To think that it is hypocritical to be anti Private,Selective or Single Sex Schools when you have benefited from them.

[smokepole]

Having read many threads on this site and having read a couple in particular today, it seems that "most" of the posters on here have benefited from these types of schools. However, time and time again you read these people slating Grammar , Private and single sex schools. This is so hypocritical that the posters who have had the benefit of the best of the education system, seem so anti any form of selection for today's children.

I had the misfortune of being educated in a Secondary Modern in Kent in the 1980s . There are not many Secondary Modern educated posters on this site, which goes to show how fortunate the majority of posters on here were with their educations. These people are like "Champagne Socialists" having benefited from superior educations, but seek to deny the opportunities for future generations. "DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO" springs to mind with these posters who espouse the merits of Comprehensive education, having not being educated through the Comprehensive system themselves.

smokepole I went to an all girls' grammar school and to a red brick university.

None of the qualifications I got there mattered a damn when I career changed 10 yearsago, and almost anything valuable I've achieved professionally has happened since that career change.

If your obession with schools makes you think they matter that much you simply have no understanding of the world of work and how people succeed in careers.

And that obession is, quite frankly beyond what most people would consider normal.

Ok. I will stop Posting then!

Who suggested that you should stop posting?

Smoke I do think in the gentlest way possible, that you do need to work on how you handle fixations. It's likely down to ASD but you do worry at things like a dog with a bone.
If you'd asked a question such as
"If you were state educated have you chosen the same for your dc?" then you'd have got a different discussion. You need to think about starting a conversation with a question rather than an assertion and things may go better for you.

Don't flounce, Smoke, just take on board what people are saying - that there's good and bad schools of all sorts and there's far, far more to life than what sort of school you went to!

there's good and bad schools of all sorts and there's far, far more to life than what sort of school you went to

Spot on.

I will stop posting on this thread or subject then.

Sorry taking things literally . A symptom I can sometimes display, and yes probably I do not have any idea how people succeed in careers having nether had a Job outside my family or a favour from a friend. The likelihood is I will probably never work again, because no one will employ me with the various conditions I have " I am being Truthful there". I am therefore surviving at the bequest of my family.

Yes they will smoke (employ you). Whyever not?

You have years to go before retirement age and you have time to learn about how to make yourself employable.

Your children's successwill very likely rest on how they deal with work, professional training and career choices. The schools they attended will become increasingly irrelevant.

Thanks For the show of Support Arsenic... I have had a "Crap" day my Mothers Brother died Yesterday at 9 AM aged .... Perhaps I should not have started a thread , but I did it to take my mind of my Uncle!.

Aged 75....

Sorry to hear about your Uncle

I hope the distraction worked a little, at least.

The world is awash with gainfully employed (and successful) aspies. TBH your bigger barrier is two decades of only working for family, but you're an undergrad now; voluntary work plus qualification will overcome that little problem. You'll be fine, more than fine! Just let your diagnosis sink in.

smokepole
Sorry about your Uncle
I used to live in Dover and in Deal and spent a lot of time around Hythe.
The schools in that part of Kent are not representative of Kent, let alone the rest of the country.
Driving past the Marsh Academy was an experience.
The grammars in Ashford are OK, but nothing to write home about compared with schools in other parts of the country.

East Kent is very poor.
Absolute proof : house I sold in Dover for £48k in 1988 sold last year for £90k
House I bought in Southampton in 1989 for £58k sold earlier this year for £230k

Thank you Talkinpeace The funeral is next Friday In Pembroke South Wales.

You are right East Kent and even Rochester are parts of the country that time forgot. The Marsh Academy comes up out after the nothingness of the Kent Swamp Land of Romney Marsh. That is why I could not understand the bile I attracted by having the temerity to consider moving up North on another thread. I do hope though regardless of my Political view that Kelly Tollhurst wins the Rochester and Strood By Election. The reason being after reading her profile she is a "normal" person who even failed her 11+ and went to Chapter High( Now Strood Academy). It will be refreshing to have a normal person in the house of commons.

Arsenic. I did not want to say this because, I am a bit embarrassed to say that I have been living at "home" for the past two weeks. I am sleeping in my Childhood Bedroom at 41 years of age. DD2 and DS moved out of "their" home and after three nights on my own I could not stand living on my own so I moved back "home" sleeping with my old "Teddy Bear" for company .Sister and Mother are bickering with each other about Me , Sister is saying parents have not helped me enough. Mother is saying that sister "ran off " and did not look after me or care for me, she cites the obvious refusal of the school fees for DD1.

My sister does agree though with my parents that the best place for me at the moment, is the family home.. Sorry for the update, but it just came out when I was replying to Talkinpeace....

Sorry should have Said parts of "Chatham" .....

smokepole
Why do you think I moved out of East Kent after only two years
I could see France from my office window but it was a million miles away.

