To feel we are all a little bit too obsessed with education and school?

[TheOddity]

I've seen threads recently about people remortgaging their house for private education, teachers publicly shamed in front of their peers for results beyond their control, people moving house to be nearer a good nursery, and on and on.
I recently moved to another country in Europe. I asked my new neighbour what the local nursery was like as that's where we intended to send our son. They said "it's very close and convenient". My spidey senses were tingling, did this mean it was a failing nursery? Next I go to the first parents' meeting. Not a word was spoken about targets, the curriculum etc. it was all about food and naps. In the end section for questions, the questions parents asked were about.....food and naps! He is there now for half a year, it's fine, And hopefully sometimes he is learning. There is one secondary school nearby so everyone goes there and again, it's fine. I am not overly worried my son will fail, because he is bright and I will help him.
I just think, are we all insane in the UK? Is it worth the stress? At the end of the day, if you are worried enough about them to remortgage your house, surely you could just do a bit of homework with them each night and it will all turn out ok? AIBU to think that school is all a bit out of proportion and life is pretty unpredictable unless your parents already own a fortune?

A friend worked in France in an ultra high tech design factory.
Staff were from all over the world - we went out for supper with the whole team while visiting.
None were French.
All spoke in English all the time.
The only reason the place was still open was France's insane labour laws.
It got mothballed a year or two later and the work moved to Britain.
Not a British company BTW.

OK, I'm back. I work in a technical field and I know plenty of top notch bilingual and trilingual grads with maths and engineering degrees. We get about almost one third applications from private school applicants that make it to interview rounds. A very high number of Asians and now highly educated Africans applying. The numbers are increasing. I'm writing this because, yes, not all kids, people want these jobs but its about levelling the playing field.

I don't want my children struggling in manual/ dead end jobs. Yes, I'm happy, yes, work is stressful but even cleaning jobs are stressful. I'd rather be well paid. Nothing wrong with that.

And trust me when I say, there are way more tiger parents in your school than they are letting on.

It is much much harder for graduates to get jobs these days. I know, I recruit for them. And if I my dcs give it up mid exec career, so be it. But they will have a great foundation , good starting pension and be on that housing ladder if they can stick it out in a well paying job for a while at least.

Someone mentioned museum curator previously. The competition for those kind of jobs are intense. Let's get real here. You will still need to get excellent grades to apply for such a post.

I know some museum curators. A PhD in an Art History field and 4/5 languages plus having lived in several countries is the starting point! And they are slim and glamorous too!

English as a first language can be important in jobs with a high safety element - pilot, some mining, diving chambers ...

Ah well they're all doomed then.The vast maj won't have 4 or 5 languages,Oxbridge degrees and be skinny/glamorous to boot.

Best give up now.

lepetit
but for every one Museum curator there are hundreds and hundreds of maintenance and cleaners and security and catering and guides

the top jobs rest on the work of the others
you know the ones that MN posters like to drive past on their way to selective / private schools

I assumed the only extra language that counted anymore was Mandarin.I'm amazed all these skinny,glamorous prodigies are proficient in such a complex language ,that is renowned for being difficult to master, on top of their Oxbridge science degrees and PHDs.

The way the English education is set up it's very difficult ( if doing A level) to carry on doing languages if you want to be a doctor ( 3 sciences or 2 plus maths required).Especially from next year when most subjects will not have As1's available.Dd's doing 3 language GCSE's ( including Latin),got A* in her mocks but is now faced with completely giving them up as her independent school is now recommending only 3 A levels.These will have to be Sciences/Maths as she wants to do something medical.I'm guessing the IB ( very little knowledge of this) wouldn't encourage students to specialise so young.

Surely for it to count you'd need to do a degree in it.I did A level French and my French is shocking.Also surely the only language worth bothering with is Mandarin which is notoriously difficult to learn and compete with Asian students as regards grades.

Frankly I'd rather my hospital consultant,airline pilot,had put any extra hours he/she had into honing their operating skills than on learning Mandarin.

I feel very strongly about education, having been both a teacher,
and a teaching assistant in a very wide variety of schools both here and abroad, and I'm a single parent of a 14 year old daughter in an all girls grammar school and a 12 year old son in a mixed comprehensive . My daughter, since half way through Year 7 starting self harming, became anorexic and generally hates school even though she is quite bright and is expected to do well in all of her 10 GCSEs.. She gets a lot of support through the school however...
My son is starting to become a school refuser......

If I didn't have to work, I would home educate them.
I think many people forget that this, for some of us, can be an option.

Yes, there are some appallingly bad teachers out there, regardless of the type of school they are employed in. My own concerns in sending my children to secondary schools were to do with the values, standards and values they would pick up at school not with how many GCSEs they finish up with...

Ditto as regards their ability to wear glamorous clothes.

