White working class children

[NotAnotherScarf]

The bbc has a report about a review of the academic system failing white working class children. The bulk of the population.

It's brilliant that this has been looked at but the recommendations are appalling.

Basically its saying that wcc's are only fit for manual jobs. That schools should push towards offering for vocational courses.

That's where my education went 40 years ago. One child from my year group of 242 went to university at 18. We had at most 6 kids from non white backgrounds. Many went subsequently. I have always maintained the school saw us as shop assistants, factory hands and dockers.

The other recommendations will help children of all races...free travel under 22. Promoting reading etc.

One of the reasons why kids from other backgrounds are doing better has been the push to get them into university...ie black boys being actively recruited and bursarys being given solely to them. Places sponsored etc etc.

Whilst I welcome the move to vocational training. And for many people thats a brilliant move, ts disappointing that the report thinks that that's the main option for wcc's. Basically its says "we don't think your good enough for anything else " .

BBC News - White working-class children 'failed by schools system' - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq51j10q601o

She saying that not introducing children to things that expand their literary and musical tastes is a crying shame.

And that assuming they could never possibly like Shakespeare because they’re just “hoi polloi” is a superior and ignorant take.

NRFT.

If they are taking this tack then I genuinely think contextual offers for Asian/black children at University, as well as grants (yes grants are available for non-white children) should be abolished.

For some courses at some universities, for example medicine, there is a very high % of non-white children, who are competing for very few places. Many non-white children do meet all the academic etc criteria.

Someone from admissions might be able to comment.

On the issue of top tier universities etc being made accessible to working class kids - despite their considerable downsides, grammar schools had the advantage of finding the academically able kids before family culture and / or societal expectation had been fully embedded.

I wonder if we might end up thinking that a certain amount of selective schooling aged 11 is actually the least flawed approach... not back to the horrendous grammar vs secondary modern scrap heap, but something in addition to the comprehensive system to give opportunities to those kids, and which was less vulnerable to being gamed by the middle classes.

on an individual level, 100%

on a population level, do we want this? Or do we want educated people? Why should only rich people be educated in the arts?

education for the uk is for more than jobs. The advantages of a highly educated population are vast

That ignores all structural issues - poverty, poor housing, poor parental education and so on. It shifts responsibility for academic success onto the individual and normalises the views of those in power (like Gove). The powerful justify their position by pretending we live in a meritocracy. And they say that coming from their public school, Oxbridge ivory towers.

The victims of rape gangs? If non-white person abuses someone simply for being white?

There are already schemes in place to help working class kids get to uni. They get automatic interviews, contextual offers, automatic low income bursary and both of mine got an extra bursary or scholarship on top.

Then there are schemes like the Villiers Park trust, which takes bright diadvantaged kids for four years, from year 10 to 13 and gives them help with forms and options, support, educational trips, uni visits and whatever they need to get them to uni. Here at least they were 95% white working class.

Most unis (or at least Russell group) have their own schemes for getting working class kids in. They have summer internships, taster days, Acces to Bath, etc. My kids did a range of these between 3 days an 6 weeks at different unis. If they do well they get a good and very low offer.

The biggest factor in all of these seemed to be first in family to go to uni (and ability) so were aimed at working class. What has been missing is similar opportunities for less academic pupils. In my local area you join your dad's firm and learn on the job, or you can't get a job. Even shops now want qualifications, so it's benefits or crime.

@Backedoffhackedoffbrickies are not known as a high paying trade; joiners, plumbers, sparks, builders earn six figures easily. Not every graduate is heading for a high paying career. Often we see threads here about ppl being 30-40 slogging away in an average job wondering why they bothered with uni.

Racism is systemic.

@SheMon Your point is irrelevant to the conversation but to be clear on the facts most "rape gangs" and grooming gangs in the UK are made up of white men and it is women from minority ethnic backgrounds who are the statistically most likely to be victims of rape and grooming.

How many plumbers, sparks and joiners do you know?! 🤨 I’m from generations of them. It’s very uncommon unless you are very successfully self employed- even then it’s short lived as tradies can rarely work into retirement age.

whilst sparkies are indeed the highest paying trade, carpenters are the lowest paid and there is a desperate shortage of brickies which has temporarily inflated their rates in many parts of the country; but it’s time limited since they won’t be needed with modular housing.

Agree, and for many children and families, they are now onto the third generation of this culture.

