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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colls and I am so

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Speaker 2: so delighted to wrap up what's been a fascinating week

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Speaker 2: of conversations looking at the opposite to what we've kind

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Speaker 2: of talked about all week. Now, lest anyone think that

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Speaker 2: this week has been about saying school doesn't matter, that

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Speaker 2: is not the case at all. There's a lot of

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Speaker 2: pressure that a lot of kids are feeling though, because

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Speaker 2: Year twelve exams are happening or are about to happen

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Speaker 2: in pretty much every state in the country right now

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Speaker 2: and during this week. If you've missed the conversations, really

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Speaker 2: great discussions with people who have maybe finished school but

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Speaker 2: dropped out of UNI, or didn't finish school at all,

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Speaker 2: but people who have made incredible lives for themselves without

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Speaker 2: completing their education. The conversation, though, wouldn't be balanced unless

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Speaker 2: we talked about the importance of education, and that's what

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Speaker 2: today is all about. I'm so delighted to have Nigel

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Speaker 2: Howard joining me on the podcast today. Nigel is a

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Speaker 2: research associate at Flinders University. He was a secondary school

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Speaker 2: principal and now he is doing his PhD studying students

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Speaker 2: in poverty and on the edge of schooling and how

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Speaker 2: school's responses to the issues that students face can determine

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Speaker 2: whether or not they're going to stay in school or

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Speaker 2: they're going to be excluded. Nigel's really good at telling

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Speaker 2: us what happens when kids don't finish high school and

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Speaker 2: he actually wrote an article that appeared in The Conversation

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Speaker 2: just online last week. Nigel, So glad to have you

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Speaker 2: on the podcast. Can you tell me new data from

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Speaker 2: the Productivity Commission is telling us some really surprising things

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Speaker 2: about how kids are going with school completion. What does

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Speaker 2: the data say?

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Speaker 1: What the data is saying from the Productivity Commission man,

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Speaker 1: with all the data that we find is that there

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Speaker 1: has always been a very stubborn group of people that

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Speaker 1: aren't completing school. It's twenty five percent around twenty five

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Speaker 1: percent that aren't completing schooling and that's in the last

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Speaker 1: five years. Okay, so we've gone down about five percentage

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Speaker 1: points in the last six years. And the gap between

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Speaker 1: students from the city and students from the country, students

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Speaker 1: from high s and the sees backgrounds and low SS

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Speaker 1: backgrounds is widening, and so what we're finding is the

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Speaker 1: young people that we need to stay on at school

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Speaker 1: are the ones that aren't seeing themselves completing school or

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Speaker 1: believing that school has part of the future for them.

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Speaker 2: In the context of the conversation that we've been having

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Speaker 2: on the podcast all week, people who didn't finish high school,

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Speaker 2: there are people who don't finish high school and they

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Speaker 2: go and do their trades, they go to technical school,

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Speaker 2: they become entrepreneurs. There are people who absolutely contribute in

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Speaker 2: such magnificent and wonderful ways to society without finishing high school.

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Speaker 2: Could you articulate the arguments for finishing year twelve? Why

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Speaker 2: is it so important that kids do get to the

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Speaker 2: end of year twelve? Inasmuch as that's possible reckoning, We

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Speaker 2: won't get one hundred percent.

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Speaker 1: We won't get one hundred percent, and there will always

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Speaker 1: be individuals who can find their way and the navigate

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Speaker 1: their way quite successfully through life into career based jobs

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Speaker 1: without high school. But high school has for about the

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Speaker 1: last ten years fifteen years been the foundation from which

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Speaker 1: you build a career rather than just having a job. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so that ability to negotiate around what your skills are

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Speaker 1: and what you can do and what you can bring

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Speaker 1: to it become really important now the Productivity Commissions saying

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Speaker 1: that in the future we're going to have more and

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Speaker 1: more jobs that will require completion of secondary school at

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Speaker 1: least and even a basic university degree, and so a

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Speaker 1: lot of the entry level jobs that you used to

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Speaker 1: be able to get that kickstart are disappearing. So even

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Speaker 1: for young people that are being apprenticeships, and apprenticeships used

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Speaker 1: to before I started teaching apprenticeships was fifteen years old,

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Speaker 1: I'd be working in a restaurant as a waiter and

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Speaker 1: a sixteen year old boy would be running the kitchen

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Speaker 1: on a Sunday where the chef was away. Apprenticeships now

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Speaker 1: are eighteen, nineteen twenty and even older than that. The

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Speaker 1: sort of people have started a job and say now

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Speaker 1: I want to build a career, so that idea of

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Speaker 1: to build a career. High school is the foundation. And

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Speaker 1: what it is is not the kids that are dropping out.

