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.

‘To think I would be discriminated against in the workplace or that people wouldn't want to be my friend because of my educational background makes me sick.’

awful, isn’t it. And it’s been happening for decades, centuries actually, to work class kids and kids from low e come backgrounds.

time for a change.

Another Durham graduate here. Who got there through a reasonable comp and middle of the road sixth form college and was astounded to find four students from the same public school in my very first seminar group… Now my contemporaries are moaning about school fee bills theirselves, I’m less than impressed.

my chip on my shoulder landed when, aged 11 and waiting for the school bus, I clocked the private girls school getting the luxury coaches and we had to get the double deckers with fumes often as much inside as outside the bus. I’m a tiny bit less black and white about things now, and can see there’s a whole range of privately educated experiences from the typical confidence to the less obvious “I’ve let my parents down by not having a good enough job”.

Never really cared much. I didn't meet anyone from private school until I was an adult and I don't actually know any now.
The only thing I remember about it was growing up in a bit of a grotty city full of quite crap state schools and some fancy private schools. We used to think their uniforms were silly (one school had straw hats and another had calf length tartan skirts and they all wore wool blazers even when it was hot). And that it was funny watching them all swarm of the trains that they came into the city on with all of their massive bags and huge sports kits, sometimes dressed in cricket clothes looking like they were off on DofE every day
While we walked past with a biro and our pe kit in a primark carrier or a jd drawstring. Never understood why they had to have so much luggage for a normal school day

As an adult, still don't care, lots of people have different advantages, having tons of money is probably a very nice advantage to have but theres no point resenting people for it. But I don't really know any private school people so its hard to say if I would feel differently if I was around them all the time.

That comment about “being discriminated against” for going to private school is hilarious! Just think about that for one minute…

do people even know what school colleagues went to? I didn't.
All my DH's colleagues assume he went to private school when he actually went to one of the worst schools in the country.

I think some of them are my friends and some aren't. I haven't found any correlation between schooling, attitudes, intelligence or entitlement.
But I grew up in a poor family, was the first to go to university and I always think I'll find a job. It's nothing to do with private education.
It's an odd thing for adults to think about. If you're more than 4 years out of school, people don't even usually ask whether you're privately or state educated.

I can honestly say that other than my school friends, I have no idea whether other friends were privately educated or not.
Most kids don’t get to choose what kind of school they get sent to so why judge anyone on that basis?

Many of my work colleagues are privately educated, although not in the “top” private schools.

Guess what? They ended up in the same job as me, and I went to a pretty “poor” secondary school. Didn’t even work that hard either, and I wouldn’t say I’m exceptionally intelligent.

So either their parents wasted their money on private education; or I am an absolute superstar and a miracle.

I suspect I’m not a superstar or a miracle but who knows.

(also I disagree with private education as it perpetuates the wealth divide)

Private schools vary massively, as do state schools. I went to both and the state education was actually much better than the private one I received and the kids at it were more middle class than at the private one. So things really can be more complicated than this thread suggests.

@StarmanBobby well thankfully it hasn't happened to me, as far as I know.
I was a "working class kid" too, by the way and I've had to work really hard for everything. You sound quite jealous of people who had a private education.

What about people who pay for tutors, or sports coaches, or dance tuition, or drama lessons? What about people who move house to be in catchment for high performing state schools?

Some of us don't want the State interfering in our children's lives any more than necessary.

I wonder how many are in fact ‘unpleasant idiots’ (or at least notably more likely to be compared to their state educated counterparts), rather than people being projected onto.

I’m not sure why anyone should have to effectively grovel to make themselves appear worthy in the eyes of someone already hostile to them by virtue of choices their parents made. Or why they’d want to.

I went to private school. I am, as I have always been, present in the real world. That my reality isn’t the same as that of someone else who hasn’t had the same opportunities (or even someone who has!) does not make it any less of a reality.

Worked with many. Either fine or entitled and massively over-confident. The latter group often seems incapable of empathising with others. Overall, I do envy the social ease and higher levels of confidence (obviously not the over-confident awfulness).

It may be a coincidence but it sounds like you are describing the people who I saw on my commute too. Are you Glaswegian?

So it’s revenge you’re after?

Yep and some of us send our kids there because they are ND and local provision is shocking or lone parents with no support and need the flexibility of private school extended hours etc or in my case both of those things.

Blows my mind how small minded some people on this post are.

I went to a funded specialist school and a comp, my siblings went to private school with scholarships. Think the biggest difference between us is our expectations in life. They have much higher ones than I do, which I think is both a good and a bad thing. Its good where they aim high, have confidence and aspiration etc. It's not great because it also causes a lot of disappointment.

‘That comment about “being discriminated against” for going to private school is hilarious! Just think about that for one minute…’

I know. The second big firms start to seriously, finally, do something about not hiring the same Toby’s and Ollie’s and Emma’s from the same backgrounds, the same schools and the same unis -the people from those privileged backgrounds start wailing about discrimination.
They weren’t that bothered about discrimination and diversity when the were surrounded by people just like them.
Perhaps they genuinely do think they are better, more suited, or have worked harder than every kid from a normal
background.

I have worked with a lot of privately educated people over the years. There is no difference in intelligence but the confidence thing is true, privately educated people tend to be far better communicators.I have noticed a tendency to not take criticism well and a sense of entitlement. State educated kids are more used to the unfairness of life and expect less and know they have to work their way up.

At Uni I definitely felt in the minority coming from a state school. All my friends bar one ended up also being state school graduates which I hadn't really considered until now.

I don't really think anything of them as such, although definitely found they weren't as self motivated as those of us who were paying our own way and had got there through bloody hard work whereas a lot of them had been tutored and coached to within an inch of their life.

I'd never send my kids to private school and I have a couple of friends who do. It does make me a bit dubious of them tbh because what are they hoping to achieve? The idea of my kids only ever socialising etc with people of the same socioeconomic group is kind of really uncomfortable and not something I'd ever be comfortable with, let alone the morality of the whole idea of private schools.

Fwiw my high school was horrific and I still got into the Uni I wanted and where I needed to be. My kids are at state high school and there's a very mixed intake income wise and I think it's good for them.

I don't wish I'd gone, as I loved my non-private school. I did go to a Grammar school though. I don't see that I'd have had better chances in a private school. I know loads of people who got to Oxbridge from state schools.

I know lots of people who were privately educated. Some are lovely and others are nobs. Same as elsewhere.

You know that people from state schools also attend At. Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, right?
Why are you keen to discriminate against them too, @StarmanBobby
Are some universities more acceptable to you than others? If so, why?

One of my friends who went to private school has a £2m house, kids at private school, top of the range car and designer clothes. All paid for by her investment banker husband who went to a state school, she doesn't work.

*sorry for typos btw...I fractured a finger at netball tonight

‘So it’s revenge you’re after?’

Honestly? It’s a less boring, identikit workplace I’m after.
One with people who have a decent work ethic - partly because they’re paying their own bills, no family money to bail them out.
People who’s confidence doesn’t outmatch their actual ability by 100-1.

@FrodisCapering it’s DE&I, pet.
Not discrimination 😉