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

there def aren’t loads of bursaries but the focus on improving educational outcomes black working class boys (which was quite right, imo) was openly discussed and has been successful.

but of course, someone has to take their place at the bottom of the league and now we turn our attention to them.

the question is why we would look to engage and educate working class black boys, but send working class white boys to the building site instead. We should also focus on improving their educational outcomes, including higher numbers going to university.

He earns six figures because he runs his own business, having started off as a roofer working for someone else. The gap has narrowed between us over the years but still, he earns a very solid wage and it’s secure work. He’s turning people away, and to some extent he can name his price.

I’m not suggesting roofing is some amazing easy option. However, the fact that it’s physical, tough work shouldn’t prevent it being put as an option for kids of all academic abilities, and from a wider social point of view, it’s much more useful work than the work I’m engaged it.

the problem is not all kids are cut out for university, or want to go. they need viable alternatives that isn't casual work, zero hour contracts and worklessness. there's nothing shameful in wanting to learn a trade. dear lord, we'd be screwed without them. and it can be good steady employment. kids should be able to access training into that, including some kids who will be pushed into Unito do a degree they barely pass and never use again.We can't all be barristers and brain surgeons.

I agree with PP that said this is not a working class issue it’s a non-working class issue.

I remember being on the literal bones of my arse as a single parent with two young children working full time as a carer but was not eligible for FSM because I was receiving working tax credit, which made me ineligible despite me having far less than the £16k gross. But I valued education, I supported my kids education at home and they have done well, better than I did at school (I never went to Uni)

Anyone working even 16hrs a week will not be eligible to FSM.

It is insulting to all those families working and struggling and barely getting by. THEY are the working class.

This is a non-working class issue and it starts at home. Who cares about education or qualifications if you don’t intend to work anyway?

I agree that family culture is hugely important, but with a modern education system it should be possible for kids to do well no matter what family they come from.

I think the solutions are fine, but I agree should include access to top tier education and university for those who are capable (what working class kids would have had at grammar schools). Also Sure Start is preferable to more childcare because it actually helps parents to be more aspirational.

The ‘mediocre white men’ who are doing well (is it really only white men? I’d say it’s men of any ethnicity) are not this demographic. They are universally middle class.

Totally this

I am a teaching assistant and I’ve worked in loads of different schools. I live in a council house and my kids are on free school meals. We solidly fit into the white working class bracket despite myself getting an OU degree (first).

Anyway, my own son is on track for straight As in his GCSEs according to his mocks and predictions. It is highly likely he will pass them all with flying colours. He is down from 300 applications to the final 10 for a competitive HR apprenticeship at our local council. To look at him, you would think, yeah bit of a lad. Swears a bit too much, loves football etc.

Anyway, back to me being a TA. White working class kids can succeed at school but the main factor in my opinion is how much that parent values education. So many white working class families simply don’t value education. It is exceptionally hard for the school and teachers to mitigate this attitude that comes from the home.

I will give you an example. I’ve work as an agency TA so switch schools a lot. There’s two primary schools I work at in an extremely deprived area. One is mainly full of white working class kids. The other school half a mile down the road is a Catholic school and is mainly black working class kids, some living in more poverty than their white counterparts. Anyway, I digress, I will ALWAYS take the Catholic school as a first choice with the black children because

A) the behaviour of said children is so much better

B) their parents and families value education and therefore these children tend to be brighter and more engaged

both of the above points make my day a lot easier. The behaviour, attitudes and values at the other school doesn’t even compare despite both sets of kids being from poorer backgrounds

My own 16 year old, working class lad is highly likely to achieve because we as his parents value education despite poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds ourselves. It mainly starts in the home tbh.

I am in Northern Ireland which for various reasons has a much more integrated mix of professions so you see a lot of people doing different things. Brickies, sparks, general contractors and plumbers are genuinely earning a clean fortune here - definitely know a great electrician running a Pimlico style company with a couple of electricians working for him making at least 250-300k a year, a spark earning very comfortable six figures in his sixties as he has a niche skill and is offered incredible contracts, and a master brickie earning £500 as a day rate which chat gpt assures me translates to a equivalent 5 days a week with 5 weeks off and 6% salary contribution of £117k. He is an incredible bricklayer though!

I'd read the report and recommendations yourself, rather than rely on a condensed version.

"Government should develop and test how high-quality vocational and applied pathways at Key Stage 4 can be integrated more effectively alongside a strong academic core." (my emphasis)

https://educationaloutcomes.org.uk/recommendations/secondary-education/

Don’t you think it’s odd that it seems people assume white working class boys aren’t capable of university? Why is that? Some of them are, some aren’t.

just like private school boys. But people aren’t demanding they join the building site

They do work SO hard here though - arrive 7.30, finish at 4.

Better than £60k of uni debt and £30k public sector job for some!

I understand what you are saying. But looking at my own experience:
One child in 1987 going to university. At least 10 have gone subsequently

I was studying 4 a levels. Careers guide came to the school I said I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, as I had a family friend who worked in the post office I said " I thought about the post office counter" . He gave me info on being a post man...4 a levels...post man?

School friend I am still in touch with should have been pushed towards university...always intellectually far ahead of the rest of us. Left school at 16. Earns a massive salary in sales....but whilst the country needs salesmen, it also needs doctors, lawyers etc. So many people aren't allowed to reach their full potential.

And yes we need vocational training....but this takes us back to the secondary modern/grammar school but without the opportunity to go to the grammar

But some barristers these days are barely scraping by - it’s said that if you account for all their hours they’re barely making minimum wage.

if parents are spending half a million pounds on their child’s education, then they have the kind of money that will support them through uni. What then though? A lot of professional jobs really ARENT enough to support someone in eg London without continued financial support.

