I don't know what to think about this - Some parents need to be nannied by the state

[Another2Cats]

An article in yesterday's Times (share token below) with this title. I have thoughts both ways on this.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d2c38325-db32-4e36-a213-6d84be59a2f0?shareToken=58b28456ef3641836cb2ba7f3f70c791

[redacted by MNHQ for copyright reasons]

I can see where the 50% policy came from.

A deindustrialised economy needs a lot of well educated people to work in it. There aren't the same number of opportunities to walk out of school at 16 and straight onto the tools. University was seen as the route to that. This has been reviewed subsequently and seen as a very narrow approach, so routes such as T-level and degree apprenticeships have been added.

Widening participation so that university wasn't the preserve of the wealthy and advantaged. The possibilities were to open up university to a lot more people to dilute the privilege (the 50% route), or to keep numbers low and quota/positive discriminate based on academic achievement moderated by academic opportunity. And if you think the private school parents are squealing because of VAT, imagine what their reaction would be if their children were taking a 20% penalty on their UCAS points to handicap the private school privilege and put them on an even playing field with the comprehensive kids.

It's not really about money though, it's about attitude.
My parents weren't rich, dont have an O level between them, couldn't help with homework but they valued education and family time. Regular trips to the library, watching lots of documentaries and high expectations on behaviour. University was never mentioned at home as it was the great unknown but they were cautiously supportive although concerned about the money.

After uni following various life circumstances I became a single parent in a council flat in a disadvantaged area, have what I consider a good job now although certainly not by MN standards and have instilled in DD the importance of education. Most of the things we do that have the most impact are free. Seeking out museum, art gallery exhibits, science fairs, poetry readings, local theatre shows are all low cost or free. A week's geology trip to Dorset with Rock Watch was under £300 with everything included - most of the parents there had PhDs or Masters. The only thing I've done that cost quite a bit was buy her the text books and accompanying workbooks for her GCSE subjects but even those could have been borrowed from the library.

It's about seeking out the opportunities and feeling like you belong and that it is for the likes of you (something my mum still struggles with) not the cost. It's a parental self esteem issue rather than a parenting or educational one really.

Thing is though it starts early and it’s very difficult to catch up. Money undoubtedly helps but it doesn’t have to be expensive to help educationally. There are lots of free resources etc. But, you’ve got to have the education to access them in the first place.

I was looking around secondary schools recently and was really struck by one of the other parents in the group pointing to the maths on the board and saying he couldn’t understand it, maths was too hard and boring etc. His child obviously isn’t going to be getting help in that area at home. There is nothing really a school can do to bridge the gap between a child at home with a parent who isn’t number age and one doing maths with a child from a young age, one that will use it in cooking with them etc.

The article seems to believe there's only one route to success - study Maths and go to Cambridge.

For the young person who struggles with maths but wants to run their own business, Business Studies is a much more valuable A Level.

Oxbridge isn't the be-all and end-all. If you're studying art, you want to be at the Royal College of Art. For Economics, you want LSE. Nursing at KCL, music at the Royal College of Music, sports at Loughborough, and so on. Choosing the most prestigious uni is very subjective depending on which subject you're aiming to study.

The whole article has a very narrow view of what is considered success. "Wealthy people = good parents, poor people = bad parents".

I think schools need to ensure that DCs from disadvantaged backgrounds are encouraged to aim high. As someone who grew up on a council estate, with parents who had left school at 14-16, I wasn't behind educationally when I started school (I was reading fluently and could do basic maths well before then) but I was totally reliant on information from school discover what career possibilities could be open to me and how to navigate further / higher education.

@Another2Cats none of this will ever fix the many parents who do not work, do not want to work, expect the government to give them everything they need, eg housing, clothing, money, food! everything that many of us workour guts off for. then there are the parents who spend most of their money on booze, drugs, tattoos, fake lashes, botox, duck enhancers etc etc rather than their kids! really just the parents or single mothers who cant be arsed with their kids once the romanticised view of babyhood has worn off!

I completely agree. What needs to change is the British mindset that university professional is the definition of success.

