Tory by-election candidate on state education....

[seeker]

......sorry it's the Daily Mirror, but so far it's that or the Huffington Post! At least they are showing their true colours......
Here

But there are things which should in any civilised society be determined by need. Education, for one. Health care for another. I realise that expecting this is utopian, but I couldn't vote for anyone for whom it was not at least an aspiration.

(that bit about the bedroom tax etc was in response to the comments about a 'capitalist society')

I'm convinced that, if private schools didn't exist and we had to invent them, they'd seem like a really odd idea. As odd as having a special private bin collection, or private bus service, or private fire service, or private park for children to play in away from the riff-raff. (Actually, there probably are those, for all I know.)

Oh I'm not sure people would find it odd dadonice

People always want to make life as they want it, if they can. They don't just want what is offered. They want to customise it. We're individuals afterall.

There are council gyms for £20/m and private gyms for £300/month.

There aren't any societies where people will all accept a common standard of provision.

I think the problem is the attitude of 'the state schools are ok for the plebs' children, but MY child is special and he must have better'.

Everyone's child is special. Some people have the means to buy a better start for their child, but that does not make it right or fair. And certainly not to then blab to the newspapers that you've done it because 'he is too clever for the state sector, and it is not possible to become a surgeon if you have attended a state school'.

That is how her comments were interpreted, I have heard no denials from either her or CHQ, which you would expect; all I have heard is Grant Shapps saying 'it's up to her how she educates her children'. If it was out of context, you can bet they would have leapt on it.

"There are council gyms for £20/m and private gyms for £300/month"

Absolutely. But you don't have politicians saying it's impossible to get fit in the council ones!

Completely agree with DadOnIce.

However, how old is this child? How on earth does he know he wants to be a Respiratory Surgeon anyway? Having much older children, and living in a very MC area, I have witnessed many parents who want their children to be doctors only to have their dreams shattered when they discover they're not bright enough at the level of competition there is to get into medical school from both the private and state sector, and no doubt all the applicants will be regarded as 'gifted'.

It's a bloody stupid thing to say though. Her son won't thank her for it in years to come.....:)

I know, the idea of knowing what speciality of surgery he wants is a bit mad. Fine at that age to aspire to being a doctor, or even a surgeon, but crazy to have decided such a v narrow area, before having got your A Levels, got your place at med school, got through your med exams, done your House years, applied for a number, etc etc etc.

My dd wants to be a paediatrician - but that is because she wants to be a doctor, and 'wants to help children' - that is her experience of doctors. If she does decide to do medicine, then great, but I'm sure her aspirations within that would change, and she may do something entirely different altogether.

She is state school educated, but super bright, doing fantastically well!

This should be on the politics boards rather than the education boards because this is a political issue far more than an educational one.

Whether or not people object to the content of her comments in principle is by the by. most of us are hypocritical when it suits us and we're fortunate in that our handwringing is usually not recorded for posterity by others.

The problem I have is that we are being asked to put into public office a politician who does not even have the sense to have worked out in advance how to media-manage an issue that was always going to be brought up. And who appears totally unable to empathise with the population she is askign to support her. That lack of emotional maturity suggests there is something rotten to the core in the selection of political candidates.

DadOnIce You'd probably find a lot of those "private" things in gated communities that seeks to keep away a certain part of the population. So there really is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Seeker politicians are generally not expected to justify their vast houses (the prices of which they have inflated through their policies), their expensive cars, nice holidays, or indeed fancy gyms.

Doesnt she have the rest of her children in the state system already so she is not completely dismissing state?

The schools might be fab for YOUR children whatever your beliefs, grammar,comp or private. Why cannot we all not live with each others choices? For me the grammars were not great for my pontentially non academic boys, the sec moderns I wouldnt wish on anyone so we went private.

You be happy with your choice but please dont foister your choices on me.

50% of private school pupils go to university. But only 7% are educated privately. If you want your children to go to uni and you have the money then the stats speak for themselves. Small classes, strong discipline, lots of choice of activities are all things that have really helped my boys. Bigger classes, lack of discipline in the local sec modern are not the things I am looking for so I have discounted this option.

