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.

Why? Why don't you believe me? Your post, right there is the most ridiculous one on this entire thread.

Tell me then, why you think I pay? Same social mix whichever I chose. Same 3 holidays a year whichever I chose. Much the same life experiences, certainly at primary.

As I said, my kids are fortnate. I know that. I'm not trying to buy them a priviledge they don't already have.

So tell me, as you seem to know more about it than me, why I pay?

OTheHugeManatee - Hmmm, I dunno I think there might be some difference in the effect on someones life chances of education and a phone.

"
Maypole is right - you can try and make education fair all you like, but a kid who grows up with an irresponsible and disinterested parent is already disadvantaged in ways that no amount of educational fairness can completely cure."

I agree, sadly. But that's no reason to have a system which actively makes it worse.

im not saying abolish individuality, im saying we need to ensure that all children have a fair start to life where education stands, im shocked that any parent (human being actually) would be against this.

you are right in some respects, a child who grows up with disinterested parents will be disadvantaged, why make them even more disadvantaged by now giving them access to decent schools either?

I also think you underestimate how much all those clubs cost on top.
Before they started school I was paying £100 a month each for their one to one swimming lessons. So that would be £300pm just for swimming for the 3 of them. My local tennis club charges £60pm for weekly tennis so another £180 a month for that. .....

you are right in some respects, a child who grows up with disinterested parents will be disadvantaged, why make them even more disadvantaged by now giving them access to decent schools either?

Knittedbreast, that's a completely different argument. Of course they should have access to a decent education. The fact that some people pay does not mean that state schools are poor. Most are not.

mrswitcher, you dont have to have one on one swimming lessons, why not just a swimming class? £6 per hour instead?

You are being over charged Mrs Witcher. I pay about £200 a month for my families membership to a country club. That includes swimming, tennis, gym and golf. Strikes me as a better deal than day fees of £21,000 per annum for one child.

No, of course I don't but I would have paid for those if I was paying for swimming outside school. Most kids around here all have one to one lessons with the same woman we used before they started school.

That's not membership, that's 2 hours a week one to one lessons. Otherwise, yes, it would be very expensive.

Sue, we also pay that as member of a country club but that is just for access. It doesn't include lessons.

21k a year for the country club?

oh dear....

Just to add, from September I will be paying about 22k for 3 of them for the year.

I taught mine to swim as my parents taught me. I never saw the need for lessons.

Actually knittedbeeast that is the cost of my nearest fee paying school. Shows you why parents round here are so keen to tutor for the grammar school.

? That's your choice though, surely? I'm not saying my children have to have these things only that I would have provided them. I mentioned them in response to Milamae suggesting that clubs are incidental.

knittedbreast I would dearly love every child to receive the kind of schooling that mine receive...but it would be far to expensive for the state to provide that.

And anyway, many would hate their DC to go to schools like my DC do (comedy uniforms, homework etc)

So is the solution to remove my choice and insist my DC attend a school a don't rate? What exactly would that achieve?

That just seems like using a hammer to crack a nut.

Social mobility can't work just one way though, can it? Surely for each poor kid who achieves there may well be a rich kid who doesn't...all things being equal.

i wonder if this idea would then be applied across universities as well.....maybe prep school kids should not be allowed to go to state uni's because they were "prep'd" to get their good A'levels ?? so that would leave Buckingham uni for all of them to go to.

Well quite, wordfactory. The state is never going to be able to provide what I want. And if you abolish private education then I'll just pay for it all on top whilst sending them to the outstanding primary around the corner with results near the top in the national league tables.

We'll still take them on a sun holiday and a skiing holiday and an adventure holiday each year. They'll still get the chance to see wildlife in Florida and Australia. They'll still read books and have beautiful bedrooms and acres of garden to play in.

Do you really think the gap would narrow?

Have read this thread with .

Do some of you really, seriously propose banning private education? Are you for real? You simply cannot force everything and everybody to be equal. It does not work and has never worked in hundreds of years of world history.

If you are serious, then we should of course ban everything else that some people can't afford too, because it's just not fair is it? And if you've got any of these things, then you should get rid if them straight away, as it might upset those people who don't have them....

OK, for the chop - privately owned houses, cars, holidays, Waitrose and Sainsbury's, after-school clubs, Christmas, birthday presents, books, wine, i-pods/pads, clothes, the internet, satellite TV et bloody cetera...

Totally ridiculous.

That's a state primary which no child who isn't affluent can get near because of house prices in the catchment.

And to be honest, much of my DC's priviledge doesn't even come from us having money...

Many of the children where I volunteer don't have two parents to support them. Lots of them have feckless fathers who have buggered off, leaving their Mothers to cope alone.

Many of them have parents who don't give a flying fuck about their education or what they eat or what time they go to bed.

Many of them are embroiled in endless bloody dramas...Mums and Dads at each others throats, Mums and Grandmas not speaking, neighbour disputes.

How can a school equalise these children's experience?

God I'm shocked at how much some kids have. Obviously the social divide is as strong as ever and likely to stay.As somebody else said further down the gov seriously don't give a damn,neither do those at the top of the tree.

Just a small thing like freeing up grammar places for those that need them are so hotly defended by those that have so much .

It is primarily about parental interest not parental finances. Parental finances just compound the issue.