To wonder what chamgain shami Chakrabarti drinks

[Thefishewife]

It emerged last week that Baroness Chakrabarti’s son won a place at the £18,000-a-year Dulwich College in south London after sitting a tough entrance exam.
Critics say it shows she believed selective education is fine for those who can pay for it – but not for parents who cannot afford it.

Maybe it's Moët 🍾🍾🍾

herethereandeverywhere Sun 09-Oct-16 22:23:08 No idea mum. But with £20k to spend it isn't pass=private fail=comp. I'll guarantee that.

I'll bow to your superior knowledge. As I have no idea what the success rate is for applicants, I will go with your instance that the exam is nothing to do with getting a place there (which again begs the question, why the exams, perhaps all a big marketing ploy?).

Even within the fee paying selective schools there is pressure on the children to get into the super selective. It is just not about being privately educated but being privately educated in the right school. The pressure will be similar to the same experiences she gave in the Peston interview as why grammars should be scrapped.

I like champagne, does this mean I can't be a socialist?

People say him and his missus broke up because of grammer school I think. That was part of it but most like him shagging ms abott didn't go down to well

You realise that you are just making yourself look like an childish knicker sniffing berk, don't you?

I'm no fan of either Corbyn or Abbott, but two minutes on Google will tell you that he had a brief relationship with her before he met his second wife. So 'shagging ms abbott [sic]' before he'd even started a relationship with the mother of the child in question is unlikely to have been much of an issue. It is pathetic that a grown woman gets her knickers in a twist about two single adults having a relationship 30 or more years ago.

I am a Leftie- my son goes to one of the most desired Private schools in the country.
What I do with my child's education should have nothing to do with ideology- Chakrabati has done nothing wrong.
It's her business.

The pressure is huge to get into schools like DC, children are being tutored from as young as 7

more pressure that the eleven plus when the pressure is in year 6

Okimamma is is when you are in a position to take away choices that parents might want to make for their own children

Socialism - other peoples money - its like Opium.

Okimama,

I think that is the inherent problem with socialism. People believe that wealth should be shared until they get some for themselves. That wealth is somehow 'different' and words like personal and private become very popular suddenly. If you believe that ambitious people should be able to make and retain wealth, you are NOT a socialist.

If you become wealthy and then try to pull the ladder up behind you, it is plain selfish and hypocritical which is why 'champagne socialist' is used with such disdain.

Absolutely agree with larrygrll on first page and now. Behaving like Barti or indeed okimamma is hypocritical.

I agree with Larrygrylls (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd type).

Many of us are hypocritical about something - whether we're greens flying long haul for holidays or lefties buying from Sports Direct.
What I can't accept is that education exists in a special consequence-free zone where we pretend that nothing we do has any effect on wider society and it doesn't count as hypocrisy.

I went to private school (not in the uk). I was taught in a way where if the teacher says you sit down, you sit down! Back chatting, bad behaviour, laziness and poor grades were simply unacceptable and would be asked to leave the school if grades were not met. Parents worked with teachers to suppport their children rather than question or oppose the school. It may not be for everyone and seem old fashioned but it worked, well atleast for me.

If I could send my child to a private school, I would because I want the best for her, i'm not saying state schools don't provide the same but state schools are driven by government tragets and don't get me started on the academy system.

Also, I truly believe that private school education is not only about what is taught but about the people you meet and go to school with-- it opens up opportunities (it's not what you know but who know you).

It's just how it is.

I will get flamed for this I know.

*who you know is what I meant

Umm, socialism is not communism.

Hypocrite like Diane Abbott. Does a JC pandering report on antisemitism. Gets a peerage. Gets a shadow cabinet job. And I naively thought as was trustworthy.

I don't really want to do a Two Minutes Hate on Shami Chakrabarti and I suspect she is (as Diane Abbott did) getting far more heat about this than Labour men who have done the same did, but I find it incredibly depressing.
If even the Labour bigwigs have no faith in the state system to educate their children, where does that leave the rest of us? Because if they really genuinely believe the gulf between state and private is THAT wide, why aren't they making a fuss about that fact?
In the 70s the abolition of private schools was discussed - it was within the Overton window even if there was never a point at which it was likely to happen. Now even Labour just send their kids to them.

Banning private won't make state schools better. Copying private might make state schools better.

Champagne.

Champagne.

Champagne.

Champagne.

I don't agree.
I don't actually want to ban private, but I find it incredible how much they are ignored as a factor.
In the rural town where I used to live, the local comprehensive was shit. It wasn't a deprived area. It didn't have grammar schools. There was effectively no parental choice because it was out of catchment for the comprehensives on the right side of the nearest city. But a decent fraction of the kids from my dc's primary, not all the bright ones but not a cross section either (the whole top table in at least one class I am aware of), went on to the private school in the same town. I can't believe that this didn't have an effect on the state school.
Obviously all schools wouldn't immediately become equal if there were no private schools because selection by house price would continue and almost certainly worsen, but I don't believe the inequality would be anything like as bad.

I'd be as critical if her if she were a bloke. My dislike stems from the sham report and the payoff she got.

No mum I'm absolutely not saying that. Passing the exam with a sufficiently high mark+paying the fee = gets you in to Dulwich College. I agree with you on that point.

What I have tried to explain is that if you fail to get in to Dulwich College because you fail the exam it is not the case that you then go to the local comp. You simply select another private school with different entry requirements (those paying the fees will often talk up the non-academic strengths of such schools e.g.: excellent for sports/drama/art/music/great discipline so high % go to Sandhurst, or whatever).

Therefore, a child doing an 11+ for a private school entrance is not facing the same range of outcomes, or the same 'all or nothing' perception as those taking the 11+ for a grammar school.

Countess very true.

But The Countess I guarantee it will have had a positive effect on the kids sent to the private school and spared the experience of the shit comp. We're talking about kids lives and futures, not achieving the best possible statistics for state schooling.

And I also agree with jellyfizz that some people have socialism and communism confused (a bit like a US Republican interpretation in fact). LarryGrylls latest post is unintelligible in terms of its supposed explanation of the ills of socialism.

Within 5 miles of us we have a state school that has, for the last 20years, had the top results in the county. Around 90% of children achieve 5 A*-C grades. A 3 bed semi is around £350,000 in that catchment area.

We also have another school. In the early 2000s results were 9% with 5 A*-C grades at GCSE. It's now around 18% iirc. A 3 bed semi is around £90,000 in that catchment area.

State schools are just as selective. Obviously if you live IN catchment area A, you can afford to have principles and be staunch about sending them to state school. If you can afford it,"obviously you move there. We couldnt afford catchment area A, but area B was emphatically off the list, too.

I would consider myself to have a socialist ideology - but I have to work within the system and get what is best for my kids. They get one shot.