‘Posher’ versus ‘poorer’ school – what’s the real difference?

[stickygotstuck]

A bit long, sorry.

Please feel free to be very candid about this, I am being! I am forrin and my perception/hang ups about class/social advantage are different to DH's (or the majority of the population for that matter).

My DD will start primary school next September. So far, we have seen two state schools. Both are in our catchment, although one of them is very small and oversubscribed (we are talking 70 vs. 170-ish pupils) The larger school has a Good Ofsted, so does the small school. The larger school is in our relatively 'poor' (if you like more 'working class') village, whereas the small school is in the more affluent village next door. When I have spoken to parents asking for advice I can't shake the feeling that there is a certain snobbery towards the larger, 'poorer' school, and I am not sure that it's actually a better school.

We like both schools, but they are totally different and we can't decide our order of preference.

I guess my question is, would we be missing a trick by not pushing for the small school? Is there some sort of 'social advantage' to be gained for DD? (also could it even influence whether she gets a place in the oversubscribed local state grammar later on?). We are not the type to engage in convoluted social dilly-dallying for personal gain, but we are not so naive that we think it does not exist (we are just useless at it!) and we are aware that it's not all about numbers and academic ability.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, told a conference in May hosted by Brighton College that the disproportionate success of people who were privately educated was ?morally indefensible?.

Though not much he can do about people who completed their education before he was even born.

The indefensibility though could be that it is a moral outrage that state schools do so terribly badly rather than that there is a reason to kill the excellence in private schools.

OP, to get back to your original point, we had to make a similar choice. At my children's (very middle-class) nursery there was enormous pressure to get your children into certain select primary schools. Dh and I found ourselves getting sucked into this. But in the end we just sent our children to the local, not particularly well regarded, school. Which led to a large amount of condescending comments from other parents, including the suggestion that we were less than committed to our children's education.

The thing is, several years on, our children have done just as well, and in most cases better, than the children attending the 'better' more middle-class schools. DD1 left the school with level 6 SATs. DS has just passed the 11+ with the highest possible score....

It's probably a good thing not to be too attached to the so-called 'posher' school anyway - even if you put it first choice is your child guaranteed to get a place there?

What is morally indefensible is that there is a two tier education system in this country. There are many excellent state schools but there are also some that are not. I am extremely lucky in that I have bright DCs and they are/were educated in a super selective grammar school giving them the same opportunities bestowed upon those educated in the independent sector. I am pleased that they got there on their own merit.

To opt out and pay for a superior education is not an option for the vast majority of people (even without foreign holidays, new cars, the usual garbage that is spouted on here as to why people can't afford fees) and so who knows who would be in the top jobs if everyone could afford to pay for their child to attend the top private schools?

Many from my DCs' school get places at Oxbridge every year and they certainly give their counterparts from Eton top private schools a good run for their money in the academic stakes. No doubt many other children from different backgrounds would do too if they were in with a fair chance of getting there in the first place.

Certainly there would be a lot more competition for the 'top jobs' were everyone to receive the same sort of education, not just those with the money to buy it.

I suspect it suits many people to keep the present system, morally defensible or not, because it stops the proper competition between disadvantaged/ poor children at crap state schools who may be more intelligent than their averagely (but well tutored) intelligent children in the race for 'top' university places and then the 'top' jobs.

Excellence shouldn't be killed anywhere.

What stands out about private schools (at their best) is that heads have a lot of freedom and they develop their own styles and approaches, making the best of each child. This is almost impossible fro state schools because the government - Labour and Tory - have been increasngly prescriptive, over curriculum, exams, management and governance, paperwork etc etc...and they have produced one big exam factory. No independent school head would tolerate the level of micromanagement that the state imposes on a state school head. And yet every pronouncement of Gove seems to lead to yet more decreees about what experienced talented educationalists are told to do by inexperienced twerps in government.

Another issue I find on a good few threads here is women saying being a carer or call centre worker is fine - in other words low expectations of the poor. If ou send a child to a fee paying school whilst most of us would accept if they wanted to work in a beach bar or become a contemplative nun if they really want to on the whole the expectation of the school (and a state grammar I would hope) is that they are aiming at top jobs/ a business career where they are not on the shop floor at Tesco but on the board and running it.

