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.

My dh was academically 'stretched' so much so he was sent to university having passed all his exams with flying colours aged 16. He was not emotionally ready though and now seriously questions why any parent would want to inflict that on their children as it is certainly not in the child's interest.

"Too many people with a high IQ have a selfish trait with it otherwise they would not be so motivated by greed and self interest only."

And the evidence for this is ... where?

"As far as I am aware most pre preps are non selective"

The pre-preps that feed into selective preps are selective. The ones that feed into non-selective preps are not selective. IME in any event.

When I see the gnashing and wailing threads about selection at 11, I'm rather glad the DCs went through it at 3. Apparently DD was a demon at cutting around pictures ... so much agony saved ....

quattro- I'm afraid I am a little cynical about selecting at age 3. Children develop at such different speeds. I can see why it would actually be harder to enter at 11 (at least it was at my old school).

I know Haberdashers which doesn't exactl do badly at A level used just to select at 7 years and they found 20 years ago they could pick as well at 5 as at 7 which is itneresting. At 7 you can test if the child knows its times tables, can read, can do IQ tests etc. At 5 some are reading (indeed by second daughter who didn't get into Habs then they couldn't find a book she couldn't read at 5 at the Habs test, but she got into North London C anyway so that didn't matter) but they can't be tested in a classic way but they still find they can work it out.

Now either (a) only parents with clever children apply at 5 - genes or (b) they really can work it out or (c) the standard of education is so brilliant it could make any child clever by the time they reach 11 but it must be one or other of them. I really really don't think my children lost out through being in selective schools from age 5. I think they have had huge benefits from that. I don't think now they're in their 20s soe of them they turn round and say I wish the chidlren in the class were thick or had mental disabilities and we had done reading books at lot easier and easier work.

I am quite sure that they really can work it out, having been through this six times now (two children, three schools).

They actually talk to the children and understand the way they use language and watch the way they play.

It's fair to say that there are children who are clever who don't get in - just through having off days or uncommunicative days or whatever - but all the children who do get in are bright.

It's quite obvious that if all the best brains in the world actually worked together without complete and utter self interest and greed as primary motivators then the world's resources would not be so appallingly exploited to serve the interests of a small, selected minority.

As it is is we can expect complete destruction of tropical rainforests and other threatened ecosystems, pollution on a massive scale, highest CO2 concentrations in the air since the Earth 'began', heinous poverty and increasing political instability.

It doesn't take a high IQ to join the dots to see where this horrendous self interest and greed is taking us.

How many people with their selected education gaining the 'prestigious' highest money making jobs are actually /working in the sectors which rake in the most are actually contributing to improving the world we live in?

Unfortunately parasites are only interested in the host until they kill it.

The highly educated and clever often opt out and we all know the various controversies over the issue of what man has done to the earth. Certainly the most selfish and damaging thing any of us can do to this planet is have a baby so evryone on this site is a dreadful polluter and no amount of walking rather than driving will have anything like the awful impact their having a baby has had on the planet. If you want to do the planet good get yourself sterlised at 13.

Leaving that aside, the reason mankind won out over say the Neanderthals is simply because of that survival of the fittest gene within us which makes us want to be the prettiest or cleverest girl in class or whatever.

I have bought some rain forest and I preserve it. I perhaps have only managed to do that by working very hard at school to get good A levels and a job which earns enough.

ROTFL!@Xenia's 'I have bought some rainforest'.

I own an island which I've probably mentioned before and it has 25 acres of rain forest on it which I preserver but I certanily haven;'t bought 100,000 acres in brazil which is the cool and eco purchase of choice for the better hedge fund people I suspect, rather than yachts and the like. There are lots of scheme if people are into that kind of stuff. But the bottom line is most of it's life man kind has not been on this planet and nor will it be fore many many millions of years in the future - it's simply the cycle of how things are so it's probably not worth worrying about whether we have trees and air for one millionth or one.00001 millionth of time. It's a blink of an eye in historical terms.

