to get hacked off at journalists moaning about how oh so hard it is to afford school fees

[emkana]

like in the Daily Telegraph for example today

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AFH51SI3AUOK5QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/education/ 2008/01/30/faclass130.xml&page=2

yes they do
but i think there is a grain of truth theer

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Swedes - no, I was there more recently than that.

So poor DS who is in the only class in his single class entry village school with anything like 30 (and they have 30 consistently - two have left and two have joined) is well above average in terms of class numbers.

seemingly
a ONE CLASS SCHOOL?
thast nto good surely?

oh i see one calss entry

sprogger - don't worry too much, I thought that the people in the article were dim and in all likelihood downwardly-mobile because of that and clutching at straws to prevent themselves and their offspring sliding down the social scale IMHO.

People who are clever, hardworking and self-reliant can still make it in the UK.

but if the 7% of children who go to private schools suddenly turned up in the state sector, who would pay for them? Or do you think the government would say "marvellous" and increase the schools budget by 7%? Because I can tell you they wouldn't, not with all those fighter planes to buy and nuclear power stations to build

Mind you I agree that the article was ridiculous - if you can afford it, and want to, then buy the education. If you can't, or don't want to, then don't. But don't WHINE about it either way, just get on with it.

As with so many other things in life

The barmaid/checkout thing reminded me of "The Rector's Wife." We were supposed to have our hearts bleeding for the woman who was forced to work in a checkout because she needed to send her kids to the naiyce school rather than the horrid nasty rough comprehensive where the children who drop their aitches went. Fuck off, Trollope. bet she reads the torygraph.

It's almost a 3 tier system of education where I live. 4 private schools, only 1 of which has a really good educational reputation, the others I thinp parents send thier kids there for swank reasons.

Then 3 really excellent state senior schools, in the top 10 in the county etc. Then 2 really terrible state schools.

So, if you are loaded go to the private ones, well off enough to engineer it to live in the catchment area of the good state schools, you're sorted, if you are poor/live in an undesirable area, you are stuffed and go to the poor schools.

It's horrible. Where I moved from in Devon was completely different, only one school in a radius of 20 miles, so everyone (unless they really were rich, and there weren't many of those) went to the same school. Which wasn't the best school in the world, but had a more varied social mix than the school my dd is at now.

The devisiveness of the schools where I live is very apparent to the kids as well. Inter school matches are a bit of an eyeopener, private schools call the states scum, good states call the poor stated pikey etc. It's like the school version of that Two Ronnies class sketch where John Cleese and the Two Ronnies are all stood in a row.

But Sprogger - Surely 'society's elite' was formerly drawn from independent schools because class structures were more rigid, snobbery (even) more rife and nepotism and old boys networks less transparent and equal opportunites empoyment practices nn-existant. If a gernation on society's elite was more representatively drawn, then theoretically, there should be a chance to rach your elite potential from the dtate sector.

However, this sort of article adds to the mc panic that the state sector is, inarguably shite, and that there is a strong chance, apparantly, that your bright enough child ina well motrivated well supported home will emerge 'barely literate'. Which is total nonsense. imo. Although someone will no doubt have anecdotal evidence of someone this did happen to. But I come into contact with 100s of young people in Lambeth and Southwark state secondaries and the onmes who were always going to do well are doing very well!

lol uqd, I thought that.

Remember reading that and feeling slightly incredulous that what she was doing was considered a sacrilege, and also the character considered sending her to private school because she was frightened of all the toughies on the school bus.

Then I realised me and Joanna Trolloppe have very different lives

(note level of Direct-Grant-School-education literacy in my post, LOL! But the problem is they didn't teach typing - we were destined for greater things!)

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Actually, this is probably diverting a bit from the thread but I get the impression that the later Joanna Trollopes are just slightly more gritty and feature the occasional children who attend the local state school and are't actually delinquent. The Rector's Wife was one of the earlier ones, I think they are changing.

not that I read much chick lit, of course

Oh, Joanna. I though you were talking about Anthony and was trying to work out how he had worked checkouts into his novels. Was very confused.

lololol
policywonk wins the poncetastic award of the week

of course Joanna and jilly cooper are SO SO rpresentative of this kind of class/type

most of htem ar maigstrates too.

ooh knows dontcha

[airily dismissive of 20th-century literature>

pph knows not "OOh" lol

dh and me were only people at dinner party who HADN'T been to public school (namely westminster) - we outed ourselves as Comp Kids