AIBU to think upper middle class professionals downplay how much they game education?

[MyCyanAnt]

I can’t be the only one who has noticed this. I went to genuinely average comprehensive schools and had parents who just dgaf like most in UK. I went to medical school where it seemed like this upbringing put you in a small minority, now an ultra high earner from own business but still do part time work as a GP. DC are 12 and 14.

Whenever the topic of education comes up with other doctors/professionals they will say stuff like it’s the child not the school who determines the outcome, we’re not pushing DC, we’re letting DC pick their school etc

However when it comes down to it none of them ever put their money where their mouth is. It won’t always be Eton but it will almost always be either a private, grammar or high performing comp in expensive catchment area instead of a genuinely average comp.

It’s a similar story with paying for tutors and other parents DC being interested in prestigious but completely unrelated careers e.g. Doctor or investment banking who have obviously been guided by parents.

I do the same but I feel like I’m an outlier in that I don’t lie about it, I’m obviously paying/gaming things so DC are much more likely to get a top job. I don’t see what’s wrong with admitting it yet it’s such a sensitive subject with some.

£1-£2 mil a year, I think I mentioned more details page 8.

Obviously this is not normal at all even for doctors.

Not really. The majority of students don’t get grade 5 in English and maths, anyone without a clear learning disability is capable of getting that with sufficient support (i don’t mean tutoring) and push from the parents.

I do not think most are bad parents overall, but I don’t think many really emphasise or push education the way most doctors or other professionals I know would.

In the UK a small percentage of children overall attend independent fee paying schools or academically selective grammars - state schools are allocated based primarily on catchment / proximity to the school so yes most parents will send their kids to the local school…this is not rocket science.

Your post was about upper middle class parents - very few of these are going to pick “a genuinely average comp” because even if they opt out of the independent or selective system their local state school is likely to be what you describe as “high performing comp in an expensive catchment area”. My point was - upper middle class parents are ONLY going to have all the options you have listed as options. Somebody living in a nice bit of Surrey or Sussex isn’t offered an inner city Birmingham comp.

Not sure how your post might have “called me out” as can’t even see what point it is you’re trying to make…?

It’s very sad that you feel your parents didn’t care, and that this is normal and the case for most, I don’t agree that it is. It’s also sad this has given you such a chip on your shoulder.

You said your company turned a profit of £1-2m a year. That’s not the same as saying you earn £1-2m a year.

Mine both go to private school, and if I’m honest, that’s because education is a huge priority for us - not in terms of expecting them to do something academic or even go to uni, but in terms of them having choices and access, including for sport, art and music.
However, when talking to someone I probably am all easy breezy about it, because I’ve found people have an enormous chip on their shoulder about private schools, e.g. “oh that just wouldn’t sit right with me”, or “don’t you want them to mix with other children?”
If I say “no I am choosing to pay more than a mortgage because I care deeply about their educational opportunities and quality of life”, it sounds like I think anyone who has made a different choice doesn’t care. Which isn’t true, I strongly believe almost all parents want the best for their children. So, I downplay it so I don’t sound like a dick. (Many think I’m a dick anyway - private schools are vilified!)

Of course people want their DC to go to good schools, have a good education which they enjoy and get good jobs. They’re not “gaming the system”, like most people with choice and money they’re choosing to live in nice areas. It’s hardly a conspiracy.

Theres no game.
Some people are forthcoming with what they are doing - i tell anyone that asks DC will be going for 11 plus private/grammar and as such they have tutors. There are many in her class that are quieter about it but are obviously prepping too. We live round the corner from an oversubscribed popular comprehensive that churns out offers to very good universities. Going this route (11+) is about having all options open. It's ultimately none of my business what others are doing. If they ask me though I won't lie or fudge.

You are giving me a really good giggle today! You genuinely believe doctors care more about education than others? That is funny. I'm not longer convinced this is genuine, I think you are enjoying winding people up, so I will leave you to your enjoyment and, apparently, rather interesting ideas.

Sadly not the same at all.

Exactly. Thank god there ARE people in this country who value education! People should fight to get their kids into good schools. We go on about the class system and how it holds people back. But the real problem isn't ‘posh people’ sending their kids to Eton. The problem is working class people with a chip on their shoulder who don’t value skills and education and knowledge.

I say that as someone who grew up on a council estate and went to crap comprehensives. Looking back, what strikes me most is the laziness and ignorance and lack of ambition. People didn’t want to get out of the ugly, boring lives they lived because that would be “getting ideas above your station” or “betraying your roots.” So they carried on reading The Sun and smoking weed and watching garbage on TV. I was surrounded by ugliness - ugly voices, ugly jokes, ugly accents, ugly clothes. The only people who did get out did so by hurting others. Either they turned to crime or they became shady businessmen, setting up as dodgy kitchen fitters or building firms so they could cheat people. I am working class to my finger tips, but I hate that lack of interest in knowledge and education. It really holds this country back.

I'm not going to highlight which member of my extended family is a Doctor although there is one thing I know for certain. They never studied the necessary subjects required to enter medicine. They were focused on becoming an actor & always wanted to go to drama school. It was after leaving school they approached their parents & said I've decided to go to college & study Physics & Chemistry in order to apply for medicine. To say their parents were gobsmacked would be an understatement.

The point I am making is it's wrong to suggest it's parents expectations to have a Doctor in the family that pushes children to study medicine. The happiest & best Doctors are those who go into it with their eyes open & have a genuine desire to treat the sick.