But we were supposed to be writing about the lower grade private schools on this thread. The thing is some private schools do suit the less clever chil and do very well for that child, better than the state system does and there's nothing wrong with that at all. Some mothers p[ick silly careers which earn them a pittance which means they cannot give their chidlren a good education but if they prefer to indulge themselves with 40 years as an artist adn send their child to the local comp so be it. We all have our own priorities. Not everyone puts their children first etc.

oi Xenia, one piece of my work is easily worth more than a year's prep school fees. So I only have to do a few to put the dc through private education.

But I've had a high paid career and on balance would rather the flexible hours, autonomy and respect that comes with being very good at what I do.

So less of the stereotypes thanks!

Oh, those silly artists, eh, Xenia? And those silly teachers and nurses and social workers and police officers... so selfish!

It is possible to earn a lot as an artist btw (if not I wouldn't do it).

The art world is obsessed with money and as market orientated as anywhere. Probably more so as completely driven by market forces. It's not all watercolours and dithering you know.

But you have to be very good and determined, as mind less about the female stereotypes people trot out.

and ignore the female artist stereotypes rather.

I am one of the increasing minority (it would seem) of 'crazy people' who can well afford private school for my children but have decided not to go down that route. We sniffed around a few private preps and I just felt hugely uncomfortable with the whole set-up.

I know Xenia thinks good education begins and ends with the North London Collegiate (or 'Norf London Posh Eejits' as we called it when I was at a local comp...'), though, so I accept that I am never going to win this one.

But MarshaBrady, I believe that there are easier ways of making money that going down the art route. Business, law, finance...
Surely if your ultimate goal is to　make money, art is not the most efficient way of doing it.
So I think that artists are driven to make art and some are luckily enough to be marketable, and some are very talented and are born at the right time etc etc and those artists can become very rich. But I seriously doubt that making money is the goal of most artists. Surely its art for art's sake in most cases? (that's the only kind of art worth paying for, after all)

The thing is Xenia (and Quattro), the world isn't just about you and your children, Habs, NLC, etc. You may feel that your children benefited from going into selective education at 4 and perhaps they did in some ways, but that is not really the point.
Society is about everyone not just the extremely rich, the good looking or the intelligent, although, of course, these people have an advantage. It is not just about your own greed and self- interest as barrel says. As I mentioned before, primary school is about more than just academic 'pushing'. It is also about experimentation with a huge range of things, enjoying learning, questioning ideas, learning to take responsibility gradually and learning to socialise with your peers in order to develop effective ways of communication as you get older. All of these things can be done without selection and are actually rather more important in the long term than just being a year ahead of your peers.
I guess, to you, it would seem selfish for a mother to pick a career that she enjoys and has a talent for if she only earns 'a pittance'. Perhaps this says more about you and your attitudes than it does about her and her children. I don't think you are capable of understanding people outside your narrow sphere which is a real shame and it is probably people with similar attitudes to this who are causing a lot of society's problems.

I agree that primary school is about much much more than academic stuff (or should be). Which is why most people actually choose the independent sector - lots and lots of music and sport and drama.

I'm not sure that self-interest and greed is the sole province of people with high IQs - although you seem to be buying that argument - it's a besetting evil of the human race, isn't it?

Would it were posh... i have sighed at the accents of the children in my children's schools and the accents they, good imitators that they have, that they had to put on to reflect the people they were amongst. But clearly it was regarded as posher than a local comp! IU suppose it's all relative. I'm a common as muck I'm sure for many. It's all good fun.

But the issue of whether you can do the best for your chidlren whilst also accepting that someone needs to sweep the streets is not contradictory surely? Of course we need road sweepers but that doesn't mean we can't feed and educate our children well in the hope they do other jobs. And yes I know some artists earn well but it's like actors - mnost are waiters at the end of the day or musicians of which we knew so many, so talented out of music college ending up teacyhing disaffected chidlren at £x an hour, hopes shattered of the brilliant solo career.

