to think many parents who send their children to the lower quality independent schools are so pretentious it is cringeworthy?

[Barrelofloves]

Is it due to insecurity? Because I have found the seriously loaded/titled folk are not like that at all.

Agree about accents - it's not so much whether one says bath or baath, but how you structure your sentence.

I'm from oop north and some of the things we say are just plain wrong eg I'm off up town.
You just can't get away with it in any job that requires a level of articulacy.
I used to be one of those humourless lawyers, DH still is, and although we still have accents we've modified our structure and slang etc.

DCs speak like something out of Enid Blyton which makes me crack up all the time.
Which brings us back I suppose, to how much influence home or school have on kids...I appear to have had no influence vis a vis accent.

Xenia- your posts are becoming more moderate and sensible as the thread has progressed. You are of course correct that earning more money gives a woman more choices. I don't think that anyone can really disagree with that. I also understand that wealthy people may choose to fund the arts. However:

We are talking about a very small percentage of the population who may be in this financial position to do this on any scale.
The majority of these will not feel inclined to support the arts.
I still don't see it as a potent argument in persuading a young woman (or man) to train for a v lucrative career rather than a career in the arts. We will always need excellent music teachers, artists, actors, potters, etc. If all these people were encouraged to rate money above their art, imagine how less rich and varied our society would be. I think it is reasonable to discuss the risks of such a career choice with one's children and encourage them perhaps to consider a 'back up plan' but to attempt to put them off altogether would be wrong in my opinion.

I must just take you up on one more point, although it is a little petty. You mentioned finding a hedge fund or a private surgery clinic as way to generating money. I just wanted to point out that a career in Medicine is never going to generate any where near the sort of money that hedge fund management will. Even after many long years of training, the financial returns will never be the same and generally they will be a small fraction. (I just thought it wasn't a good example!)

Quattro- Xenia's post's may be fairly moderate for 'her world' but it doesn't mean that they should be excused or accepted for this reason. I can see why some on this thread find some of what she has written (not all) quite offensive and I can understand why this makes them angry.

MD - I don't think Xenia is trolling - she has a coherent argument that she continues to defend.

Now, BonsoirAnna - THERE'S a troll....

I don't think anyone would argue with Xenia about the factual reality of the benefits that accrue with private education. It is what it is.

I do however strongly disagree with both the sociological and educational conclusions that are drawn from this state of affairs.

Also, had to laugh last night, with Quattro telling me that Xenia was on the liberal side of that world so was a spokesperson of sorts, and SM on the other hand telling me not to tar everyone with the same brush...head spin!

I think A might have gone back to work but there was certainly a time when I was the "women should work" because it's fun and good for children and she was the "I have a lovely man, I am a second wife to him and doing all the things the awful first wife never did because she was a working mother and I devote myself to my man and wash his socks" kind of thing. And I have been too busy to post much recently except on this thread.

I often find myself amongst people and I am the most liberal on all kinds of topics particularly sexism, racism and freedom from restrictive legislation, rights of freedom of speech etc. Applying that to education what we need to ensure is that parents (and to an extent children) have choice - choice to educate their children out of school at home if they want even if they are not educated as the rest of us might want, right to send children to very strict Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, fundamentalist Christian or atheist schools, rights to choose single or mixed sex schools, rights to segregate their children through IQ as in state grammars or private very selective schools of the kind I've chosen for mine, rights to pick a very comprehensive state or day private or boarding school where they take the very low and middle and high IQ, rights to pick a school for musicians like Yeheuid M and Purcell and Chethams etc.

What we want to avoid is new legislation controlling home schooling, new liegislation imposing rules on curriculum on the private sector at age 4 for the first time - both those things labour has done or is working on. Left wing and communist countries always want everyone the same, lowest common deonominator - she has a better pencil than I have or nicer hair so let's cut it in half or make all the children have short hair, he's clever enough to be a doctor so let's set him off to work in the mines etc etc.. Those societies always fail. We are made to compete with each other and people tend to work best when they do.

The thing is most of Xenia's posts do have an element of truth in them, but only an element and so many other sweeping generalisations that are completely extraordinary in this day and age, and I would imagine in the legal world too.

I am sure I can remember a post some time ago where someone recognised her from a legal forum and was just as aghast as some people are on here. However she is entitled to her opinions I suppose, and it is only her opinion, nothing more or less than that.

I presume the simplistic language used is to make sure we all quite understand what she is saying (in the manner of Margaret Thatcher).

Actually Xenia, in communist countries of yore (and in China today) there was an extremely well defined system of elitist education. Just got spun a bit differently.

what they did manage to do,however was a least introduce universal schooling.

I had elocution lessons as a child - endless repetition of "my father's car is a Jaguar" etc. Anyway have not had time to read all this thread, but there can be some quite good reasons why parents choose what appear to be not very good independent schools.
Near to us there is a very sucessful school. W. College. Results look very uninspiring on average, it hovers around teh last third of the fee papying school league tables. It attracts two types of pupils, firstly the rather unintelligent ones or those with problems. Secondly, a few extremely bright ones. The less intelligent ones do really well because of intensive education in small classes. The super bright ones do well because they also get individual attention and most of them get scholarsh;ips to;wards their fees.

