To be outraged about fee-paying schools and social inequality?

[coffeerevelsrule]

I have a ds in Y11 who has been researching potential careers and degrees and it has brought home to me what a horribly unequal society we still have in this country. Apparently 70% of barristers went to public school and there are similar stats for other desirable non-stem roles like journalism and the civil service, as well as medicine. It's a bloody disgrace - what a joke for a supposedly modern society.

And it seems that certain schemes like blind recruitment might also feed into this as although going to Oxbridge might have become slightly more attainable recently thanks to contextual offers and an awareness that those institutions shouldn't be filled with people from certain schools, now blind recruitment means the advantage a state school student may have got from going there is pretty much cancelled out.

To me it seems that ds is most disadvantaged in a way as he wouldn't qualify for schemes aimed at people who are the first in their families to go to uni and we aren't in a deprived area, but he has none of the advantages that would have come from going to an independent school. Everything about us is just average!

He is very bright (predicted all 9s and got that in his mocks) and wants to achieve but it seems that the odds are against people like him having prestigious roles. Obviously when he is quoting these stats at me I'm telling him not to be defeatist and that he has every chance of doing something amazing as long as he keeps working hard, but inside I'm wondering if how true that is.

I've always been against fee-paying schools but him reeling off all these stats at me has just been sickening and yet when Labour make noises about doing something about it there's outrage when in my opinion there should be daily outrage about the current situation.

Can anyone who cares about fairness honestly say I'm BU?

@faffadoodledo you are preaching to the converted. NC here but I am a long time advocate of WP and understand and fully support the intracacies of contextual applications and offers. I have said exactly the same as you regarding dispelling the myth of Oxbridge contextual offers as they just don't exist and have been corrected with examples that Cambridge have recently started to make some contextual offers. I checked their website and it says what I quoted in my previous post, which I interpret as they can adjust offers down or up from standard depending on contextual circumstances. This is a whole different section on the website from where they talk about their pre-offer contextual flagging mechanisms, this section is purely about offers. I am fully supportive of that if it happens and I suspect it would only be in situations of very extenuating circumstances. There must be some cases where DC have had such disadvantaged educational circumstances that it could impact their grades to an extent that they wouldn't meet their offer and that being no reflection of their potential or suitability for Cambridge. If Cambridge tutors are confident that they can teach them from quite a lot of information - their grades in context, admissions tests and their interview - what is the issue? It is simply one little step further in levelling the playing field.

I'm not sure it's all about the private school. I think it's more that those students are more likely to have the money behind them to take the risk of joining competitive industries.

To be clear @Ladybowes, I'm not saying that aspiration without wealth is enough to create a level playing field. I think that wealth is absolutely a factor in determining outcomes for children.

I just think that wealth is the defining factor rather than private education. Children if wealthy parents at state schools do every bit as well as children who are privately educated in my experience.

So the real issue that we need to tackle is not private education imo, but rather wealth inequality more generally.

It's not just wealth that makes the difference.
Private school kids seem to have an air of confidence about them that state kids don't.

There has to be less disruption in the classrooms, if a child is upsetting other paying customers they will be removed from the school - better to remove customer than to have another 5 or 6 disgruntled and take business elsewhere.

It’s not private school kids. It’s middle class confident kids.

The kids who get into the top classes in state schools in a lot of ways are removed from the disruption that goes on in the lower classes.
They are in with like minded kids who are expected to do well and want to learn.

It's the middle and lower classes where kids have little ambition.
Undiagnosed SEN or SEN that's not bad enough for extra help.
Those are the kids who are bored and need extra support who end up just being disruptive together.

@TheaBrandt absolutely agree with this. There is also a very big difference between an air of confidence and actual confidence. Scrape the surface and the air soon disappears. Real confidence is not like that. I'm not saying private school DC can't have real confidence, more that it depends so much on the individual and it doesn't come from school type.

I agree with you that wealth inequalities is the bigger factor.. however, I would suggest that if wealth was more fairly spread out - we might not need private schools at all - obviously I don't know this would happen - but the system is so unfair and so few seem that bothered by it - well they're not bothered enough to do anything about it about (although I appreciate many may feel helpless) - I think that is what bothers me the most.

Just as a matter of principle I am against education being so divided - grammar schools in particular where children are in essence label as not smart enough at 11, many private schools also have very few SEND children and I have heard albeit anecdotal stories about parents with SEND children being pushed out of private schools as the children may not the get the 'results' an academic school should be getting.

For many of these top flight careers you seem to need to be able to do unpaid/low paid internships etc, which I would be totally unable to support him in as a divorced teacher with two kids and an ex who doesn't contribute.

My kids are in independent school but that doesn’t mean we’ll be supporting them through life. Ds already has a part time job in a local supermarket at 17 and is the only one of his friends at state or indi school to do so. He pays for his car, phone and social life by working extra hours in the holidays. We could afford to support him but that isn’t life and it’s good for children to understand that the world doesn’t owe them a living. If he was to undertake an unpaid internship I’d expect this to continue as a minimum.

I was raised by my dm as my df was widowed when she was only 40. She was left with 3 kids to raise by herself but we never felt for a second that we were disadvantaged or not privileged. Your negative attitude is clearly rubbing off on your ds and in the long run it is that that will disadvantage him the most. It seems that you are so busy focusing on how unfair life is to your ds that you aren’t helping him to explore the myriad of ways he can help himself.

I agree that behaviour is most likely better in private schools and part of this is about as you say paying customers.. but aren't we all paying customers! I pay my taxes to send my children to state school. I think the bigger factor here are the resources available - as a teacher managing the behaviour of 15 students is a totally different ball game to managing the behaviour of 30!

