Are Londoners more intelligent?

[tothinkofsomething]

My Dad made a big thing when we moved out of London ( Zone 6 type expensive green Commuter belt area). We moved into North Hampshire. He basically was saying that outside the magical barrier of the M25 that the level of education is a lot lower. My Dc are just at the start of their school journeys and I have nothing to compare to. But his thoughts were that if my DC was top of their class in Hampshire that would be lower than in London. I'm guessing this depends on area of London? Also our estate agent said we shouldn't move out as we would struggle to get back in.

Well, I'd clearly say no to 'more intelligent' but - sorry there is a but.

I'm from a small town where there was only a technical college and no university. So most young people who wanted further education went to bigger cities, and most of them stayed there, they don't go back to small towns or villages. Those who stayed took a technical course, or apprenticeship so if you have that over a couple of generations, you will see that people staying in small towns have less education. Not less intelligent though.

Here you go OP. I’m smart enough to google despite living outside London

I’m from Yorkshire. I can read and write and I actually have .. wait for it .. A Levels !! 4 of them!

Londoners are absolutely more intelligent. We'll ignore the studies about the impact of CO2 emissions (bever mind airborne lead) on the cognitive development of kids in dense urban areas and that whole thing about deprevation being linked to lower academic achievement and the number of deprived areas in London and just run with the notion that the vast majority of humans in england are at least 25-100 IQ points behind our overlords within the M25 and that they should just get on with their slopmonging and whippet farming leave all the important things in life to Londoners who are truly the only people able to really appreciate them...
Or we could agree that is probably an unfair generalisation that should have been wiped out on the '50s and asking questions like this on an internet forum is likely to result in a flaming...
Just saying.
Now if you'll excuse me I've a whippet in a flat cap demanding ale and his pipe after a hard eternity down 't pit

Well I went to School on London ,a long time ago when still ILEA(Inner London Education Authority)and had a very good education there .We did French at 9.Also had a yearly visit to London zoo when we rode on an Elephant and a Camel as well! and I passed my exams into Secondary School as well.Similar to 11 plus I believe.We moved to Dorset when I was 13 .I did well in my new School ,but feel I had a head start in London.

Actually if there is such a thing as average iq by region then London may, and I stress may, come out top because people move there to take up intellectually challenging roles eg the clever stuff behind the scenes in finance but even doubt that because a lot of the high tech computer and biotech is not in London eg in Cambridge.

Our state schools outside of London are not as high achieving on average, that is a fact - mostly due to the government funding model being so flawed and less money is spent per head on the kids around here, around 30% less, so wrong.

Surely all the truly intelligent people live outside of London and work from their mansions private office and is they must commute in every so often.

Don’t all schools now teach French from year 1? My children’s school does and we certainly don’t live in London or go to private school.

I've never lived in London. I was top of my class in primary school. When I went to uni though, there were some Londoners there so I was only fourth in my class. 😔

Well as some Londoners pay hundreds of thousands to live in a shoebox in a smog filled, dirty overcrowded city .... Then no. I wouldn't call that intelligent.

I wish that the OP would come back and learn us all sumfing. 😭

You just went to a good school @dottiedodah there are plenty of good schools believe it or not outside London ,my primary school was an excellent school too , educational wise anyway in Greater Manchester ,we didn't go to to London zoo of course but I remember a trip to Chester Zoo .

Hahah this has got to be a joke. Education varies regionally, or even within the same small area between schools, as everyone with children in the uk is painfully aware. London has notoriously good state schools in terms of performance although also some notoriously appalling schools. But intelligence does not vary regionally. The fact you are conflating the two and also didn’t look into this properly before moving makes me think that your children aren’t likely to be top of the class either way....

Anyone who confuses intelligence with level of education is a bit thick IMO.

@dottiedodah

Well I went to School on London ,a long time ago when still ILEA(Inner London Education Authority)and had a very good education there .We did French at 9.Also had a yearly visit to London zoo when we rode on an Elephant and a Camel as well! and I passed my exams into Secondary School as well.Similar to 11 plus I believe.We moved to Dorset when I was 13 .I did well in my new School ,but feel I had a head start in London.

You just went to a good school. None of what you've described is exclusive to London.

I think the question says more about the intelligence of the OP, sorry @tothinkofsomethingthinkof

Here you go Op. Lots of lovely lovely charts.

analytics.ofqual.gov.uk/apps/Alevel/County/

If - like me - you judge intelligence on the proportion of 18 year olds getting an A* at Further maths A level then you will find that Herefordshire is the place to be.

If you (are very strange and) prefer English Literature A level the it seems “Rutland” would be better.

Ugg ugg. Me Scotland. Me carve this in stone.

Bloody hell, let’s not waste anymore time on this folks! OP created a typically goady fucker thread, barely contributed past the first page then quietly left the room leaving everyone else ripping shreds out of each other.

I'm from oop north. I got into medical school.

Burglar?

I've got me whippet, me cloth cap and a nice book with really soft pages for me outside privy. We may not be clever like you southern types but we're happy.

Made me laugh out loud.

This thread is making me never want to leave London again. People hate us.

I'm a Londoner and yes, I can confirm that we're more intelligent.

I spoke with every single Londoner out there, we had great fun:
We talked about French philosophers and their assumptions about the impact of industrialisation on modern thinking, made jokes about Dante's Divine Comedy and how weird the latest Russian translation was (it's hilarious), debated over General Relativity (that guy in N19 didn't know the exact number of the speed of light, typical Archway that), we did our top10 of Italian Designs of the year, talked about how Epidemiology should be taught in year5 given the current Covid situation and then it was luncheon time so we put some interesting and rather pleasant molecules in our bodies to sustain life (as known as called food outside the M25) with red wine which was surprisingly not too tannic for a Val de Loire Syrah (I know, it was a shock for me too!)

Whilst we were doing that, our kids made some drawings, little Archie made me a cute one with oil paint, he said "This is an abstract representation of Brexit and the divide amongst people in Europe, but there's hope because we'll soon realise that our will to unite is what defines us as Human Being" thank you very much Archie, but not sure I agree, I may speak with his Reception teacher.

But enough talking about London!
How's life on the other side of the M25? How do you guys doing with learning the alphabet? Not that easy to memorise 26 characters I guess!
Are you coping with irregular verbs?

I think people hate the London centric attitude. Not London. But l am in open country in 5 minutes from where l live in a big city. And that’s more important to me than all the ‘culture’ in London.... even though l have a degree in design.

I’d love to go to the Design Museum. But after travel etc it’s just not worth the cost. So in a way, London is just four tourists or Londoners. It costs a bomb to travel there.

And there’s the little issue of Boris too, which makes it a little more univitong.

I think your father my have been caught out by the third variable. Ask him because he’ll understand this given his extra LIQ (Londoner Intelligence Quotient). When you’ve asked him get him to explain it to me as I live in Kent and am barely able to write my own name.