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.

Yes, sorry - I had moved away from the name-dropping thing and was thinking more in general about the issue at hand.
Tbh many posters seem to feel like me - that sort of name-dropping is odd and not something many of us hear?

Also - posters on this thread have felt the need to let us know they earn in the top 1% - if that's not crass I'm not sure what is! I'd rather someone told me which school they went to than boast about their massive salary.

I actually think it is relevant to the discussion. @StarmanBobby ’s argument is fundamentally about privilege; while of course anyone whose parents can afford private school is privileged, so is someone whose parents earn more than 99% of the rest of the country. There is no way that she isn’t buying advantages for her children, just in a way that she deems acceptable. Equally one of her arguments early on in the thread was that private school children have no proper work experience when entering the work place. My children are far more likely to need to work their way through university than hers, as we have less than a quarter of her annual income.

(Apologies, for accuracy, less than 1/3 of her annual income).

I'm not sure we've established if @StarmanBobby has children?

How strange to define yourself as an adult by a school not many will have heard of. A bit sad really.

@TheHoover 🤣🤣🤣🤣 absolutely not. Think mid 30k. I'm a single parent. I don't think having a mortgage makes me privileged actually. I was state educated, first in my family to go to uni and have a graduate career. My point is that reducing access to private schools will do nothing to help address this issues in the state sector. And again, piss off with your sneery "my precious ones" tone. They are my kids. Damn right I will move hell and high water for them. But my doing so is in no way disadvantaging anyone else. Their previous struggling stare now has two less to deal with.

That is true, I shouldn’t make assumptions.

I went to a pretty rubbish state secondary school, rated as 'needs improvement'. There were fights, alcohol and drug use on school premises, teenage pregnancy, etc. There was barely any school trips, months where we would have no teacher and would have a substitute who wouldn't teach us, barely any science experiments, PE was poorly taught, not many extracurriculars, etc. I do think the experience made me more well-rounded though, and I find it easy to get along with people from a range of backgrounds and feel more grounded because of it.

I work in a very middle class company, and I'm pretty sure all of my colleagues are privately educated, Oxbridge types. I've been told I'm well spoken, so I completely go under the radar as someone who lives in a council house and whose entire childhood was funded by benefits. I find my colleagues quite difficult to get along with if I'm honest. Seemingly innocuous small talk is from a point of view and experience very different from mine, with the presumption that I'm 'one of them'. They are confident and articulate in a way that I'm not.

I think the thing that sums it up best for me is that every week the office kitchen is left in a complete mess for the cleaners to clean up. Multiple champagne bottles, hundreds of coffee cups and beer bottles etc just left out with no thought or consideration for who is cleaning up after them. My parents have been cleaners in offices before, and it's one of those things that just gets me when I see it to see the lack of thought.

In my previous company I worked with a lot more state-educated people and I find them a lot easier to get along with.

'What has starmans income got to do with anything? The obsession with taking the piss out of her salary is really unpleasant and has prevailed throughout the thread.'

It's deflection. Meant to discredit my opinions and the idea that someone - brought up in a loving but very poor family who's circumstances have changed completely through education and career - could earn enough money to send their children to private school but wouldn't.
Being well paid - and top 1% is over £140k? maybe a bit more? - doesn't mean you suddenly stop caring about social issues or don't want your kids to have a normal existence rather than a rarefied one.

@BibbleandSqwauk
How on earth do you manage to afford the fees for children (in the plural) in private Ed on a 30k salary. Something smells here….

Top 1% is over 160k.

I am well aware some top earners choose state schools for their children - friends of mine actually and they happen to live in the catchments of some of the best state schools in London. A few use the Tunbridge Wells grammars.

I must admit I don't know anyone personally where both parents are top earners who use state schools but of course there must be some.

I absolutely don't know, and have never even heard of, people that earn 320k plus and don't buy any sort of privilege for their kids ie tutors, private sports lessons, uni fees paid, holidays, lovely big houses but I'm sure you'll correct me!

