Any Upper Middle Class Parents opt for State?

[Cortina]

Subtle but interesting difference perhaps? By Upper Middle Class lets say I mean obviously RP accent, I mean with a family income of 300,000 pounds upwards, typically banker/lawyer parents probably in home counties with home with some land attached worth upwards of 2 millon pounds.

Would you put your child in a state primary or seconadary if you honestly thought they'd stand out like a sore thumb compared to their peers? I don't mean in the leafy suburbs like Bucks but an area where they'd be in the distinct minority. IMO & experience the result often isn't pretty. The amount of hatred at my school to those that had more was deeply unpleasant, how we hatred the 'snobs' - it's almost like this hatred was galvanised and encouraged by those in charge somehow. I remember we put on a show about the unfortunate children from a private school who happened to share our holiday centre in Y6. How everyone laughed at our imitations of their accents and cultured ways, a tide of hatred was whipped up. Deeply unpleasant and how odd it was encouraged looking back.

These poor children had done nothing more than to differ from the norm. Drop a younger Kate Middleton into the 'Educating Essex' school for example, would this be fair?

NM was indeed very U
and the niceties of the British class system are a perpetual source of amusement to immigrants like me

send the kids to the right school for them and make sure they know you care and they will thrive
end of

Happy Yule all

Public school is not a class indicator, for UMC or anything else. If it were, it would mean that no woman aged over 40ish could be considered UMC in her own right (plainly ridiculous), and it suggests that everyone who went to those 9 schools came from (or became) the same class. I don't think that's right.

Public school is a class indicator insofar as its where the UMC send their boys by default. Obviously some other people go there too.

Every tribe and sub tribe likes to be able to identify itself both within the group and with reference to other groups
for kids shipped off to boarding school and therefore with much weaker links to "home" the identity of school matters
and if in later life you are going to do business with them, being able to understand what makes them tick matters
its as simple as that

I post on lots of subjects; it's not necessarily a reflection of the importance (if any) I attach to any particular one.

Wordfactory - do you mean public school? Or independent school. Not the same thing.

swc, MN has threads on all sorts of irrelevant crap. The anthropological habits of certain tiny subsections of the UK is trivial but no more so than Liz Jones and the Rock Star, or Per Una mocking.

I am SO glad to live in a country where this shit does not happen, In Belgium, no public schools, even the Royals go to state schools.

Pantofino
I hate to disabuse you but the overpriveledged of many other countries attend school in the UK for exactly that reason

small
I know, the red wiggly line was under the word but I could not be arsed to correct it !

Bear in mind I was private and my kids are state and many of my friends were boarding
but we all end up doing what pays for the red wine in the end!

It is naive or disingenuous or both to suggest that the class system is not alive and well and active in our society. You don't have to like it or engage with it, but ignoring or denying it is dangerous. You only have to look at the people in charge to realise that....

Go on seeker put the quiz up.
The op definition of umc is not one I recognise at all,as for The Wisteria Sisters and umc -I think not.."Doors to Manual"...

What talkinpeace2 said - spot on! I totally agree. (BTW, this is the most British thread I have ever seen on MN - nowhere else in the world could this exist and make sense...!)

SWC - this is not bringing the site into disrepute! Class divisions are (and I fear, always will be) alive and kicking in our funny little society! Its is, as talkinpeace said, a reflection of human nature. Everyone makes judgements in the UK instantly based on people's accent, way of doing things, manner etc and myriad other things we don't even notice. Making those calls about someone's background is not really the problem. The problem would be if your background trapped you into a particular role or earning capacity or learning capacity, which I don't think it does in the UK. Difference (yes, based on silly things like who your great grandfather was or where you went to school) is factual - its how we treat different people that matters and I don't think anyone on this thread is doing any more than acknowledging different schooling or earning habits of different types of people.

And by the way, I think the instant assessment of people's backgrounds happens accross the board, at both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between.

I have been left wondering if the detractors on this thread are objecting because this one is frilly in places.

Or if they are actually class deniers. Hazel Blears has spoken interestingly on this - there was a New Labour move to remove class from discourse on social matters and this did a massive disservice to the working class (who of courses New Labour generally ignored. The debate was instead framed in terms of "social exclusion", and was a factor in demonising the relatively poor and blaming the victim.

I don't support avid class denying.

Nor, BTW, do I think it's a uniquely British phenomenon (coming from a very mixed background), but if you are not yourself a member of a particular group, you are unlikely to catch the nuances within them.

This thread coukd have come out all worthy - had it either looked at use of private schools by the perceived "posh", or by use of private services by a particular group among the rich. Unfortunately, the OP wasn't clear in which debate was intended, so it's not surprising that it turned into one about definitions.

Tbh I think it's a bit cheeky for someone who has ridiculously high income and assets to be clogging up places at sought after state schools, thus depriving a low income family who have no choice a place.

DW is definitely upper middle class but we are poor as church mice :-) but interestingly her family all educated in state system...will continue the trend with on DCs!

I went to public school. Now have 3 DCs at private schools. I work, as does DH. Therefore I am working class, surely?

I think that these days the class system is far more about values than assets. [shrugs]

Stuffed, provided those on ridiculously high incomes are paying their taxes, why should they not use the state system to educate their DCs if they so choose?