There is also the fact the selection process doesn't consider how much a parent wishes their child became a Doctor. It is so strict it's easy to uncover unsuitable candidates who were coerced into studying the sciences necessary but they would never cope with the course. They are found during interview to be not the type & why so many are rejected. In other words no matter how much parents push for it, if their child is not Doctor material they simply won't get in.

What a farrago of nonsense. You have acquired an ingrained snobbery about your own origins, and if you imagine the working class has a monopoly on weed-smoking, ignorance, and watching dreadful TV, you clearly haven't met many middle-class people. Ignorance is not a class issue.

And some of those people who value education are also working class.

Absolutely. @Dappy777 herself is clearly one of them. I went to Oxford myself, from my sink estate, and it didn't magically strip me of my social class.

In my experience, doctors in particular seem hellbent on their DC also becoming doctors, and they think that private education will ensure that outcome. However, they don’t admit it out loud, they will profess that their DC is choosing that school and that career. But I call BS.

Huge misunderstanding of the selection process. I have been through this process with my niece, with whom I crammed for the interviews. I have also paid for her MedicMentor summer school, where they tutored them to answer all sorts of interview questions correctly, at the same time cramming for UCAT and BMAT. All this nonsense about I want to 'care for the sick'. I have frank conversations with my niece and her mates - most of them are motivated by money, prestige and the unique set up - 'you get to charge crazy prices for your services like in the harshest of the harsh capitalist systems, yet you have fuck-all responsibility even if you kill the patient, only 'lessons learnt', provided you don't utter politically incorrect statements and hurty words'. My niece did not want to go into med school to start with, totally corralled by her parents, used a 'widerning participation programme' to get in, alongside other numerous unsuitable and some frankly unsavoury candidates.
As an example: During one of their online classes about ethics, etc. they were shown pictures of dissection gently, to ease them in and one of the questions was 'how does it make you feel'. It was an online class and one of the boys answered 'horny'. For real, for everyone to see - the answers were projected onto the computer screens for all to see. Thankfully, the lecturer immediately stopped the lecture, and a sort of procedure was followed, I was told.

This is a very strange thread.

I'm not in those circles but I am in circles where some people could afford private secondary education for DCs.
Towards the end of (state) primary they started vaguely mentioning the private schools saying that it would be of particular benefit to their DC to be in a school with small classes or excellent rugby or whatever but of course the state secondary schools are absolutely brilliant ("for your child") and anyway, they probably would send them to the state school, Jesse really wants to be with his friends, it's such a tough choice, etc.

Then off to private school and we never see them again.

I think I would prefer it if they said "over my dead body is my DC going to that state school, it's like the wild west" but maybe that would be a bit more awkward!

Nail on the head. My experience was exactly the same. Attitudes like that DO cause people to be held back and not reach their potential. I was surrounded by it at the crap comp I went to. Anyone who showed potential or worked hard was bullied and ridiculed. I came from working class parents so it's not snobbery.

My DH suffered the same as he went to a crap comp too. Likewise from a working class background. We both had a very similar upbringing, both performed poorly at secondary school due to being surrounded by disruption and bullies.

No way on Earth were we subjecting our DS to that, so we moved heaven and earth to get him into a better school (state, not private) rather than the closer comps which were poorly performing. He thrived by being surrounded by kids who had aspirations and actually wanted to do well. Still in a working class area (run down Northern region), but "parents who care and value education" sent their kids to that school rather than the closer crap comps.

Strange you say that - in my other posts I am posting here as a tutor for my privately educated niece who has never been the sharpest tool in the box and I wrote about it.
At the same time I am writing that there are ways when disadvantaged people game the system by pleading poverty, etc.etc.
So I wrote that surely privately educated clever people (not my niece) knew the system was rigged against them and did not even apply to that university for law and medicine, that is all. So I meant that because of that 'hard-working privately educated children' do not necessarily do better in terms of admissions, than their disadvantaged counterparts. That is all.

When I see 'gaming the system' in terms of private school education, only two scenarios come to mind.

1. In my dc private school there were a lot of crafty parents with their begging bowls out, asking for bursaries. They were clearly able to pay. The school bursar did not do proper checks at all. For example, my dc best friend was a foreign national with multiple properties abroad, as it was found out later, but living here in a council house.
2. People who can afford to pay for private schools, send their children to the best performing state schools, by buying properties in the catchment area, or renting them, depriving genuinely needy of a place, just because they want to virtue-signal. They then brag 'we were perfectly able to send them to private schools, but decided against it'.

That would be 'gaming'.

We absolutely did do this though. People vary! Firstly we were worried about the lack of places in our Borough. Our LA planned badly for population growth. We did have a vague plan regarding grammar, but it became apparent that DC had SEND and couldn't go that route.

The good quality music and sport were very important to us as it was evident DC enjoyed them and struggled academically.

She's now doing well in a non selective secondary school.

To add, we are both teachers and really value education. I spent a LOT of time working out which secondary would suit DC and went to considerable efforts to make sure she could go there. I will never know, of course, what the outcome would have been if I hadn't done that but I feel satisfied I did my best.

Of course it's all moot really, as lots of research shows parental background makes way more difference than school. Although a bad or bullying school can do a lot of damage.

I agree with this. I was very motivated by the reliable, good quality wraparound and holiday clubs provided by the private primary and they really looked after DC, even doing reading with her and supervising homework when she was older. There was nothing like that available in the state sector. The breakfast clubs at the state primaries we looked at didn't start early enough for me to get to work.

Parental background? No, not background. Parental ambition!