To think that a pupil premium should be paid for children who live in home where none of the parents have qualifications

[ReallyTired]

I think that the education of the parents has a more significant outcome on a child's attainment than income. (Especially as many working poor don't have much more money than those on benefits.)

I feel that children who live in households where no adult has five GCSEs or equivalent should get extra support at school. Often these families aren't entitled to benefits because the parents do work so currently don't get the pupil premium.

It is harder for uneducated parents to support their children with homework than someone with a degree. Better eduated mothers are better at getting their children's needs met as they are often more articulate. For example making sure that statemented child gets what they are legally entitled to. (Getting a child assesed by an ed pych so that the child's dyslexia is spotted.)

Unskilled people often do physically hard work for very long hours for very little money. I believe that a child with unskilled working parents is at a major disadvantage as their parents are time poor as well as cash poor.

If the children are struggling educationally with special needs, there is a parallel system of funding which is nothing to do with PP. Although, in passing, it's hardly I think contentious to point out that middle-class parents are also better at navigating the statementing system, more likely to be effective advocates and more likely to be able to afford the legal fees for an appeal to a tribunal.

and less likely to be threatened with the withdrawal of all education funding if they go back to tribunal when an illegal statements issued, and less likely to be forced to have their meetings in benefit offices, and less likely to be generally bullied or threatened with cps to silence them and pushed around.

And who’s generally in charge of that system and gatekeeping it against the least educated parents and their children?

Ye gods!

How hard is for people to feel sympathetic for the struggles of people who didn't succeed and become academics despite a disadvantaged background?

Do loads of you think "they simply didn't try hard enough"? Or what?

Look I am going to explain to you the reality of missing out on schooling and how hard it is to make up lost ground. Because I also managed it. That's right. Me. Not my husband (he had a supportive, middle class family and went to university), not my parents 50 years ago in a completely different era. Thus, I also knpw how hard it was, and not just "oh it can be done" and I saw and know the children who didn't manage it.

I went to college with 1 GCSE (which I had gained by squashing FOUR or FIVE years of learnimg into four months).

Although we had tiny numbers of qualifications, I had far fewer underlying issues that the people from school and the people in my tutor group. I simply had had no formal education in most subjects. I'd spent most of the previous 11 years being a bookworm. (To give a scale of how much reading I did, I can remember explaining to some poor adult- who'd tried to make conversation round our house- that actually there was a rhyme for purple, and had he never heard the word hirple before. I wasn't ten yet .)

So, I was literate, and reasonably capable of absorbing information. (According to the ed psych the college employed to work out what was going on with my handwriting a couple of years later, I'm not stupid either.)

And you know what? Cramming 11 years of education into 9 months in order to get GCSEs was still hard. Learning to write essays was still hard. If you're reading this and thinking, "she still hasn't got the hang of English composition", I'm not offended!

For those who had far worse issues than me to contend with, it was often impossible. I had some school mates in the same class as me for the "retake" classes (obviously, I wasn't retaking- I was learning everything for the first time) and they dropped out, because of their underlying issues of poor literacy, mental health, etc had not magically disappeared when they left our school.

I just had lack of education and a mother who liked to tear my homework up, so I did partially succeed. (Although the stress of it all was a factor in my nervous breakdown during the last year of my A-levels. But so was the homelessness. Meh.)

If I found my husband making smug posts about my achievements, like people on this thread have done about their spouses, I would be incandescent. I would probably Leave The Bastard.

My mother education was curtailed by her parents attitude - partly why her two female DC both have degrees and post graduate qualification she was determined we'd make most of our opportunities and told us how lucky we were to have them.

My FIL is a builder and buggered his joints early. He had to turn down chance to do further study to bring a wage in. I think he's happy with his life an choices but as soon as he was aware how educationally good his son, my DH, was he sat him down and told him to go as far as he could.

Sometimes the thing that makes parents supportive is having been denied educational chances themselves.

Friday I have lived in different areas the length and breadth of this country and full time work for those who have a degree whether north south east west or the bit in the middle is almost always 9am-5pm. With travelling time how are these parents meant to be dropping off their child at 9am and then be outside the school gates at 3pm to discuss any concerns with the childs teacher. I have yet to see any parent with a degree who works full time picking up or delivering on a regular basis.

