"the more middle class the school, the better it does"

[puddle]

A study, reported in the Guardian today has found that regardless of background, children do better the more "middle-class" the school they attend. 50% of a school's performance is accounted for by the social make-up of its pupils.

Here's a quote from the article:

"In affluent areas, such as Dukes Avenue, Muswell Hill, in north London, and Lammas Park Road, Ealing, west London, the study would expect 67% of 11-year-olds to achieve level 5 in the national English tests and 94% of 15-yearolds to get five or more passes at GCSE at grade C and above.

Meanwhile, of the children growing up in more deprived areas, such as Hillside Road, Dudley, or Laurel Road, Tipton (both in the West Midlands), just 13% are likely to get the top level 5 in the national English tests for 11-year-olds, while only 24% of 15-year-olds will be reckoned to achieve the benchmark five-plus GCSEs at grade C and above.

Put simply, the more middle-class the pupils, the better they do. The more middle-class children there are at the school, the better it does. It is proof that class still rules the classroom."

This seems to me to be proof that middle class parents damage all children by taking their kids out of state education and into private schools and gives credence to the arguement that middle class parents should stick with the state sector to improve education for everyone.

Views? I know it's a total parp subject for many.....

dropsh...

They will only take someone from their own faith (except when there are places left over and even then some have been known to run with vacancies). // In DD1's class we have Jewish and Muslim children. It is the same in DD2's class.

They do not serve the whole community yet they take money from all of our taxes. // The children in our school regularly visit the local old people's home, attend interschool competitions/shows where available. Not much time in any school timetable for anything else really.

They do not encourage multiculturalism. // We have a vast array of people coming into school for storytelling, music, drama, assemblies. My children know more about other faiths than I do, which is rather handy when I'm not sure why certain people do certain things.

They are indirectly discriminatory. // Surely this is a generalisation? I see no evidence in our school.

They encourage parents to lie to their children about their faith (knowing that parents will do anything to get their child into a igh performing school). //I'll agree that we have different experiences with faith schools, but in my children's school there is no evidence of encouraging parents to lie. If our school was as discriminatory as you are sure they all our then our admissions policy would be even more strict than it is. They would make church attendance compulsory until all a family's children are through school. They don't. They don't want to break up families and so operate a sibling policy first.

They use school results to encourage more people into their palces of worship. The new missionaries!!! All schools find ways to encourage people into their schools by using their results (if v good)

Also, it doesn't need to be a faith school for parents to lie to get their kids in. I've seen it happen at the other local primary and senior schools.

Maybe some of the disciplines of a faith school are the reasons why they perform so well and yet some faith schools fail dismally. There are plenty of non-faith schools in the top hundred performing schools. Maybe it isn't just the faith aspect that makes them work.

I agree with Enid and, in fact, I'd rather the boys did activities out of school - that way they get to meet other adults and children not connected with school.

I'm pretty sure you can go to choirs out of school - it was years ago now but I was in Manchester Girls Choir.

Mars - you are lucky, I think the school you are talking about is an exception.

We live 2mins from a (nice)RC primary school. I've already been told that we stand absolutely no chance of a place because we are not RC.

And people wonder why we go private................

extra art/music and choir are after school hours in dd2s prep school (she is only at the nursery bit but I have seen the sign up sheets for the older prep children)

do private schools really spend school hours working on choir practice?

I run out of school art classes so I know they are available (and of course they are brilliant )

Bloss I see your points BUT I suppose what I am trying to say is that it is possible to have a rich cultural and extra curricular life without paying £9,000 a year for it. Eg I often take dd1 in particular to concerts and plays, she loves them. But I hear the 'oh no more ferrying around' argument for private schools down here pretty often too

I could never justify £9,000 a year (per child, so that will be at least £27,000 per year) just to get a more formal assembly twice a week. For a good, happy, free education for a 6 year old I would overlook the high-fives

Yes Mars your school is I suspect the exception rather than the rule. Our local Cof E school not only insist that you attend church they insist that you attend their specific church attached to the school.
Schools that restrict admission to those children practising the faith of the school discriminate against those who follow a different faith or have no faith. They are potentially being denied an education.

I say religious schools should be private and not part of the state system.

"or that other parents in the state system don't value enough to demand? "
Demanding, of course, being the magic key in anything involving gvt resourcing....how very slack and lowbrow of the state school parents.

yes that rather makes my point about the snob value of transferring to private school...

IIRC correctly from A-level sociology, this sounds like proof of the theory of "cultural capital" - middle-class parents are more likely to educate their kids throughout their non-school years/hours by having books at home, talking to them about science or music or whatever, helping them learn to read, taking them to museums, buying them educational toys, etc etc. A child brought up that way (which happens more often with middle-class parents, for both financial and cultural reasons, but of coourse that's just a generalisation) has a huge advantage at school - not only are they learning a load of stuff outside school, but they're getting used to learning itself and come to regard it as easy, normal and desirable. I think the school's enhanced perfrmance would be mainly down to the individual kids' performance - plus a critical mass of such kids will lead to less stressed and happier teachers, and a general feedback effect.

