If you didn’t go to a private school, what do you think about those who did?

[hanginds]

Do you feel they had an unfair advantage? Do you care? Do you think they don’t know about the real world?

I really struggle to connect with colleagues who were privately educated as they seem almost entitled to the job. They seem fearless about finding alternative work if needs be, yet I just don’t have that confidence. I assume it’s their background as it’s the only difference between us in the academic/work context.

Surely capitalist ideology is about freedom and incentivising success for everyone, not about curtailing opportunities for talented people because their parents are not rich enough.

And not addressing one cause of inequality because there are many others.. I mean, there will always be deaths on the roads, driving is never going to be truly safe, so let's not bother with traffic lights, seat belt legislation, driving tests, speed limits etc etc

I've never voted Tory in my life.

Equating road deaths with being privately educated. OK then.

Also never voted Tory.

Agree Apolar when I worked at Goldman Sachs the public school educated offspring had done everything by 18! Travel / skiing / Caribbean / ascot / Henley / top restaurants/ opera etc. where to then we wondered ?! The moon?!

Equating road deaths with being privately educated. OK then.

Oops, I am embarrassed for you. I equated road deaths with inequality, not being privately educated.

Do you think that if they didn’t go to private school the children of wealthy parents wouldn’t do those things? In fact that have more money to do those things without school fees to pay.

No just came to mind reading the other post

Attempting to make life harder for the children of the richest parents won’t magically make things better for kids at the bottom but the latter is a much more time consuming and expensive project so most politicians don’t want to touch it. Attacks on private schooling are just cheap politics that will have no discernible benefit to anyone.

Attempting to make life harder for the children of the richest parents won’t magically make things better for kids at the bottom

care to expand?

@DanceMonster agree the wealthy children would be getting those experiences - but a lot of these experiences were through their schools. Rugby tours in the USA, or Fiji, New Zealand. Skiing with school in Iceland was considered boring! When talking about this stuff there was no real excitement - just considered run of the mill everyday stuff. I just wonder whether life will hit some of these kids hard later on when if they can't afford this stuff themselves.

The fact is, people can think I’m a Tory with no social conscience if they want, I know that’s not true so other peoples opinion of my doesn’t matter. I know that I do more for state schools than many other people do. I know that I would be happy to pay increased tax to better fund education; I would far rather a high tax, high service economy. I know I’ve never voted Tory and never intend to. I know that my children are lovely, kind, well rounded, open minded individuals.
Some people just can’t seem to move away from their narrow minded generalisations and if that’s how they want to live their lives then that’s fine. It doesn’t affect me.

So (and this was me so not hypothetical) ..

X went to state primary
X was born into domestic violence
X had wife beater father and mother with MH probs
Family had no money
Father court ordered to never see kids again when x was 6 due to violence. X on child protection plan.
So from age 6, X has single mum and 2 siblings that mum has to provide for.
X was sent to private school age 11 on a full fees bursary
Age 12, X got a job after school each day to support family income and by 16 was working 2 jobs after school and on weekends.
X was physically and emotionally abused by mother throughout childhood, and sexually abused by friends parents age 5 to 7.

So my question - because X went to private school, is X privileged? I don't feel it.

I sent my kids to state schools but many of their friends were privately educated. They’re great kids-but so are the others who weren’t. The young people I know don’t seem to have any judgement about the school they went to. However, what is noticeable to me is that the kids who went to private school all had great support from their schools and kept the parents involved if the kid wasn’t meeting their potential. The teachers had much less to deal with in terms of classroom management. I think the fact that their parents obviously value education helps them. The problem with state schools is that there is a cohort of families which don’t value education at all so educating the children becomes more difficult. Talking to Europeans, they don’t understand why working hard at school and being studious is treated with contempt here-that the cool kids are the ones who bunk off.

Was it just a random musing on equality, or relevant to this thread about private schooling? Apologies if you didn't have private schools in mind when you wrote your post.