I didn't say that alternatives were easy to get into! I just pointed out that top job in the city may be someone's dream, but it is another person's nightmare.
Museum curator is very difficult to get into - but you don't do it for the pay! ( no chance of the starting salary of £35k)

canny, be very careful. Every good independent school I know is still going to do 4 AS in lower sixth. I would stop that at your peril whatever the school are saying. Also Labour have said they won't bring in those reforms.

As for languages it depends on the child. All my 5 have done a language at GCSE. I did French and German and then I went on to do German A level. It was the right subject to me but I've never much used it although I can remember most of it whereas the only other girl who did the A level with me ended up living in germany with her family so she certainly must have made huge use of it.

Mandarin is hard to master if you're English and there are so very very very many brilliant Chinese girls in the UK who are bilingual that is huge competition.

Noooo... Don't give up! Just don't take your foot off the ball.

Mandarin. Yes. My kids are learning mandarin. That shouldn't be a surprise these days.

If you look at the University stats for America and UK, which ethnic groups are applying and coming out with top grades? I haven't got my stats on me to quote but there shows a trend, which has grown significant. And given that less than 1% of UK students have been privately educated , we have a significant % from this private school group making it through to third and fourth round interviews. My manager went to Eton.

I forgot to add, we all need to teach our kids public speaking. It's probably one of the most important skills we need to teach. Employers really value this and like it or not, really successful people tend to be good public speakers. Private schools do really well in this area.

In 10yrs time China may well have boom-and-busted

The top selective near us has stopped offering Mandarin as they say it's extremely hard to get top grades and to compete with Asian pupils ie it's a waste of an A level.

Friend of mine who has worked in China says the level of Mandarin British students come over with is laughable.

Maybe. Given the number of British companies taken over or bought out by Chinese investors - you wouldn't want China to go bust. Our very economy and home grown jobs rely on manageable growth and investment from the likes of China.

I forgot to add, we all need to teach our kids public speaking. It's probably one of the most important skills we need to teach.

Very much agree with this. I think these class assemblies are great. Getting children used to speaking in frnot of audience. I would also add debating in too and general speaking clearly. I think its a skill all dc should have to have before leave school.

cookiedough
given that less than 1% of UK students have been privately educated , we have a significant % from this private school group making it through to third and fourth round interviews.
piffle
7% of all students are privately educated and the percentage rises as you go up to graduate level
Oxbridge are out of kilter with 50% private and state, but not by much

Oxbridge definitely don't have the worst record for private school stats.

There are other universities with higher proportions.

And let's not get started on MAs. The stats for private/state at post grad level are not good.

And let's not even get thinking about jobs in certain industries!

Thanks for the correction!

Ah yes speaking. I give 50 - 30 talks a year. People flock to hear me speak in that sense. i am paid to speak. Some like my voice. So what makes that? I did speech and drama exams aged 6 - 10. My mother (teacher) was very hot on speaking - never if I was you rather than were you etc etc would pass in her home (or indeed mine).

Get children to learn to speak to others well. Help them with things like looking people in the eye, introductions, hand shaking (depending on the culture), grammar, accent, ability to make yourself understood no matter to whom you are talking. None of mine have done drama at school but they certainly have all done school concerts regularly. Ability to chat to people - to find that one thing you have in common with them at work - that's a really useful skill.

Communication should be good whether in meetings or in writing by email at work and of course in relationships it's important too.

JillyR2015 have you any stats on the number of schools recommending 4 A levels.The courses are starting this September so surely its too late for any Government to stop them?
Dd will be doing 3 linear subjects so therefore there is little point in doing As 1's at the same time ( is it even possible in Sciences and Maths?).Some of her friends doing Arts subjects are apparently still able to do 4 subjects as these still follow the old format.

What my sons' school is doing is every boy does 4 AS levels in lower sixth and then in upper sixth they will do 3 A levels (some of the subjects are changing this September (when they go into sixth form) and some not so in upper sixth some subjects when they do them will still be A2 and others will be A level but even if A level they will already have an AS level in it.

Their school said most schools had taken the same decision although some state schools might not want to fund the extra fees of the "inessential" 4 AS levels in lower sixth under the new system (theirs is a private school).

In a sense doing that they and many other schools will do is giong o remove the advantage of that Gove reform which was to return to the wonderful days of my lower sixth year when you can relax as no exams which is a pity and you would lose the 3rd term of the lower sixth to exams BUT if youre GCSEs were not too good it must be safer to gave very good AS results in 4 subjects on your UCAS form,. What the school says rightly is that at present it is not know to what extent the universities will look at the AS results as that is hardly fair on state schools not prepared to fund then. I assumed the content whether you do AS plus A level or just the A level was going to be pretty much the same anyway. I have now forgotten which of their A levels are moving to the new system and which not this September. English was one that was moving immediately but they are not after all chosen that one.