‘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.

I mean, would someone really move from an inner city council flat they were perfectly happy with to a leafy suburb where they had to get the bus to everywhere, when they were both reported to be of the same quality, but one was close to where they worked and the other one in the sticks?

My point is that people are being a bit hypocritical. It's fine to want to trade up from a inner city council flat to something a bit more 'posh'. It's fine to upgrade to a holiday appartment in a nicer part of the resort. But oh my god! What a snob for wanting your child to go to a posher school . Double standards. Hypocrisy. Call it what you want.

I use to live in SE London, 20min train to my job in the City. When we got married we moved to the shires. Season ticket and parking at the station now cost me about £5k a year. And we had to buy a car since bus services are a bit infrequent.

So, yes people do move for those reasons. It's a bit naive of you to think that they don't.

Oh, FGS, of course people move for those reasons IF they can afford to. That has absolutely nothing to do with someone who is already "posh" and already living somewhere leafy deciding between two schools with pretty similar SATs results, one of which has a posh reputation and the other of which they actually preferred and, frankly, doesn't sound at all like it's in a dump of an area and certainly isn't inner city. Nor does it have anything to do with people who can't afford the bus fare to the "posh" place that is further away, since that isn't the OP's position, and besides, are they really missing out on ANYTHING relevant if they can't afford the bus fare to the oversubscribed "posh" school if their child will actually get just as good an education at the school closer to home?????? Isn't some of the popularity of the smaller school the undeniable bias that some people seem to have, for no good reason whatsoever, towards favouring one-form entry primary schools over bigger schools??? I mean, really. If you moved to the "shires" and then only considered the school every other idiot seemed to be desperate to get their child into, just because everyone else wanted it.... weren't you going a bit OTT in your desire to escape SE London?????

But OP does not want to trade up to a posher school. She was quite happy with the village where she lives and the school which serves that village. It was other people who were making her have doubt and who might arguably be called snobbish. And, it is also not a simple case of either or. There are some downsides to the posher school; it is a car journey where the local school is walkable, it is very small where the local school is a nice size and it is CofE where OP is not religious.

@rabbit - I lived next door to Peckham, 'famous' for gang related stabbings and drug dealing. I didn't want to raise a family in such an environment. We couldn't afford the nicer parts of London, hence the move to the 'burbs.

But thanks for making my point, namely that some people's mindset is such that they choose to see snobbery of the unacceptable kind in situations that don't warrant such a label.

@Cecily - My comments were directed at those who seem to think it was snobbish to want to send your kids to a 'posh' school instead of a 'poor' one.

Sorry, APMF, but I'm not sure what people you were getting at - maybe I ignored the ones who implied that even the OP's question was snobbish. I deliberately chose not to have children in London, moved out before I had any and make no apologies for that - it seemed like far too stressful an option to have kids there. I do think some Londoners have a tendency to export their stress to places where it isn't warranted, though! There are different things to worry about elsewhere!

Laughing at the idea that state schools without fees can be posh..

Perhaps get a better paid job and pay school fees. The 8% of children in the UK in fee paying schools get 50% of the best university places. It behoves mothers therefore to pick careers which enable them to pay fees in order to do best for their children. People from all over the globe send children to the UK for the best education on the planet and that is in our fee paying not our state schools.

Xenia - just, just AAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!

I'm still not sure if you aren't just a program in the Matrix though!

Go to the women who earn £1000 a day thread. There is nothing special about us. We don't have different genes or green blood and we aren't men. It is not that hard.

Laughing at the idea that state schools without fees can be posh..

I know - unthinkable isn't it! Except if you lived up here, private wouldn't be an option unless you wanted your children to go to boarding school. There is one primary in our town that serves a very affluent catchment; a lot of professional parents and NO social housing. Although no-one here would necessarily describe it as posh, it might be regarded as 'posher' than schools that serve predominantly social housing, including one that serves an estate with a very bad reputation.

Perhaps get a better paid job and pay school fees. The 8% of children in the UK in fee paying schools get 50% of the best university places.

Source please? Although not relevant to OP as both her options are state schools.

It behoves mothers therefore to pick careers which enable them to pay fees in order to do best for their children. People from all over the globe send children to the UK for the best education on the planet and that is in our fee paying not our state schools.

Is your understanding of economics really so limited that you don't realise that not every mother (or father, or childless person for that matter) can pick a career that would pay enough to pay school fees. Even teachers in private schools don't earn that kind of income.

Some parents have naturally superior children who don't need private schools to get into top universities, though, Xenia . It behoves any sensible parent not to listen to your bollocks and to make up their own mind on the basis of the facts relevant to them.

