To wonder why working class white boys do worse than any other ethnic group, and how we can change this?

No champions for wc white boys. Education moved to a more female oriented style of education which put wc girls abead of boys in seconday education. Newly immigrant families push their children as important to succeed in new country. Some areas of country lost their working class employment opportunities for young men.

The worst educational outcomes are for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children. For the obvious reasons of moving around and working within the family, so not requiring qualifications. Of course, prejudice and discrimination has impacted as well.
Schools facilitate all manner of catch up and interventions, but sometimes they're just not engaged with.

My kid wouldn't revise until his football coach told him to. (Anacdata)

There's no support or sen children. You are judged by your address and marital status middle class married parents get sympathy for their kids sen behaviour anybody else doesn't. (Seen from both sides of the system. )

Working class parents are presumed not to be good parents by default, middle class are seen to be good by default.

Re. This idea of immigrant kids getting extra lessons to read/learn English let’s not forget many Black and Asian boys are British born.

And many of the former in particular may only speak English at home, so being Black or Asian does not always equal : EAL/ESL needs.

I think this is a great theory as I believe that low aspirations and low levels of achievement are part of a culture amongst some groups that has been compounded over lots of generations. Their parents, grandparents and great grandparents were largely the same so it's hard for them to envisage any other way. They also know that ultimately all of their ancestors have been 'fine' despite their lack of achievement. The welfare state has propped people up for so long now that many families don't have any living memory of a time before then. The assumption and expectation is that even if you do nothing for yourself that the state will step in and meet your needs.

I don't think most WC families from other races have this history so they are more flexible in thought and aspiration. They also may living relatives that remember very difficult times in other countries and so the same sense of entitlement isn't as engrained.

I think Britions of all colours and backgrounds have adopted some serious victim mentality tbh. “I can’t study because people are prejudiced against me for being white/black/jedi.” “I can’t help my kid read the school needs to do it for me”.”historical injustices mean I can’t be held to any kind of standard today”. “I don’t like seeing my kid get stressed out so I don’t enforce homework”.

People need to get a grip and develop some sense of control over their own lived. I do think theres is some merit in government intervention where there are clearly problems with disengaged parents, it’s a crying fucking shame that children who would with the right guidance would have done fine are left unemployable. But ultimately this is something these boys parents are choosing for them. How do you fix that. Even if the nonsense about immigrant kids getting extra special lessons was true how does that stop your kid from opening a book? Also if I lived in a town that was deindustrialised and jobs left I’d be drilling it into my kids head that they were going to do well in school and get out, being unemployed is not an option.

Very curious as to the driver for this post. Carla 786 are you a student, politician or just a subject you are thinking about ?
What are your views on this topic ?

Sorry, what?!

Indeed, wealthy Nigerians send their children to boarding school in the UK, but affluent Jamaicans utilize their own domestic colonial era heritage prestigious high schools and then send their kids to Ivy League schools in the US.

It's very common. My teen has kids (white boys) in their form at school who regularly say 'my dad says maths doesn't matter anyway'. It's a sort of defensive response some white men of a certain age seem to have because they found maths hard so rather than acknowledging that they like to dismiss it a bit and say its 'pointless anyway' and 'you won't use most of it' or 'you don't need it in real life' etc etc.

I agree with this. I have a friend who is white working class, not a single mother as such but her partner is useless so yeah I think of her as a single mum.lol.

Well one of her kids was struggling with GCSE maths and wanted to get better and she basically said “it’s fine, I wasn’t good at maths either it runs in our family so don’t worry about it.”

So compare that approach with many black and Asian mothers on a low income that I know - single or not - they would happily scrimp and save to get their child a maths tutor or at least ask about free additional lessons in schools.

I did try and encourage my friend to do this for her (teen) child but she got a bit defensive. She also doesn’t seem to know what ls going on in her child’s schools and she was often call me up to ask about school holidays, when exams are, what subjects her kids are taking (how would I know 🤣)

Btw this the woman is white but some of her kids are mixed race.

I was wondering - what are the stats for mixed race children? As they are often (not always) raised by a white single mother. I’d be curious to know if their achievement levels were similar to white boys.

I know this is just one example I’ve provided, but I worked in education for 10 years and it was a pattern I’ve seen a lot

Low parental expectations and families not seeing value in education.

