To think social mobility is impossible for working class /lower middle class kids?

[Cheeriosay]

And if it is possible how?! I feel the prospect of social mobility is at an all time low for teens/young adults due to the educational crisis in schools, cost of living crisis & lack of opportunity to move up in the world. This was relatively easy years ago either through education, marriage (or both).. Now it's not going to be as easy for teens & young adults who want to climb the social ladder.
I'm putting it bluntly, I'm sure some posters will be on soon to say these teens should know their place & not be getting ideas above their station but sod that!

I suppose it depends how wide the gap is in in ability and how many are in the class. But I know from comparing my own child who is in a very selective grammars work with that of children I know through work, that the weaker children just wouldn't be able to keep up and it would be awful for them. Equally unfair on the more able.

I think the confusion is that educating everyone together doesn't mean 'in the same class all the time'. You are all in the same school. Mix for some subjects, stream for others.

The more able students raising up the less able isn't literally the more capable kids helping to teach. It's being able to see your peers in your year achieving, giving you motivation to move up the sets in an environment where it's possible for you to do the same. It also enables those more academic but perhaps less practical individuals to see their peers with more ability in those areas achieving.

When children are able to mix in the playground, in PE, for some lessons, they are spending time with others with different abilities and maybe learning that they aren't a different species. As opposed to cutting children off entirely from children who achieve better academically. Because children who do better in class aren't always simply brighter than others.

Children whose parents can't, or won't, model some of the discipline academic achievement takes can learn that from interacting with their peers who do have those skills. For example, Joe plays with John at break. They are in the same class for registration. Become best friends. Joe isn't in the same set as John, but he would like to be, because they are friends. He's stimulated to get to John's level so they can be in maths class together. Maybe Joe never gets there, but he does improve more than he would have if he never got the chance to meet John at all. John, meanwhile, gets to learn that not everyone has parents who help with homework, and Joe knows useful stuff like how to fix a puncture. So John learns from Joe.

The idea never was to just bung them all together in all lessons, it was to put them all together under one roof with the same opportunities to access higher levels of learning over the course of 5 years.

Depends how you define "social mobility" and "middle class", but yes it is harder. Everything is more expensive (including university and housing), and wages have largely stagnated.

Now people who want to social climb have to "marry up", and hope their partner's parents can gift a deposit, provide an inheritance, pay for private school and holiday, while the 'originally wealthy' partner his/herself has the "great job".

There was an interesting op-ed in the Times today about recent research from the Centre for Young Lives, that suggests the deck is stacked against many because of their family background. It mentions the loss of SureStart as a contributing factor, but makes the point that if a family doesn't know which choices are 'best' or 'worst', there's no real prospect of them 'winning'.

Tiffin and Nonsuch are in London boroughs (Kingston and Sutton).

Whoops, just saw there's a whole other thread on that article.

Hadn't heard of them but a quick google shows one is in Kingston and the other in Sutton, so both are in London (Kingston and Sutton became London boroughs in 1965). Neither of them appear here:https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools/directory www.surreycc.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools/directory

Why is it up to the academic kids to "pull" up the others. More likely the thick disruptive ones will drag others down

Sorry old fashioned Londoner here for me Kingston is Surrey.

Well maybe in vibes but London is a defined area in terms of bureaucracy and Kingston is in it when it comes to schools.

Uhm, ok. Reality disagrees with you.

Kingston and Sutton don't have London post codes.

Neither does Heathrow, Bromley, Thornton Heath, still London.

They do: KT, most of which is in London. But postcodes are irrelevant when it comes to local government and provision of education services where all that matters is administrative boundaries. Surrey has 11 boroughs none of which are called "Kingston" or "Sutton". London has 32 borough, two of which are called "Kingston" and "Sutton". It's really not that complicated.

Bromely is Kent, Thornton Heath is Croydon, Heathrow is Middlesex.

Not quite that simple
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KT_postcode_area#:~:text=The%20KT%20postcode%20area%2C%20also,boroughs%20in%20north%2Deast%20Surrey.

Are you being deliberately obtuse or did you just wake up from the 1960s? All three of these statements are incorrect - all these locations are in London boroughs. They vote in London elections, they have the met as the police force, they have the London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade, and they have nothing to do with Kent, Surrey, or Middlesex (which doesn't even exist anymore).

Look I was born in zone 2, my mother worked for ILEA my Dad for the GLC. For me that is the definition of London not Kingston, not Bromely, not Uxbridge.

I accept that others disagree, also that Surrey is a big county much of which is no where near Kingston so Tiffin is of no good to them.

Where in Zone 2? Because most of zone 2 south of the river used to be part of Surrey too: Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, Rotherhithe... So perhaps by your definition you are not from London at all!

I was born North of the river.

Perhaps you could create a thread about postcode boundaries so you can discuss this somewhat off topic post elsewhere?

You've convinced me - in fact I now only recognise the boundaries prior to 1889, which means as far as I am concerned you are from Middlesex.

The quickest route is marrying up.

A potentially interesting thread that descended into drivel.

It is but nowadays wealthy, educated men & women want to find an equal match both on the social & wealth ladder. It's not as easy to snare a rich man or woman