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.

Well, I only have 2 GCSEs, and I obtained those a few years ago, so my poor kids have struggled to cope having had uneducated little old me to help them with their homework. How they've suffered! Oh, wait, that's right, DS1 is now on his 3rd year of uni and my 3 other kids are achieving right what they should be.

It's not about relevant qualifications, it's about deprivation and lack of life skills and opportunities that would be more of a parenting problem.

Am I supposed to be doing their homework? No one ever did my homework... I feel cheated!

Am I supposed to be doing their homework? No one ever did my homework... I feel cheated!

actually, the op has a point, I just dont think she has made it very well.

It is a recognised fact that the single most important thing to improve child health and decrease infant mortality is not obvioius stuff like clean drinking water or immunisation, but female education. I dont have the references to hand unfortunately, but they are easily googled.

Parental input in vital for well qualified kids. That can come from a mom who was never allowed to go to the village school and learn to read or write, but was very well educated in all the other aspects of life, or it can come from a mom with a PhD. What is needed is a mother or father who cares enough to spend time with a child. The actual qualifications dont really matter.

Right, so according to MN, there is absolutely no chance that my children, offspring of someone who could pass GCSEs, have a bit of an educational advantage, compared to my peers at school, who for various reasons (SEN diagnosed too late, child in care, etc) left school (at the beginning of the 21st century) without a single GCSE or the reading skills to be entered into the exams in the first place.

Right.

Sorry, you're wrong. And, I'm still friends with them, and they haven't managed to gain RG degrees in the years since. That early disadvantage remains, and they will be struggling helping with homework past primary. Rags to riches stories are rare. Life isn't a Hallmark movie.

also so what if the schools get pupil premium, IME this money is just used for eg maintaining the swimming pool or some other top priority, certainly not to any individual pupils' advantage. just saying.

Nigella she was not suggesting a premium for the children of parents without degrees, though, was she?

That was a sentence that came afterwards. Afterwards. Not first.

Personally I don't agree with the whole "pupil premium" mechanism, however I would suggest that it isn't parental education that is the issue, its parental attitude to education. There is some correlation between low parental attainment and a negative parental attitude to education, but plenty of parents with no qualifications do instill an attitude conducive to educational success in their kids.

Income ie fsm is a better indicator because its about less tangible things. It is only an indicator though so doesn't affect everyone the same way.

Because of the way fsm work it tends to mean there is no working adult in the household which means that the dc do not get the example of working as a norm which then means they may not strive to improve their lives either. It's not as black and white as that sounds and that is seriously generalized but help tends to be focused on generalizations because its too expensive to basically test how essential to an individual case each bit of help is

I'm not so sure it isn't an idea worth looking at. There is a reason that the mother's educational level is regarded as the best indicator of future success, after all.

It's not, necessarily, just about homework support, as the OP acknowledges, but about everything. I've said this before on here - a parent that can negotiate paperwork and complex admin systems, can write formal letters well, can support and comprehend new systems of learning (phonics, anyone?), can talk on a level with a teacher without being intimidated, can expand a topic through their own interest in it, etc, etc, etc, obviously advantages their child over the parent who can't.

We saw that, in a thread the other week. The OP was barely literate - and, accordingly, having nightmares communicating the requirements and restrictions of a complex medical condition her son had to the school.

And economic success, now, isn't the best measure of that. How you would administer it, though.... Perhaps a combination of job role/educational attainment/hours worked?

I'm amused by those saying things like 'my parent only got this, but is a fully qualified whatever'.... er, in a lot of those cases, that would be a qualification granted at a college or a university, and therefore, raises the educational level from the basic!

Meh. Neither of my parents have a degree. I have two, post grad qualifications and a just about to start a PhD. My parents never helped with homework because homework was something I was supposed to do, not them.

I think you will also find, OP, that skilled people can be pretty exhausted at the end of the day too. Surprisingly many of us work long hours for little money. I challenge you to spend 8 hours on your feet teaching deliquent 16 year olds, then come home to do another shift marking. the hourly rate works out at not much above the minimum wage.