@Xenia - 'posh' is relative. My SIL lives in a poor part of Manchester. She considers my area 'posh' coz dog owners here shovel up their dog's shit :)

Defniitely relative. I am sure I am as common as muck to many.It's all just good fun.

The 8%/50% thing is extensively report and indeed if you go forward it is more like 8% and then 70% if you look at senior judges and many senior roles. Those 8% get a huge huge uplift and all because their mother picked a high paid career (or their father) rather than messing around in a call centre or doing art or teaching.

The 8%/50% thing is extensively report

I must have missed it; can you supply a source?

indeed if you go forward it is more like 8% and then 70% if you look at senior judges and many senior roles. Those 8% get a huge huge uplift and all because their mother picked a high paid career.

If you cherrypick the level of seniority, I am sure that could be right. Do you know what percentage of them had mothers who picked high paid careers? Though some of them probabably went to private school at no cost to their parents at all.

rather than messing around in a call centre or doing art or teaching.

Who on earth is going to teach in those private schools if all women decide that teaching is too low paid?

@Cecily - RE wanting a source, God created Google for a reason :)

It is s a well known 'fact' what Xenia is saying. One only has to read an article about the inequality of private education to see this figure quoted. Or an article about how Oxbridge disproportionaly favour private school kids.

Well here
www.allaboutcareers.com/features/article/69/which-universities-have-the-lowest-intake-of-state-school-students and no doubt many others.

"Just over 7% of children in the UK attend private schools, but students from independent schools make up a significant proportion of the student population. Whilst the national average of state school students studying at higher education institutions was 88.8% in 2010, some universities took in more private school students than state school students."

Also the 7 - 8% end up as 80% of judges over 70% of barristers.
Little a woman can do more from her children on top of love them and talk to them is pick a career which enables her to pay school fees in the UK.

Sutton trust www.suttontrust.com/research/educational-backgrounds-for-submission/
"Key Findings
? The majority of those at the top of the leading professions were educated in independent feepaying
schools which remain largely closed to the majority of the population.
? This includes seven in ten of the leading judges (70%) and barristers (68%), as well as a majority
of the partners at top law firms (55%) and leading journalists and medics (both 54%).
? While the representation of those from independent schools has generally declined over the last
twenty or so years, there are some signs from the legal profession that more recent recruitment
has resulted in an increased proportion of students from fee-paying schools.
? Access to Oxbridge is also an important educational route to the top professions. Eight in ten
barristers (82%) and judges (78%) studied at either Oxford or Cambridge universities, as did a
majority of top solicitors (53%)."

Can Oxford and Cambridge dons on average afford private school fees? Or are they morons who chose the wrong career path? And as for all those privately educated people who crowd into the law - have they nothing better to do? I would have thought some of them could make far better use of their educations elsewhere, if they weren't so intent on ensuring they got into a career that could cover their kids' school fees.

And as for the standard of journalism at all levels these days - it is hardly a good advert that so many "leading journalists" were privately educated.

Thanks for the report Xenia, although I think it is cherrypicking to some extent, as some of the smaller institutions must take very small numbers of students, and the music colleges will take a significant number of pupils from specialist music schools. Having once visited the Courtauld Institute, I am surpised that it takes as many as 45.9% of state school pupils; I thought there were none!

Don't forget that those at the top of the leading professions may well be of an age to have been educated when the direct grant system was in operation. So many of the most able of state school primary pupils would have completed their education in private school at no cost to their parents.

And then, of course, where a profession has a strong bias towards privately educated people at the top, then it's like professions with a strong bias towards MEN being at the top - long does it continue, regardless of the merit of the situation. Perhaps any self-respecting woman who wants to do well by her family should ensure she only gives birth to boys and then gets them a private education, eh, Xenia?

I agree although if you look at figures today for good universities and strip out private schools lots come from selective state schools too and judges - of those from state schools lots went to grammar school although as you say age is a factor there. However now student fees are going up in fact we may well find and are finding that the private school advantage and rich parent advantage is becoming even more important, not less. The 1950s post war equal opoortunties for men stuff grammar school boys made good has been lost so today more than ever buying a school place may do your child the most good.

Of course money is becoming more and more important and more and more people follow the money, regardless of the effect on society. Might as well go back to ensuring women don't get their hands on too much power, too - life was so much simpler when women knew their place and money and power were the only worthwhile considerations, with religion to help keep control, back in the Middle Ages. Let's all just be realistic - it probably is better to bag yourself a rich, powerful man and produce him a few heirs than to stick your head above the parapet and do what you believe to be more righteous...

NO, no, give the money and power to women and leave men to clean the kitchen and things will be fine but let us not suggest women do not do wel when they have money and power. Money and power are huge fun and women want that.