So 97% of schools do terribly badly and shouldn't kill the excellence in the minority of private schools which do so incredibly excellently. How about we just scrap all the schools which don't produce the majority of world leaders and high court judges????? Which includes a large proportion of private schools . I mean, why bother to educate the masses? The only people who need to receive a real education are those who tell everyone else what to do and obviously it is a sign of an utter failure of your education if you haven't become Prime Minister or a hospital consultant by the time you are 35.

Perhaps we need to remove the element of free will from the equation - identify future leaders from among the rabble and then tell them it is their duty to become leaders whether they like the idea or not. Then they can be groomed for the role... that's more or less the effect some public schools have on their children...

I have been reading this thread for hours and really enjoyed it and found lots of views very helpful, thanks all

We are choosing school too and there is a great local Infants school that's nice and MC and new, the linked Juniors yet to be made will be a mile away so no longer walk to school.

Or we can go for the farther away Primary that is on a bit of a downtrodden roughish estate but has a great vibe and personally is the one school we visited that I instinctively liked the feel of.

Still undecided.

Or a third option, we could if we tried hard afford private girls school, have been swayed by Xenia to consider this (even tho my job is to cut the intake of students from private schools at the University where I work from 75% to 65% lol). I've always thought we'd go for this school for secondary, and have 7 years to save up for that rather than spending on it now.

Zoid, depends if you can afford it. We certainly found it was easier to get children into top selective schools at 5 not 11. At 11+ loads of state school children are competing for places. If you are already in the school easier to keep on and stay there and I always expected my income would keep increasing over the decades as it has so things generally got easier and easier.

It will depend on the private girls school. Ours were at top 5 or top 10 girls' schools Some private schools get bad results, are very small, in a house, bad teaching, worse than local state schools. You need to look at destinations of leavers at 11+ or 13+ or 18+ and see where the girls go on to. If it is the worst senior school in the private sector locally with appalling A level results or they are the school locally who gets more children into Oxbridge etc etc.

In fact in some areas parents prefer to pay from 5 - 11 so get children ready to get into state grammars at 11 or continue private if they fail to get in.

OP here.

I don't know about you, but I have come to a new conclusion reading the latter part of this thread:

It does not matter whether DD goes to the relatively poorer or the relatively posher school. Neither of them is Eton so the poor girl will never amount to much in life. She is not ever 4YO yet but life's all over for her, so why bother . Oh, and there are people who will turn up their noses at her because her parents don't have the money to feed the machine. Hell, there are people who do that to me and I didn't even know, go figure.

Two things have become clearer to me after this long discussion: one, that the status quo/class hierachy is alive and well here, and two, that aspiration is much more important than ability. So it's not so much about who you are but who you know.

Is that a fair assessment of the current situation of education in this country? Am I the only one who finds this depressing?

Apart from that, and going back to the original purpose of the thread, we are going to have a look at school number 3 next week - might be the wild card.

Then, we'll hang around the school gates of both schools like a pair of weirdos, see what sort of "vibe" we get. We'll attend the Christmas fairs if possible. We'll try and meet parents with kids in both schools and see what they have to say.
After that, we'll go with gut feeling and put that as our first choice.
And then, DD won't get a place in that one anyway!

stickygotstuck, I was about to agree with you and then read the "who you know" bit. I completely agree about aspiration. If you aspire,your DCs aspire and their schools aspire -your DCs can go as far as they deserve. My guess is that you will be fine, I can't answer for your DCs (and you've not got 100% say!) and I can't answer for the schools available to you.

If you and your schools aspire, your children probably will. That's why people pay to go private. Some schools settle for OK (sometimes understandably).

Yes, sticky - I'm afraid your dd is destined to be a cleaner, hairdresser or call centre worker, because Xenia says that's what most state educated children do and she must be right .

Mind you, wouldn't life be horribly stressful if everyone wanted to be Prime Minister or a High Court Judge. Just imagine the revenge the failed leader might mete out on your hair as they cut it, knowing that they never wanted to cut hair in the first place and viewed it as a colossal failure in life to be doing it. Eeeew. And all those violently angry childcare workers who didn't give a toss about your stupid brats, because they should be in No. 10 by now.

rabbitstew

Phew, I was beginning to think I was the only one who didn't want to be Prime Minister.