Sadly even my beloved comps could not cure the problems of that part of the country, but the Grammar / Sec Mod split definitely does not help now that the mine, farm and dock jobs have gone.

Most other posters will just pelt through on their way to the ferries or the tunnel, but those towns are neglected in a way that is hard to envisage for the South East.

Are the DC with their dad?

You sound very down. What is your sister suggesting?

Talkinpeace. You are quite correct , the poverty and the social situation in Dover and East kent is invisible to most people, who only see the Ferry Port of Dover the M20 or The Channel Tunnel. These people think that the Northern Towns such as Rochdale, Doncaster, Darlington ETC are the poorest areas in the country both in terms of wages and academic achievement. What most people and I suspect many posters don't realise is that East Kent and a lot of Kent (with the Exception of Sevenoaks/Tunbridge Wells Area) has levels of poverty and academic achievement, that are only marginally better/affluent than the poorest Northern areas and Towns.

There is "invisible" poverty down here, that gets ignored by the media(local and national). The Media are trying to create the myth that Poverty only exists North of Watford and that everything is fine and dandy in the "Garden of England". The truth is the "Economic Recovery" has by-passed East Kent, Deal, Dover . Margate is a town that makes even Blackpool look like Las Vegas, you hardly ever hear that said on television.

Its probably living in East Kent that has shaped my views about education and the "importance of Grammar Schools". I accept my views may be wrong nationally , but there are not wrong on a local level.

Arsenic. The children are with me and living in the "family" home . DD2 wanted to live there anyway, DS joined in with her.

It is quite ironic that DD2 likes "Gran's" discipline which makes mine look very easy going!. DD2 now has a tutor for 2 hours on a Saturday Morning, Parents are Paying, that was a "condition" of her going to live there. If I had suggested that to her, WW3 would have broken out!.

Sister thinks it is in mine and the kids best interests , to live at "home" with Mum/Dad at the moment.

I hope you feel better soon. Then you can make plans about what you feel is best for yourself and your DC.

In East Kent, particularly Thanet, especially now that the Viagra has run out in Deal, Grammar schools are the only way to get a decent education to get the heck out of there.

For those who do not believe, villages like Betteshanger and Tilmanstone are like the Welsh Valleys without the EU money.

BUT
If the schools reverted to Comps and teachers were expected to get the best out of all pupils rather than just those willing/able to get to the Grammars, the area could pick itself up.

Admittedly the 47 childrens' homes in Margate ( every London borough dumps kids there) will still be a brake, but if the schools were comp intake it would be harder to hide.

Talkinpeace. I was reading Seumas Milne's book, The Enemy Within that tells the story about the Miners Strike of 1984/85. As you can Imagine my family a were totally against the "Miners". Tilmanstone as a village never recovered from the close of its Colliery in 1986 and resembles economically, Villages near Barnsley . The Colliery at Betteshanger was the final pit to close in the Kent coalfield in 1989. Another unknown fact, about the Miners of Kent is that they were the last to go back to work, they were probably the most resilient of all the branches of the NUM.

The grammar system will never change in Kent, it will be here for life, therefore you have to buy in to the system and embrace it. Comprehensive schools would not work here, instead of having grammar schools, you would have a large number of private schools opening up taking perhaps 15% of the most prosperous families children, this would create an even bigger gulf.

Selective education is in the blood in "these" parts, abolish grammar schools and deny even more children the opportunity to escape.

I imagine my children will leave East Kent for careers /jobs in their futures. One of the reasons (apart from my Brother) why I was thinking of relocating to the Manchester area is that potentially if my children get decent careers, they will be able to afford to buy housing there. There is obviously no way I could see them buying anything in London, ( I don't like London anyway) its too big and expensive.....

smokepole
I lived in Dover and Deal in the aftermath of the Miners strike, when the Herald went down and worked in Dover Docks during the P&O strike.

I've no idea why people slammed you for wanting to move north
but if I were in your shoes and had the opportunity, both for me and my kids, Manchester sounds a much better bet than Capel.

If nothing else you'll get to see how comps can be great

From what I remember of the other thread it was the OP's contemptuous attitude to anyone who went to a non-selective school that got people's hackles up, not that she fancied a move up north ...

At the pre A level evening at my son's school, a parent of a child considering moving to that school asked the head of maths how many of the people teaching maths in the school had maths degrees.

Her answer was that every teacher in every subject in the school has a degree in the subject they teach.

I wish that was available to every child everywhere. I think it should be an absolutely basic requirement to teach at secondary level. But I'm not going to deny it to my kids just because it's not available to everyone.

I did decide not to go into teaching when it was made clear to me that I would be expected to teach all sciences, including biology which I don't even have GCSE in.