What happens to those children in boarding school. I am sure the Treaty of Versailles is not discussed over dinner. So are you saying that a boarding school education is lacking some how because they don't get a history lesson whilst they eat.

My dh has qualifications coming out of his ears but if at any point either dc had homework problems it is left up to me, the uneducated one, as he hasn't a clue when it comes to homework. And he is never here anyway.

My ds and his fellow pupils understood exactly what a viking long boat was but at 6 years old it was all the parents who did the homework. We have had many instances of this in various schools. The homework is set for the parents not for the children.

Anecdote time!

Back when we finished our A levels my now husband and I decided not to get a degree. There was nothing we wanted to do that required one, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to study, I felt my parents would want to help me and couldn't afford to and we didn't really wanted to be separated

It wasn't a big deal back then, now you get threads saying that my children are suffering because I am too thick to help them with their homework!

The scheme is unworkable as you can get knotted if you think I'm going to prove my qualifications to any body, I know academics with incredibly badly behaved children who disrupt their classes and are struggling with their GCSEs. I also know people with very low CSE results or no qualifications at all whose children are obtaining A*, and degrees.

It's just too difficult to police, and insulting...and I didn't come here to be insulted!!!!

Oh wait I probably did!

reallytired I know you meant parents without any qualifications! but it's still hard to police

I have yet to see any parent with a degree who works full time picking up or delivering on a regular basis.

Plenty of people with degrees don't work full time. One or the other of us has worked part time for the last eighteen years, and that's true for many of the all-graduate . And I don't really understand what being at the school gate at 3pm has to do with being in a position to help with homework: secondary school children (this whole discussion appears to have degenerated into a KS1 conversation) are usually not collected from school, and it's unheard of to have a conversation with a teacher even if they are collected.

What happens to those children in boarding school. I am sure the Treaty of Versailles is not discussed over dinner.

Are you sure? One of the advantages of boarding schools people I know who've been to them report is a wide range of tutorial activity "out of hours". That's one of the reasons why people who work your 60 to 70 hours send their children to boarding school.

My ds and his fellow pupils understood exactly what a viking long boat was but at 6 years old it was all the parents who did the homework.

There is life outside KS1, and it's where to be blunt where the middle-classes get their real edge. Making a Viking Longboat is unlikely to impact on your university admission or job prospects. A couple of hours' tutoring on integral calculus or the secret speech to the 13th congress or the subjunctive in German might well be, and if repeated every week could easily be, worth half a grade or more at A Level. You can huff and puff about how that shouldn't be the case, but it is. Attempting to remove that advantage from those that can do it is impossible

"It wasn't a big deal back then, now you get threads saying that my children are suffering because I am too thick to help them with their homework!"

I don't actually think anyone has said anything of the sort. But you carry on battling the straw army that people on here are so keen to construct!

There is life outside KS1, and it's where to be blunt where the middle-classes get their real edge. Making a Viking Longboat is unlikely to impact on your university admission or job prospects. A couple of hours' tutoring on integral calculus or the secret speech to the 13th congress or the subjunctive in German might well be, and if repeated every week could easily be, worth half a grade or more at A Level. You can huff and puff about how that shouldn't be the case, but it is. Attempting to remove that advantage from those that can do it is impossible.

This. I may be fervent about equal opportunities and so is my husband, but the reality remains that my husband and I can do two of those very examples, and hell would freeze over before we could be prevented from assisting our children in those areas!

Been to boarding school and nothing remotely to do with education discussed at dinner. Usually its all about who gets to the big telly first, ds games and have they got enough Lucozade for the Lucozade battle later.

A couple of hours' tutoring on integral calculus or the secret speech to the 13th congress or the subjunctive in German might well be, and if repeated every week could easily be, worth half a grade or more at A Level.

Think I prefer a happy fun home to giving tutoring lessons on calculus.
The only tutoring my ds and dd get is on drama,singing and dancing. Something they find fun to do.