Do you not think that wealth can produce that air of confidence without private schooling? If a child is exposed to a wide variety of people and opportunities, they will develop that air of confidence regardless. Though I would argue that it's the true inner confidence that parents really ought to be aiming for, rather than just the "air" of it.

And re disruption in classrooms. Yes, kids might be removed from private schools if they are disruptive, but not always. To some extent, it may depend on the state of the school's finances as to whether they can afford to be too strict. The private schools near us certainly aren't free from problematic behaviour in some pupils.

And in any case, it isn't a given that there will be lots of disruption in state schools. My dd's school set pupils for every subject from Y7, and there was very little disruption in the top sets - certainly not to the extent that it affected her learning in any way. I accept that there was probably more in the lower sets which is one reason why kids who are struggling academically might benefit more from private schools than very academic children.

That's pretty unusual @SchoolQuestionnaire , to know no one with a part time job. My DC went to the local comp and it was rare to find a pupil who didn't work during term time in some capacity - waitressing (like DD) or in a supermarket (like DS) or in a variety if other jobs.

You yourself have said your not in a deprived area. Your son i guess (given your are posting at all) has a supportive family. You and your family are privileged and not disadvantaged. Get over yourself.

I'm all for levelling up but you are being totally ridiculous.

X post but yes, I agree with you.

Yes, I agree with this too. A veneer of confidence is not the same as true confidence.

I can’t work out how you think medicine is not a STEM subject.

Yes, I agree, I would get rid of state grammar schools. And state-funded faith schools as well tbh.

I wouldn't ban private schools, though I would take away charitable status for those that aren't doing enough to warrant this.

Don't get me started on faith schools that's whole new thread! 😂

I'm in Scotland so State Grammars went years ago 1960s or 70s, not sure but a long time ago.

I don't really agree with Faith schools I think they fuel more division in the West of Scotland than anything else.
But they are historic and I doubt they'll go any time soon although I believe they must accept any Faith.

I think people tend to mean ‘discriminated against’ ethnic minorities. So not any European ones (apart from Eastern Europe).

Accents are a tricky one because thick ones can be truly unintelligible. And at a certain level you do get coaching on speaking for a leadership level involving things like speed, enunciation etc that could be seen to ‘destroy’ accents. So there is prejudice, but I’m not sure to what extent it’s plain prejudice (which it would be at entry level) and to what extent it’s polished speaking.

We all moderate our accents where I work ( technology, large company) but that’s because we have people from all over the world. Any thick accent would cause widespread confusion. Indian, Scouse, Appalachian Mountain.

Tech is more egalitarian than most for the ‘technical’ side anyway. It’s not quite a prestige profession although it pays well. In finance, banking etc ‘accent’ does play a major role and I felt that acutely which is one of the reason why I ultimately decided not to pursue the field although I went to a prestigious uni known for churning out investment bankers.

That may well be your experience and I imagine some accents from northern Europe don't suffer from this prejudice but studies have pretty consistently shown that accent bias is a real thing.

https://theconversation.com/working-class-and-ethnic-minority-accents-in-south-east-england-judged-as-less-intelligent-new-research-162886

I think it's important to acknowledge this phenomena as it is tempting to assume that eradicating private schools or some other big gesture can remove classism and prejudice from society that underpins social and economic inequality. Unfortunately it just isn't the simple or easy.

Every year I lament how my school loses its brightest and best to private school scholarships at Y12. My advice? Start looking into it now - predictions of all 9s he should be a shoe-in.
If you can’t beat them, join them - just park your outrage for your son’s sake.

If private schools were scrapped tomorrow, we would have an even more uneven state school system.

In my town, the two most difficult primaries to get into (also Outstanding) are the schools in areas where the surrounding houses start at about £700k. Maybe the odd £400k just slips in in at the edges. A good friend who works in one of these, also rated outstanding due to its high results, confirmed common knowledge that easily 80-90% are also being tutored on the side. These schools also send the highest percentage to the grammar schools.

One of these schools had to take a bulge class for a few years due to not enough school places and the OUTRAGE that children OUTSIDE OF THIS HIGH EARNING AREA would get in…..disgusting. The local paper and news actually had parents “worried” that children from the council estate might get a place.

So all that would happen if private schools shut tomorrow is we would end up with more “elite” primary and secondary schools in the richer areas (which to be Frank already exist) , and these richer schools where parents will likely donate more money and support their children more and have pupils with the funds for extra tutoring, will simply become “the best” schools and score the places at “the best” secondaries (particularly in grammar areas).

And just like in healthcare, where private hospitals are more desirable to work, the situation will get worse in the state sector. People will want to work in those schools in well off areas because sadly the stereotype can be very true, they’re nicer to work in.

Unless we scrap private and then have a random computer generated school system so that each school is a true mix of demographics with no choices I don’t ever see how we can have a fair system.

I don't understand the logic of wanting to abolishing grammar schools but being okay with private schools. The grammar school sector is tiny and within it there are a number of super selective grammars taking in DC from a very wide area for very limited places. This means that they have pretty much no impact on the intake of local comprehensive schools. If people are against elitism in education, that's fine but isn't it illogical to ignore the elephant in the room that is a fee-paying sector? I am in favour of abolishing grammars if a private sector no longer exists. Despite the MN stereotype of grammars being full of wealthy and tutored DC, the reality is that they are still a social mobility bridge for the disadvantaged and naturally very clever DC who would most likely otherwise be failed by their local catchment school comprehensive provision. These DC will and do qualify for super selective grammars without any tutoring. Of course the nirvana is to have excellent and equal comprehensive schools for all but I think we all know that is a long way off. The PP said that their brightest and best went off to private schools on scholarships for 6th form, therefore presumably downgrading that comprehensive's cohort. Should that be banned too?