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Speaker 1: It's not just individuals, it's cohorts of kids. As I've said,

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Speaker 1: it's more likely that you're going to drop out of

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Speaker 1: school if you're from a rural or remote area, or

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Speaker 1: if you're from a low socioeconomic background, and that's what

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Speaker 1: we have to choose. We have to close that and

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Speaker 1: make sure that everybody has the choice that they want

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Speaker 1: to negotiate their life afterwards.

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Speaker 2: Where are they going? Where are these kids who are

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Speaker 2: dropping out going? And maybe a double barreled question, which

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Speaker 2: is a terrible to do, but there's just so much

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Speaker 2: here that I'm curious about exploring. Number one, where are

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Speaker 2: they going when they drop out? And number two? Why

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Speaker 2: why are they actually leaving looking out?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, just flipping that question on its head a little bit,

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Speaker 1: is why do kids stay? So if whider kids that

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Speaker 1: like school stay at school, and it's really quite simple

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Speaker 1: is one, they have friends, they have relationships, but they

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Speaker 1: can see their future in schooling. They can see that

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Speaker 1: what they're doing has some relationship to who they want

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Speaker 1: to be and who they want to become. And even

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Speaker 1: though they don't have to get a's, they don't have

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Speaker 1: to be high achievers. But yeah, I'm doing okay at this.

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Speaker 1: And then also school fulfills a very social thing for

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Speaker 1: them that they get to be in the sports team

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Speaker 1: and the ested for they had to do those things.

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Speaker 1: So if those are the things that are missing. If

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Speaker 1: you look around your school and say, well, I don't

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Speaker 1: fit in, I don't fit in socially, I don't fit

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Speaker 1: in academically, and I can't see my future here, then

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Speaker 1: that's why you drop out. And quite often a lot

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Speaker 1: of that is from the students we've talked to, from

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Speaker 1: the young people we've talked to, once as a principal

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Speaker 1: and now as a researcher, is people didn't listen. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I couldn't see what the relevance of this was.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't see myself in this, but people didn't listen

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Speaker 1: to me. And that's the major thing. I didn't fit

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Speaker 1: in and people didn't listen. And so where do they go?

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Speaker 3: So some go to work, okay, and there are still

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Speaker 3: entry level jobs even though they're disappearing.

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Speaker 1: They go to work. But also those jobs are usually precarious,

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Speaker 1: they're not very well paid, and quite often they will

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Speaker 1: disappear when the kid's eighteen and so somebody has to

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Speaker 1: pay them by They tend not to go into apprenticeships.

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Speaker 1: Because where you have our areas of high dropout is

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Speaker 1: also area you have areas of low take up of

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Speaker 1: apprenticeships and low take up of university some find themselves

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Speaker 1: in alternative placements, and that's an increasing area in schools.

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Speaker 1: So there's a group of schools called Specialized Assistant schools

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Speaker 1: that are small, independent, relational schools where students that found

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Speaker 1: themselves lost in the big schools can actually find a

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Speaker 1: place there. So it's round about I think it's around

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Speaker 1: about twenty percent of students that we would say I'm

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Speaker 1: not unemployment, educational, or training okay, And they're the ones

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Speaker 1: that we need to can be concerned about. Once we've

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Speaker 1: lost them, it's hard to get them back.

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Speaker 2: That statistic is something that I hadn't considered in many

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Speaker 2: of the most of the conversations that I have with parents.

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Speaker 2: I mean, when you think about it, people who are

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Speaker 2: listening to a Happy Families podcast, they tend to be

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Speaker 2: pretty invested in their children's success and well being. They're

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Speaker 2: the ones who are coming to me and saying, I've

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Speaker 2: got this challenge, my child's struggling at school, and that

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Speaker 2: level of investment it seems to be somewhat different from

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Speaker 2: the challenges that many of the students who are describing

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Speaker 2: a facing, and so I'm very very strong on saying, hey,

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Speaker 2: you know what I know plenty of builders, and plenty

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Speaker 2: of plumbers, and plenty of hairdressers, and plenty of beauty

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Speaker 2: therapists who are doing such great work, and they loved

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Speaker 2: their life, and they dropped out when they were sixteen

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Speaker 2: or seventeen, they got the apprenticeship and they've never looked back.

