Eton On The Cheap

[peteneras]

Here's an alternative and cheaper way to access the services of the great School!

"They talk about Eton staff teaching at this new school - will part of their pay packet then come from the tax payers pocket? How shocking! "

Private school parents pay taxes too, you know - some of them a LOT of tax

No, Holyport doesn't border Slough, but a quick look at google maps will show you that Eton itself is marginally closer to Slough than to Holyport.

As for tax payers, of course private school parents pay tax, they also pay often extortionate fees for a mediocre product, so sorry, I don't have a lot of sympathy there.

The Times was reporting yesterday that 100 of the 500 places will be reserved for children in care - a good thing, surely, and I hope it puts pressure on other leading independent schools who have been reluctant to foster serious relationships with the state sector.

'The Times was reporting yesterday that 100 of the 500 places will be reserved for children in care'

Those wicked, evil Eton people. They're probably going to force-feed them Latin conjugations and hockey.

Press release on Eton's website here.

'Eton's sponsorship will be undertaken through provision of staff time and expertise, and sharing educational experience and facilities'.

This implies that Eton will donate staff time and not be paid for it.

Eton work with pupils in Slough schools, there is a peer mentoring scheme for GCSE students, and they share training for debating competitions. They are also co sponsors of the London Academy of Excellencei in Newham.

Oh dear, not sure how much good the debating competitions and mentoring will do in reality, but I suppose it ticks the helping the underpriveleged box.

I wonder what the admissions criteria are for the academy of excellence? Not to mention that they have chosen a 'naicer', more regenerated area of Newham to position it. Running schools in real areas of social deprivation is an enormous and unique challenge, it requires skills that Eton just doesn't possess. Having the arrogance to pretend that it does, whilst ensuring that its 'doing it's bit' in nice mc areas, really is below par!

Come on, Eton, where is your ambition? Do you really doubt your product that much?

Oh, I dunno. Your posts would have benefitted from a bit of training in debating.
You are simply coming across as an Eton hater which doesn't make for a very interesting thread

directaction Both dd and the girl she was mentoring, in GCSE Maths benefited greatly from the experience. Afterwards she texted dd to say that she was able to answer quite a few questions that she would't have been able to if she had not learnt the concepts from dd. She complained that disruptive boys often meant it was hard to concentrate in lessons. She wanted to get on to hairdressing course and needed the Maths to do so. Dd also benefited from the experience, their school is quite pressured and it was good for her to realise that in the real world B is not for bad and Oxbridge / RG not the only worthwhile future.

Glad to hear of the positive mentoring experience - I don't mean to diminish these opportunities in their own right, they clearly have some positive effect, but they are a mere drop in the ocean to what these 'great institutions' could achieve with a bit of aspiration and the courage to take a risk.

IndridCold - don't patronise me. If you understood debating, you'd see exactly what I've been trying to do on this thread, with a more than reasonable level of success.

However, I do apologise for any apparent 'public school bashing'. I just get intensely frustrated when these well meaning institutions make some attempt at helping out those less fortunate than themselves. What works at Eton will not work in the majority of the state sector. If you think it will, then prove it - but in the thick of it, not just on the nice edges. And please will someone tell Mr Gove that what works in these public schools with affluent parents who are obviously keen to buy their children the 'best' education, will not work in areas where parental engagement is minimal and wealth doesn't exist - something different is needed here.

You are right that they could do so much more, but think this is a move in the right direction, and one that you would really have to work hard to feel negative about imo.

I wonder how much more Eton could realistically do? On top of £5 million of bursaries/scholarships pa :

They sponsor an academy and now a free school.

They manage the Slough, Eton, Windsor and Hounslow Independent/State School Partnership. Saturday Schools, Mentoring etc.

They share their pitches with Langley Academy.

They host two Summer schools for State school children.

The local primary school uses Eton's music department.

Etc

They could open a free school in an area of social deprivation.

I'm not sure I understand your point directaction. Eton haven't said they are supporting Holyport College as an underprivileged venture.

Eton already does work with schools in Slough, Eton, Windsor and Maidenhead (the ones I know of personally, of course they may do more than those). Plus schools from all over the country have access to its summer schools.

It will be an option for ds if he doesn't get a sufficiently high scholarship/bursary to his senior school of choice and five minutes closer to home than Eton!

They aren't opening a free school anywhere. This school is being driven by Simon Dudley who is a Maidenhead councillor and sits on various council committees that makes the whole process a lot easier than for anyone else.

directaction 'I just get intensely frustrated when these well meaning institutions make some attempt at helping out those less fortunate than themselves.'

