Jeremy Corbyn and DD

[Dressingdown1]

I am so worried about what will happen if Labour get in and implement their stated policy on closing down independent schools. It is literally keeping me awake at night worrying about what might happen to DD.

DD is in her 30s, just split from her OH and works as a teacher and housemistress at an independent school. If it is taken over by the state, she stands to lose her home (she lives in the boarding house) and possibly her job. Her school has tiny classes and a state school would need far fewer teachers for the bigger class sizes.

Of course she could come and live in our spare room if necessary, but hardly desirable for someone who has lived away from home for years.

Please tell me I am silly to be so worried!

You do understand the difference between a vague statement of intent (that wasn't even proposed by Corbyn), and a fully costed, legally sound, and realistic policy.

I do, but unfortunately the Labour Party doesn’t!

McDonnell has already said publicly that the motion is not viable as worded.

As if I would trust that crazy old Marxist to tell me the time, let alone anything else!

I wouldn’t worry too much. Labour will still need private schools to send their own children to. I’m sure Diane Abbott can reassure you.

I think it's done it's grubby little job of sowing class hatred where there was none

What a lot of tosh.

Well house prices would certainly skyrocket around the "better" state schools. The rich/elite would still all send their kids to the same schools (the ones in the most expensive areas), but how does the wealth of the PTA help? I presume that if private schools were banned, then private contributions/donations to schools would also be banned.

Sadly the PTA spending power has a massive impact in reality. I work in a leafy, middle class village school with generally middle and upper income families. As schools have been perpetually underfunded under any government recently, our iPads, textbooks, sports equipment, trips, library books etc have largely come as a result of fundraisers and Amazon wish list donations. Schools in the small market town a few miles up the road from us have not had this due to a differing catchment, and as such are sorely lacking in equipment and resources.

This also impacts the quality of teaching; rightly or wrongly, we are able to attract a high amount of interest in vacancies due to generally good resources and parental support, and thus can choose from a wide pool of talent.

I’ve voted Labour ever since I was able to. I won’t now. It feels as though they’re throwing out promises that they believe will appeal to those that have turned away from them.

If you think that parents and children who are disenfranchised and forced into a situation against their will are going to help the government to raise standards in state schools in any way at all, you must be on glue.

Trying to persuade the MN masses to ignore the goverment shite going on do you really think we are that important

Christ in a bucket, OP, your DD is a grown adult! Is she really so poorly qualified that the only job she can do is the one she's already got? I'd advise her to think about her next career step unless she's planning on staying in that job until she retires, and you could maybe think of finding something to distract you from worrying about something you cannot control.
Honestly! I think I've read it all now.

It's funny how many threads re private schools have popped up.

It’s almost as if Labour had broadcast their idiotic policies at their annual conference a few days ago ... oh wait, they did!

What an absolute load of ARSE.

Back to the OP - I’ve done the job the OPs daughter is doing. She gets a full teacher’s salary, plus an allowance for responsibility. She has no accommodation costs - no rent, no council tax, no utilities. She will have free food available in term time. She should have been able to save enough to buy easily, so let’s not worry about the poor little homeless 30 year old professional with a heap of savings.

Huh.

I’m losing sleep wondering whether my two beautiful disabled kids will ever be able to access any sort of meaningful education thanks to the current system and the Tory attitude towards education.

But sure, lose sleep over whether your adult, educated, eminently employable daughter might hypothetically have to find a new job one day if a series of hypothetical things happen.

Op it will never happen.

I'd love to know how it will improve schools anyway?

Bizzare idea. Troubled pupils come rich or poor, wealth does not insulate a child from drug addict parents, broken homes, the problems with blended families.
What it does provide is smaller classes... So teacher is managing a few really disruptive pupils rather than half a class full. So will still need very small classes for the really disruptive pupils, how will they manage that???

I've actually seen some really good stuff in regards to some areas of education.. It's not all doom and gloom.

Yawn yawn yawn.

...... Pupil premium goes to secondary modern and rarely to grammar.

As stated a billion times on here by charity of social equality the Sutton Trust...

Poor kids are not helped by their primary school to gain access to grammar.

In a few areas again that has been stated here some primary do help more and in those areas surprise surprise more pp is... Admitted!! Because they were helped a little like on the olden days when teachers looked out for prospective gs kids!!

It's hardly rocket science.

Anyway pray tell how the parents will improve the schools?
As we all know... Rich kids are not necessarily brighter... And not insulated fron emotional issues which cause bad behaviour...

What it does provide is smaller classes...

For those who can afford it - and we are talking about a very small section of society there.

The rest of us? Our kids can limp along in overcrowded classrooms.

We should not have a two tier education system.

Meanwhile many of the SEN parents I know are forced to homeschool because councils won’t fund a specialist place or there are no places and their child can’t cope in mainstream school. Or they’re offered two hours a day at a mainstream school.

Meanwhile private schools have tax free status and are cleaning up, while some kids aren’t getting an education at all.

But yeah, lose sleep over an adult who may need to look for a new job at some point down the line.

It’s clear where some people’s priorities are in this country.

I think you need to get a bit of a grip. Firstly it’s unlikely to happen and secondly, if she loses her job she’ll have to do what loads of us have had to do and find something else.

I lost my job a few years ago and I have kids to provide for as well, I’m sure my parents were concerned but I can’t imagine they lay awake worrying about it. That’s a bit OTT.

Sink I mean smaller classes is huge help so how will no small classes help when more troubled kids are put into system with no capacity for smaller classes.

I’m sorry for your worry, but your daughter would be okay- her skills as a teacher would be useful in a reformed and revitalised education system. I’m another one who thinks this is a great idea though (and a teacher with a teacher husband). I think Michael Rosen summed it up for me.

Oh and just leaving this here.

her skills as a teacher would be useful in a reformed and revitalised education system

All hail the democratic ownership of the methods of production! All hail the Great Leader!

I don't trust them at all. They are as divisive and nasty as they come, evil bunch.

Sink I mean smaller classes is huge help so how will no small classes help when more troubled kids are put into system with no capacity for smaller classes.

That’s already what’s happening now. Except for the fact that a few of them have parents who can afford smaller classes. The whole system needs to be overhauled - having access to a better education system if you are wealthy is not the answer: