Are the majority of classes in state schools as disruptive as the class on Jamie Oliver's Dream School?

[mummynoo]

After watching Jamie Oliver's dream school, I am wondering if all state school classes are as rude and disruptive as the class featured in this programme. Since my daughter is due to start infants school this September?

Can any teachers who might be reading this give me their opinion. Is it impossible to teach because the pupils are constantly talking over you?

Yellowstone, there has been a lot of change. True. Just not a true meritocracy yet.

If you think accent and demeanour does not matter, you are seriously deluding yourself.

here's another report, Xenia, that says its genetics that sthe biggest indicator of success and specifically mentiosn income as no longer considered so important (2005)

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article587139.ece

and here's one that says its early literacy:

www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/SP237.pdf

so, you see, you can't make sweeping generalised statements of fact when the experts don't actually agree, can you.

Thank you for that information Migrating It is excellent to have some facts in this debate.

Hang on blueshoes I never said anything about demeanour, just accent.

I hear a wealth of different accents up at the girls' university I'm glad to say. Those with regional or foreign or 'south london' accents are not suddenly going to be spirited away.

Incidentally, if you've only been in the City for a decade, do you realise the extent to which it's changed?

i have to apologise for my spelling...it goes to pot when I am irritated as much as this

Quick I am sorry you made some assumption which I am not sure are supported by the words I wrote. I am interested because I have, in the past, worked on widening access to Oxbridge and I retain a strong interest and links.

I said "perceived" because although I would not describe myself as a relativist, I am aware that people hold different views and that I am not the abiter of what is "right thinking". Nor would I attempt to act as spokesperson for "any right thinking person"

I am a possible example of a "common nouveau riche" by dint of my husband's success in an MC law firm and a powerful multi-national. I am council house born and raised. We both know that we are no cleverer than many of our friends "back home" who have not had material or adademic success. I am interested in why that is. I am fully aware that there are many definitions of a successful life apart from the material but some who would like the opportunity are not achieving it.

Due to my partner's position and my past work in academia/education, among our associates are people, both in business/industry and in the sphere of public service, who are able to make a difference at policy level and at a practical level and are making steps - though this depends a bit on the area/business. A few years ago when younger, a now well known "hot one hundred law partner" friend was told by a senior partner in an MC firm to "lose that "accent" thing (he actually stated the name of the area of origin of my friend)you've got going on. It won't do you any good around here." He is at another MC firm now ata very senior level so didn't fail because of it, but he might have?

My feeling is that the recession has caused quite a blip in this progression, we are talking about. So individually, there are lots of success stories, ours being one, but as a whole, there is still, as Blueshoes points out, a way to go. I think it is really important we address it and are aware of it.

I mean "arbiter" not "abiter", sorry.

I've slightly forgotten what we are arguing about. Lots of things matter not just your accent of course. It's a package of things. It seems to be a package that our private schools are superb at producing and our state schools get worse ans worse at producing.

My own view is that 50% of how we are is genetics. I've non identical twins which are a great chance to observe genes at play.

I certainly don't think less of people who are different from how I am and I'm not particularly "posh" but I do like observing these things.

I think the private schools give a huge advantage to many children. If we remember that 50% of children in this country cannot get 5 A -C in good GCSEs I suspect they are even better with those with lower IQs or other problems which mean getting good grades are difficult for them because they have more resources to let children develop whatever talent we all hope every child has lurking in there to make them feel good about themselves. But it's up to women - if you love the state schools stick with them and most people do. If you don't get a job which allows you to pay about £10k of after tax income per child which is not that hard if you work hard and think carefully about it and pay fees for some of our best schools.

Yellowstone, I understand what the City is like NOW. I am in the thick of it. That is more relevant to your dcs than how much it has changed over 5 decades.

I am not saying that you cannot make it with a different accent - in fact I hear a lot of Irish, Scottish, Antipodean accents. But thick Geordie, Brummie regional accents? Hmmm, I will have to think. No ghetto talk for sure.

And so what if you have not mentioned demeanour, it is the overall package that matters after all. Demeanour is incredibly important. Far more than accent. If the accent is not quite right, it is demeanour that makes all the difference. Private schools drill that from a very early age, how to address teachers, standards of dress, public speaking and dining skills.

I agree Blueshoes. Coming from a very ordinary, non-entertaining background I still feel I struggle with finding myself at ease and confident with the social side of things and find it quite exhausting sometimes.

slipshod, the difference between one person making it and another, intelligence being equal, is drive.

From drive comes ambition, willingness to work hard and improve (including rounding off the harder edges of a regional accent), to move to where the jobs are, to go for promotions, to put oneself out there whether through public speaking or industry groups or writing books.

I think a state and private education has pros and cons on nurturing drive, if it can in fact be nurtured. Private education gives students a consistent role model of success, so they aim for heights where state schools pupils are failed in their careers advice. A state education may be linked to a less than ideal home and school environment which makes a child develop a fire-in-the-belly desire to escape and want better for their dcs.

There is a saying wealth does not last 3 generations (though probably extreme wealth, rather than more modest professional success-type wealth).

As one who grew up with a brummie accent. Incidentally this has been voted the most trust-worthy accent, my accent has changed over the years and I admit to not wanting my children to have a strong accent which is not good for me ethically but realistic. Sorry fellow brummies and geordies.

Xenia, I think you and Jack Straw are the only people to still use the now unacdeptable term 'Afro-Caribbean'.

Slipshod's comments are very interesting. I'm interested too in why people end up where they do. There's no particular reason why I should be. I just find people and their paths and their psyche of interest. Certainly you have social mobility upwards and for as many who go up many go down - people forget that about mobility. You can go up and down a greasy pole. And plenty of people areo nly up it because they married it and I'm not being sexist in saying so as it is probably unlikely my children's father would have the money he has a teacher were it not for his divorce settlement. The easiest way for some to get money but perhaps not class is to marry someone who will do well perhaps whether they are male or female but that's a different issue and we certanily don't want to be encouraging girls to earn their money in effect no their backs through a "good" marriage rather than through their own earning potential.

I have known a lot of people who have done very well and remained working class. I wasn't suggesting you had to lose your accent to set up a business and make a fortune. However some people do choose to change and indeed at my mother's funeral I was particularly struck at the difference in just 1 - 2 generations between our children and some of the rest of the family we had not known. We are all people but some changed. I am not even saying the changes are "better". There was always the debate about whether it was good to take very clever working class children and put them into middle class grammar schools, change them and make them in a sense psychologically apart from their familes - yes they might "get on" and earn more but was that actuallygood for them?

The fact remains that the people in most of the powerful positions in the country DID go to private schools (they are also generally white males without regional accents . . ). I think more people should be enraged about this and trying to do something about it rather than arguing from anecdotal evidence that state schools are great. (I went to Cambridge from a state comp in Newcastle so have plenty of anecdotal evidence of my own).

People in powerful positions now aren't in their 20's on the whole. It takes time.

blueshoes I'm aware you're in the thick of it but you're not the only one, don't be too dismissive of the experience other people may have.

The term anecdotal is being bandied about a lot. The sum of the anecdotes is what matters and each piece of anecdotal evidence shouldn't be dismissed on that basis alone.

So where are these clever young things with geordie, brummie, London and Slovenian accents going to go with their Oxford degrees, or are they destined to life in the cold?

Yellowstone, they just have to work harder and shine more, that's all. Not armageddon.

qumquat I am doing something about it in my own small way, beyond saying that some state school provision is great, or ours is. I'm encouraging mine to stick down Oxford on their UCAS forms (only one choice out of five) because, beyond what their three years there can do for them intellectually and generally, I believe that a degree from there will give them the best springboard for finding a job that they'll like and should supersede any nonsense about accents or eating with the wrong knife and fork.

Any firm who fails to promote any of these very bright, hard-working and self-possessed young people because they don't speak in mellifluous tones is the poorer for it and will hopefully go to the wall.

Most firms want to recruit from a broad pool because you get better people (usually not always). State grammars used to change the class of children - perhaspt that's my point and that root to ensuring you got good exam results also included a change of class, a plucking of you from the midst of your community into a group of more middle class people and may be that is one reason why even if teh comps are absolutely great at teaching and better than state grammars, they have resulted in less social mobility.

However people should discuss these issues. A wide variety of things make a difference from our genes to our accents, our looks, our clothes, our weight even to our exam results and ability to work hard, health and all sorts of things. However to suggest accent and class and clothes don't matter is just not true. It works the other way too - I'm sure in some jobs you almost need a regional accent to fit in.

There are also some different issues in the accent points. Some people have very bad grammar and a strong accent and some very good grammar with the accent. Obviously it's better to have the better grammar. Secondly some accents are not particularly strong and all the customers of the business could understand what is being said. Others are so strong you'd be fired for putting them in front of a customer as they just plain could not do the job.

The non-identical twins point is a good one. Our non-id twin girls are so different even though we try to give them equal opportunities. They just tackle life in a different way and of course their outcomes are different.
But then the world needs people of all types and all professions. We need car mechanics just as much as we need doctors. So what I'm saying is that life/nature/nurture has a way of evening out the outcome. Only thing is that at the moment the state system seems to be churning out too many people who are not fit for any purpose at all.

Actually, in the nature vs nurture debate, identical twin studies are considered far more useful.

I was a also bit about the idea that non identical twins would be interesting to study.

Every study I am aware of, in the nature v nurture debate, uses identical twins.

The problem is that nonidenticals are no different from ordinary siblings, genetically speaking. And everone knows that siblings are treated differently, even if parents say they are equally treated. (have any of you been into 'relationships' lately?)

There have been a huge amount of studies looking at the ranking within the siblings and affect on personality, for instance (even with nonidenticals)

That being the case, rigorous studies always look for identicals that have been separated and raised differently, to try to separate nature/nurture influences.

so yes, quick, i agree, I was a bit at these recent comment too!

Yes, they like the identicals separated at birth and compare them with non identical separated etc. I agree about position in family too - I am the oldest. That is probably one reason I'm fairly successful.

None of this though removes the fact that 6% of chilren go to private schools and end up being 75% or senior barristers or whatever is quoted above, massive % in the cabinet even though we set up comprehensives where I am from in about 1971 so they have had a lot of years to prove their worth etc. and make up 50% of entrants to the best universities.