Yes its the usual mumsnet MO,, mock the op.
Im not offended. I have no degree. But i see / understand that it is not that people without a degree are thick and lazy and making bad decisions, but that that group of mothers who DO have a degree are far less likely to be unintelligent/lazy/ self-destructive etcc

I thimk a quick survey handed out by school would identify parents that were going to find it hard to help their child. And this, IF they could do it would be a good thing. I dont have qualifications but there's no way my children would be disadvantaged by having me for a mother.

Meh...my parents don't have degrees, think they got a handful of cse and gce's between them. little bro is at oxford reading biochemistry. I'm doing open university. think they did okay as parents tbh.

I think the OP has a point though it is mired in the assumption that a degree means educated/no degree means uneducated. Children whose parents are interested in their education do better than children whose parents are not interested in their education. It's not something you could police though.

I think the problem is more to do with lack of aspiration than lack of education and that has something to do with poverty and depressed neighbourhoods. Many people don't even think they can achieve and pass that onto their children - it becomes heritable. Really good and inspiring teachers can reverse much of this as can a child who is not content to stay in the environment they've been brought up in.

In the words of Manuel. "Que???".

As a person who isn't degree qualified I must be too thick to understand the OP.

"That was a sentence that came afterwards. Afterwards. Not first"
ummm yes but it was in the OP was it not? and people that did read the whole post picked up on it. The whole post. Not just the first sentence.

White boys from working class families STASTICALLY under achieve compared with other groups. There are always antedotes where people defy the normal, but social mobility is dire in the UK.

www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/jan/17/working-class-boys-raise-attainment

No govement is prepared to address the fact that white working class children do worse than most ethnic groups. It would be morally reprepremisble to give schools extra money for white children. It would be fairer to give extra money to children whose parents are unskilled.

How on earth can schools raise achievement without extra money? It doesn't hurt a child for their school to be given extra money. Life is getting harder for unskilled people as there is more competition form immigrants than in the past. Technology is making lots of people redunant.

I left school with absolutely no qualifications and I home school. I have taught my son to read, something the qualified teachers failed to teach him and he is heading towards GCSE Maths. He is 11. I have also had my child seen by the Ed Psych who gave a full report about her dyslexia and guess what? I could understand it without the need for someone with a degree explaining it to me in simple terms.

Jacks, yes i worry that my children dont see a working adult in the household. Might change soon touch wood,but yes, aware that they dont get to see that. I dont mean im worried , like, awake at night! It just crosses my mind.

OP which point are you trying to make? Is it regarding parents with fewer than 5 GCSEs or partners without a degree? Because there is a broad range in between which both myself and my partner fall into.

We are both 'articulate', in positions of authority in professional jobs and capable of raising our children to be whatever they aspire to be.

I resent your opinion that if you don't have a degree you are somehow below those that do and the insinuation that the higher the level of education you have, better the parent you would be. I find your post patronising and condescending.

YABU

DH is dyslexic but undiagnosed all those years ago, so, no exam results. He now has a successful career in engineering. So, no GCSEs but really he is quite capable of helping DC with homework. More so than me and I have a degree.

Better eduated mothers are better at getting their children's needs met as they are often more articulate

And fathers?

Interesting questions reallytired. Not sure i can suggest amswers but we shouldnt have a "oh do be quiet" culture where posters cant even thrash a few questions and answers around"
Plenty of us manage to fight our children's corner so to speak but not all parents manage that. It is obvious that we need to try to identify these parents.

Like others have said, I don't think you can link a lack of qualifications to the assumption that parents are uneducated.

However, are there many households where the parents don't have basic literacy/numeracy skills? I wonder what impact that has and if there is extra assistance available in those circumstances. What about where english isn't the parent's first language?

doesnt
My children's father has a masters. I dont even have a degree. But im the one raising them. Although, i guess they have inherited intelligence from him so that must be factored in.
I can understand why the mothers level of education more significant.