The most Socially Selective schools in England.

Talkin

The school my ds1 attended didn't reflect us as parents. I don't think so, unless I am not understanding what you mean.

We are typical working class, but have this cultural capital that has been referred to.
The school our ds1 attended was the worst sink estate school imaginable. There were 6 including ds who came from the same primary and missed out on their 3 choices due to them being full before they reached us.

Not wishing to sound snobby but the children who attended had been failed by their parents and there were many criminals.
Every morning he was searched, sniffed by dogs and there was a police presence in the school throughout his secondary education.

It had a super head commissioned to turn the school around, which she did for his first 2 years there. She was moved on and once again the school deteriorated.

He managed through self motivation to gain an education of 10 GCSE's at C grades. I don't think he would have achieved much higher grades at another school but the environment was dreadful.

This school was a good 5 miles from where we live and culturally my ds and the other 5 children had nothing in common with these children.

The crime in the area is usually associated with past students of this school, some are dead from drugs, most girls left due to pregnancy, before y11.
Any of the lads who survived the years after leaving school joined the forces, or are complete drop outs, which leaves ds and his friends from primary, who aren't exactly high flyers but are working and the one girl has only had a baby recently at 23 after working since leaving at 16.

No smokepole. I remember the fact that she failed the 11+ but I have too much to do in everyday life to remember the intricacies of your elder daughter's education. Anyway now she's doing the course of her choice at university why does any of that stuff matter now?

Ooh! Talkinpeace's link to Norfolk was very useful (DS wants to attend one of the over-sub'd secondaries). It strikes me is how few schools were over-subbed, Norfolk has a very small problem with over-sub schools.

I am not bothered where DS goes and I don't think there's much difference at all between most the Norfolk High Schools. I know happy parents of high achievers at many Norfolk secondaries that are under-subbed.

You seriously think drug offences, witness intimidation and domestic violence are confined to those with limited educational opportunities smokepole?

My dc is doing gymnastics and it is very expensive and demanding. ( 3 times a week)

Some Spanish think that the only way to get out of poverty is by going to university and get a better job that their parents.

Ravel Morrison is a nasty little thug whose educational background is totally irrelevant.

My first cousin is a doctor ( psychatric) and the dad is a tailor and her mum is a dressmaker. Another of my relatives is a teaching Maths in a spanish university ( the dad was a farmer and the mum a housewife with no studies).
And one friends of my parents is a doctor and a dentist ( the dad was a Shepard and the mum a housewive).
I think this country got 2 kind of education one for the working class and one for the rich.
Anyway the richest man in Spain did not go to University because he had to start to work when he was 11 years old.

smokepole
You listed a load of footie platers I'd never heard of : I showed that most had gone to comps.
Now you name two more that I care even less about.

The point is that the type of school reflects the parents
and that impacts on the outcomes of the children
no pedantry will turn that on its head

Choc - the child in question is exceptionally timid and shy. She would have said 'no I'd rather sit in my bedroom' to any offer of an outside activity. At 16 she now has OCD and quite bad anxiety. She needed her mum to organise a trip to the club, attend with her and encourage her. The fact that she loved to do gymnastics and was good at it were all the signs I would have needed to get her signed up.

My Ds (11) is working towards his grade 5 in piano and has done really well in exams and competitions, but he'd never have got to this point without me pushing him, organising lessons and making him practice. He wouldn't ever voluntarily enter a competition, but loves winning when he is cajoled into doing one.

Pepperpot, I'm glad you came back to tell us a bit more about your experiences. You spent years mucking out before you got to compete. Others in your position might have given up. Meanwhile, a horse mad child from a wealthier background might have already been competing in events on their own pony. Once you had clambered through those initial difficult hoops, however, you shone against those with the early advantages.

Yes, sports at the elite level are more accessible to the rich, but in some ways, I don't mind so much about that. (I'm not very sporty!) It concerns me more that positions of power and influence within society and prestige jobs - whether they be in politics, the media, the medical or legal professions - are more accessible to the rich.

Looking specifically at medicine, and as touched on earlier, the privately educated – and state selectively educated - are over-represented amongst medical students. A selective education can help you gain access to medical school. But it's interesting to note that those who come from non-selective schools actually do better than those from selective schools in their first year of medical school, relative to their secondary school level of achievement. (I can see parallels between this and Pepperpot's experiences.)

careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20015863

I am hoping these sorts of findings can be fed back into university selection procedures, so that there is true equality of opportunity for those from non-selective schools who want to apply for such courses, just as I hope that there will one day be equality of opportunity for children, irrespective of background, in all sports.