Seriously, whatever happened to doing your job well and taking pride in the fact that you do it to the best of your abilities? Is that an old-fashioned, pointless attitude?

Oh, Xenia is all for underlings taking pride in doing their lowly jobs to the best of their abilities, provided they realise they are thick and that's why they enjoy them. Nobody intelligent could possibly want to be anything other than a CEO, entrepreneur or Prime Minister, unless they have been brainwashed by sexist men or attended a state school.

Obviously, it is much more fun and exciting lying through your teeth to entice people to vote for you, deciding to send men off to war, bribing policemen for your next article, playing about on the stock market, terrifying all the patients and other staff in the hospital with your arrogance, advising on exciting tax avoidance schemes and making huge swathes of people redundant whilst simultaneously expecting a colossal pay rise and share options... than it is to deliver babies or put out fires. I mean, surely anyone can see that?

Don't forget the social advantages to you and dc of being at very local school in terms of fixing up playdates, bumping into his friends outside of school etc.

"social advantages" an amusing choice of expression, given the recent discussion...

Good point fromheretomaternity.

I did a double-take too, obviously my mind was polluted by the previous bit!

@grovel - The OP was disagreeing with you and not vice versa :) When the OP was talking about aspiration beating ability she was summarising the views of others. She concluded that this was depressing news if this was true.

I happen to agree with you. Highly selective Indies like Habs are dominated by Asians, Oriental and in some cases Jews. Is it because they are more clever than their Brit countersparts? Of course not. It comes down to aspirations IMO.

APMF just to clarify, the bit I'd find depressing is the who you are versus the who you know.

The ability versus aspiration I can cope with.

Two separate -if related- things.

I got my current job because a friend recommended me. My BIL's boss got head hunted. Once he settled in, he hired my BIL. Earlier this year a parent at DS's school asked if I could sort out a work experience placement for his DS at my City firm which I did. While some of his classmates were shadowing counter assistants at the local branch of Halifax this kid got to see how the trading floor of an international bank functioned simply because of who his dad knew.

Unfortunately who you know matters greatly but since I largely benefit from this I be a hypocrit if I were to rant about what goes on in the corridors of power and wealth.

I agree that aspiration makes a difference. We all know Chinese girls in the UK do better than any other group of exam results etc (and they tend to be pretty and well dressed and rarely as they obese either so that will help them too). There will be cultural issues behind whether some groups of children do well and others not.

On getting jobs - I have had 3 children graduate so far so seen how it is (in London at least). It very much depends on the career. For loads of the jobs my children applied to you start with an on line test of maths or whatever it is. You feed in your UCAS points. If you don't pass those hurdles whether you're red, white or blue posh or working class you don't get through. It is different in something like fashion or journalism where your unpaid work experience counts. The institutions whcih have paid work experience programmes in university holidays - those places you compete to get on and you are paid which means the bright working classes have more of a chance.
www.cgsh.com/careers/london/legalrecruiting/vacationschemes/ £500 a week. They will also sponsor - pay in full- your post grad qualifications.

Medicine - similar - you do the very long course etc.
However you need work experience on your CV so it is worth sixth formers trying to get some and university students if they can.

Helping your son get a job in the mine or down the shipyard is not a new thing. I was at an industrial company in the Midlands a few weeks ago and we were discussing fairness and also if those connected to the company were allowed to recommend relatives or friends for jobs. Yes, they want someone who is known and vetted by the shop floor workers or managers rather than a local lay about. On the other hand that is unfair on the local people who don't know someone who works there and you may not get the best candidate.

It is that initial experience that counts. Once you are in a job and become the best you can be and people are fighting to have you whetehr you're black white 20 stone rich or poor or without legs then it's very different and you got in because of what mummy did you dont' last long if you're useless. The trouble is that that luck in getting in int he first place is often the key. The Outliers book looked at this - of 100 people not getting into Harvard and one who does, those 100 best but near misses would all have done equally well had they got that place so if you can increase the chance of that advantage then you can do pretty well. As of course you can do pretty well living in a cave or tent in Spain or whatever your own definition of well is.

I have not said state school pupils become cleaners. I have never said that anywhere. In fact I have often said 50% of those at Oxbridge come from state schools. I don't mind debating but should not be misquoted.