Giving a talk to State 6th Formers Next Month on Success

Exactly. London is a very different and special market with all kinds of schools in it.

The way to grip those sixth formers is with something funny and interesting but do assume only 20% will listen at all.

We don't have any state selective or grammar schools in our LA. I think the nearest is Heckmondwike Grammar School.

DH works at a lot of the schools in that area - unlike most of the posters on this thread
Unless you understand skilled trades, back away from the talk right now ....

One of the teachers he dealt with had a persistent problem with a pupil who would not pay attention in science.
When challenged as to what she would do in life, the answer was
Model
And bless her, young Miss Moss did exactly that

Luck V. hard work
one makes the news
the other makes money
and ex private school kids who use parental connections into the magic circle are a crap role model

This is the issue - are any children from the non selective/non posh state schools getting into good jobs by their 30s? Are they founding businesses? I think it's hard to find people from any sector at all except acting and sport who by such a young age as 30s are doing well.

Certaily London has had a massive change in terms of achievement of its inner London comps since Teach First etc but it also has some selective sixth forms (one linked to Eton I think and one with Lord Harris involved) and I am not sure those are comp because they might select by GCSE grades so it is a very muddle picture. Whereas if you went to my home town of Newcastle from about 1970 just about everyone has been in comprehensives other than a very few in private school. There is a not a state selective or state grammar for hundreds of miles.

"but there is another Catholic school for girls in Croydon which also used to cherry pick students from Sussex too,"

Coloma?

Do your examples have to be south London schools? The schools you mention are selective state schools and are largely affluent. What about: Ed Miliband, Kate Moss (author), Billy Twelvetrees, jk Rowling, Alan Sugar, Stella McCartney, Kiera knightly, Daniel Craig, Bradley wiggins. More inspirational than your list.

if you're so enamoured with the likes of JF, LO, Tiffin and the Vaughan, why not encourage these sixth formers to achieve good grades and transfer to one of these schools in the Upper 6th form?

Isn't it telling that your inherent prejudice was to look immediately at state schools which were/remain highly selective.

Many pupils who attend these schools are of a similar ilk to your average public school kid.

The name escapes me, but there is another Catholic school for girls in Croydon which also used to cherry pick students from Sussex too, with the use of interviews and bursaries. Surely you can just educate your local catholic children? Why is there this need to cherry pick 'the best children'.

It's our schools which suffer the stigma of being looked down on for being completely non-selective.

do me a favour OP.

For a start The John Fisher School (Purley, Surrey) was very selective when it educated the two 'successful thirty somethings' you mention. Will Seaward is the son of two barristers. Both students would have had to go through the selection policy.

I know of two boys who got into the school from our local catholic state primary in Burgess Hill (West Sussex) they had to pass an interview, as did their parents, and there were all manor of hurdles to jump. I believe the school has grown considerably since it stopped selecting its intake on the sly.

LO still selects like JF used to, hardly a bog standard comp. Your talk will do nothing to inspire the pupils.

One of our local comps has 2 MPs in the House of Commons, wouldn't they be a better choice to give this speech?

I give about 50 talk s a year although only if I am paid high fees I'm afraid..... Women sell themselves too short.

Anyway what you need to try to do in a short talk is say things they will be interested in and remember. Most of them won't of course listen to a word of it and resent the waste of time but some will listen. I would think of some exciting opening lines, have some physical prop or other and perhaps set out how planning if a good thing to do so you have your 10 year plan and work towards goals and how important working hard and working smart is. Perhaps suggest everyone present aims to have no children within the next 10 years - start by holding up a condom and saying this is your key to riches. (If they are all fundamentalists Christians or Muslims too bad).

Good point Doc, too late to talk of enabling subjects and the like.

This type of speech needs to be delivered in year 11. By now the 6th formers have made their subject choices (or had the choices made for them by the school) based on how well they did in their GCSEs. All you can do is try and bolster their self-confidence and self-esteem and work ethic and not make any references to 'state school'.

I hope a teacher from the school concerned will see this thread....

All you need to do is Google young entrepreneurs and have a sort through. Obviously there are a lot from private school but there are several interesting state school examples.

I think steering away from famous pop stars or footballers is vital - so what if beckham went state? Unless you can play football like beckham the knowledge that he went to a school like yours is going to be useless to you.

Agreed, success can be measured many ways, but I presume the school means material success. How many schools will trundle in someone who works in Tesco but is happy as a figurehead of that school's success?

It is a fascinting issue proposed as the older successful people mentioned not on the original list could be from times of more social mobility so picking those in their 30s is not a bad idea but are there any at all?

I suppose the first thing is what is success? I would certainly make the point that it can be internal happiness of course. Assuming the school means material success or being in the public eye then the best paid 30 sometimes from bad homes / areas in the Uk will probably be footballers or the occasional pop star, but it's pretty hard to get into that so not what we want to inspire or hold up false hope.

There are some inner London comps which have been getting chidlren into Oxbridge - when did Teach First start in London and has that cohort graduated and got into high paid jobs yet even if they are not famous people?

Most people in all walks of life are not famous in their 30s as it takes longer unless you are a sexy young singer or fit young footballer so in things like leading a business or being a surgeon you tend to be older.

I too am torn between assuming this must be someone's idea of a joke, and worrying that the OP actually believes in what they have said here, and that somehow, a school has been convinced they know what they are talking about

"By telling them that the world is, quite literally, their oyster,"

If this was true you wouldn't be spending 25k a year educating your own children privately.

wannabe
And still not the silliest thing in that post.

JLS- rappers

If the OP has been selected to be a keynote speaker outside of his own bedroom then I'll show my arse in Fenwicks window

If the OP has been selected to be the key note speaker ten they must be expecting something more personally inspiring than what she proposes talking about.

I'd be tempted to base my speech around the Terry Pratchett quote "If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star, you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy." Illustrated by examples of people they know.

To give some honest advice OP. I wouldn't focus on what they don't have. But what they do have. I have gone back to my secondary school with Future First and they are very careful to focus young people's attention on the fact that they are living in London and the priviledge that entails.

Eg, you want to do art do you? Well you had better know the National Gallery like the back of your hand and attend every free lecture they run then.

You want to get into fashion? Aren't you lucky your parents live in commutable distance of Central Saint Martins (and many other fashion colleges) so you can live at home to help you afford it?

Medicine? It's a long expensive course so be nice to your parents so you can live at home and save a bit of money. And well done for living in an area with such complex health demographics which you can learn about better by working in the local pharmacy than someone who lives in Whiteandrichshire.

Etc, etc.

In fact a lot of the old friends I had who have been sucessful most notably in fashion, acting and dance lived at home for a long time as they had access to so much, in a way that people outside of London obviously don't have so easily. Can you focus on that instead of focusing on the sucess of overpriviledged oiks in the banking sector?

Not sure OP will be back at this point - hopefully because they're actually doing some research!

Op I've just read tft. Your patronising obsession with the perceived superiority of private school educated people over state school people is not coming across well. What were the credentials on which you got this gig? Where did you go to school? (We understand your kids are 'indie' and you are basing your knowledge of south london state schools on who they play at sports )

It's not difficult. I'm a bit concerned that someone who's been asked to speak in this way couldn't come up with better examples.