I was a middle-class child just like this at a very rough comprehensive that suffered a lot from middle-class "exodus", but although the school was grim I still did very well academically. I reckon most of my education basically came from my parents.

this whole music/choir/orchestra thing is a red herring, surely?
anyone can teach their child to play the recorder. ANYONE. private music lessons are easily bought and available withint the state system.
I say stop moaning about what's not available and go into your local schools/community and take classes/form a choir/teach basic french/raise money for someone to do it.
Mars - surely you must see that a school that selects on the basis of the parents' religion is directly discriminatory?

well, without knowing bloss better, yes I think it is all a red herring

I hear these riduculous trumped up excuses all the bloody time

Oh I think its imperative fifi learns russian and they just dont have hte resources
Rufus is so talented at lacrosse it is just hearbreaking that they dont offer it at Scumbag Endowed.

flippant I know, but I get so sick of it

I agree w/OP. Parp!

Havnt read all of thread but there is a lot of evidence to link levels of deprivation to underachievement in schools and this can usually be measured by the amount of free school meals a school has - so the opposite of deprivation tends to be linked to higher socio economic groups (income/jobs) so....

YES school with a higher degree of middle class children do perform better generally - the real measure is value added. However i was from a 'broken home' and parents who did unskilled job and I still went to uni and becamce a teacher.

Mars, if you're happy with your school and you have a faith and believe in faith schools then of course you're going to defend it but the fact is, as I've said earlier, that statistically faith schools have less children with special needs and free school meals. Your child may have 3 children with SN in his/ her class or however many but you may well find that the non-faith school down the road has twice that amount. Even if your school is the exception to this (and it really would be exceptional if it had a number of students with special needs which reflected the number in the cathcment as a whole)you have to look at the picture nationally.

I do after school lessons in French in a state school in an average area and nearly all the other schools do in the area. There is no need to pick your child up they just stay in the classroom for me. I also went to state schools and did very well academically so did my DH in Dudley one of the deprived areas.

The Government has set out a programme to have a modern language available in every state primary school within the next few years. If you want to do it contact La Jolie Ronde or Club Francais.

Harpsichordcarrier, I would certainly agree that anyone can teach their child to play the recorder (yes, even me!). However, I can understand why someone who can afford not to go to all the effort you describe (some of which I do btw) might choose to buy some time back by sending their child to a private school that offers those extras.

I also believe the existence of the private sector brings some benefits to those of us who can't afford it; private schools are more free to ignore the latest Government or educational establishment ideas, so can play their part in showing up the dafter ones.

LOL Enid.

Actually, i think finding loads of provision for extra-curricular stuff through schoo actually exacerbates one of the disadvantages I see in private eduction, in that it further limits the social circle.

I went to a highly academic direct grant school (independent school, HALF the places given as scholarships paid for by the LEA on 11 plus results). It was very basic on out of school stuff, so I mixed with a much wider range of people in the sports clubs / drama workshops I attended which had nothing to do with school, and were largely attended by pupils from the local comp etc.

"anyone can teach their child to play the recorder"

Sorry but as a Grade 8 Recorder player I have to disagree. Anyone can teach a child to play the recorder BADLY with all the wrong techniques and a terrible sound, but it takes a proper teacher to do it properly.

I know Hallgerda
it still ticks me off though
I am of the "stop whinging and do something about it" school mind you

QoQ and anyone who is prepared to taech kids how to play the recorder derves a saint hood....at least!
I can play the flute and the piano and the recorder, to my mind, is harder than both!

absolutely QoQ not everyone can teach their child to play the recorder to grade 8
but everyone can teach their child to start on the recorder

"Your child may have 3 children with SN in his/ her class or however many but you may well find that the non-faith school down the road has twice that amount."

Yes that's true of DS1's CoE school, but that's because we have a 'specialist' SEN school in the same catchment area, with children that come from literally miles around to go to it. They're not going apply to come to this school, when X school down the road is "the" mainstream school with the best SEN provisions in the county

no harpsichord - it makes me literally cringe to hear some of the standard of 'basic' recorder playing that many parents (and sadly music teachers) teach their children.

The breathing, tonguing and producing a good sound can only be taught by a decent teacher.

Not all private schools have low SN numbers BTW.

I teach in a state school and we have 16% on the SN reg. The private school my kids go to has 15% on the SN reg (ds is one of them). The difference being that the class sizes and numbers of staff allows the kids to make progress.

My son is in a class of 10 with a teacher and a classroon assistant. With their help and SN imput from the SENCO, he is making progress. If he had gone to the local state school he would have been in a class of 30.

Or, Queenofquotes,do the SN students not apply to the C of E school because they know damn well that they won't get in or won't be adequately supported there? Or maybe they don't have a faith or not the right one or can't prove it?? I used to work at a school which became a 'specialist' SN school. In a relatively deprived area in a relatively affluent LEA with 2 grammar schools and 2 faith schools this school had a much higher proportion of students with learning difficulties than the rest of the schools in the LEA so gained a reputation for being a good place to send SN kids and so, of course, attracted more of them. I can't say the parents of children in this school's catchment who didn't have SN but didn't have a faith and weren't in the top 2000 able enough to pass the 11+ and go to the grammar schools were too happy about this. And I can't say I enjoyed teaching there much. All of which reinforces the research that tells us grammar schools and faith schools have a negative impact on the rest of the schools in an LEA.