Theres a phrase here ‘clogs to clogs in three generations which is often only too visible. Grandparent makes it, middle generation lives terribly nice middle class life, grandchild expects to live same but money has run out. We have much less landed aristocracy and much more fluid social ‘classes’ (not sure classes is the right word to use in Ireland north or republic tbh).

I wasn't capable of university at 18...to lazy. Too immature. But if I'd been directed down that route earlier?

Actually no it was never on my radar because dad was ill and mum died when I was 17.

But friends definitely should have gone. I went to school with a guy with an iq of 135. He's spent most of his life in junior civil servant roles.

But the report, and that's what the thread is about, basically seems to say this is the thing to do. Not push universities to recruit in disadvantaged areas. Not to help parents realise that education is an escape.

There seems to be a belief that the working class don't want their kids to do well...and to a degree there is some truth in that in the "not getting above yourself " mentally. Not showing off. But that mind set is very limited to a few small insular communities.

I absolute see what you’re saying and the post office anecdote is wild and so frustrating.

However currently young doctors are struggling to find jobs and there are far too many law graduates. Houses that haven’t been renovated since the 70s or 80s which need rewired replumbed new heating system, patio and windows are lying on the market as buyers know that labour costs make that a £250k job - we have to take apart what we think and put it back together again. Theres a uni in the us doing a (free) joint honours degree in the arts & a trade - unsurprisingly its booming. (It’s run by a religious foundation which would be off putting to many, but still a fascinating idea. They are trying to close the gap between wanting a solid lucrative career and learning ‘ideas’ with no current practical application.)

I agree that civil service (Whitehall) can display some shocking biases towards terribly nice middle class people who sound ‘just like us’ to senior leadership.

What is the definition of white working class in the the context of this study. Does it include the swathe of families who don't work at all?

All of the parents I know push and shove their kids to do well at school as they realise that noone gets to stroll into any job without any effort these days. A lot of lower socio economic type jobs just don't exist any longer eg factory/on the line kind of jobs, so the options are fewer for the less academically inclined or able. The expectation seems to be that employers facilitate these?

So there's a few points to cover before my conclusion:

Lets start with race, if we scroll back 50 to 70 years ago then there was clearly outright racism being practiced both in the workplace and in society. The goal and message became to educate people not to be racist. Now I think that by say 2000 that goal has largely been achieved and the vast majority of people are not racist, of course there will always be a minority of racists but no amount of education or discussion will ever make them change their views.
However rather than accept a win, the new objective became to be "anti racist" - namely seeking out instances of racism and calling them out. Unfortunately there is a greater demand to find "racism " than there is actual racism leading to ridiculous claims for example demands to rename The Masters golf tournament, on the grounds that the word "master" could be linked to the "Master-Slave" era of American history.

A similar example could be made on sexism in society and the workplace, where generally equality has been achieved but now the objective has become "anti sexism" trying to find instances of sexism or a belief that every decision by a man that goes against you must be due to sexism.

But coming to the conclusion that if you educate a young working class white male that a) they enjoy "white privilege" and that the history of white Britain is shameful. b) as a male they are part of society's problem and that they should be educated against toxic masculinity even if they are not. c) Positive discrimination and DEI initiatives work basically discriminate against them ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66060490?app-referrer=deep-link)

Then don't be surprised when you destroy the hopes, energy and ambitions of young white poor working class males, who simply "give up" in the same way as many young black poor males simply "gave up" in the time of Jim Crow laws in the US.

The scenario where what's the point of an ambition to become a lawyer or a doctor when those kind of jobs just happen to people like us.

Yes absolutely this! Getting trained up for a trade is extremely useful, less likely to fall foul of AI and often more lucrative than a lot of paper-shuffling office jobs. (Don't even get me started on student debt.)

Why is it a bad thing?

Ny grandparents generation saw trades as a bit inferior and not the sort of thing for children of nice families to aspire to. But the world is so different now. I'd be delighted if one or both of my kids decided to go into construction/plumbing/electric trades. Always in very high demand in my experience.

If barristers are scraping by there is something wrong or they’re at the start of their career and can look forward to outearning 99% of the population.

besides which, why can’t a working class boy be a poor barrister rather than a rich boy?

Totally agree with this, how can schools possibly be expected to fix this issue when the problem lies with the parents.

That's just reframing a structural issue as one of personal ethics and responsibility. How many 4/5 year old when asked what they want to be when they grow up are going to say "nothing"? Something happens along the way to make learning and working seem undesirable. That's not a race/ethnicity issue, it's a class one. If you take on board ideas about your place in society, it's going to impact how you see your future.

@Chritrup my brother is a plumber. I trained at university for my career. He earns more than I do. He is academically bright, more so than me I would say, he just isn't an academic person and has been a much happier person since leaving school and starting his apprenticeship at 17. Nothing wrong with a good trade

mediocre men come from all walks of life, you can be middle class and mediocre or upper class and mediocre too yeh difference is degree of privilege because of money and status.

but it is factual that working class white first outperform working class white boys even down to the same household, so why is it when all other variables are accounted for, white working class boys end up doing worse? It’s not because they are intrinsically less intelligent and in these scenarios they have the same opportunities and milieu as their white working class girl counterpart- so what is it? Simply that they don’t apply themselves? Ok but why? Perhaps we should look into what whiteness and patriarchy has historically meant and afforded white people, specifically white men

Don’t barrister earn pittance in the early years but then they go onto earn hundreds of thousands of pounds?