Happy Wednesday you lot. It’s Tuesday afternoon as I write this, and the fallout from last week’s exercise in proving what a failed democracy looks like continues to sleet in. The only good thing is that as a result I now know a new word, which is “chaosmaxxing”. This was used today by the reliably tremendous Marina Hyde, who as ever has all the best words with her.  

I have been distracting myself from all this knavery with reading the entries for the lang cat’s Advicetech Catwalk, coming to CodeNode in the City of London on 24 June. We’re picking the shortlist on Friday this week, and I’m already intimidated. There’s lots of AI as you’d expect, but also themes around regtech, protection, estate planning and intergenerational wealth. In short, it’s going to be awesome. 

Tickets aren’t sold out yet and I’m sad about that, so please make me happy. £100 is the tax and we will, as is our idiom, make sure you have a good, nay, barnstorming day (please don’t storm any barns) and feed and water you until you give up. If you’re an Analyser subscriber or on our adviser research panel – and lots of you are – I have a feeling that we won’t be asking you to pay your way at all.  

Full details here – you know we do this stuff well, so get on it.  

Punting over, let’s do a nice, encouraging story for a change. It’s nice to be nice, and encouraging. I’m well known for being both.  

It’s exam time, as all parents of appropriately aged kids know. That’s not the nice and encouraging bit; it’s just a statement of fact. Incredibly, my eldest is doing her Advanced Higher and will be done with secondary education bar the mucking about bit in just eight short days. When I started doing Updates she was 10 years old. Hang on, just going to have an existential moment.  

Here’s the nice, encouraging bit. You know how we all say that if we’re to get New Blood into the sector then we need to start at school age? M’learned colleague Laird Locke of Lauder showed me something today – stop it – that smelled like Victory. No, actually stop it.  

What he showed me was part of the past paper prep for Applications of Mathematics, which is a thing that da yoot up here can sit. Basically Scotland cuts maths in half and offers two exams; one is theory and equations and stuff, and the other is applied to real life situations. Have a look at these: 

2025 Higher Applications of Mathematics Data booklet 

2025 Higher Applications of Mathematics Question Paper 

2024 Higher Applications of Mathematics Data booklet 

2024 Higher Applications of Mathematics Question Paper 

You’ve got tax rates, NICs, mortgages, lifetime ISAs and more in there.  Lots of other stuff too, but this is actual personal finance work in a mainstream qualification sat by around 15% of kids – 27,000 or so in 2025. Interestingly more kids do Higher Apps of Maths than traditional maths now.  

It’s not compulsory of course, and probably those who take it are a self-selecting bunch. But it’s there. Does it make a difference? I don’t know and it’s too early to tell (it was introduced in 2022). But it’s there. 

From what I understand the traditional maths A-level rules the roost south of the Border. England has a level 3 qualification called Core Maths which does cover some personal finance content, but it’s poorly regarded when it comes to university offers and only around 15,000 kids did it last year – just over half the Scottish take up in a country with 10 times the population.  

So there you have it. At least some students are sweating bullets this week, hoping that they’ve learned everything they need to know about LISAs, and pensions, and income tax and compound interest. If that isn’t nice and encouraging, I don’t know what is.

Your music choice this week is the very, very welcome return of noisy post-rock titans If These Trees Could Talk. We will get a new record in July this year. I am Excite. Meanwhile feast your listening gear round Blurry Creatures.