AIBU to think that Toby Young is...

[LatteLady]

a total twerp? Honestly, what sort of response did he expect when he suggested that Yr 9 late readers should be reading Alice in Wonderland aloud rather than a novel which had captured their imagination and kept a group of 20+ focused and engaged?

What is so sad is that he will not listen to people's views unless they totally chime with his! Aaaaaaaaaargh!

avril
you need to re-read the spectator piece
he's citing the bit you quote as the excuse some parents come up with to justify not giving MMR
he goes on to refute this argument

Believe me, mssoui, you don't know very much about journalism if you think a hack like Toby Young can afford to pay for his four (possibly five, I've lost count) children to attend private schools - in London; pre-preps in my area appear to start at #3000 a term and I imagine they are a pretty similar price in his neighbourhood too. I work on a national newspaper and one of the very senior editors there was saying that he couldn't afford private school for his three children. I don't for a moment suggest that journalists should have some sort of right to educate their children privately (I'm glad we don't) but journalism and writing generally really aren't the gateway to riches you seem to assume they are (sadly ).

I really don't understand your second par (maybe I need to study Latin ) - it seems to me that by opening a school which will accept children from all walks of life on a lottery basis, then the group that is setting up this school is trying to create an environment that will reward merit.

Avril - I think you are probably right: 99.9% is made-up but perhaps it is a bit literal to take it as a watertight statistic. I think 99.9% has become shorthand for "an overwhelming majority".

I don't know enough anout TY to know if he's a twerp, but I am a bit as to why it is sucha bad thing for middle class parents to gte involved in education like this.

I'm always being berated on here for sending my kids private and being told if only middle class parents like me got involved in state schools they'd be better.
Is that not what TY and others like him are doing?

Just read the Spectator piece linked above.

I'll put the next bit in capitals, for any skim readers

NO CHANCE MY KIDS ARE GOING TO YOUR "SCHOOL" PAL.

Feel better now

I saw on the news the other evening that those free schools opening in Sept 2011 are going to be able to operate their own admissions policy without any auditing or independant verification as there is no time to bring them onboard with the state schools.

In essence this will mean they can apply any rules they like as to how they run their "lottery" admissions and thereby set the "tone" for their future intake as, of course, siblings will naturally be granted places and friends of those already in will flock to the school in the future.

I wonder if TY realises that the single vaccines available in the UK do not necessarily cover strains of MMR found in the UK (because, unlike the MMR vaccine, they aren't designed for use here).

As for chicken pox, ds was very ill for 6 weeks and I'd have been particularly happy to encounter TY deliberately trying to expose my son to it. Idiot.

I liked the Metro review of the programme. Short and final sentence 'Not great'.

Litchick

He wants to set up a school in his image with his values paid for by the state, this is even worse than private education at least they pay to become a member of the over privaleged elite and an old school tie.

He should (and so should everyone else) send his kids to the local comp.

newwave -I could not agree more.

His insistence on every child learning Latin is nothing to do with expanding their minds but a way of ensuring the majority of parents from the local estates will be put of applying for a place as they will not feel it is a school that their child will fit into.

If TY had no problem with his sprogs being educated alongside the local estate kids then he would just send them to the local comp.

He is ensuring the school is "badged" as a place suitable for him and his middle class mates. The fact that this is being done at the expense of kids who will be going to the State schools that desperately need the money is mind boggling.

I like this quote from his wife though:

"It makes you go all sweaty and angry, like a little short angry man".

ROFL

It does not seem to have been suggested that there are not enough secondary school places in Acton just that the local school is not middleclass good enough for his kids. So why not use all that energy and those ideas and become a governor of his local comp and see if he can turn it around before his children are big enough to go there. Fiona Millar has written about how a group of middleclass parents did just this in north London very successfully.

By setting up a his own school for his and his mates kids he is taking resources away from the existing schools in the area.

How do you know he hasn't tried?

I know from bitter experience - am a governor of a school and volunteer in another, that it is very difficult to make any difference. Like running through quicksand.

"He insists" that every child learns Latin. My first thought is who the fuck does he think he is.

This is public money being used to fund a smug gits predjudices.

Fuck him, fuck free schools and fuck the Tories.

