I don't know what to think about this - Some parents need to be nannied by the state

We've known that's the first 2 years of life essentially determine life chances and outcomes for a long time. This article seems to be conflating 2 issues though. You don't need even a university or a top uni education to be successful..I'm not sure what they're talking about.

I don't think it's the closure of sure start per se but the idea of child focused hubs, which sure start were, where interventions could be attempted. In our county we used to have a scheme run by LA which was like one step before SS intervention. It basically encouraged good parenting, reading, playing with your ore schoolers etc, but was open to everyone with groups too. All went in the cuts. We actually have a charity in our town that does similar but most towns won't. So there is absolutely no provision and an epidemic of really poor parenting, exacerbated massively by screens. Note it's poor parenting, not necessarily neglectful, so these parents would probably never be on the radar for SS despite the fact they are neglecting to equip their DC with basic life skills.

I think it's as much a class thing as it is educational. I don't think the parents who don't know about the right universities or whatever are bad parents, but the writer (who has an annoying tone and throughout the OP I kept thinking, "surely this isn't from The Times") is right that lots of parents don't know what they don't know. And because so many of those families who are either economically or socially disadvantaged are looked down on and generally treated poorly, they are, in my experience, less willing to engage with genuine well meaning efforts to help them.

I agree with a PP also that there's a sort of culture of "let the children decide" which I find quite frustrating sometimes. There needs to be a balance between supporting and guiding which is often lacking.

I taught and helped oversee a local Sure Start. Although it was in an area of poverty -high unemploymet, we did have a mix of parents (usually mums from across different classes) come along. They definitely mixed and got on well although would have probably never have mixed without it.

Give good support to kids and parents in the very early years and you will reduce many issues further along the road.

Also could cut down on fostering fees etc if parents are given more support to keep kids at home ( BTW I'm a foster carer and know that some kids just have to be moved, and some parents won't improve even with the support).

Agree and since the loss of sure start and other early intervention the number of children needing Sen support and ehcps in mainstream had gone up as those children who didn’t have the benefit of early intervention work there way though the system and get to crisis point before support is put in place, don’t know if there has been a study but I’d hazard a guess it’s cost more than it’s saved in long run

He needed to live dangerously and find one of the rare specimens he clealry thinks do not exist - an intelligent and capable poor person - so they can explain to him in very simple language and pictures that he's just produced incontrovertible evidence of being a patronising wanker without the slightest idea of anything other than how to emote other posh people into paying him shitloads to be fucking useless.

I used to take my oldest to a Sure Start which ran amazing craft and play clubs where we lived. It was most definitely a middle-class demographic which attended.

This is nothing new. My mum who is now 80 taught primary school for decades and every year came across children starting school who didn't know how a book "worked" - that the pictures related to the story, which way to hold it and open it, that the words started at the top and flowed downwards, which way to turn the pages. This is something which a child who has been shown books since baby hood knows instinctively and does not need to be taught.

I have also come across a huge "not for the likes of us" attitude from many people - university is for mugs, for people who are stuck up, why do you need an education anyway, do you think you're too good for manual labour, are you saying there's something wrong with working in a factory/warehouse/shop your whole life?

My A-Level in Media Studies meant I had the skills to realise that some of that article is embarassing shite when I was 17/18.

There is so much snobbery about media studies, but actually, I think it should be a mandatory subject. I dropped it pretty quickly at AS Level as I didn't like the teacher, but I did a communications degree and one of the most imporrtant parts of that degree was learning about where to find and access information.

In today's digital age with social media disseminating "fake news" and the media having such a huge impact over wider society, we should absolutely be learning about media bias, where to identify the truths from the facts, and learn what is real reporting and what's been embellished.

I was always taught - read a news article in a tabloid. Then read the same story in a broadsheet and see the differences in reporting. Learning how to think critically about the information we're given is a crucial skill yet its not routinely taught in schools.

The writer seems to think that poor parenting means being working class and unconnected. As most journalists for such newspaper are nepo babies or otherwise extremely well-connected they probably think poor parenting means "Daddy didn't go to school with the editor of The Times".

There's a big difference between providing services and teaching/guiding parents and actually doing what would be termed basic parenting for them.

There is a culture of entitlement in this country, what are the government going to give ME. As opposed to the first port of call being 'what can I do to help myself'.

It's disgusting imo that teachers are now having to change nappies of children in reception (I don't include SEN in this) and brush children's teeth. Why is society being dumbed down like this?

We need to raise expectations of individuals. There's now so much information out there readily available. People need to be bothered to read it and act. Yes careers info at school needs to be improved and probably the re-introduction of something like Surestart. However you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Also as they all charge the same tuition fees if a degree is not a degree then most of us are being ripped off.

My A-Level in Media Studies meant I had the skills to realise that some of that article is embarassing shite when I was 17/18.

There are parents who can barely strung 2 words together let alone have any idea,what help is available

Sadly it does not take much intelligence to have children

If everyone is working full-time, with their kids in nursery/childcare when are they supposed to attend Sure Start centres?