That's just the point, that is all they are trying to do, they are not claiming that they are single-handedly going to revolutionise state education. Eton is unashamedly selective. It offers a very good education for a particular type of student, which it chooses carefully. I absolutely agree with you that their approach would not work in the majority of the state sector, and I never claimed that it would.

For what it's worth, I do know a reasonable amount about debating. I am a strong supporter of the Institute of Ideas and their 'Debating Matters' schools competition set up by the wonderful Claire Fox. By your own admission you are 'intensely frustrated'; getting too emotional is bad for your debating ability.

Actually, the skilled use of emotional language is a key part of debating ability.

Be assured, I'm not weeping into my computer keyboard. In all honesty, I wish schools like Eton would keep thier nose out of state education. It's just a shame that some who were educated there, and at other prominent public schools, think that their priveleged education gives them the answers to the problems in the state sector. It doesn't. That much is blatantly obvious.

At this point I bow out - I have a very busy weekend. Perhaps I'll pop back if the thread is still burbling away on Monday.

I wish schools like Eton would keep thier nose out of state education.

Why? It has amazing facilities that no local state school can match. Even ds's school (which is private) uses Eton's facilities some of the time. Why not encourage it? There is no reason why Eton should be tasked with sorting out state education but if it can enrich some local state schools then why not? As well as this new initiative it also has a partnership with a failing comprehensive. I have a few years yet before I have to decide where ds goes next so it will be interesting to watch how things develop. At the moment there isn't a local free non-selective that I would want to send ds to.

What works at Eton will not work in the majority of the state sector.

It would work for kids from families that might not be as deprived as you want them to be, directaction, but couldn't afford Eton. It does NOT all have to be about the poorest of poorest all the time. The squeezed middle deserves something to.

I do think the whole focus some have on the "poorest" is political correctness gone mad. And as for offering such schools in areas where parental engagement is minimal... to be honest, such people shouldn't be parents. They shouldn't pro-create. Period. Yet, society seems to be saying that all money in the country should go to their children. Why?

I know, the children are innocent in this matter. But it seems to erase the responsibility of their 'parents' - and everyone else (including those who actually care for their children) has to fork up in their place. And in a world where that's the case... why should these 'parents' ever care?

Whenever I see these debates, my respect for 'wild animal mums' grows more and more. Most of them care for their young ferociously. An attitude almost completely lost in those areas with minimal parental engagement.

Anti-evolution going on in the human world...

Tasmania So that is the world is it? feral mums or tiger mums? What about the schools like the ones a few hundred yards from DDs' indie that were rated by Ofsted to be failing though they serve a very similar leafy suburb to the outstanding comps elsewhere in the borough. Or the school my disl' s family attend that serves a large working class estate in which only a very few family's are feral. Those schools are failing for one reason only, mismanagement and demotivated teachers.

However what they need is to have effective leadership that manages processes that deliver the right sort of education to both ends of the ability spectrum, to top sets, where our indies may well have something to offer, and to bottom sets, where they have no expertise. Some children are just not bright enough to be embarking on the life of middle class dreams, but we do, you know, need plumbers and hairdressers and people who will sit in call centres all day. So yes we should be directing money to bring the worst schools up to the level of the rest. It has been shown in London that it is possible to bring even the worst sink schools up to the level of the best, and yet still schools that are failing are twice as likely to be in areas of social deprivation. Maybe, just maybe, for some of these children you will break the cycle and give them the skills and qualifications to go on to better things.

Copthallresident Re call centres - it depends on the company. The one I work for effectively has a "call centre", and they only recruit graduates... often from RG unis. It's being used as "the trenches", i.e. if you're good, you'll eventually move be up to our (more posh) department and beyond.

And now ladies and gentlemen, Eton to give state schools advice on building character.

Oh goody! Etonians to teach the riff-raff about coping with lifes setbacks! Well, jolly good! I'm sure it must be terribly difficult to understand how to deal with life when you have privelege, they'll be such a help to children coping with gang culture, deprivation, lack of parental engagement etc!

Well, seven of the eight officers that represent your ?children coping with gang culture, deprivation, lack of parental engagement etc!? certainly think so by involving themselves in this parliamentary social mobility group as stated in this penultimate paragraph of the related article. The eighth member happens to be a Labour MP who went to independent school!

Meanwhile, back in the real world .......................................................