My DH’s family was a bit like this except that good behaviour and discipline were strong. Nobody expected him to learn anything much at school; teachers didn’t know their arse from their elbow; it’s who you know not what you know and people like us don’t do X or Y. One of the biggest crimes was being a big’ead and anyone who did well was someone who if they fell in the River Humber, they’d come out wearing a new suit. That is to say any success was down to luck or friends in high places and doing better than the family norm was being big headed and thinking you are better than them. It was actually resented as showing less successful family members up!

It's very toxic but at least his mum got them out of bed and fed, demanded manners and imposed bedtimes. Too many children are growing up in sleep deficit and being told nobody outside the family can tell them off. The odds are massively stacked against them but it’s not schools or the State that are the main problem. It’s parenting.

The problem we have now is that getting an apprenticeship and passing and being certified or even allowing someone to take the vocational course requires GCSE’s in English and Maths
But if someone from abroad came here and was qualified in a vocational career, they wouldn’t necessarily have passed the equivalent to a gcse in Maths English or their first language, their skills are met with open arms

Those manual and vocational careers that WWC boys and girls who wouldnt have passed a gcse/O level/CSE years ago would go into. Those careers are now closed off to them

Just because you haven’t passed maths and English doesn’t mean you can’t understand or speak English and can’t use a calculator to add up or take away at the very least.

Instead we have people who would have looked after themselves and ultimately made a life for themselves and their families are left watching as people who could pass a couple of exams but are really clueless about most everything else are given the opportunities.

I grew up poor in India. Just had a drive to study and succeed did we.

In the long run, you are the determinant of your success.

Contextual offers should probably just be on parental income tbh

I do think more apprenticeships and vocational training for those who would like it - and it will be lots - is a good idea. Not just for WWC boys, for everyone.

I have one child who is perfectly cut out for academic study at Uni, the other is perfectly cut out for “on the job” skills based learning. The fact that the first is dd and the second is ds is neither here nor there, and traditional Uni learning was based around men and the way men learn. They are the same race and same parental income (full siblings).

Better careers advice earlier on would be helpful too.

We don’t need everyone going to Uni but I wonder if focusing on sex or race is helpful at this point in the national development.

Getting rid of private schools or making them much less attractive would make a huge difference- getting everyone to value investment in state school.

I'm Indian. The only time we've been racially abused was by another minority.

Over 60% of private schools are special schools so they probably do offer a range of qualifications. Some of the more traditional mainstream private school offer BTECs. I'm not sure how much prancing they do though. Probably depends on the BTEC.

The academically selective ones don't, but neither do the very academically selective grammar schools in the State sector.

Obviously that's one way of looking at it but evidence doesn't bear it out. There's poverty in the UK and India, like everywhere else, that can't just be overcome through hard work and a positive attitude.

Ok but I'm not quite sure what that has to do with my point?

Per capita look at who does the most. Look at how a blind eye was turned and how the victims ignored.

@Backedoffhackedoff yes this! Average take home pay for someone employed in the trades, electrician, joiner or plumber is 30-45k depending on area and level of expertise - and you can't do it forever it is hard work and I wouldn't want to be doing manual labour into my 60s

My husband is WWC never went to uni got decent GCSEs but was expected to work from 17, he had a string of shit manual temporary jobs, minimum wage night shift cardboard tester sound appealing to anyone? My FIL is a warehouse operator even now - in his 60s!

It wasn't till his early 30s that my husband secured something more secure, better paid and permanent where he wouldn't get laid off at a moments notice and it didn't destroy his body. He has no ambition to move on from this or get promoted because for him this is the best he could have imagined.

I will get flamed for saying this but....

Ethnic minority & migrant groups often have;

• strong culture of discipline at home
• a focus on respecting parental/teacher authority
• a firm belief in the value of academic education

Theres been such a shift in what schools can do to impose discipline and so many white working class parents do not:

• have firm/strict boundaries at home
• reinforce/support school authority
• have a strong belief in the importance of academic education

Its not really any wonder they do worse at school.

@SheMon it's ok, just say you don't understand how statistical bias works - a smaller population will reflect a higher "per capita" response as even one or two outliers will create an anomalous response.

No, they aren't the victims I agree.

But surely we want a society where everyone is thriving, where no group is being left behind. We can use as many long words as we like, but ultimately white working class boys are currently not succeeding in our school system, and often in our employment systems either. Random sucess stories can be named and listed, but this doesn't change the fact that we need a cultural shift to aspiration amongst all groups of society - it's not a race to the bottom and dependency/entitlement.

This isn’t really true though because 15 years ago black British boys were the lowest performing group.