To think that going comprehensive is an exit from the middle class?

[VolvoMo]

There may be a few minor exceptions (due to wealth or ideology) but doesn't going comp take away your middle class badge and worse, give your kids the chance to carry a big chip on their shoulder for their adult life.

Gnome That's what boarding schools are for, silly!

Hopefullyrecovering - aaahh I see, thank you

You know this thread was a lot easier to follow when I thought it was about car insurance!

LeQueen, I did once read somewhere that apparently you can tell when you are in a premiership footballer's house even if blindfolded as they all smell of chlorine!

Being middle class is such flippin hard work I'm glad we are downward my mobile and indulge in ( gasp) haphazard recycling practices, Greggs cheese pies, Primark underwear and jammies, camping holidays in the UK ( I think camping is our last vestige of middle classness, we are off to Majorca next year.)

Our bikes have also been nicked.

It's such a relief not to have to pretend I give a shit about the provenance of vegetables or whether I know the name of the pig providing my bacon sarnie.

'Downwardly mobile' thanks iPhone ( I am wc enough to have one)

Hmm, I'm a comprehensive educated veterinary surgeon and the daughter of 2 doctors so probably firmly fixed in the middle-classes from birth (though no idea whether lower, middle or upper!). Though I am welsh so it probably doesn't count Have every intention of sending my children to the local comprehensive along with every one else I know - everybody goes there, the clues in the name!

only 7% of children in the UK are privately educated. I think you'll find that comprehensives cater for more than just the working class

Only 9% of the upper middle class are nobbers.

I told DS1 that thanks to his going to a comp we were now working class. He snorted at me and said his dad always was but I was still vair posh and always would be

Huh?? My DH's family are teachers and lecturers; they sent him and his siblings to the local comp; he got into Oxford; earned his DPhil; is now on partner-track at a magic circle City law firm. Still middle class.

what was that tosh about the vicars wife looking down on the nouveaus??? Proper 'middle class' (if we must use such a term) wouldn't even notice what class they are! it's the nouveaus who give a monkeys.

OP I do remember your last thread on middle class parents choosing state schools vaguely.

What are your reasons for choosing state given your concern about the perceived detrimental effect on your class?

OP, I applaud you. Your methods worked, you got what you wanted - your "insight". To what use will you put your findings?

I am proper old fashioned posh. I have to deal with having middle class children. It's not easy.

What is best for one's child depends where one lives and how much money one has. It also depends on the intelligence of the child, perceived or otherwise.

OP - you admit to being a Middle Class Person. Well one cannot therefore escape the notion that you are unable to accept that you are Common & have 'ideas above your station'.
To enable your children to accept their 'Common' lot in life - I suggest that they avoid school altogether - there are vacancies in what the Peasants refer to as t'Mill.

This is the most ridiculous thread, I can't see why I am getting involved! About 7% of DCs are outside the state system. There are hardly any grammar schools left and therefore the overwhelming majority go to comprehensive schools.
In the days when every child took the 11+ the middle classes were in the secondary modern too. I failed and my best friend had parents who had both been to Oxbridge - I love this way that people assume their DC would pass!

Volvo, I'm sure going isn't private isn't the norm in your neck of the woods. I'm sure that the majority of the kids still go to state school.

I also live in an affluent part of the south east, the percentage of children at private schools is probably higher than 7 per cent but I don't think it is that much higher.

Anyone who has to work for a living and could not live comfortably off the income of their investments would be classified as working class wouldn't they? Regardless of the school which they sent their children to? I think it's very naive to assume that the working class have no aspirations, they may just not coincide with yours. I'd feel very uncomfortable with my children making friends with someone whose parents thought that merely sending them to their school meant that they had better aspirations. I'd advise them to be very careful of such a classmate because their parent would likely be plotting their social advancement through the cultivation of friendships with the 'right sort'. There is such a thing as class but it's such a finicky, fluid thing. One is much better off trying to give your children an education whereby they can support themselves comfortably ( be it in trades or the professions) than trying to impress upon them the idea that the end result should be membership of a certain class. Many members of the upper classes are decidedly downwardly mobile, it's been like that for quite a while actually.

sadly I know people who think like this. I do my best to avoid them, but that's not difficult because they are clueless, judgemental, and live in their own dull little bubbles.

There are a lot of people like this - I knew one as an undergraduate. She was incensed at the large numbers of people from comps at our Oxbridge college. Apparently we were taking places away from people whose parents had gone to the trouble of paying for their education.

Love the comment up thread about removing someone removing their DH's name from Burke's peerage on the basis of this thread!

LeQueen
Why does having more money not make you middle class?

Clearly aristocracy is something you are born or marry into. You cant buy into it. However upper and middle classes are reachable to those who made enough money to buy the trappings associated with that class.
They were defined by landowning and being in a 'profession' but those days are certainly gone.
Sure their tastes might be somewhat outre but we can't all be the same, life would be fairly dull if everyone thought that old volvos were the height of good taste !

My neighbours are working class in appearance and attitude. Think loud shouty yobbish type behaviour and you're spot on. It's all beer drinking, football shirts and barking dog. She has worked her way up from being a dinner lady to a teacher. Good on her, obviously this involved going to uni, etc.

She's now a teacher at the private school down the road. She sends her dd there as there is a good staff discount. No way is she middle class though. Still f'ing and blinding in the street.