To think if the gov are serious about social mobility they should be banning privately educated kids from taking state grammar school places?

[MilaMae]

Spending ££££ on tutoring to get your kids into a grammar school is one thing but sending your kids to a private school which is free from the national curriculum and able to spend every day teaching to the 11+ is wrong and buys kids school places which should be reserved for the state educated.

Alongside freedom to teach to the 11+ private schools have tiny classes so it's pupils have even more of an advantage. Many of these children won't even be naturally bright and shouldn't even be at said grammar schools.

In our local area apparently far fewer state educated kids got into grammar school this year. Obviously this is due to more privately educated kids applying for places due to parents struggling to pay fees in the current economic climate.

This is wrong. Grammar school should be reserved for state kids only. For many kids rightly or wrongly it's their one big shot at getting a leg up in life. The rich shouldn't be able to hoover these places up because they're feeling the pinch.

You can't put a stop to tutoring but the gov could put a stop to this very unfair practice(if they truely believe in social mobility).It would be very easy to control.

This isn't sour grapes on my part(my dc are tiny) just an observation.

Agreed MrsWitcher. Most DS's classmates (in his previous state primary school) came from middle and some upper-middle class families, so there was no a big social mix anyway. Unless you also implement lottery system regarding the housing, then by abolishing private schools you'll only push up the property prices around nicer schools.

"Do those of you who dont agree with me also feel like you should have priority access to health care due to your finacnial success too?"

if this is your thinking, the I rest my case.

Fedup - but not if you have a lottery for school places?
Or possibly if you had feeder primaries, but made sure that you didn't do a Toby and just pick the posh primaries!

There is so magic answer, Joan. And some authorities, eg Bury have about 15% kids in private education. The LA simply couldn't cope with the influx.

no magic answer.

small white cat, i see what you are saying. but you shouldnt have had to pay for that, you shouldnt have been able. that paed would still have existed whether you were able to pay or not. you should not have had to pay and i dont think should have been able to do so. thats not to say your child shouldnt have been helped.

mrswitcher, im sorry but your children are more privilidged, you live in a half a million pound house, your kids have small class sizes, great after school activities and good support at school and all because you can afford it. they will have better contacts, better education and better access to better jobs. they will probebly live longer, be healthier etc etc etc...

and as good for them as that is, its also very very unfair. unfairness will breed the older they get, all children should have an equal opportunity to education when they cannot chnage their personal circumstances themselves. they cant choose to be bankers to move up the social ladder aged 1 so we need to implement a system where for the first 18 years of their lives at least they have the same chances from 9-3 each day even if one half the class goes home to a mansion and the other lot go back to a flat in a highrise.

I know - and truly, I am full of disclaimers about it never ending up fair! I'm just saying what I think would be worth a go.

When I take over, perhaps I'll allow Bury to close 1 private school at a time, to make the transition easier

Fed Up wow you're great at generalisations (shame the generalisations aren't so hot): a Y5 child living in a noisy/ abusive household will struggle by GCSE's and A levels anyhow? Hmm.

I simply don't believe my family is the only exception to every one of your sweeping generalisations, maybe you should moderate your statements a bit. We have a tiny house, three to a bedroom, lots and lots of noise from seven siblings, plenty of noisy neighbours too and yet the oldest four have each got an average of 11 A*'s at GCSE, and seem to be keeping it up at AS and A2.

We owe a great debt to the grammar, that's the key to their achivements so far. I'd just to see more kids and the right kids given the opportunity to benefit too.

No, no, no....

My kids have 24 or 25 in their class. They do lots of activities in school which the others kids who live near us also do albeit out of school. Those kids also live in very expensive houses. Quite a few kids at out school live in 1m+ homes. Yes, my children are priviledged. Absolutely! But I profoundly disagree that they have a huge advantage over the other children who live here. They certainly have a huge advantage over the kids I teach but then so do the kids at my local state primary.