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Speaker 2: And I'm just I think that I'm struggling a little

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Speaker 2: bit as I'm listening to your conversation with the tension

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Speaker 2: that exists between the reality that there is a big

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Speaker 2: number of kids who were dropping out and they're not

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Speaker 2: feeling satisfied, they're not feeling purpose, they're not feeling meaning.

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Speaker 2: And my sense also is these maybe the kids who

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Speaker 2: are at risk of not only dropping out of school

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Speaker 2: but also starting an apprenticeship and dropping out of that

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Speaker 2: as well. Right, completion rates for apprenticeships are pretty low,

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Speaker 2: somewhere around fifty percent, So maybe there's a broader issue

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Speaker 2: of discipline and having those character qualities that are enabled

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Speaker 2: you to a finish school and get through the apprenticeship,

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Speaker 2: or work through the university degree, or just hang onto

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Speaker 2: a job for long enough to develop the competence in

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Speaker 2: the sense of belonging and mattering there.

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Speaker 1: But that's part of it. The other part of it

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Speaker 1: is actually having the resources and the society and family

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Speaker 1: resources that you can draw on to help you do

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Speaker 1: that kind of navigation. And so what happens is for

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Speaker 1: students that are losing connectedness to school, that don't have

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Speaker 1: a lot of those resources to draw on, then they

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Speaker 1: drift and they fall out. So the school must find

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Speaker 1: a way for those students of creating those networks, creating

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Speaker 1: those links and doing things like that. So where I

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Speaker 1: know young people that have dropped out and therefore gone

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Speaker 1: on to be successful, they've had society resources and family

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Speaker 1: resources that they could draw on that there was somebody

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Speaker 1: there who could pick them up and go, you know,

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Speaker 1: and take them on. Secondly, there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: people for whom it's just a matter of time. They

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Speaker 1: just need some time to become themselves in a different

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Speaker 1: way and then they will find that passion or that

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Speaker 1: re entry to university. A number of the young women

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Speaker 1: that I work with dropped out of school and then

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Speaker 1: later in life decided, look, I have to do something

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Speaker 1: about this, and we've gone back to school and to

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Speaker 1: university and followed those kind of things on. So it

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Speaker 1: is a matter of the personal psychology that you have

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Speaker 1: and the resources that you have to draw on there,

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Speaker 1: but it's also what we surround them with with sort

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Speaker 1: of society, and how we can support them in that way.

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Speaker 2: Nigel, the conversation around anxiety is becoming increasingly important. The

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Speaker 2: latest National Study of Mental Health and well Being that

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Speaker 2: was just published in the last six to twelve months

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Speaker 2: and looks at our twenty twenty through to twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: one twenty twenty two data indicates that kids aged well,

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Speaker 2: I'm saying kids, but I'm really talking about young people

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Speaker 2: age sixteen to twenty four. Prior to the pandemic, we

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Speaker 2: saw anxiety levels probably around about fifteen percent, with girls

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Speaker 2: out numbering boys three to one. Now we've got anxiety

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Speaker 2: for boys, for males sixteen to twenty four hitting twenty

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Speaker 2: one percent, and for girls it's forty one percent. So

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Speaker 2: the ratio is shifted two to one, but forty one percent.

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Speaker 2: I mean this anxiety change, it's almost now. When we

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Speaker 2: look at anxiety, ADHD, autism, I mean the various other

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Speaker 2: diagnoses that are becoming increasingly prevalent, it's almost becoming abnormal

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Speaker 2: to be normal from a psychological standpoint, right, how much

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Speaker 2: do you think this is playing into the challenge of

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Speaker 2: getting kids to finish your twelve.

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Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's a part of it.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a large part of it. And where

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Speaker 1: a large part of my study is how do how

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Speaker 1: does schools respond to the changes that young people are feeling.

