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.

I should imagine that the posh twats will be friends for life with the PP’s kids. They’ll all - kids and ‘posh’ friends together - turn up to the mum’s house and snigger at her raging over dinner about Harold Macmillan, grouse moors and the iniquity of the hereditary peers.

We just sent DC to the local school - we are rural so there isn’t really any choice unless you go private, which really isn’t an option for most as the local private school fees are £30k per annum. We are lucky that the sixth form college is very good (no state school sixth forms here). We are locals going back many, many generations so didn’t move here for the schools or anything - I don’t know anyone who has ever upped sticks for schools, work yes, but it seems a bit OTT just for schools.

I would say we are probably middle class - university educated with decent jobs and household income comfortably into six figures with no mortgage.

We moved out of London when our eldest was a toddler, around half of our parent friends did the same and moved back to/near their home towns. It wasn't just schools...there was also wanting more space and wanting to be near parents for childcare but schools were a part of it.

My husband was the same, @SadiraOfTyr and he went all the way to Cambridge (although this was very unusual, so unusual that the headteacher drove him to his interview).

Here on the London/Kent borders, things are much more complicated, what with all the academy trusts, volatile population growth and I suspect the LAs round here have been happy to let a small but significant of the often quite monied residents pay for their own private education and certainly a lot of people have paid for SEND. My own borough was "exporting" 20% of its EHCP students, on their own figures.

Easier to plan for places in schools when the situation is stable.

My experience is high levels of depression due to the pressures and high expectations and the feeling that your worth is solely based in academic performance. I say this as someone who was consistently top of the class.....it becomes your identity and it's a dangerous place to be

100%

Do you live in or around Islington? All the rage there

At least with the right wing, gauche, new money lot, its all out in the open

I answered the question but seeing the replies I see I didn’t really understand the context because I live in Ireland.

The whole grammar system is a bit wild and seems very unfair. Also the difference between private schools and ordinary schools isn’t as pronounced here.

The difference here is that you can apply to any school you want, so parents living in “up and coming areas” in Dublin will often apply to many schools outside of their area: which means areas will become popular and house prices will rise but schools will remain with a disadvantaged majority.

Generally outside of Dublin there is less choice but the same thing happens on a lesser scale.

Personally I would prefer a mixed cohort of students in a school, I think schools need to work harder to attract a socio economic mix. Mainly by showing ambitious middle class parents that their children could do well exam wise in the school. This benefits everyone in the school.

But as it stands I simply applied to 20 schools in better areas, that get better results in the hope that we would land one.

Didn't know they had the grammar system in Southern Ireland. I'm not sure how it works in the North, but I bet religion is a factor.

All of my Irish relatives were privately educated. Some at Convent schools.

I would imagine that certain areas of Dublin have kids who are disengaged with education. The issue is that parents dont want their kids going to school with highly disruptive, disengaged kids.

I once knew someone who went to The Artain. He was very poorly educated.

And this was at grammar school was it? The school is to blame?

I was also top of the class in most subjects. I did A levels in the days when very few people did A levels. I wasn't a nervous wreck. My validation didn't rely on academic success. I was happy in my own skin. I wasn't hounded to continuously perform. I was a bit naughty, but that's another story.

I suggest that your anxiety is caused by your personality/family background. It is more likely that your parents were pressurising you to perform, rather than the school. Ive met dozens of those anxious pushy parents. Including one who had hysterics because her 6 year old wasn't exceeding expectations in art. She requested an interview with the teacher to complain that her daughter was only average in art.

You have not confirmed that you went to a grammar school. I suggest that you would be an anxious perfectionist wherever you were educated.

We don’t have the grammar system in Ireland/ROI (never Southern Ireland!😉).
A few schools do have grammar in the name, but that’s it.
Having academic ability of the student as part of the selection process isn’t allowed here. Schools are mixed ability.

If all your Irish relatives were privately educated, you have a very small and atypical sample size, and/or are misinterpreting the information you have, which I imagine is the case. There are only about fifty fee-paying secondaries in Ireland, the main cluster in Dublin. They probably only have 20-25 k students. And most still have state support for teachers' salaries.

