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!

My 13 and 10 year old DDs are watching it in amazement. They both say they'd much rather go to Acton High. DD1 is Yr 9 and was ROFL at the idea of boys in her year reading Alice in Wonderland.

I don't think they will get many people "off the estates" because some parents won't give a shit where their child goes to school and the rest will think that the stakes are too high to trust their child's education to a bunch of media/city types.

lala - are you Mrs TY?

Of course there are parents who live in socially challenged areas who would love to be able access great education just as there are those who live in more affluent areas who couldn't give a shit. Your The film last night however did nothing IMO to 'sell' yourselves the free school movement to those who live on the estates. TY looked extremely uncomfortable when round the table with the teachers and even more so when being told kids would just bunk off at the thought of AIW by the pupil.

He didn't strike me as someone who could be 'accessed' by any other than the affluent middle classes and call me cynical but it seemed obviously that this was the intended image.

On his website he states....... "My biggest anxiety was that the documentary would make us look like a bunch of middle class tossers" and that is exactly what it has done.

Biggest anxiety ? Trump card morelike.

But he himself is focusing on Latin, which is in itself an elitist idea. So, some parents from the estates (not all) will have quite low levels of education themselves and will not necessarily see the point or benefit of Latin. They might well prefer their kids to get a sound education in literacy and numeracy, the basics, which will help them in the real world. Blabbing on about Latin is by definition appealing to educated elites who get how it can help English grammar, appreciation of literature, logical thinking, general culture etc.

i'd like to kick him in the cods frankly

little twat

I think the fact the TY obviously knows sweet FA about education was highlighted beyond any doubt on the programme when he had the cheek to stand outside an Ofsted rated outstanding comp and talk about how it was failing the students because the literature they chose to engage students with did not meet hiz bizarre old fogey criteria.

His rationale for the school was effectively unpicked by a schoolgirl and a round table of teachers - yet he could smugly have the last word to camera knowing that with his connections his aplication would be a shoo in.

That TY and his middle class, old school tie, self serving cabal have been handed the keys to the kingdom in terms of being funded by public money to run their own school is truly appalling. This is depriving exisiting state schools of money - in turn depriving children who need the most help.

Ha, ha - I'm not Mrs Young, Mr Longlegs is much better-looking than TY and not in the least interested in Latin. I still haven't seen the programme so can only go on what I have read about his school in various articles, but I do get a bit chippy about the "he's posh, what does he know?" point of view. I'll repeat that anyone prepared to put in the hours and cope with the headaches of trying to achieve this deserves plaudits, not brickbats.

If Acton High is his nearest school, I've just looked at the stats and only 37% of students there got the 5 GCSE benchmark last year so I can understand why he may be worried about sending his children there (Ofsted do feel the school is improving, however).

I think Toby Young is quite shrewd, he does the bumbling BoJo thing a bit but he knew that he had to make his school stand out to get lots of publicity and to get people talking about it so he's branding it the comprehensive where your child will learn Latin. Obviously Latin is going to be a very small part of the curriculum but why not learn it? It's certainly not going to do any harm, may well be helpful and, if people don't get that, then explain to them why. Don't let people dismiss a school on the basis that their children may have to study a subject they don't like or find wildly relevant for a couple of hours a week. And there's no reason to think that a school which offers Latin won't be able to offer a sound education in the basics.

As a teenager I don't think Toby went to school, let alone learnt Latin. He was enrolled at the comprehensive in Totnes but spent all his time skiving off to be a nuisance at Dartington Hall School, a very expensive alternative boarding where his eminent father had been a pupil and was at that time a governor.

I know that he did then attend school in Camden, so perhaps he has made up for the time he wasn't studying, but it has always struck me as ironic that he is setting himself up as someone capable of running a school when he showed so little inclination to be a pupil.

One part of that book has stuck in my mind - it was the bit when he is struck by the fact that, in New York, he is no longer part of a media/intelligentsia social circle which helps each other up the greasy pole. Suddenly at Vanity Fair he is being judged purely on results - and is found lacking. It provides an insight for him into what life is like for most people without nepotism to help.

Quite. One thing that struck me from the programme is that he got into Oxford with two Bs and a C in his A-levels. He's the same age as me and even back then I don't think many people with those results were considered Oxbridge material.

I knew him at Oxford. Total twerp is much too polite

He is a few years older than me but my memory of Oxbridge entrance back in the 1980s was that you took an exam for one and just did an interview for t'other and were offered a virtually unconditional offer on the basis of how well you did in those - quite a lot of my contemporaries who applied had offers of 2 E's at A-level.

He has four children and can't afford to educate them all privately and so wants an elitist school without having to pay for it himself.

Alos he came across as very bitter that he was sent to a comprehensive where he had to do (shudder) woodwork rather than rub shoulders with his mate Cameron at Eton.

A fair few comprehensives already offer Latin. La Retraite in Lambeth does, for a start. And my son's state primary up here offers it as well (and French). I am not convinced this is the ultimate USP, tbh.

He should have used his brains and oxford education to choose a career which enabled him to pay for private schools. If I can support 5 children at private schools alone on one income at schools with 99% A- A* never mind the 37% of the Acton place why can't he? Presumably he's not that much brighter than I am.

Anyway let him try. The UK thankfully has always allowed a range of schools and indeed home schooling as we're a free country. Choice is good.

maybe mr young commands poor salary because he does sweet fa of any use

I did metalwork and woodwork too. Don't think it scarred me for life but it seemed to scar him!

I spent the day in Ealing today with my friend and her friends who are all Year Six mums so this is very relevant to them.

Ealing really, really needs a new high school. They have been one down since the Tories closed a boy's high in the area around sixteen years ago.

The council had found the perfect site (the old GSK leisure club in Greenford) and were good to go. It was likely going to be run by the CofE group who run the very successful Twyford High in Acton but was not going to have religious entry.

Michael Gove has pulled the plug on the council's school but approved Toby's! I think it is fair to say that "Toby Young" is pretty much a swear word in Ealing now.

I always think of Toby when I read 'It's Grim Up North London' in Private Eye.

His group were the complete definition of the vacuous, chattering classes.

Funtime

IGUN spot on :o:o