"school snobbery"

[dinkybinky]

I think it?s hysterical that some people think that if you child doesn?t attend a Grammar school or selective independent then they?re not academic. The level of ?school snobbery? that goes on is quite bewildering sometimes.

[HullyEastergully]

Our entire English life is highly stratified and hierarchical and schools are no different form the rest of it. The end.

[Xenia]

Most of the country has no grammar schools, just non selective schools. Where I was born grammar schools went in about 1970. In the state sector there are just comprehensives. Most of the children at the best universities come from private schools (50%) and a huge proportion of the rest from selective state schools in the areas with grammar schools but certainly some come from comprehensives.

Some of those are in leafy suburbs where post parents get free schooling they could pay for by buying expensive £500k houses and thus burden tax payers with the cost they otherwise might pay which is arguably morally offensive.

If you have a bright child it is not really snobby to want them educfated in a place which does well for bright chidlren and where everyone else is bright, just as you might want them in our local hindu primary (yes they exist) or Jewish school, Muslim, Catholic and all the rest or home school or state boarding or specialist music school or whatever.

The bottom line is if women do not work and/or pick low paid work they damage their children because they then cannot pay school fees at good schools. It might be fun to spend your teenage years drinking or not work at your exams or pick art or acting as your career or hope you can live off male earnings but at the end of the day you do not do right by your children if you earn so little you cannot pay school fees and thus your career choice may have been morally unsound.

[socharlotte]

I actually think there is more inverted snobbery coming the other way.
Especially from people who haven't managed to get their DC into grammar school banging on about those who have.Saying it's down to lots of tutoring ignoring the elephant in the room ie their kids are not as imtelligent!!

[socharlotte]

..and that wasn't a very ' intelligent' spelling there!!

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I think my academic daughter does just fine in an environment where not everyone is clever! She's known to be bright, but certainly not 'mocked at every opportunity'! Mind you, I am very aware right now that I'd better not be too emphatic until a certain Thursday in August 2013.....

[Xenia]

Very true. There is another thread where suggestions that children at academic private schools are not happy and must all be subject to tremendous pressure and usually it's just someone whose precious little darling has an IQ of 100 not 120 and did not have a hope in getting in and they are jealous or it makes them feel better to assume good academic schools are full of unhappy children whereas the better ones have children doing a huge range of hobbies, often broader and better than at less academic schools as children good at academic work are often the ones who excel on their instruments and on the sports field.

[seeker]

"seeker until we change the mind-set of approx. 75% of teenagers that studying, and doing your home work on time, and paying attention in class, and always striving to improve your school work is decidedly un-cool and should be mocked at every opportunity...then, yes, children who are academic need to be catered for in isolation."

Well, telling that 75% at the age of 10 that they are failures is going to really help with that.............

[seeker]

Ah. It's the Xenia that can't punctuate today. That's interesting.

[HullyEastergully]

I am goign to say the same thing I always do (because I don't want to do my work which is bad because I won't earn enough for school fees and my dc will be horrible drug-addled failures sorry Xenia although they do go to selective grammar sorry seeker)

Until we change society, until we change the homelives and surroundings of children then schools are in the main helpless. They do what they can, but if you have an intake of 30 kids, half of whom are illiterate/have fetal alcohol syndrome/not enough to eat/beaten regularly etc and the other half houses full of books blah de blah then all the differnetiation in the world ain't gonna help.

[OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos]

Xenia, I was with you up until your last paragraph.

There is of course nothing wrong with wanting an education for your child that will best suit them, and if that means a highly selective grammar or private school then so be it.

But to say that someone is damaging their children because they can't afford school feels is so ridiculous that I'm wondering if you are just feeling particularly argumentative today.

There is no way I could afford school fees, despite being privately educated myself, and working. But I can afford to live in an area that has some of the best state school results in the country and send my child to a highly selective grammar school. Is that still damaging them by your standards, or are they simply doomed because despite however much their Father and Step Father earn, I decided to work in a part time term time job?

[wordfactory]

I think snobbery is an odd choice of word.

I certainly don't think my DC are inherently superior to anyone elses. I have however chosen schools for them which I think are inherently superior to the state schools on offer.

Is that really snobbery?

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

Ah, here we all are!

[HullyEastergully]

good point word.

Is thinking one thing better than another automatically snobbery?

[seeker]

How the devil are you, TOSN?

[HullyEastergully]

Or cold-eyed realism?

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

Frustrated and irritated trying to choose a sixth form, ta! WHy don't you all come and talk to me about that, instead?

[wordfactory]

seeker I suspect where xenia is posting from has an impact on her posts.

I know when I use my phone I can't do paragraphs [useless emoticon]...so I keep it very short.

I also probbaly miss loads of punctuation because I'm more cack handed on my phone.

[HullyEastergully]

And we need to define the criteria for "better"

[OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos]

Wordfactory, according to some, sending your child to private school is snobbery because they decided that because you made a choice that you think is best for your child, you must also be automatically judging them negatively for using state schools.

Which is clearly bollocks.

The snobbery thing is thrown about by people who are not entirely happy with their own choices.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I put 'gay' instead of 'gah' last night on a touch screen.

However, it's certainly an interesting, original and relevant point that women should get out there and earn school fees or else they are morally reprehensible, and that's a point of view I'd like to see expressed more often on every single sodding school thread ever!

[HullyEastergully]

Think what it's going to be like when all the poor people have been driven out to ghettos on the fringes of this our Great Albion. All the feckless poor being class-controlled together while the deserving poor and the middle classes tut sadly and rejoice at their quiet and orderly classrooms.