At the end of the sixth form the bright ones get good university offers because theri performance measured against the schools overall performance is exceptional, and virtually all of the not so bright ones get into a former poly somewhere. Everyone is happy with this. (my sons did not go there, fortuntely we still have grammar schools in this county that are excellent and freee)

But on a completely different tangent, Malcolm Gladwell in the Outliers cites the most interesting research that says that one of the most important factors in success is when you are born in the year. Analysis of successful people reveal that they are in the most part born very early in the year, so they appear to be more developed and talented, are then targeted for extra attention, get it, do better etc etc. Those who are born later in the year do not get that attention because they have missed the golden window of showing promise, and so while only six months development divide them, the first group will go on to do much much better.

No takers?

Blimey, I can't spend my whole time on this thread ripping shreds out of Xenia....

MadameD- when you said that analysis shows that more successful people tend to be born earlier in the year do you mean the school year ie Autumn/ Winter babies?

I spent my day in a variety of meetings, and one comment stood out for me, when a rather senior partner said "Oh Quattro, you can take XXX (major female client) out for lunch and you can talk about handbags." I tell you Xenia is the acme of enlightened thinking relative to some of these dinosaurs...

looby, yes, autumn/winter babies. Though January seemed to be the optimum month...

And yes Lenin, there are obviously many other factors at work...and I think in the overall scheme of things parental influence obviously has a huge impact.

But I believe the stats bear out that once in an educational system (whichever that might be) those born at those times are pegged for greater success than those later in the year. And get earlier pushing through grouping etc than the others. Its the early pushing (that they can cope with and I think that is key) that gets them ahead of the game.

My ds is a late June baby, so hey, he's stuffed! I still maintain he should be in a lower year. But you can't fight the system.

Oh, Quattro, yes. The amount of dinners I have sat through when all I wanted to do was lunge over the table and stab them in the heart with my fish knife.

But being a reasonable kinda gal, I would try to engage on an intellectual level, which generally leads to

"' ha ha, MadameDefarge, she's a feisty one, eh? phnah!"

What do you do?

All credit to Xenia for having survived and flourished, but there are prices to be paid for that, and collusion with and embracing of the worst of their prejudices is not one I would like to make.

Lord knows, I have talked myself out of enough jobs as a result!

And amusingly enough, at my brother-laws 50th birthday party I was seated at dinner next to, oh, lets call him Mungo, because that sort of fits (an extremely successful banker) I was a bit aghast at that, as I had spent most of the times we had encountered each other over the years having towering fights...for him to finally confess that he loved meeting me over the years because I always reminded him that he had to have some kind of moral compass to work by.

Now that is a real compliment.

You've got a taker with me M.Defarge but I've been out this eve til now.

Xenia has been on Mumsnet for a long while and most sane, intelligent posters can't be arsed to argue the toss with her. It's utterly pointless and ,yet, one gets dragged back into it because she really does have to be challenged on occasion on account of the drivel her outlook on life she spouts.

What absolutely infuriates me is the fact that she is 'a respected lawyer' and thus the unsuspecting may actually think she may know what she is talking about.If ever there was an example of the mediocre getting on through a private education, this just has to take the biscuit (no pun intended). I really do suspect she is only on Mumsnet because everyone else is heartily sick of her 'opinions' apart from the odd sycophantic lawyer or so. Some people find it amusing I know. I just find it depressing, and even more depressing that I nned to spend my Friday evening bothering to think about it.

But it DOES bother me, because I have three clever, nicely spoken, lovely children educated in the state sector, one currently at 'top' university, one graduated from also 'top'(same university as one of Xenia's children), one still at school, equally as clever (and possibly as shiny haired) as Xenia's offspring. How dare she dismiss them as not worthy of a decent job/profession/career???

Fortunately, none of them have felt the need to have boxing lessons either. Good job really, because I know the sort of students they may wish to be boxing.

By all means disagree with a poster but there is no need for personal attacks

oh, I love you selective. I really do.

PS Am loving the moral compass compliment

I'm sorry but it has to get personal in the end. I really think Xenia says her stuff possibly to regurgitate it at dinner parties as to how marvellous it is that she can get her opinions across to people who really don't understand how things work.

Morosky,you write interesting posts about your life as a teacher which I am sure plenty of people are interested in,myself included. You never make sweeping statements about others, your posts are reasonable and moderate.

It is completely Xenia's right to say what she thinks. Just don't expect anyone, least of all me, to agree or even to accept what she is saying is true. Some of it is, but certainly not all.

There may be some people on Mumsnet whose children are genuinely clever and who will get places at top universities who will be affected by Xenia's 'opinions' thus putting them off even applying for those places.

It was rather splendid!

As for anyone else who wishes to impose some kind of ruling, this thread is in AIBU. All bets are off.

I don't think I have accused anyone of being anything worse personally that being the love child of Margaret Thatcher and Alan Clarke.

Many would take that as a compliment.