I think people do underestimate the importance of a warm quiet home with a peaceful place to do homework, somewhere to keep books and pencil cases and parents who have head space to think about anything about how they are going to make ends meet.

I do sometimes wonder if Mumsnet is full of middle class people who don't want any more competition for their children and successful people from disadvantaged backgrounds intent on pulling the ladder up behind them......

"Think I prefer a happy fun home to giving tutoring lessons on calculus."

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive! My DP and I have a wide range of skills between us that means that we can help our DC with school work, and non-school work, right through - DSS1 is at university and consults both DP and me regularly (thank you iPhone). DSS2 and DD both expect to be able to call on us if need be.

We also do lots of fun things together and are a happy family!

A few people have said that the OPs suggestion would be to hard to 'police' or that the children would be too hard to identify, but that wouldn't matter if children were treated as individuals and schools were enabled to meet all their needs.

My children aren't on FSMs, but I can assure you there aren't any conversations about calculus or the treaty of Versailles over dinner in our house.

Depending on how you define 'middle class' my family may or may not fit into that category. We own our home outright and have a decent standard of living, but we don't even have an A level between us, let alone a degree. I feel I can support my children's education, but only to a certain extent. They will still be disadvantaged compared to some, but also they will be significantly more advantaged than others.

I don't think we should be looking at groups of children, as in ones that are EAL, or FSM, or sen, as ones that come from relatively uneducated families, or as ones that come from middle class families either. I think the fact that we do that is a big part of the problem, and we need to start treating children as individuals.

Schools would be more able to do that if they didn't have to worry about which children tick the right box to make them considered worthy of extra help.

Children on FSMs aren't living on a lower income than children who are borderline anyway, because that's what benefits are there to solve, and they do that job quite well.

So, MILLYMOLLYMANDYMAX if you understood calculus, you would just watch your 16 or 17 year old struggling for hours, even if they were in tears, even if you knew their university offer to do Civil Engineering or Computer Science or Medicine needed an A? You would not go, "look it's okay, it's like this" and explain?

That's not... something to be smug about. And I don't believe you anyway, because I've never known a mathematician who wouldn't help a younger family member or friend for free.

Hey, here's a thing for you. Find some parents who are also A-level maths teachers. If they have children old enough to do or have done A-level maths, an overwhelming majority of these children will have done. You'll find something similar going on with modern languages, but it won't be so overwhelming.

I had a maths tutor who had a doctorate in mathematics from Oxford. He ran the maths club for people who wanted to go to Oxford, giving help with the Oxford Maths Aptitude Test. He was very successful with it. Where do you think his own children had gone years before?

WooWoo, but if you have a group that demonstrably does worse than they should, surely that is a group that should be targeted for extra help and funding?

Why would it make a difference as long as the individuals within that group were still getting the extra help they need, if they need it?

I see what you are saying, but white working class boys are also doing badly in comparisons of achievement at the moment, and no one is throwing money at them and saying that schools have to demonstrate what they are doing to help them.

The current system is unfair, it doesn't work, and it fails children. I don't think that's acceptable just because some children from one small group have benefitted somewhere along the line. All children should benefit from taxpayers money if their parents educate them in the state system.

curlew I think your posts are brilliant.

I think that people forget that if qualifications didn't give people an advantage in life then we would not be striving for our children to do well.

"
I do sometimes wonder if Mumsnet is full of middle class people who don't want any more competition for their children and successful people from disadvantaged backgrounds intent on pulling the ladder up behind them......"

I think you are probably right. Ofcourse there are people who manage to beat the odds. (Ie. they become a hospital consultant when both parents are illiterate and on benefits) However as a nation social mobility is stagnant.

The pupil premium has gone some way to address the problems of povety, but only families on benefits who fill out the forms get it. There is no help for the working poor.

I don't believe that people who failed to get qualifications at school are thick. I believe that many of them were born into disadvantage and were written off at school. In the recent past the bottom set got the worst teachers and no one cared if they learnt anything.

What do you think the educational bar should be before extra help is given to families. (Should there be a pupil premium for children whose parents attended special school?)

