AIBU to think upper middle class professionals downplay how much they game education?

The pp is a lecturer. The same high achieving outcomes often happen with parents who are teachers, or skilled workers, or doctors. Their children are not particularly representative examples of people at comprehensives.

Growing up in a house where books and reading/learning are celebrated I think makes a difference. Going out at weekends to museums, etc.

Of course it does, as do the examples and expectations around them, and even the food they eat.

had parents who just dgaf like most in UK.

I stopped there. If that's your opinion I'm not going to read whatever else you might have to say.

I can't see anyone choosing to send their kids to a shit school. I mean why would the kid even pick a shit school if the parents were letting them choose?

I don't see why someone wanting a similar or better education for their kids to themselves is gaming any system.

If you willfully do not care about it and do send your kids to a school that sucks, it must be because you don't think they're academically capable of trying for a better one.

Definitely. My DC plays with a boy on our street. He goes to the local school. She was worried if she considered elsewhere her family that send their children to the same school would be offended or think she was getting ahead of herself.

I disagree. My kids are at private prep but everyone I know using state education tries their hardest to get their kids into the best school they can. Relocating, attending church etc is not uncommon. At the very least they visit schools, research and apply for whichever they think is the best, appeal decisions, keeping their fingers crossed.

I know there will be some parents at the bottom of the barrel who don’t give a shit, but to suggest that most brits who don’t use private schools feel this way is frankly insulting.

I agree with this. I'm not sure that in the long term giving very intensive help to elevate academic success does people a service. There won't be a private tutor on hand to support them through the intellectual demands of the job they eventually land as a result, and they will struggle. I've encountered several people in roles that they are not intellectually able for, despite an academic record suggesting otherwise. They underperform and become stressed and lose confidence as a result.

I've met some privileged people over the past few years, the sort I had no idea existed before, and I recognise this constant downplaying. I think it's a combination of genuinely not being aware of their own privilege because of a sort of communal upper middle class delusion, but also a need to gaslight normal folk that if only we tried a bit harder we'd all have what they do.

I didn’t say there was any particular “best school” I said the best school for their dc. Lots of kids in our town do really well at the well regarded comprehensive, my ds would have blended into the wallpaper there and hid under the radar. It’s his personality, so we put him in a small independent day school where no child could go under the radar, it was absolutely right for him. No big academic pressure, not all independents are about “top grades”, his school is more about getting a rounded educational experience. And it’s well known for its excellent learning support department.
As for “if a child is going to succeed they will succeed” I was proof that isn’t always true! I didn’t do well at my school because it was huge and there was lots of disruptive behaviour, it was sink or swim and I sunk, nothing to do with my intelligence.

We have a number of educational systems in this country that tend to lead to different outcomes for those in them. I’m not sure how you ‘game’ the system you’re in.

They are.

I absolutely agree with your OP. Gaming is probably not the best word for this but middle class parents control the narrative and affect the choices. They do it subtly. This line : “they can be who they want to be” means that children can choose any uni at Russel group but not that they can go off to bricklayering course in a local college.
it’s a very clever approach which means that if a child is not academically gifted the goal can be easily changed.
But it does look a bit confusing from the outside, like a game where people hide their real intentions,

Many, many comprehensive school children around me live in houses worth around a £1 million. They are just as privileged as the many private school children.

Noone owes anyone an explanation for the way they choose to bring up their children.

I don’t recall ever hearing that.

I can only imagine that being said when there was a choice among truly equal grammar, comprehensive, private, single- sex, mixed-sex, religious/non-religious schools in a given area.

Or else the dc had a particular need to want to choose from an alternative some reason.

Otherwise the parents set up the pathway for what they think best.

My friends and acquaintances put a lot of value on education but I never heard anyone say they let their child choose what school to go to. When my DD was applying for sixth form yes we looked at schools together and she did decide between two, but they were of equal calibre. Of course with younger students it’s the parents who ultimately decide! As for tutors etc it’s to give your kids the best chances - I don’t know any parent who denies this. My kids went to private school and for the majority it required strict budgeting to do so - but they felt it was the best option.
As PP points out, it’s not ‘gaming’ the system, it IS the system!

I am curious to know what your business is that has made you an ultra high earner!

I also agree with what you are saying. Some people may not realise they are doing it and others may deliberately lie.

There is also a reason why children of immigrants are usually high achieving

I agree OP. At University age you can tell that comprehensive kids are actually better than private school kids with same grades, because they’ve got there on their own steam.

The system is rigged, and school should definitely be considered alongside grades when evaluating a candidate.

So what do you think i should have done? Gone against admissions rules and rented a cheap house in town and pretended to live there?

Or actually move house and leave the village that I’ve lived in since I was a small child?

Or send her to private school which firstly I don’t particularly believe in from an ideological pov but more importantly didn’t offer as wide a variety of gcse options as the comp. She wouldn’t have been able to do graphic design or photography gcse which she wanted to do.

I do think going to such a school as the one she went to is good for her when looking at non academic aspects. She’s tough, she’s resilient, she has a great work ethic and I’m not sure if she’d led a sheltered life at a small private school she’d have developed those skills so much. She’s used to having to stand on her own two feet and not be spoon fed stuff. Those skills will take her far in life.

I like the fact she mixed with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Her current university group of friends (I’d say most people on the course) are all super privileged and more wealthy I imagine than we are. Dd says there was recently a topic of conversation where they were all discussing crazy things their live in Nannies had done. She was the only one in the group who hadn’t had a nanny. It’s a different world. They asked Dd what her nanny had done and seemed stunned she hadn’t had one. I don’t really want Dd to be the sort of person who assumes everyone had a live in nanny.

Sadly in some schools it’s not a tiny proportion. In the school where I invigilate many DC turn up having had no breakfast or breakfast is a packet of chocolate biscuits. School staff are dealing with quite a few parents who make no effort at all to get their DC into school for exams. We’ve even had some keep their 16 year olds off school on a Friday when they’ve gone away for a weekend and the DC has missed a GCSE exam

Just another middle class bashing thread. 🥱

Why don't you just focus on your own marvellous life OP rather than bitching about what other people are doing with their kids?

I mean who would actually deliberately opt to send their kids to the shittest school possible?

Get a grip.

I know what you mean OP. I think what the parents are gaming is not the school system, but the social system. I also wonder if it's a particular issue with medic parents. The reality is that most med school students come from private or selective state schools - the ones coming from comprehensives are comparatively low. As a doctor you come across a huge range of society and it is impossible not to realise your privilege. At the same time, as a parent and a doctor you are aware not to flaunt your privilege, so you make all the right noises about wanting your kids to go to the local comp, but in reality you're keeping the option of selective and private schools very open but not publicly discussing it.

I know someone who is adamant she will send her kids to the local mega-comp. She herself went to private school and while I do believe that she's open to the idea of that school, I don't truly believe she will end up sending her kids there. And if she does (as someone who went to an underperforming comp) I'd be very surprised. I don't think she really understands what it means to be a kid lost in a school with many greater priorities than getting a 6 up to a 7 or encouraging little Johnny it's worth persevering with trombone to get his grade 5.

Perhaps your family is signally uninterested in education though if they considered catchment areas then that suggests that isn’t true.

There would be no point in anyone near me attending church to get into faith schools as they all dropped the faith requirement for admissions. Tutoring on the other hand is common despite all the comps being very good.