Most convent schools are state, and them being convent schools implies nothing whatsoever about their intake. They're not selective. They're still default parish schools. I went to convent schools throughout my education, and my secondary in particularly was notorious for poverty, truancy and a high-dropout rate. Some convent schools, on the other hand, are glossy, high-achieving exam factories.

If by 'The Artain', you mean the Artane industrial school which closed in the late 60s, then I think you're very confused. Do you even understand what the industrial school system was, which kind of children were in it, and why someone coming out of it would be not only 'poorly educated' but likely to bear lifelong trauma?

https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2026/04/10-key-findings-about-the-outcomes-of-initially-high-achieving-children-from-disadvantaged-backgrounds/

The disadvantages are already baked in by age 3 typically. It is what it is. Kids from higher SES with educationally advantaged parents on average already have a genetic advantage and a massive nurture advantage.
The better schools are just another layer on top of all that inherent privilege. Perhaps that is what your professional colleagues are referring to.

What do you sell? Vitamins etc per chance? Is it related to your field of expertise? Is it anything that is performance or health enhancing?

I think a lot of professionals are trying to avoid a disruptive and disengaged peer group during teen years. If you are working full time, the last thing you want is your teen hanging around with another teen from a chaotic background doing drugs, skipping school etc. it is what it is. Absence rates for disadvantaged kids are higher, by a significant amount incl in key exam years.

Unfortunately it is during early teen years that all the trouble starts. That is why middle classes push sports music hobbies- give them something constructive to do with a positive peer group to stay out of trouble. The academics are then more of a given.

I have got to say all my DC did choose what secondary school they preferred. They are far too strong willed and independent not to. Also not sure who any of these parents are who can force their kids to do well in an 11 plus exam. The kid needs to want to do it. Mine are the types who would have deliberately failed if they didn’t want a certain school. Lots of their primary friends refused to engage with 11 plus so the parents left it. You can float the idea but it’s up to the child to work and study hard even at age 9/10.

“The raw differences (no controls) suggests that grammar school pupils are 22% less likely to contact hospitals due to mental health related issues than their non-selective peers. However, once prior achievement and family background has been controlled, there is no evidence that attending at grammar school is linked to contacts with hospitals related to mental health.”

Or that they are old. Secondary education was free from 1967. All secondary education was private before then.

Could you pass a scholership to get a free place
My Dad and his familly moved to England when he was 11 from ireland in 1953
His older sister got a pace in the local Grammar school because she had apparently passed for the convent in ireland?
And i remember reading a maeve Binchey book where the main charachter was from a poor family but passed an exam to get into the convent school.

Education til 15 was free, so maybe she passed for the free part of the Convent? I know my rural relatives paid for education in the form of trade (turf, coal, chickens!) And it wasn't free, but wasn't hugely expensive either, considered a good investment for most kids if they weren't in line to inherit the farm.

I went to a grammar and DH went to multiple different comprehensives. We went down the private school route for our two boys because DS1’s needs couldn’t be met at all in state. He was educated in a small private school for several years because there was no other option, until he was old enough for an appropriate special school which our LA funded.

Some were educated privately at a convent school in Dublin. It was a day school. Others at boarding schools. A couple at Ballyfin, which they hated. Their parents paid, the conditions were dreadful. They did get a good education. One insisted on dropping out and going to the local secondary school. Two females went to convent boarding schools. They both had good careers afterwards.

Based on their experiences, the ones who went to Ballyfin did not send their own kids to boarding school. I also had an uncle who went there, who enjoyed it. The Dublin ones sent their own kids to private day school. Another one sent their kids to private day school. However, as previously noted, private kids and state kids seem to socialise quite happily in Ireland.

They are not old.
My father was educated in the local village school and went to high school, which, apparently, was unusual for his generation. All of his siblings went to High school. He came from a large family. Obviously, this was before 1957, they are all dead now. One of his brothers went to Ballyfin.

