Top cat Mark P is off galivanting…again. We really should check who’s approving his annual leave. As a parting gift before he went to live it up at the Hellsinki (not a typo) Metal Festival he volunteered “Pigden” to take on this week’s Update.

So, here I am. I can only apologise. The brief heat spell must have got to him. That or with so many people off on their holidays he thought no one will read it, what harm can she do?

For those of you who can’t do without your weekly dose of the TCWU – whether you’re sat at your desk or poolside – I really hope there is at least some text to read.

Unlike the thousands of students in Scotland who were anxiously waiting for their online exam results yesterday only to find themselves staring at a blank email due to a “technical issue”. As if it isn’t a stressful enough time without having to endure a delay. The Scottish Qualifications Authority apologised to those affected and had the glitch sorted within a couple of hours, but for some that may have been an agonising wait.

Fortunately, the Polson household had plenty to celebrate with lang kitten v1.0 acing her exams. Others sadly may not have got the grades they were hoping for and will wonder how this will impact their future. I hope they get the help and support they need.

At the time it feels like the worst thing ever. Way back, I didn’t get accepted for my preferred secondary school. To make things worse, everyone around me convinced me I’d get in no problem. It felt a devasting blow.

But it wasn’t the end of the world. I had a great time at the school I went to and looking back wouldn’t change it. I made a friend for life and now we talk about her eldest applying for secondary schools. That’s a scary thought. I got into my chosen college but was told I might not be able to take up the English Literature course I had selected as one of my A-Levels because they would have liked my GCSE grade to have “been a bit higher”.

I was ready to take up a place elsewhere. The teacher told me she’d put me on a “three-month review” to see how things went. After the first class, she came and said “Don’t worry about that review nonsense, I’ve scrapped it. You should see if you can get your GCSE remarked.” It was such a relief. 

One thing which made for uncomfortable reading about the results in Scotland was the widening of the attainment gap across the board between the richest and poorest areas. Clearly more needs to be done to reduce it. I’ll steer clear of the whole debate around the VAT on private schools, there’s plenty of material elsewhere on that. But it did get me thinking just how important education is and how many of us can be guilty of taking it for granted.

In my former life as a journalist, I argued we could all benefit from a greater focus on financial education. How we should be teaching children from a young age about the things they will need to know when they go beyond the school gates.

We try to gear people up for jobs yet spend little time talking about earning money, saving, budgeting, mortgages, investments, pensions, planning for the future, etc. It’s all a bit counter intuitive. No one seems to know how best to solve this problem. There are great initiatives out there, but it feels like a collective effort is required.

Admittedly, there is more in the curriculum now than when I was at school. Yet recent school leavers still feel unprepared. And with so many turning to influencers for their information we need to make sure people are getting the facts.

I won’t bore you with my old material. Instead I’ll point you to this great recent piece from Alina at FT Adviser where she explains how ‘We seem to be going round in circles when it comes to financial education’.

Having been an avid reader of the Update since I stumbled into writing about financial advice in the summer of 2019, it does feel a bit weird to be in the hot seat. One of the main reasons I signed up to the TCWU in the first place was to get a better understanding of the world of financial services. There was something a bit different about it. It was in a language I could understand… mostly. And that’s a thing the industry could learn from. Things are improving but there’s still a way to go before people can feel confident reading the information about their financial products and services without death by jargon or acronyms.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we could all be doing to improve financial education. You never know it might help get us one step closer to reducing that rather large Advice Gap. We’re considering doing more around financial education at our future events too. Watch this space.

Good luck to everyone else who has their exam results later in the month. That goes for all you nail-biting parents too.

My lang kitten is just on the start of his education journey at nursery so I have a while to go before I need to worry about exam results. 

For your music choice this week I’ve opted for Pink Floyd. Couldn’t get the lyrics “We don’t need no education” out of my head while writing this yet thinking but perhaps we do.