Can you not see where the biggest social divide is?
There is a real issue with inequality in education but it is not between my kids and my neighbours kids it is between my kids and my neighbours kids and children living in a vastly different home environment.

Yellowstone, I am rearely on this forum, but I already read at least ten times about your kids, how amazingly smart they are, how they all are going to Oxbridge, how they passed the grammar school exams with flying colours, etc etc. I also know their A levels/GCSEs, because I cant read any threads about education without you going on and on about it. Anyway I was talking about households where both parents are often drunk, shout at each other, fight - that kind of noise.

I mean rarely

Do you honestly think my children are more priviledged than Johnny down the road who lives in a nice comfortable house with 2 acres and who plays rugby after school and has pool parties at home. Oh and whose Daddy earns 250kpa at the bank but whose parents chose to send him to the local primary?

yes, Mrs W, but that comparison is (I think) between middle class children who go private and those who don't - and no, that's not a massive social divide. And yes, as you say, the divide between the other kids near you and the kids in the less privileged homes is probably greater. But we don't need private schools underlining, re-enforcing and exacerbating that chasm!

I tend to agree with the original poster

Cleggy and camerooney have no real belief in social mobility......

They are in a tight spot on the NHS and seek diverting headlines.

One sometimes thinks the press are running the country

It is time the BBC wised up on the stunts. (Not rhyming slang)

I live in a 3 bed terrace ex-council house and my kids go to prep

My best friend lives in a 5 bed detached house in a cul de sac and her kids go to state primary

Who has more priviliged children?

Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree on that.
I don't think the circumstances in my area are unusual and I think you'll find hundreds of state primaries in affluent areas with very similar demographic.

Most people who pay, live in an areas with a huge number of other people who could also afford to pay. Many chose not to either for ideological reasons or because they don't see they point when they have such a high acheiving primary next door.

It just leads my to the conclusion that the argument about social mix either for my kids or the kids at the state school is a moot point because socially, they are very, very similar.

Umm, Gabby, so what was done under Brown and Co to promote social mobility?

Yes, and I'm not denying there are significant parts of the country which are solidly middle class, and the private kids' lifestyles aren't especially functionally different from the state kids'.

But there are also significant parts of the country where that is not the case at all.

Oh and in terms of 'making contacts' I think sometimes people confuse your average co-ed day school with well known public schools.

So why exactly are you sending your kids to a private school MrsW.

Makes me laugh all these parents who can shell out 8K(and the rest) a year for private education protesting that their kids don't have advantages..If your dc aren't getting any advantages over state kids doing the 11+ why on earth aren't your dc at the local primary?

People send their dc to private schools purely so their kids have advantages over all the others.All fine and dandy until both sets of kids are competing for a state school place. Money is buying 1 set of kids a place and that isn't fair.

Fed Up if you're fed up with it then look at any thread where it's been mentioned and see how long it takes me to mention any achievements of theirs: absolutely bloody ages in each and every case. Page 17 in this case. It's never gratuitous like so much boasting here is. Other posters frequently boast with no particular relevance to the thread whereas I'm very, very slow on the draw - but what a lot of rubbish some people talk, sometimes using personal details make sense.

Don't be rude until you've analysed the threads . On and on in bloody deed. Just wrong. It's people like you who go on and on as soon as other people mention anything their kids have achieved.

Passed the 11+ with flying colours? Haven't a clue what their marks were and said nothing of the sort. I've only mentioned GCSE's once before, where relevant and this second time it was in direct response, 17 pages into a thread, to you saying kids in noisy households will go down the pan. Clearly mine haven't, not yet/ And I've certainly never said they'll all go to Oxbridge, not only because they won't but because it would be an utterly daft assertion to make.

Get some facts in if you choose to be rude.

That was not a nice post to Yellowstone.

I find that I start feeling the need to trumpet my own kids' good manners, academic achievements, excellent pastoral care etc every time I read posts on here which suggest that state schools are full of underacheiving scruffbags, and suspect it is the same for many of us.

No need to be so defencive.