As for the person I knew who went to the Artane, I know nothing of his family background. I don't know how he ended up at the Artane. He was not a healthy person and he died young. He was, however, a character and a likeable person. I gathered that the Artane was a type of borstal. He used to refer to it often and shake his head and say "Those priests were bastards, bastards". Whenever the Artane has cropped up in conversation, people tend to nod their heads and say ahh. Some said he must have been a right bad'un to have ended up there. He wasn't though. He was failed by the Irish education system.

private kids and state kids seem to socialise quite happily in Ireland

It's because there are hardly any private schools! There are probably 400,000 children at secondary school in Ireland. I doubt more than 25,000 of those are at private schools. So it doesn't further class inequality as it does elsewhere. Most schools are fine, parents are fairly chilled compared to the hysteria I see on Mn, and fortunately institutions like Ballyfin are very rare.

I'm not sure who the 'people' are who are nodding their head and saying the relative who was in Artane must have been a 'bad 'un' -- anyone in Ireland is well aware of why children were committed to industrial schools, and how badly they were abused while there. He wasn't 'failed by the Irish education system', because the industrial schools were nothing to do with the education system and were only schools in name. The children were mostly at work, tailoring, doing domestic chores, emboidery, laundry etc and the 'schools' were primarily care system/orphanages, though few of the children were actually orphans. Most of the children were committed because of 'lack of proper guardianship', which could cover anything from being the child of an unmarried mother, being homeless, having parents who could not take care of him/her, being considered 'unadoptable' and having been moved over from a mother and baby home, or having committed a crime.

“It's because there are hardly any private schools! There are probably 400,000 children at secondary school in Ireland. I doubt more than 25,000 of those are at private schools.”

That would be just over 6 per cent. Same as England?!

private kids and state kids seem to socialise quite happily in Ireland

We are in England and DS2 (privately educated) has a lot of state educated friends. They all do the same hobby together. None of them cares where the others go to school. Maybe it’s unusual for private and state students to socialise - I don’t know - that isn’t my son’s experience.

It isn’t unusual - my state kids also socialise with plenty of private school kids who they have known either via hobbies, or primary, or local neighbours or family or family friends. It’s perfectly normal here in London, including shifting in and out of sectors. And once they start going to parties and uni, they all mix anyway.

Those statistics are quite shocking - even if the children are high achieving in the early years of school, the gap just widens as they get older. It’s sad.

I also thought this point you made was very accurate:

I think a lot of professionals are trying to avoid a disruptive and disengaged peer group during teen years. If you are working full time, the last thing you want is your teen hanging around with another teen from a chaotic background doing drugs, skipping school etc. it is what it is. Absence rates for disadvantaged kids are higher, by a significant amount incl in key exam years.

Unfortunately it is during early teen years that all the trouble starts. That is why middle classes push sports music hobbies- give them something constructive to do with a positive peer group to stay out of trouble. The academics are then more of a given.

People often comment that a clever child will do well at any school, but I think a lot of parents are considering the peer group as well when they are looking for the best school for their child.

Generally, good exam results/ high percentage going on to do A Levels/ go to university tells parents that the pupils at that school work hard and value education. It also implies other things - the teaching is good, less disruptive behaviour, your child’s peer group will have aspirations to do well/ go to university, their parents value education, there’s probably no bullying for being a ‘swot’, all that kind of thing.

Of course, none of this may be true, and the school with worse exam results may actually have all those things and be a much nicer school to attend. But as a blunt measure, good exam results imply a lot of unspoken things to parents choosing schools.

Yes, I think the percentage attending fee-paying schools is roughly the same.
The fees are much cheaper though (as the government pays the teachers’ salaries) so they’re more accessible from a financial pov.

Artane was part was the industrial school system and most kids were there because they were neglected or their parents were destitute. Sometimes kids were sent because of truancy or other minor things - they were distinct from borstals.

So he had probably done nothing and was just very unfortunate. They were since found to have a systemic and pervasive culture of physical abuse and a lot of incidents of sexual abuse.