I am middle class. Grew up middle class in one of the poorest boroughs in London. My area had a little hub of rather hippy-ish middle class people. Their children (like me) all made the most of the various groups in the area: we all joined the Woodcraft Folk (the hippy version of the Guides/Scouts), all learnt instruments at the very brilliant music academy in the borough; we joined the theatre groups on Sundays and did sports or whatever other things were available.
Up the road, by the high street it was rough and rather poor. My junior school was very mixed, but had all the children from the very middle-class bit in it.
My mother, rather like you I suspect, had rather idealised – good really – thoughts about what society and education should be. She was furious when, towards the end of my primary education, all the parents of the other middle class children at my school started signing their children up for schools further away or to private schools. My mother thought that we should, no matter our backgrounds, all attend the same local schools. That (and she was arguably correct in this) that if those from middle class backgrounds attended the local schools then those schools would benefit from that.
My parents were divorced. My father wanted to send me to a public school in central London. If not there, then at least a school in a neighbouring borough that had an incredible reputation. My mother was furious that he dare suggest it. She persuaded me that I should go to my local school. It was rather easy to do, I was 11 and she pointed out that it was a ten minute walk away: that I could be back home before 4pm and have the evening to play. I chose that. It was a dreadful mistake.
My secondary school was rough. It was ranked as one of the worst in the country. There were muggings and violence in the corridors. Some of our teachers were great, but most had either given up completely or just acted as crowd control. Lessons were mostly disrupted by shouting, violence, and other such things. Even when the teachers were brilliant there were issues. I had some wonderful English teachers, who really inspired me to write, but the Head of English decided that splitting the year into sets based upon ability was elitist and unfair. The school had something like 20% of students recent immigrants and 60% whose first language wasn’t English. Now that’s great, education for them is vital and some did really well. But it did rather disadvantage the rest of the class when we had to go at the speed and ability of the less able. I spent an awful lot of time be told to do ‘quiet reading’ or to write a poem. The English department had also decided that grammar was too much and so didn’t teach it. Something I still struggle with the effects of to this day, and any I have is self-taught. (Incidentally my dyslexia wasn’t picked up on until university as nobody noticed).
Kids often struggled too by having even the smallest thought of learning beaten out of them (often physically) by parents who would tell them that something like wanting to learn to read was ‘poncy’ of them and who did they think there were?!
During my time at school I was bullied regularly. My name was rarely used, I was ‘poshy’ or ‘boffin’. There was violence in corridors and to teachers. Lunchtimes were regularly cancelled when fights between our school and the neighbouring school broke out on the streets around the school (police, knives, etc) and those not outside were locked in the school grounds to keep us safe. I was once mugged one night by a group of 5 very large hooded men. I recognised them from my school and my mother made me report them to the police and the head teacher. The next day they stormed into my classroom, pushed the teacher out of the way, pushed me up against the wall and told me what awful things they’d do to me if I spoke to the police again.
Some of us made it out. Of those of us who were bright and had supportive parents many went on to sixth form (thankfully our secondary school didn’t have one and so we had no choice but to go elsewhere) and a good number went on to University. But, looking at my form class (those I know of), three are pharmacists, two used to work on the local market, one is an estate agent, several work in their parents shops or building businesses, a few are teachers, there are two nurses and a doctor, one was sent to Bangladesh before taking her GCSEs (she never did) and came back married to a man 15 years older than her, one was stabbed to death when he was 19, three were convicted of gang rape and went to prison, one is still in prison for armed robbery, and one was sentenced for the murder of a homeless man who he and a gang of friends beat to death for ‘looking at him’. And me, who did ok, but still struggle from a fundamental hole in my key education.
Except for one, all of those who went on to sixth form and then university all left the area the moment they could. We still say that we ‘escaped’.
Of the middle class kids from my primary school who were sent to other (‘better’) schools, one is a professional cellist, one a successful actress, two are doctors, three teachers, one is a film producer, one a conservationist, one a barrister, two are solicitors, one a research scientist, one a lecturer, two architects, a few run businesses, and one released two best selling albums before moving into film, and one seems to never have quite finished her gap year travels (20 years on). The rest have normal ‘middle-class’ jobs.
Absolutely, my mother was right – you are right – it shouldn’t be this way and something needs to change. The system is desperately unfair. Unfortunately, my mother’s response was to make me a sacrificial lamb to prove her socialist ideals. Good for her, but it damaged me. My children will go to a state school. But they will go to the best state school we can find in the area and, if they all turn out to be dreadful, then we will see whether there is any way at all we can afford to pay for their education, or, if not, move.