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Speaker 1: And so one of the schools that we're working closely

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Speaker 1: with is a new school that has that talks about

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Speaker 1: being holistic teaching and holistic learning. And over the last

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Speaker 1: three weeks we've just been interviewing those parents of students

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Speaker 1: with high anxiety levels and neurodiverse students, and what they've

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Speaker 1: been saying to us is the responsiveness that they get

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Speaker 1: from the school, the ability of the school to work

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Speaker 1: with their students within their stride, just to take it

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Speaker 1: as part of what was going on and part of

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Speaker 1: the normal way of doing things. Actually, it releases pressure

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Speaker 1: on the child, releases pressure on the family, and it

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Speaker 1: seems to be working. Now this is kind of new,

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Speaker 1: but it's one of the things that we noticed at

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Speaker 1: this school and other schools that we've worked out that

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Speaker 1: are responding to this is every child is the responsibility

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Speaker 1: of every adult, and so if a child leaves a

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Speaker 1: classroom because they're anxious they will be picked up by

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Speaker 1: another adult and then taken back into another learning experience.

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Speaker 1: And so there's no kids that are left to wonder,

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Speaker 1: no kids that are left to not be there. And

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Speaker 1: I think that's really important. I think, to me, the

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Speaker 1: key word is responsiveness is we can't we can't pretend

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Speaker 1: these things aren't happening. We can't say, oh, there's nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with the school, because some of these issues

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Speaker 1: aren't to do with school. But how we respond to

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Speaker 1: them becomes really important. And if we respond with honesty

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Speaker 1: and compassion, then still ensuring that we're a learning organization,

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Speaker 1: then I think we can keep more students at school

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Speaker 1: and engaged.

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Speaker 2: I love the thoughtfulness of this conversation. I love the

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Speaker 2: idea of responsiveness, the possibility of connection, the relational aspect,

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Speaker 2: the building of trust, and the involvement, the supportive involvement

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Speaker 2: of adults. Let's see the conversation back to what's happening

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Speaker 2: right now around the nation for our students. I want

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Speaker 2: to ask you a really provocative question, Nijeb, how important

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Speaker 2: is the atar system?

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Speaker 1: The Atar system is important for schools and for universities,

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Speaker 1: it's not very important for students, it distorts learning. So

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Speaker 1: if you know, my daughter is now a big grown up,

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Speaker 1: had got a very very hiatar and she said it

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Speaker 1: lasted two days. It didn't mean anything after that first,

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Speaker 1: Oh I got a hiatar. It distorted what she was doing.

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Speaker 1: And going from there, what it means for a lot

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Speaker 1: of schools is if the school itself is chasing hiatars,

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Speaker 1: they are going to ask those students who aren't going

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Speaker 1: to contribute to that to find another place to move on.

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Speaker 1: It also means that what you're doing is you're concentrating

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Speaker 1: on a very narrow set of skill rather than the

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Speaker 1: kind of that broad sense of how do you apply

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Speaker 1: what you're learning into unfamiliar situations. You know that the

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Speaker 1: best way to get a hiatar is to teach the

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Speaker 1: students how to pass exams, So how the knowledge in

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Speaker 1: a familiar situation? And that's not what life is about.

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Speaker 1: What we do with life is I have a great

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Speaker 1: deal of knowledge, but how do I apply it when

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Speaker 1: something new comes along, when something different comes along? And

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Speaker 1: how do I work on that? And so that it's.

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Speaker 3: That the problem with it is it does predict at

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Speaker 3: the moment success at university, and it is going to

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Speaker 3: be very hard to move along and what is it

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Speaker 3: that we would replace it? But also at the moment,

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Speaker 3: around about sixty percent, well no, sorry, the other way around,

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Speaker 3: around about forty percent of students accessing university do not

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Speaker 3: go through a NATA. They find other ways of doing it.

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Speaker 3: A lot of it's adult entry. And I have the

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Speaker 3: great privilege of teaching the next generation of teachers and

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Speaker 3: the ones that have worked and got life experience and

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Speaker 3: now saying hey, now I want to give something back.

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Speaker 1: They're the ones that are going to be so valuable

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Speaker 1: to our students in the future.

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Speaker 2: A cynic might say, based on your response, that an

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Speaker 2: ATAR is really just a marketing ploy for schools to

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Speaker 2: look more attractive to aspirational parents.

