Can you tell if someone is privately educated?

[bye2020]

Without knowing what school they went to?

@Gwenhwyfar

"People can put accents on to make themselves sound well spoken."

Anyone who's watched actors on TV and films will know that it's not particularly easy to put on an accent. Yes, spies can do it and some talented actors, but the average person can't carry it off very well.

I really don’t get what your ‘argument’ is or what side of the fences you sit on tbh.

In the one breath, you said yourself that a leafy suburban school is likely to have well spoken children....

The next thing you’re saying, is that that can only be the case for the schools in the ‘home counties’.....

(Yes you can put an accent on to fit in with your surrounds. Most people wouldn’t bother because its crackers to do so but it’s possible - everyone has a ‘phone voice’)

Also my friends sister left home at 18, went to uni about 30 years ago never to return to her ‘common’ roots. She now speaks RP and works for a very well known tech company and is one of the executive managers.

She went to a state school and both parents had manual jobs and haven’t got much money. To hear her speak, you would be shocked to hear her parents worked in factories.

So where has that accent come from? My guess is she put it in initially to fit with her surroundings. Then over the years she probably did start speaking that way without the effort.

So no you can’t always tell if someone went to private school.

At Uni in the late 80s it was obvious from people's levels of confidence, entitlement, polish and accent whether they went to private school or state.

I don't think you can

I was almost thrown out of a social setting once when they found out.

It was in my clubbing days, a bunch of us were staying over with a couple who I knew a little bit. But they didn't want to mix with me after that.

I've also had a boss announce it - I was hired through an agency - and people proceeded to take the piss.

If I got asked now, I might lie, if it was a situation where I could.

@SoupDragon

No one was talking about Latin A level though.

Fine, it you think an equal number of state schools and private schools teach Latin, find the stats to show that.

"She went to a state school and both parents had manual jobs and haven’t got much money. To hear her speak, you would be shocked to hear her parents worked in factories."

It's the cutlery thread all over again. I wouldn't be shocked to hear that at all.

I think you can tell if they went somewhere like Eton but not a standard local private school.

@PhilCornwall1

You most certainly can tell a privately educated person, because they or their parents bang on about it at every opportunity.

Doesn't make them more intelligent than if they weren't though. You can't buy intelligence, as we have seen with our Prime Minister.

Oh Phil

I thought you were better than this. 😞

Money buys opportunity both educationally and socially via after school activities (if not in a school that provided them). So the "confidence of private schooling" can be seen in wealthy area comps, because the kids know that basically life isn't a massive struggle stacked against them. They don't go to school not knowing if their working parents will have enough money for food at the end of the week, or if their parent will even have had work that week. If doing decently at school means a straight path to a career, then it's easy to see where some of that confidence comes from.

Correct. It’s almost impossible round here to tell the difference between those children at the many independent day schools round here and the outstanding comprehensive. The reason is because they are all overwhelmingly middle class. Virtually every single child will have middle class parents who take it as a given that their children will work hard and do their best. The idea of crowd control (maybe a bit of low level arsing about in year 7 & 8) is laughable. Within both sectors the children expect to get good GCSE’s meaning mainly 7-9 in the state school and maybe 8-9 in the private school. A levels and university are a given. It simply doesn’t occur to the state children that it’s optional not to go to university and oxbridge, Bristol, st Andrew etc are totally part of that expectation. They all share the same tutors, driving instructors, wear the same clothes, do the same DofE trips,have the same swishy hair, travel around the world on the same holidays, date each other. I once saw a poster talking about the friends her DC at made at oxbridge from private schools and named them, including our local state school.

Could you tell the difference between them and private day schools? Almost certainly not, bar the rugby. They’re all extremely privileged middle class children from affluent families who have the luxury of knowing that they’ll always have a cushion around them

Could you tell the difference between the state school children and the unlicensed boarding school children, yes probably but then I think you could also tell the difference from the day schools and public school children. They’re not from aristo old money hunting shooting families

Can you tell the difference between the kids from the local comprehensive and from the middle class comprehensive? Of course you can. They broadly Live lives that are different and as much as I would love to say that my comprehensive educated children have a broader view of the world they quite frankly haven’t a clue but they’ve got a great accent and academic education. An education in the breadth of society, no they haven’t. They’ve got far more in common with the other MC children whose parents have paid for their education - often because they didn’t get into the free alternative

I answered that I can usually tell. It's not because people tell me. It's because of the confidence, the ambition, the manners and the obvious higher standard of all round education.

Of course, you get confident, ambitious, polite people from state schools (I'd like to think I'm one).

I used to get public transport filled with dreadfully behaved private school kids. I have some state educated friends who have achieved huge glory. I know some real nobs who were privately educated. Overall, the majority of my privately educated friends are kind, clever, respectful people with broader horizons. They are not snobs.

If I'd had the resources, I would have sent my DCs to private school. Being honest, I harbour a regret that I didn't plan or tried hard enough to allow me to afford it.

I feel that to sometimes olly

It may have been an option if i had gone back to work

We did offer it at senior school age but that was too late

Too

Not to

"you said yourself that a leafy suburban school is likely to have well spoken children..."