We need more tradies in this country and it’s only seen as a route for kids who didn’t pass their GCSEs. The irony being that most of them fail their course/not being able to get up to standard as being a plumber/electrician/mechanic/carpenter means having to become skilled.

For a country to be successful we need gardeners, bus drivers, piano tuners, nursery nurses, graphic designers, physiotherapists, accountants and finance analysts. Is the goal for every child in this country to earn six-figures?

I thought the article was going to be based upon some parents do not know what a healthy meal is, or encouraging healthy habits within their children. As PP said upthread, there’s always kids that start school who don’t know how a book ‘works’. These are the parents that need nannying. Not parents who aren’t going to push their kids into studying Classics at Cambridge.

The T-Level Management and Administration has a really good syllabus, but is easily overlooked compared to A-Level Business Studies. I wish T-Levels were getting more coverage and better availability. For a lot of young people they are a fantastic route to a qualification with direct workplace experience.

This is nothing new over 50 years ago sociologists were saying that children from working class not necessarily poor working class backgrounds were less likely to go on to university. The families lacked the social awareness the contacts to steer their children towards higher education it wasn't expected of them and in turn not expected of their children.

I'm lawyer and have never been much help with maths once it gets beyond arithmetic, fractions and percentages.

I'm struggling to help DD2 with her English Language GCSE work, which was a subject I absolutely aced at school. I just don't understand what they are asking half the time.

Which is why we get tutors to help, seriously fucking expensively.

It's a long time since parents went to school and things have changed. I don't agree with the level of parental involvement and homework schools expect now. At primary school it felt like I had a second part time job dealing with it all. It only leads to further division and disadvantage.

crab bucket yet again. My lovely late mother in law got thrown out of her family for having "ideas abover her class"

I lived with kids in lower social economic area than most of MN.

Sure Start had an impact - so some similar program perhaps more targeted would have an effect - it meant speech and language and even behavioural issue were picked up sooner and parenst sign posted to more support.

DH and I had what we though was poor career advice from career teachers - mainly lower our ambitions - but we did have access to career libraries and other school staff who told us things. My kids - in a failing school - don't seem to have this at all - they've signed up to a frankly crappy on-line service and get told some whoppers - like school A-level are better than college ones despite it being same board- and generally not really very ambitious for the kids at all. So the kids who don't have parents with interest and knowledge are at much worse disadvantage than ones which do because the school isn't filling in the blanks .

Mind you DH whole family is in various trades and I don't think MN view of them in based in reality - our degrees given us better options than rest of his family got - long hours crappy customers who don't want to pay and nick pick the damage to their joints lack of pensions. As a country we need more but the whole sector needs a good revamp to be made appealing and have obvious way in and ways up.

Well, yes. I was the first person to go to university in my family in the mid 1990s and to us, we knew Oxford and Cambridge were the elite but other than that we thought university was university and a degree was a degree. Which is really how it should be.

Only when I got to my ex-poly university I heard about massive snobbery among law firms and that it would be really hard to get a training contract or even a vacation scheme placement in London with this university on my CV.

I did get to work for top City firms by getting experience under my belt and have worked alongside many people from far more advantaged backgrounds. And I also found that most firms are dreadful places to work and I didn't want to practice law that way anyway.

I don't agree with the level of parental involvement and homework schools expect now. At primary school it felt like I had a second part time job dealing with it all. It only leads to further division and disadvantage.

I felt like this - my kids fell behind family history of dyslexia just dismissed - so either we gt external to school support or they stayed behind - and it did at times feel like I was doing huge amounts of basic teaching at home. A big move helped as next school had much less busy work.

DSis youngest just started - her eldest same age as my kids - say it's going even faster now - they're just ploughing though phonics at break neck speed and there homework every evening - which as a single working parent and child just started school who is tired is proving difficult.

Some parents do need to be nannies for the sake of their children.

I work with a lady who is constantly harping on about how her son isn't allowed sweets or anything with sugar in, everything is natural and he even eats oysters! No chicken nuggets over here 🙄 but at the ripe old age of 3 he has tooth decay because she used a natural toothpaste with no fluoride in it because natural is best and she thought fluoride was harmful to brain development? 🥴

Now that poor boy has fillings in his milk teeth that were supposed to last him another 6 years because his mum is stupid. But thats not his fault! Someone should be educating his mother for his benefit because he can't do it himself poor lad.