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...out, out, out.

Sorry, thought I was back at Uni then.

LitChick

I would prefer

Magie,Magie,Maggie...dead, dead, dead

Evil bitch whoe deserves to rot in hell.

But we digress.

Free schools a way for the middle classes to insulate themselves from the riff raff or for religious nutters to indoctrinate kids into superstition.

Bob is that you?

How are plans going for the general strike?

But Litchick it is also very difficult to set up a school and he has managed to mobilise a large group of middleclass articulate (ish) parents, raise funds etc etc and is clearly very good at self promotion. Why not put all that group effort into improving the existing schools thereby improving provision for all anot just his own and his mates kids?

Your sarcasm aside, Bob Crow is a great man.

We obviously dont know each other but I believe from your previous posts your children go to private schools you went to Uni and your a school govenor, possibly a Tory (please correct me if I have anything wrong, thank you)

If so I have no suprise at all at your views, in fact you may be a Toby Young type without, I hope the smugness.

You, I believe support free schools, may I ask why.

Of course none of this is a surprise as we are now a country run by the aristocracy. For the next 4 - 5 years there will be no consideration of how to help the "little people" - those days are gone and it will just be an increasing attack on the State and the enabling ofthose who are already privleged beyond most people's wildest dreams at the expense of those who have the least.

In the programme last night it was revealed that TY had "rubbed shoulders" with David Cameron at some point during his education and that the PM at some free school soiree or other had told him to let him know if there was anything he could do to help him secure a site. And then the West Acton Free School's application was rubber stamped - no shit Sherlock!!!

Ah well - yes, my children go to independent school, yes I'm a governor at a state school and volunteer at another...but no not a Tory.

Actually, my Father was a miner and I was brought up very poor on a sink estate...so don't make too many assumptions.

As to whether I believe ih free schools, well, I'm torn to be honest.
I do loathe the way the state have interfered with teaching and feel the NC is far too prescriptive.
MI can quite understand why some parents may want to set up schools of their own...certainly I know quite a few home educators and they do a fabulous job.
I was disgusted by Ed Balls attacks upon home education

However, I do accept that if tax payers monies are being spent then there do need to be some saftey checks and balances.

In short I am undecided, but am inclined to at least give people the chance, I suppose.

I just don't get it. A bunch of parents / people get together and get approval and money to run a school based on their own predjudices and predilictions?

TY likes Latin and Alice in Wonderland, so he gets to determine that the kids in "his" school will ALL learn Latin and read AIW?

In what parallel universe is it a good idea to let random yet passionate people with vested interests make the rules?

And this obsession with recreating the style of grammar schools for areas where grammar schools are long gone.....grammar schools were and are (in the areas where they still exist) highly, highly academically selective. There's a v rigorous entrance exam to select the brainiest kids who have been tutored to death to get through the exam who then go on to be hothoused in Latin and english grammar and triple science (taken as individual exams). Grammar schools start off with high achievers and then instill high standards.

I just don't get how a lottery with academically average kids , some of whom will have learning difficulties, dyslexia, behavioural issues, self-esteem issues, problems at home, not to mention average or below average IQ will suddenly be transformed into lean, mean learning machines by virtue of adding Latin to the curriculum.

What am I missing, Toby?

Do you not think we are getting a bit hung up on the whole Latin thing? Even if his school does end up teaching it, children there are going to study it, what, two hours a week? Maybe less.

I think Toby Young sees grammar (and probably Alice in Wonderland which is a fine book) as being educationally aspirational and I think that is what he means by creating a comprehensive with grammar school values or however he is branding his enterprise. Obviously the teaching has to be to a level that each student can cope with but my understanding is that it will be like the traditional old grammar school experience where you won't be written off because you are from a poorer background. Grammar schools are unfair nowadays because children from wealthier backgrounds are hothoused and so it is very difficult for more disadvantaged to compete but by accepting all-comers but giving them access to a traditional education that stretches those who can be stretched, what's to object to?

I don't understand the argument that some posters are putting forward that if you offer academic opportunities, "people off the estates" won't be interested. Who says (And before anyone asks, I'm the daughter of immigrants and went to boggiest of bog standard comps.)

Latin not grammar