This child would be doing back flips in the play ground, armless cartwheels, all self taught. There was a gymnastics club, a really really good one, 75 yards away from this mother's home, and I told her that she should send her dd. Her response was that her dd preferred to watch tv after school than do any activity, and anyway, it was too difficult to organise

see the thing is THE CHILD WASN'T INTERESTED. Gymnastics isn't only or mostly about learning to throw new skills (which incidently most kids teach themselves in their back garden rather than waiting to be taught at the gym) It is about lots of often boring and uncomfortable conditioning.It is about practising a skill a million times to get it perfect if you want to even have a chance at winning a medal.It is about getting hurt and keeping going Talent is cheap as table salt what separates a champion out is their attitude.

Pepperpot
I fully accept that money does not buy talent
but money and time and motivated parents allow what little there is to be disproportionately nurtured

hence the number of ex public school but bloody incompetent politicians

smokepole
the kids I'm thinking of are still at school in the area - several of them at the same Comps as DS and his friends
PS Walcott = Comp, Bale = Comp, Lallana = Comp, Shaw = Comp, not sure about James but if his dad works in Pompey, probably private school

Thanks TalkinPeace, but is this not the sentiment of all sports and life itself..if you want to achieve something you have to be prepared to make sacrifices and work damn hard! There will always be some lucky so and so but I have seen so many wealthy riders with zero talent! Money doesn't buy everything! (Sorry about football comment, have to admit I know nothing about it!)

Pepperpot
How many football players had a private education?
Not many
BUT
The vast, vast majority come from organised motivated homes as the commitment needed to get into and stay on the youth squads is insane.
Night after night of training, most weekends, many holidays.
And still with a high chance of being kicked out at 16 when they miss a selection cut.

our local premiership team has an amazing youth squad but the kids on it are NOT from disorganised homes

Smokepole I have to disagree with you, my parents did everything possible to discourage me and certainly never supported me in my dreams. I don't know if I had any talent as no one ever told me, I just had drive and determination. It was a friend at school who told me about a competition yard and I cycled there after school one day and asked if I could help out at w/e and that is how I got started. Years of mucking out and hacking out before I got to my first competition..and no my parents didn't come. The first proper event they came to was a certain 3de in Glos! and then only on dressage day! I have now become the most determinedly supportive parent for my kids, I will do whatever it takes to give them the opportunities that I didn't have, but I won't hand it to them on a plate.

Of course wealthy backgrounds will always buy advantage but you still need a will to win and that goes for education too. There are plenty of kids who do really well in state schools regardless of backgrounds but the independent sector often does give more sporting opportunities, it's just a fact of life.
There are many sports where wealth and privilege do not feature in success..look at football! How many football players had a private education? Why are we so hung up on education backgrounds for sporting success? Surely it is more important how our children turn out as responsible caring adults, regardless of extra curricular, that is more important.

Just to pick up on the whole elite sports people from selective / private schools sub thread that went on.

Running.
Its not an expensive sport.
You turn up at a track and if your physiology is right you run fast.
Oh, except that to stay selected into school then cluster then regional then county and higher teams takes hours and hours of training
Before school
On weekends
After school
In the holidays
so any family without the means to drive to obscure training venues come rain or shine
will not be able to let their child compete even in a cheap sport
it struck me this morning dropping off one of DDs friends at 10am training after a sleepover

And if you have an area with selective segregated schools, guess where those able / motivated / funded parents are likely to send their kids?

Resulting in even poorer resources for the other kids

Pepperpot69, I don't know if you will be coming back on this thread, but I was interested in the fact you had become an international event rider from a state school background. Did you have contacts in the horse riding world? (Please excuse me if I'm being too nosey.)

I don't want to derail the thread by banging on too much about the equestrian angle but I'm intrigued. I had a look at the school backgrounds of the 2012 Olympics team. Where it was possible to find out with a quick google, I found that seven were definitely privately educated and three were definitely state educated. I admit this is a higher number of state educated riders than I had anticipated. What is apparent though, is that those who were state educated, were able to avail themselves of the cultural capital of their parents and benefited from being in the right sort of environment. They had contacts, connections and a lot of lucky breaks. It seems that all - state or privately educated - were steeped in the milieu. An Olympic standard horse changes hands for more than a million pounds - sometimes significantly more. So it seems you either have to have money or at least be working in a moneyed environment where you can meet the right sort of people who might if you are lucky help you out.

I don't see anything wrong with Equestrian Teams in state schools if it is part of the background culture of the children attending the school, as long as it is not something that could introduce social divisions within that school. (And I do feel it could be a danger.)

I was reading an interesting book called Bounce by Matthew Syed. The book is about achieving excellence in your chosen field. As a former Olympian he concentrates on sport. His thesis is that raw talent is less important than you might think. Interestingly he doesn't dwell on money - but then his sporting expertise was in table tennis and I suppose even the very best bat can't be that expensive. (He went to a comprehensive school too.) What he did emphasise was the importance of connections.

Anyway, derailment over! (Sorry, I get obsessed by minutiae very easily!)