Interesting, but the examples given don't demonstrate poor parenting, just that some demographics don't have the understanding of higher education etc that others do. That's not 'nannying' or telling people that they're not good parents, just filling in knowledge gaps to help encourage social mobility.

They’re doing a brilliant job at dismantling barriers to opportunity, that’s for sure 😞

I think there are a few things really. Apparently theres been a change in culture around things like potty training etc (I’m 2nd gen immigrant so not sure what british people used ) but in my culture generally around 18 months is completely normal to start potty training (thats probably on the late side). My mum trained me asap because of cloth nappies.

We’ve instead moved to an idea of “readiness” and I think thats expanded to a lot of stuff. For example instead of giving a toddler an open cup to teach them a lot of people wait till they think they can do it. But giving them the cup is how they develop the control and co-ordination to be able to use it effectively. I did it myself in some areas without realising so I’m not having a pop at anyone. We potty trained ours at just under 2, old enough to understand, young enough to be ok with things changing.

On education, you don’t know what you don’t know. I know people who did a business degree 30 years ago because they thought it was practical. Plenty of first gen migrants had little clue about the UK education system (not everyone was highly educated or even fluent in spoken or written english). But getting to school on time, doing your homework and getting a decent report were very much seen as important.

It is as simple as that, “go to school every single day, do your work there and homework must be completed and woe betide a child who gets a call home or a detention, whatever you do don’t have school complain to your parents because your parents will back the teachers”. It’s not even parents sitting with their kids to do homework etc many didn’t have the time or the ability to help. It was the behaviours that support learning.

I do think parents are expected to do a lot more at home to support learning than they used to. I’m doing things with my Dd that school never asked when I was a child. DD has spellings to learn, she’s learning a poem at the moment, reading practice etc. This must be very hard for parents who lack confidence in their ability to help their children with these tasks.

I would say though there are some parents who just don’t care. The ones that do will still be trying.

I agree that was cringe making!

Cambridge. UCL. Edinburgh. York. Liverpool. Cardiff. Nottingham Trent. Hertfordshire. Bath Spa. Can you spot the most prestigious university on the list? What’s a better A-level for getting into a top university, maths or business studies?
Chances are that you, a Times reader, consider the answers obvious. But they’re not for everyone.

Which patronising dumb elitist twat wrote that?

I wouldn't have done A-Level maths if you paid me to. Sheffield is the most prestigious university for the subject DD2 is reading. Oxford and Cambridge don't offer it.

I think the article is very glip and missing lots of key issues.

It’s not parental educational level but mother’s educational level which impacts on children. I suspect because on the whole it’s women who are most involved in childcare.

I think health inequalities which are signigificantly impacted by financial concerns also have a big impact. The previous Labour goverment did make mistakes but their every child matters agenda was not one of them.

I haven't got time to read the full OP (sorry everyone), but coming from a poor background, I do think my parents didn't know how to push me in the right direction. I think they just assumed I would work it out for myself or just work in retail. I did do fairly well academically when I finally got there, but I completely lacked confidence around people who had a better understanding of how the jobs market worked anyway, so even getting a good degree didn't do anything to help me. I just didnt have any sort of plan as a child and didnt know how to get to where i wanted to be (or even what that was). My lack of confidence set me back so much and people forget the impact of this on low SES children.

I think Sure Start was great, but we also need to do more to help teens, particularly ones with SEND. I don't have teens so dont know, but are there any support groups to help parents navigate this time? Ehy are they all in school hours when they can't attend? We also put forward the idea of doing a job for life and there is so much pressure to choose from lifelong career it is overwhelming. Most people don't really have a career spanning decades in one industry.

I also think pushing both parents to have to work full time due to the economic climate is a poor strategy. If they can't spend time with children doing homework or simply talking to them about their aspirations it just falls to overstretched teachers to do it.

This a million times. I read an article the other day about how someone has done a longitudinal study of disadvantaged families whose children had attended Surestart. Compared to similar schildren who hadn’t been Surestart children their social and academic achievements up to and including GCSE results were measurable. For those families a cheap as chips intervention has probably paid for itself many times over.

The article also wrote about one of the few remaining Surestart centres, in an area of huge deprivation, which has fought to survive, but had now been told it will no longer be funded. The staff and community are devastated.

I’m afraid that was exactly my experience when I worked in a sure start centre.

I'm not fixated.

I volunteered in one for many years and saw the good that they did.

I don't know why people become so fixated on the closure of Sure Start when one of the principal reasons they were closed was that they were used primarily by the middle-class parents who didn't need them.

These are difficult issues. They speak to culture and identity as much or more than to poverty, as the results for poorer Indian or Chinese heritage students often show. People have a right to a private family life, and the state can't substitute for a family. How do you overcome generations' worth of entrenched ideas about education and work?

Unlike some on here I actually live in a poor area of the country and I can confidently say that wasn't the case.

Mothers living in poverty are amazingly just as invested in giving their child the best start that they can.

The long term impact study of sure start came out in the last year. They obviously had to wait a long time for the children to grow up and that results show that this isn’t the case. The children of wealthier parents may have benifited too but deprived children living near a sure start centre did better those who didn’t.