There may be geographical factors in play too.

White working class areas like the ex-mining areas in Nottinghamshire have very few people of ethnic minorities. There are very few job opportunities and multi-generational low attainment and lack of aspiration. The factors impacting areas like this are going to be different to intercity London or Birmingham which also have a different racial mix.

A theory: social mobility meant people in aspirational, academically able working class families in the middle of the last century tended to become middle class instead. The families that were left behind are more likely to remain stuck there. Most working-class immigrant families came a bit later and are more likely to still be in the aspirational mindset (indeed said aspirations were part of the reason they moved in the first place: those without aspirations simply stayed in their home countries).

Mm. Yeah. Paradoxical.

That absolutely happened with both my kids plus school wouldn’t listen that dyslexia means extra support/ learning in a different way is required. My DS is 14 and has just started reading for pleasure, it’s such a relief but he’s missed out on a lot and I put a lot of blame on his primary school experience putting him off. He used to hide his school reading books.

It is taboo in white British culture across all classes. I don't think this was always the case though. Both my parents are from WC backgrounds and education was seen as the way forward. You were under the authority of your parents until you left home and were expected to abide by their rules. This has drastically changed now.

Historically there has been little attempt to address poor performance in these groups. There is quite a lot that can be done by targeted mentoring, adapting the curriculum and raising expectations. I undertake mentoring and am a link from a professional firm to a group of schools in poorer areas. One of the things that always surprises me is that the number of children I speak to from these areas who have never met an Accountant or a Lawyer and cannot even begin to imagine doing these roles. I am very committed to trying to change this position.

It’s interesting you say “no option”. This has always been my attitude, I’ve said since by children were in the womb that no child of mine will leave school without a minimum of a C at GCSE in maths and English (obviously numbers now!)

I said this once on here and I was torn to shreds. I was told how I couldn’t possibly know how my children would do in school, they could have SEN, it was unnecessary pressure. For me it’s why would I possibly start this journey with a ‘wait and see’ attitude? I personally think having goals and expectations incredibly important, I feel like there’s much less chance of not achieving a goal if you assume it has to happen.

As it goes one of my children does have SEN and is hugely struggling with maths, I have a regular dialogue with his teacher, he does extra work (with reward) for exams, and we are getting a tutor. I am not giving up, nor is he, he knows he’s not allowed! Culturally this seems to be a bit taboo on here, but frankly, I don’t care.

20 years ago that was true - partly because they would have long absences from school - eg a whole term. But since then they have gone from underperforming to exceeding the average. White working class boys are definitely the lowest performers currently.

Just 36% of wwc boys on fsm reached the expected standard in GCSE maths and English in 2025, for Bangladeshi boys it was 68%.

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/white-working-class-boys-still-at-the-bottom-of-the-class-says-race-report-chief

It's deindustrialisation that took away the established pathways. Am very curious what will happen if AI really does take away white collar jobs in the South East, then what. Will the m.c. put up a fight and come up with something else for their kids to do? Or will rhe UK become a land of the unemployed throughout? At the moment, the m.c. aren't putting things in place to counter weigh this. It may be that 50 years after deinudstrialisation, we will increasingly be talking about boys full stop.

Agree entirely.

My assumption is it’s deep satire? Hope so, anyway.

The other thing I wonder about is whether the drive to start literacy earlier and earlier has disadvantaged boys. They tend to get it slightly later, and if that moment of clarity is in Year 2 (really normal) after spending more than half their life trying and failing to understand, they may well thoroughly hate it by then.

I grew up around these types of parents that tell their children school is a load of shit don’t bother and that they can get £800 a week doing xyz in a building site.

An example I am always fascinated by is my cleaner who lives in rented accommodation, is an immigrant yet works ridiculous hours to pay for her children to have tuition twice a week. They got into a selective grammar school that outperforms my children’s private school. Her entire focus in life is ensuring her kids have a good education as she is adamant for them to have a better life than she did. She doesn’t speak English as a first language and often needs help with translating and understanding complicated written communications/filling out forms etc yet her children are high achievers. She clearly doesn’t have the skills to have taught them herself but works hard to make sure they do well at school and take part in extra curricular activities etc to break the cycle. I am quite in awe of her and what she has achieved and excited to see where her children go in life.