Simon Pegg recently made headlines, not for a new film, but for a fatherly decision. His daughter, in the midst of sitting her GCSEs, was invited by none other than Tom Cruise to attend the Mission: Impossible premiere. Simon said no. His daughter stayed home to revise. Tom Cruise reportedly responded with a shrug and a reality check: “Come on — you don’t need exams. Look at me, I started work at 16.”
Now pause. Let that sink in.
As a mother, I felt this moment. Like Simon, I also have a teenage daughter currently navigating the nerve-shattering world of IGCSEs — the international cousin of the British GCSE. But unlike Tom Cruise, I didn’t challenge the system when I was her age. I followed it.
Immigrant Italian Child
This is the place I come from, an immigrant Italian Australian born child, whose parents were racially discriminated against in rural Australia.
I went to private school and later university — both funded by a combination of government subsidies, student loans, and me working from the age of 13. My parents weren’t wealthy, but they believed in education, and I followed the path laid out. I became a primary teacher and stayed in the classroom for eight years before eventually moving into the world of media. It was the expected path, the respectable path. But would I make that same decision in today’s environment?
Honestly, I’m not so sure.
Welcome to the AI Age of Exams
In our house, the textbooks aren’t piled high. They’re uploaded. We scan the entire exam syllabus, marking schemes, and assessment objectives straight into AI tools. My daughter doesn’t memorise outdated facts. She works smart. She asks the bot for mock exam questions. It spits out simulations eerily close to what exam boards tend to regurgitate each year.
This is the new reality. My daughter is no longer studying to understand a subject. She’s studying to pass an exam. With AI whispering in her ear, fine-tuning answers, adjusting phrasing, and optimising responses down to the mark scheme language.
But here’s the twist: she’s also learning how to use AI for any subject. Just ask — then keep asking — and within days, you can master anything. It’s only limited by your imagination and your self-belief. No classroom, no textbook, no overworked teacher required.
So I ask: Is she learning? Or is she simply learning how to play the exam system better than the system knows how to defend itself?
Homeschooling: A Hybrid Approach
Our daughter is homeschooled. A lot of it is self-study, complemented by 5–6 hours a week of teaching assistance. She’s taking her IGCSEs at an exam centre — a local private school that accepts external students to sit the exams in their facilities. This setup provides the flexibility of homeschooling with the structure of formal assessments.
The Great Standardised Illusion
GCSEs and IGCSEs are sold as the fairest way to measure knowledge. Every student, the same questions, the same hour. A level playing field. But let’s not pretend this is education. This is exam survival.
The real skills of life — curiosity, communication, emotional intelligence, problem-solving under pressure — none of them are tested here. What gets tested is how well you can keep still in a silent room, recall dates from a spreadsheet mind, and stay calm while the student next to you hyperventilates.
My daughter finished one of her exams early last week. She walked out smiling.
Meanwhile, I watched other students — some from the most expensive private schools in the country — shaking, sobbing, arguing with invigilators. One showed up with one pencil. My daughter walked in with a passport, three pencils, two sharpeners, an eraser, and a calculator. All packed the night before. Because we prepare — not panic.
That’s homeschooling. That’s grit.
Grit Doesn’t Come from a Curriculum
This is what no £20,000-a-year school wants to admit: their students are cracking. Not from lack of knowledge — but from lack of coping skills. From years of being propped up by tutors, chauffeured to school gates, rescued at the first sign of struggle.
In our house, struggle is the curriculum. I let my daughter walk to the exam in the rain. No umbrella. The water calmed her. Nature has a way of whispering courage into your skin. She sat in the exam room with damp hair and a grounded heart.
We don’t teach our daughter to avoid discomfort. We teach her to move through it. That’s the ultimate life exam. And it’s not multiple choice.
Is University Just a Status Stamp?
In one year, my daughter will have to decide: does she go to university?
Four years ago, I might have said yes without blinking. But now? With AI doing everything from legal analysis to medical diagnostics better than most fresh grads, I have to ask: What’s the point?
University used to be a golden ticket. A passport to prestige, to prosperity, to proof that you’re “intelligent.” But today, in the world of AI, where bots write essays in seconds and solve complex equations in milliseconds, a degree might not mean you’re prepared. It might just mean you’re delayed.
Why send her into debt for a piece of paper that AI has already out-evolved?
What Tom Cruise Got Right
Back to the red carpet moment Simon Pegg cancelled. Tom Cruise told his daughter: “You don’t need exams. Look at me.” And he’s right. The man is worth hundreds of millions. He didn’t sit A-levels. He didn’t tick boxes. He became a brand, a visionary, a rule-breaker.
What lesson did Simon’s daughter miss that night? She missed watching greatness up close. She missed witnessing a moment of history, meeting risk-takers who built lives without syllabuses.
Ten years from now, will she remember her GCSE score? Or the night she didn’t meet Tom Cruise?
Now let me be honest. When I grew up, I did take the school system at face value — not like Tom Cruise. I studied at university to become a primary school teacher. I chose a career, followed the path, ticked the boxes. I spent years in classrooms, shaping young minds, believing the system worked.
But I left that profession long ago. Much of what I learned has faded with time. And the world my daughter is stepping into? It’s nothing like the one I trained for.
In my current world — media, journalism, digital storytelling — I’m witnessing daily how AI is rewriting the rules. Even I, with years of experience behind me, have to adjust, evolve, and rethink everything. If I’m being pushed to the edge of reinvention, what does that say for students investing three to four years in university courses that may already be irrelevant by graduation?
If you’re a parent reading this — ask yourself: are you raising your child for the old world or the new one?
The Final Reckoning
We’re at a breaking point. The education system is still offering an exam from the past. Meanwhile, the future has already arrived, fully digitised, AI-enhanced, and completely uninterested in your 9–4 conformity.
What will employers care about in four years? Creativity, leadership, problem-solving, brand building, empathy — not whether you ticked the correct multiple-choice box in 2024.
And yet we still obsess over GCSEs, like they’re the final word on potential.
They’re not.
They are the final reckoning — a last gasp of an outdated system trying to stay relevant in a world where intelligence can now be replicated by code.
My Mission? Possible.
So Simon, if you’re reading this — I get it. You made a choice as a father. You chose the “safe” route. The system route. I’m just asking the harder question: did you also choose to miss the moment that could’ve taught your daughter more than any exam?
Like you, I chose the IGCSE exams — the last “safe” rung from the old system. But that’s it. From June onwards, it’s different. The world our children are stepping into is not the one we prepared for. It’s a world where adaptability, creativity, and resilience are paramount.
And when the bots come for our jobs, hopefully, our kids will not panic but be prepared for a new world. A world that values not just knowledge, but the wisdom to apply it, the courage to question it, and the grit to stand firm amidst uncertainty.
In our house from now on, we take the mission. Every time.