Lots of people are out of touch with how their income stacks up with others. This is evident on all the threads about people struggling to cope with cost of living increases and what people consider a necessity vs a luxury. This can help:

https://www.uktaxcalculators.co.uk/tax-news/2019/12/10/check-your-income-percentile-with-this-calculator/

@TheHoover I told you I work in the sector so receive a hefty discount. It really would be impossible otherwise. Plus not all schools are equal in terms of the fees they charge and I deliberately moved to a cheaper part of the country so I could afford a mortgage. My parents also help significantly..again though, this is at a cost, they were very average earners but in retirement thank god, have enough resources and are willing to help. Maybe you simply can't appreciate the lengths parents will go to if you know your kids are being damaged every single day by the state sector. I am sacrificing my medium and possibly long term security to give them this because I just about can and the alternative is probably life long educational and MH issues for them. It absolutely sucks that I have to do this to access the kind of provision they need.

'I must admit I don't know anyone personally where both parents are top earners who use state schools but of course there must be some.'

I know lots. So there you go. Mostly people who came from WC backgrounds, or certainly support themselves rather than relying on parents or family money.

Doctors, lawyers, a friend in music, another in Tv, a couple of actors, people in corporate jobs. There's a huge difference between someone who's gone from a WC background or near poverty ( both DP and I) to high earners in one generation and those born into a financially comfortable life. IMHO.
Particularly when it comes to what's worth spending money on.

Private school couldn't have been further from either of our minds. Everything we have we've earned ourselves, we chose paths that lead to ££ ( accidentally in my case, but DH definitely made life choices to get away from their impoverished background) so there's no safety net other than one we create ourselves. I have family to support other than my kids.

But ultimately, I don't want my children turning out the way many of my privately educated, colleagues seemed to have.

The entire school system is 'unfair'.
1 private schools exist.
2 grammar schools exist.
3 - catchments exist.

If you live in a less affluent area then your school catchment is likely to be less. You cannot afford to get a bus to a further away school, your local school only takes children from the same less affluent area. Etc. Etc.

'fair' would be that all schools are selected randomly, kids are mixed with all abilities and backgrounds and they all have access to the same facilities, trips, teachers, subjects etc.

Those people who are assuming private school kids are confident, rich and lazy are ignorant. If the statement was reversed that kids who go to the comprehensive school were unconfident, poor and lazy how would that go down? Some rich people are entitled. Some rich people work their asses off and they are subsequently rich. Some private school kids have army parents and have no choice but to go private, some have bursaries or scholarships. Private schools often run 6 days a week, for long days, and those children don't have anywhere near as much time with parents or home life. You aren't 'winning' just because you have a smaller class, everyone's dealt a different lot in life and everyone ends up needing therapy.

Life's not fair. Even for the private school kids.

I don’t agree - I’ve taught the children of two very high profile footballers who you would definitely have heard of. Not quite Ronaldo level, but well known nonetheless. Very ordinary state schools. Also the grandchildren of an international business owner.

So you are enormously and rarely privileged to be able to access a huge discount. Same difference really.
And you acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of kids are being mentally scarred from the appalling state of state education. By virtue of simply being born without privilege.
It’s an uncomfortable truth. But I shall piss off (for reminding you of this)

If by privilege you mean reaping benefits from choices I have made, then yes. But the point is, I'm not denying that I am fortunate. I'm not denying i have made choices, some of them very difficult ones personally, to make this happen and I'm not suggesting that everyone can do the same. What I am saying is that removing this option will not improve the state's provision. It just won't. And I would be failing my kids if I left them in it to prove some kind of point on equality. I'm not sure why you have such an issue with that.

Don't agree with what?

Well, it must be quite difficult being an extremely well off child in a school where lots are financially struggling, but I suppose like finds like!

@BibbleandSqwauk
i have a problem with people (non-specifically) opting out and ceasing to give a shit. I have a problem that the single issue of single issue voters on mumsnet is not sorting out the appalling state of education in this country. I even have a problem with so much additional funding going into healthcare comparative to education (and I even work in healthcare). Things would begin to change if the electorate banged the drum louder

How very strange. I wonder why they do that?

i have a problem with people (non-specifically) opting out and ceasing to give a shit

What about people, rich or not rich, who use state school but are still doing nothing to protest about lack of education funding?

Fair point