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Speaker 1: And the cynic in me would say that as well

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Speaker 1: a little bit. And what that mainly does then that

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Speaker 1: case is it means that the school is always looking

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Speaker 1: to the next group of students rather than responding to

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Speaker 1: the group of students in front of it. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: my work with my students that I teach now is

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Speaker 1: to have high expectations of the students and teach the

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Speaker 1: students in front of you to those expectations. Marketing then

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Speaker 1: looks after itself.

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Speaker 2: Politics aside. Around the nation right now, there are so

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Speaker 2: many students sitting exams that they are being told are

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Speaker 2: the most important exams of their life so far. So,

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Speaker 2: as a former secondary principle, the one who primarily work

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Speaker 2: with children who have additional needs, and as someone who

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Speaker 2: knows the terrain both practically and also academically, what advice

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Speaker 2: would you give to both students and parents if they've

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Speaker 2: set through this conversation, hopefully been as fascinated by it

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Speaker 2: as I have, and are now dealing with the pressure

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Speaker 2: that comes from wanting to do well on those final exams.

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Speaker 1: If you regard the examination not as the be all

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Speaker 1: and end all, but as the performance of your knowledge,

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Speaker 1: then what you're doing is you're moving into a different state.

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Speaker 1: So it's like being match ready. It's like performing on

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Speaker 1: stage that you've done your rehearsals, you've done your training,

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Speaker 1: and now what you have to do is you have

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Speaker 1: to twitch your phase into a different phase. So you're

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Speaker 1: no longer acquiring knowledge or anything like that. It's a performance.

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Speaker 1: And what we know about athletes is when they perform

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Speaker 1: is the more relaxed, the more focused you are, the

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Speaker 1: better you're going to perform. So if you go into

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Speaker 1: the exam thinking well, I'm going to do well at

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Speaker 1: this and this is the culmination not of my life,

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Speaker 1: but my demonstration that I can perform in this way,

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Speaker 1: in exactly the same way that you want people doing

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Speaker 1: the Grand Final to be match ready and to work

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Speaker 1: on that, but to concentrate on that moment and what

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Speaker 1: they're doing and then put that aside you when you

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Speaker 1: go from that that there it is. It is. It

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Speaker 1: can be exciting, it can be it can be a

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Speaker 1: part where you actually say, yeah, I've done my best,

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Speaker 1: I can do what I can do. But it's that

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Speaker 1: idea of moving into a different state in order for

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Speaker 1: that three hours, in order to complete that task and

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Speaker 1: seeing it as a task that is part of that

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Speaker 1: whole year's study, rather than oh I've got to get

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Speaker 1: this mark in wisdom.

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Speaker 2: Wisdom from a lifelong learner and educator, the soon to

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Speaker 2: be doctor Nigel Howard, who is a research associate at

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Speaker 2: Flinders University, former secondary school principal and now studying how

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Speaker 2: we can help kids to finish year twelve because on average,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't just matter, it matters a lot. Nigel, so

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Speaker 2: grateful for your time today. Thankful for the things that

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Speaker 2: you've shared, and good luck with the PhD.

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Speaker 1: Okay, thank you very much.

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Speaker 2: The thing that I really take from this conversation is

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Speaker 2: that relationships matter. The kids that are going to be

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Speaker 2: most resilient, whether it's school or if they're stepping out

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Speaker 2: of school and into the workplace, the ones who are

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Speaker 2: going to complete the apprenticeships, they're going to complete the traineeships.

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Speaker 2: The ones who are going to go on and I

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Speaker 2: don't know, build the businesses or become the successful trades

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Speaker 2: people or whatever it ends up being, they tend to

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Speaker 2: be the ones with really great social support, and maybe

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Speaker 2: that's really at the core of what's happening here. Fascinating insights,

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Speaker 2: good luck. I hope that this has helped with your

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Speaker 2: discussions with your children about what they're going to do

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Speaker 2: for their exams and also for what happens after school.

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Speaker 2: Nigel has written three really wonderful articles that have all

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Speaker 2: appeared on the Conversation. We will link to all of

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Speaker 2: those in the show notes. The ones about what happens

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Speaker 2: with finishing high school, why it's so important, and even

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Speaker 2: how to get kids involved in schools that are more relational.

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Speaker 2: All that information and more in the Happy Families podcast

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Speaker 2: show notes. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin

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Speaker 2: Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer

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Speaker 2: and if you would like more information about how you

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Speaker 2: can make your family happier, please visit us at happy

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Speaker 2: families dot com dot a U and have a great weekend.