convince you that you are no good at something.

4. GCSEs can be a stepping stone to college but they aren't the only way. It is rare for a college to require more than five or six. Some colleges will take you with no GCSEs. Doing nine or eleven is something some schools insist on but it isn't essential.

5. A GCSE is a measure of how you performed in a particular set of tests at a particular moment in your life. It is not a measure of your worth nor a reflection of your future potential.

Please share if you know a teenager who needs to hear this.

28/08/2024

Which is why I've decided to homeschool 🙌🏼

What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time.

We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them that these things are vitally important.

Then we sit them in rows and make them write about the things they can remember for an intense few hours. We compare what they have written down with everyone else of the same age, and then we rank them.

We make them wait a couple of months and then we tell some that they are the successes, and others that they are the failures. We encourage them to hang their self-worth on how they performed. Newspapers publish pictures of the delighted, whilst the disappointed hide their heads in shame.

We tell them that these results will determine the rest of their lives – and then we set up systems that make this true. We provide fewer opportunities for those who did not succeed. Those who did well can take their pick of courses, whilst those who did not are made to take the same tests again and again, just to hammer it home.

We make sure that young people spend the majority of their adolescence focused on exams and under pressure. Every summer, they sit in rows and try to remember. Each year, they’re told that their whole future rests on this.

Many of them inevitably cave in under the pressure. They become anxious and depressed. They show signs of burnout by the age of 16. They lose their spark, and just go through the motions. Some of them retreat altogether.

Then we pathologise them, say that they need mental health treatment or to become more resilient. We send them for therapy or give them medication. We say that they are the problem, whilst the system carries on unchanged.

What if instead we stopped to think about what we are doing to our young people?

Adolescence is a time of opportunity and vulnerability. It’s a one-off stage of life. What if we asked ourselves, should our young people really spend these years on a conveyor belt of high stakes exams?

Imagine we allowed ourselves to look beyond this time and place, and to see just how strange this really is. What would we do then?

28/08/2024

Exclusive: Experts say ‘desocialised’ pupils home schooled through Covid are entering traditionally most disruptive years

10/08/2024

10/08/2024

Beautiful ❤️

10/08/2024

With Trowbridge Future – I just got recognised as one of their top fans! 🎉

07/08/2024

Today I am grateful for:

Wind on an overcast day so I can still dry laundry outside 🍃
Finding music again after having lost the passion for listening 🎶
The pure joy of the dance and finally starting to find my feet 💃🏼
Good people with good hearts 🥰
The man in a van who pulled across the road to catch our runaway yoga ball that got kicked over the trampoline 😬
The love of my children and the fact that they suprise me daily with their compassion and growth 💗
Getting to drive through the New Forest every week. Such a beautiful place 🌳🌲🌳

Wishing you all a blessed and smile filled day 😁✨💞

13/07/2024

In this guided meditation we will tap into the scalar wave energy in the stellar star and connect it to the third energy cen...

26/05/2024

So, had an idea.......✨

Dee-Pod days:

I'll start with a Lyric or word and you have to finish with what comes to mind.

🎶. Some people......🎶

And go....!

27/04/2024

Indeed 😂