Actually, your last paragraph, I think the parents have a point. To me, there is no such thing as a menial job, these are essential jobs and there should be more respect (and pay) for such work. The trades are highly skilled work and well paying. Personally I would rather be out and about than stuck behind a desk. Likewise lots of factory work is highly skilled and with good career progression. So kids are told by society these jobs are for failures so unsurprisingly don't want to do them, they're also not suited to university or sitting still desk work, these leaves them with nothing.

we knew Oxford and Cambridge were the elite but other than that we thought university was university and a degree was a degree. Which is really how it should be.

DH and I were both told that - my Dad took me aside and said no look at the uni rankings - DH just knew it was rubbish.

The primary school point is really interesting. It most definitely feels like there is a lot. I’m just not convinced that kids are getting the input they need in a class of 30 (often with significant behavioural issues) and there is therefore the spillover into home.

Early reading seems to be heavily down to parental support. I guess it always probably has been but I’ve found it does take a significant amount of time supporting two children. Project based homework makes that divide bigger.

I also suspect there is a lot more tutoring going on than anyone will admit to. I’m sure a lot of primary schools have inflated sats because of kids being tutored for 11 plus etc.

I was thinking the same thing. I’m a UCL student at the moment and in my subject it is number 1 in the world. 🤦🏼‍♀️

A lot of the issues around subject choices and the relative value of a degree is why DC need good careers advisors in schools. The problem is that DC who don’t have family knowledge to fall back on rely on teachers - who may teach business studies - for advice.

They should absolutely bring Sure Start back. It had a measurable effect. The IFS thinks it had a benefit to children of £1.09 for every £1 spent. And it saved a considerable amount on SEND spending because of early interventions.

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/short-and-medium-term-impacts-sure-start-educational-outcomes

I don't think that's true. I think the point he's making is that there are things that many chidlren don't know. For exaple, that from a ranking perspective for core subjects, certain universities definitely are well acknowledged as being better.

Ditto the business studies point - I'm not anti business studies by any means. But it is a FACT that an A level in maths will give you a better chance of getting into university, particularly a good university, even if planning to study business, than a business studies A level. And children should know this when making decisions.

I have worked in media for nearly 30 years. Nonetheless, I think a generalist subject at A-Levels is more useful than Media Studies. You can do Media studies any time, but it's not as easy to access the basics in other subjects. Similarly, DD is both academic and very focused on dance. I have no problem if she chooses to pursue a creative/dance/arts career. However, she can do the work to move into that later - at GCSE level, and probably A Level - if she takes more "traditional" subjects, she has more options. A dance college is not goign to reject her because she doesn't have a Dance A-Level. But that engineering degree will reject her if she doesn't have the right A Levels.

Yes, two DC currently in primary and the amount they (and I!) have to do is ridiculous.

They have to do much more much earlier nowadays and I'm not even sure why?

Times tables used to have to be learnt by the end of year 6; it's now year 4. I remember specifically that my DC had a spelling in year 3 that I had got wrong in my work in year 6 as I remember my teacher pulling me up on it!

Why are we doing this to our children? Is it really needed? I had zero homework at primary other than spellings and times tables in year 6. I still passed the 11+ (with zero tutoring!), got good exam results and a STEM degree from a RG university.

Sure Start was brilliant. It made a real difference.

Background comes into play more often than you might think. It's learning to assimilate into situations more than anything. I'm
WC. My kids went to nursery, school, holiday club, they went to lots of extracurricular activities. It's teaching them to blend in and get along with different demographics of people and adapt their register accordingly. That is the middle class hack!
I've worked with some brilliant kids from poor families, who grew up in care etc. The thing which some of them lack is that subtle way of quietly assessing and changing their behaviour to suit the environment. Being a chameleon. Yes it's bloody depressing and fake, but it's what successful people do.
You cannot go around 'being real' in every social situation.