A bit off topic but this interests me. Did your children happily sit down every night and do extra study? My nursery age DS HATES it when I try to teach him anything to do with letters and numbers, to the point that even if I do it a fun way 'look at that pretty house, it's number 8' he scowls at me and says 'im not looking' so I'm just leaving it for now, and my older son would not willingly do more than school has set which is very little and I don't want to force it and have a battle.

Not really but seeing as you asked so nicely… consider the barriers to education that affect our poorest children in society. A lot of the schools in deprived areas have some of the hardest working, most dedicated, passionate teachers so it’s not the school in itself that’s the issue, it’s kids who don’t have enough to eat, it’s kids who don’t have the right nutritious food, it’s kids who are living in a space that’s too overcrowded to facilitate proper study at home, it’s kids who don’t have the money to travel outside their own district, it’s kids who haven’t got their own bed so don’t get a proper night’s sleep before school, in some cases it’s kids who’s parents experience of education was negative so they don’t support or facilitate their learning. These are all real examples I have come across in my line of work. Please tell me how attacking private education will help any of these factors??

Depends on the child. My 2 older children would happily do it, both could read well before they started primary school. My 4 year old is severely autistic and can’t talk so it’s a completely different experience! I’m sure your child will be fine once he gets to school, he’s still young.

@Peppadog it just became a part of their routine. No TV was allowed until after they had completed their 10 minutes. I tried to be really breezy and not turn it into a battle, so if they were tired I would just say have a rest on the sofa and come and find me when you're ready. I didn't make it too tricky so when they were younger it was just tracing letters & numbers. Then recognising numbers and letters and a bit of phonics. If they were getting frustrated with something I didn't push it, we would just concentrate on easier things so they built up their confidence. Practising numbers bonds and times tables when they were older really improved their confidence in maths. When they were older I just got them work books to do.

I think the British & mumsnet can be quite sneery about doing this. I think it is quite a Japanese way of learning to keep going over and over the same things until it becomes second nature.

Please tell me how attacking private education will help any of these factors??

I would also like to know the answer to this.

Was it just a random musing on equality, or relevant to this thread about private schooling?

It was supposed to illustrate how dim it is to use "but there will never be true equality" as an argument for keeping private education.

(Some PPs have used that argument.)

I was not expecting it to go over people's heads, I must say.

@MissDollyMix If all of society was educated together the proportion of disadvantaged kids in schools would be fewer and more manageable. As it stands in some of the richest parts of the country, MC parents can afford to go private leaving the state schools full of mostly disadvantaged kids which starts a vicious cycle as once a school becomes like that, noone want their child to go there, so people with money will move or go private in greater numbers.
In my experience a smaller portion of disadvantaged and troubled students doesn't impact a school too much, and actually they get influenced by being amongst children who are more focussed.

I also have similar views about grammar schools. Interestingly to me, I have one parent who went to a prestigious grammar and another parent who went to a bad comp. The parent who went to a bad comp failed the 11 plus, partly due to illness which meant she had missed a lot of schooling. She never had a hope in that school, there were very few bright kids there because they had all passed the 11 plus, the kids were therefore never stretched, she had been written off at the age of 10 but she knew no different. It's so wrong in my opinion.
A school of mixed ability and mixed background is the ideal. You can still stretch the brightest kids in that situation..We all exist in society together, dividing people up unsurprisingly just creates more social division, and breeds resentment.

@Peppadog try telling that to the school my DN go to and what would be our nearest secondary school. Kids attacking teachers, slicing with razor blades, heroine dealing at the gates and severe physical bullying for any kids who work hard. This isn't a few kids, this is a significant number who aren't in the minority. This is a Grade 2 Academy which has "respect and caring" in its strapline. How would abolishing DDs private school have any impact on this school? The parents who could afford private fees would just use that money to move elsewhere.
You need to tackle the causes of this behaviour but that requires too much money and effort from government.

I'd like to add that I'm not judging those that use private schools, I did say earlier on in this thread that if I was in a really dire catchment then I would consider it, I'm only human, but philosophically that is the direction I'd prefer the country moved in.