I said, they may speak RP. I wouldn't have said 'well spoken'. People who speak RP don't speak better than anyone else, that's your value judgement there.

"Yes you can put an accent on to fit in with your surrounds. Most people wouldn’t bother because its crackers to do so but it’s possible - everyone has a ‘phone voice’"

I don't have a phone accent. I couldn't speak RP however hard I tried because it's not an accent I grew up with or that I've been surrounded by for a certain time.

My point about actors in films is that actually it's pretty difficult to put on an accent that's not yours. If it was easy we wouldn't have so many complaints about actors not getting it right.

" my friends sister left home at 18, went to uni about 30 years ago never to return to her ‘common’ roots. She now speaks RP and works for a very well known tech company and is one of the executive managers."

She probably absorbed it from the people around her, just like people do when they move to another place and live there for a long time. That doesn't mean that the average person can just put on any accent they want.

Of course, you get confident, ambitious, polite people from state schools (I'd like to think I'm one).

So, given those were your criteria for telling if someone went to private school, you can't tell at all. You just make an assumption.

Fine, it you think an equal number of state schools and private schools teach Latin, find the stats to show that.

I don't need to find the statistics for anything. The entire point is that knowing Latin doesn't prove you went to private school which is what some people are trying to claim. It's ridiculous.

I notice that the OP hasn't come back to discuss this today.

@Gwenhwyfar

"you said yourself that a leafy suburban school is likely to have well spoken children..."

I said, they may speak RP. I wouldn't have said 'well spoken'. People who speak RP don't speak better than anyone else, that's your value judgement there.

"Yes you can put an accent on to fit in with your surrounds. Most people wouldn’t bother because its crackers to do so but it’s possible - everyone has a ‘phone voice’"

I don't have a phone accent. I couldn't speak RP however hard I tried because it's not an accent I grew up with or that I've been surrounded by for a certain time.

My point about actors in films is that actually it's pretty difficult to put on an accent that's not yours. If it was easy we wouldn't have so many complaints about actors not getting it right.

" my friends sister left home at 18, went to uni about 30 years ago never to return to her ‘common’ roots. She now speaks RP and works for a very well known tech company and is one of the executive managers."

She probably absorbed it from the people around her, just like people do when they move to another place and live there for a long time. That doesn't mean that the average person can just put on any accent they want.

I said, they may speak RP. I wouldn't have said 'well spoken'. People who speak RP don't speak better than anyone else, that's your value judgement there

I’m sorry but that paragraph doesn’t make sense at all.

1- RP is seen as the epitome of ‘posh’.

2- How on earth do you infer that I said it’s better than any other ‘accent’? It’s ‘posher’ and that comes with its own inferences, but pretty sure I never implied it was better.

And you’ve still not confirmed whether you agree/disagree with the OP...

@SoupDragon I'm here, lots of responses to read through and some interesting points.

For what it's worth, I think you can. I stick out like a sore thumb at the law firm I work for (IMO).

No idea how I attracted that to my post 😂😂😳

Attached

I am one of six siblings.

Out of the six, one went to private school, two went to a state school, and three went to a grammar school.

I would hazard a guess that no-one would be able to tell which of us went where- we all speak the same way (RP), we all have similar levels of confidence and so on.

The main thing , I think, is our upbringing- our mother was 'genteelly' raised, and our home life ran on the same lines. The way we speak, our vocabulary, our manners, social etiquette etc- all came from her.

Therefore I wouldn't be able to tell if someone had been privately educated or if they just had a parent (or parents) like mine.

What I find interesting is the confidence thing. My bf went to Oxford, came from a deprived inner city comp, left with a good 2:1 and then didn’t get a job for a few months despite applying to good graduate schemes and being willing to move around. She ended up in an entry level bank admin job and is still there ten years later.
A ex colleague went to private school (paid by parents) and left Uni with a 3rd. She worked in the band below me at work but frequently told me that she thought she should be my boss and that even though she had no management experience ‘she knew she could do it.’ Eventually she was sacked and we found out she hadn’t really been doing her job whilst she was there. Not at all an example of all private school grads!
I often wonder that if my friend had been instilled with my colleagues confidence from an early age, how differently things might have turned out.

"2- How on earth do you infer that I said it’s better than any other ‘accent’? It’s ‘posher’ and that comes with its own inferences, but pretty sure I never implied it was better."

You used the term well-spoken. That implies you think posh people speak well and others don't.

"you’ve still not confirmed whether you agree/disagree with the OP..."

I think sometimes you can tell and other times you can't.

"The entire point is that knowing Latin doesn't prove you went to private school which is what some people are trying to claim. It's ridiculous."

It's a good indication is the point that people are trying to make.

I am privately educated and I do speak with what would be considered an RP accent but am not from a posh home. Lower middle or upper working class. My mother did come from a wealthy posh home and due to her trust fund we could afford it.

I mention it if the subject is brought up but don't see the need to tell people otherwise.

You just make an assumption No - I'm almost always right. As you get to know people better, schools/universities/workplaces/locations often come up in conversation.

I'm trying to make the point that it's not that easy to absolutely identify what it is about private education that makes a difference, but that, more often than not, it does.