I suppose my point to ll etc is that most parents even those who select school by house price or religion in that deceptive way whilst pretending to be left wing and supporting comps, have a laudable moral urge to help their own chidlren and I believe that's inherent to us as parents. Plenty of mothers would starve to death than see their children do so. It's why our human race surived so wanting your children to haev a good education is simply part of that evolutionary continuum. Now you might decide my cast is untouchable or my family have always been the servants to the upper classes, I know my place and in a "posh" school we would never fit in - fine and there an issue about educating children so much and so differently frmo the family they cease to fit into that family, but I know of plenty of children from poor and working class homes who do well in academically selective schools.

Also there is very little pushing when the class is packed full of very bright children. The teachers fight instead is to ensure the natural competitiveness is curbed to an extent and what you buy in many of these schools is the full package, a love of learning and all the hobbies too.

Selection rules but colloquially and of course in every culture the planet has ever created, even in supposed communist animal farm situations

"Plenty of mothers would starve to death than see their children do so." Actually, there's a profoundly depressing study which proves precisely the opposite. I will try to find the link.

But a lot would give the last food they have to their children, although they might I suppose sacrifice one child so 4 others could live. I think it's instinctive that most parents do what they can for their children an dpicking a good school in private or state sector or providing good food or whatever is part of being a normal parent and not something for which parents should be criticised.

Of course ther eisd also the issue of what is good food or good education and for some that might be Summer Hill (no obligation to attend any lessons) or education at home, for others a specialist music school and others again Westminster Under school, a private religious muslim/Jewish school or whatever.

Xenia I'm not surprised you trot out..' the most selfish and damaging thing any of us can do to this planet is have a baby so evryone on this site is a dreadful polluter and no amount of walking rather than driving will have anything like the awful impact their having a baby has had on the planet. If you want to do the planet good get yourself sterlised at 13' argument, I expected it of you.

Unfortunately, it is not the number of children you have but rather your 'footprint'/the amount of resources you consume which is more relevant. A poor woman from a poor country who has 13 children and no foreign holidays/4x4/microwave/car/phone/laptop/throwaway Mcdonald takeaways etc is not going to be the cause of the biggest resource destruction and pollution the world has ever known.

But it is handy for people like you to pass the buck and blame it all on the most impoverished, resource poor majority of the world's population.

It just goes to show that all this high selection and high IQ stuff is not doing much good at all if people in high powered positions are still totally ignorant and have not yet learnt to 'join the dots' about massive overconsumption of unsustainable resources, self interest and greed and abject misery, poverty and political instability.

What a shame.

Sakura, yes pretty much all people I know go into the art world with faith and pretty much nothing else. The thing is there is no way anyone can predict the art market so you just go in with loads of young bravado and see where you go. Ultimately you will suffer and not succeed, or will succeed and flourish.

I went into it with a very strong drive and desire to prove females could be good painters too, and that it wasn't just the domain of the male artist.

So far so good. I do want to challenge the idea on here that artists are wafting around self-expressing and outside the market structure.

It's not like that when you are in it, of course I have galleries to do the selling and handle the money, I don't have to think about it at all, all I have to do is the best work I can consistently.

As for more money from law. Yes for some, but then I want to see my children for more than an hour a day and I want to enjoy what I do.

Did economics also, who knows maybe I would be a lot richer if I went down that path. But if I can pay for private education and live in London then I care not.

"Parents are social climbers in trade"

Phew, pass me the smelling salts Georgiana, not dreadful tradesmen ?

"The pre-preps that feed into selective preps are selective. The ones that feed into non-selective preps are not selective. IME in any event"

This is total nonsense in my experience.
a) We have 3 excellent pre schools in our town, one feeds Roedean and the others some of the top SE public schools, including the one I attended. None of them are selective but the schools they feed are
B) "Selective" in prep schools generally comes down to the answer the parents provide to "can you pay the fees"