The calculus comment was about being taught calculus outside of home work. The comment Friday was making was that he / she went through calculus and other stuff once a week every week whether it was part of the curriculum or not.

There are lots of programmes about engaging boys in education, actually. And boys as a group do not do as badly as poor and disadvantaged children as a group.

I just can't understand why that is such an issue. Here is a group that now, and historically, have not done as well as they should. Here is a way, among others, to address that. Why is that a problem? My privileged, supposed children do not need that extra help. That doesn't mean I begrudge it to those that do- I just thank heaven that circumstances mean mine don't.

Supported, not supposed. They do exist- honest!

I do sometimes wonder if Mumsnet is full of middle class people who don't want any more competition for their children and successful people from disadvantaged backgrounds intent on pulling the ladder up behind them......"

I don't think it's about that at all, I think it's about sharing out a limited pot of money fairly around all children, and you can't do that with a tool as blunt as FSMs.

In my experience, children that have the biggest disadvantage are travellers, who usually have too much money to qualify for FSMs. They get no allocated funding, despite there being a massive need for it.

There are children whose parents can't afford to pay for trips but that are just over the threshold for getting FSMs, and those children deserve the trip just as much as any other.

We have children from affluent families who have no sen of their own, but they have a sibling who does, and that massively affects their home life and the input their parents can give them.

It is not about wanting to deny disadvantaged children help that they need, it's about avoiding pp money creating a disadvantage elsewhere with children who don't qualify for it, but that have equal or greater need.

She said it would be worth half a grade or more at A-level. I think it was implicit that the person was taking A-level maths. As she meant that help with German subjunctives would help with A-level German, not A-level Physics. (Depending on your generation, you might expect to see calculus A-level Physics, although no calculus is currently included.)

Both the examples she gave are things that quite conceivably could come up every week with homework if the student was struggling. And the assistance would undoubtedly help.

I do sometimes wonder if Mumsnet is full of middle class people who don't want any more competition for their children and successful people from disadvantaged backgrounds intent on pulling the ladder up behind them......"

Or middle class people who know so much better than those on the receiving end of all these things, what they need and what’s stopping them getting it, and who the right people are to administer them and how much of the funding should be used to pay themselves for doing it.

Woowoo I'll try saying it again; if you want to advantage 'traveller' children, (rather than try and stop them being 'traveller' children) then don't remove traveller education services then give the money you saved to well meaning people who haven't a clue.

I think it was implicit that the person was taking A-level maths.

Obviously. I don't think I've ever ventured outside the syllabus of subjects my children are studying, or the very close margins around it.

MMMM is welcome to think that when the time comes to apply to selective universities, parents who have degrees or other high-level qualifications adjacent to their children's A Level subjects simply leave it to the teachers. And that those parents don't read the syllabuses, question their children to make sure it's all been covered, offer assistance on areas that are known to be tricky or where the child says they're having problems, mentally note each teachable moment that is an opportunity to extend, expand or reinforce, and then engage in a complex barter network with other parents and family members to get similar assistance on subjects they don't have as strong a grasp of. And that their children select courses to apply for based on the careers advice in school, arrive at university interviews never having spent time in a university department and not having done any preparatory work outside school, and once there rely solely on the contents of their A Level syllabus. Which is why, famously, the children of the middle classes aren't massively over-represented by a factor of four in selective universities and going to Eton in no way at all provides an advantage in applying to any Oxford or Cambridge college.

But for those that have a stronger grasp on reality, this is what is happening. You cannot stop it. As BigJessie pointed out, no parent ever said "I could help my child with that, but to do so would entrench intergenerational advantage and therefore I will pretend to know nothing". The middle classes are as invested in their children's education as it's possible to be. Saying they shouldn't be, or that all you're personally going to do is help them sing and dance, doesn't change the cold reality.

Pupil Premium is an attempt, yes, a flawed attempt, but at least an attempt, to do something, no matter how small, to balance that problem out. The level of pearl clutching about "labelling" strikes me as absolutely deranged. But hey: if people's fear of "labelling" means they want to give all the money back that's been taken from privileged schools in the suburbs, they can be my guest.