Of course if the state system was OK here I would use it. But its not so I wont.....

No. But they should be expected to explain why they think you can't be a surgeon if you go to a state school .

Seeker - But she didn't say that (as so many people have already pointed out).

If I was working at the Mirror, there are some pretty juicy stuff you posted in this thread... where if I combined them together, you'd be pretty shocked at what you said.

But of course, between us, you know what you said and didn't.

There are some state schools where they wont have a hope in hell. Of course there will be some state schools - particularly the grammars where there is a good chance they will being academically biased.

As I understand it medicine requires 8-10 GCSE's at A*/A. Why on earth would someone experimate with sending their child to say a sec modern where going to univeristy is not the norm let alone giving them the chance to study medicine.

I am not saying that ALL state schools arent capable. A close colleague has a DD just finishing her grammar school education and who A'levels permitting will study medicine. If this potential MP thought there was an excellent state school that would allow her son to follow his dream then she would be pretty silly not to take it. But she doesnt so she is looking at alternatives.

But the schools in Eastleigh are 'outstanding'. We're not talking sink schools here.

So all of the schools are outstanding? 100% of them? Maybe she knows something we dont. Or perhaps she has had a look at a private school and prefers for THIS son to choose this option.

Its not as though she is putting ALL her children through the private system.

maisiejoe, it's not really whether or not she goes private, it's the statement that her son is 'too clever' for state school, and the inference that he couldn't achieve his ambition of being a cardio-respiratory surgeon in the state sector.

When the vast majority of people have no choice about where they educate their children, this is not a clever or nice thing for a would-be politician to say. It has an element of 'my son is too good for that school, but it's fine for YOUR children'.

Tasmania- if she had been quoted out of context Central Office would have denied or clarified. They didn't so we can assume she meant what she said.

Maisie- there are many people who study medicine from
state schools and not just grammars.

If I lived in Eastleigh and sent my children to a state school there I would feel either really angry that with a ill-chosen comment she has implied my own children's school is crap when it really wasn't, or really depressed that my own options were indeed crap. Does she expect to get much support?

According to a search in the DfE performance tables for 'Eastleigh' there is one private school in Eastleigh with 40 pupils last year - 4% of the total. The top school for GCSE results inc English and Maths (92%) - was outstanding with results better than the private school.

There are other schools performing less well but their results reflect a very different intake in terms of prior attainment and deprivation. Is she just pissed off that she's in the wrong catchment area? She may get lots of constituents complaining about the unfairness of government policy so she should have a response.

I am wondering actually how many people actually do end up studying medicine at uni that are from sec moderns or comp's. Geninue question bearing in mind that 50% of the 7% of privately educated pupils go to uni and lets ignore the grammar's. They pick the brighest pupils so have an unfair advantage especially if you are looking to gain all those A's at GCSE's.

I will be honest here, I dont have wildly academic boys, middle stream and could well be distracted by what goes on in boys lives now so because we could afford it we went private. And it hasnt let us down yet. My DS is expecting A/A's and a few B's in GSCE. The expectation at his school is aim for the A an A. Have plenty of chances to correct a weak subject, surround them with like minded boys whose parents are paying significant fees to give them this opportunity and will be supportive. Parents evenings are always very well supported because actually after paying all this money why wouldnt I be interested. Whereas in my DM primary school in London - well they are lucky to get 50% of parents attending or showing any interest.

I have said on other threads:

Be taught tennis by Jimmy Connorsand you wont be as good as him but you will certainly be able to hold your own in a tennis match.

I realise that the boys are getting opportunities that others are not. I certainly didnt. And sometimes they can seem to take it for granted. My job as a parent is to ensure that they understand that this education is only achieveable because of our choices in life. Some people wont take these choices or for whatever reason dont want them or maybe they are closed to them.

Unless of course we all live in a Communist State....

And of course going private bypasses the catchment area marklarky. You can go where you want - school acceptance of course.

We're in Scotland so no G&t register here, but my dd1 is exceptionally gifted at art, her state school (not quite bog-standard as it's bilingual) is looking to put her in for Standard grade next year (s2) and higher the following year.

My dh is a doctor who went to a state school. He's a GP, but he has 2 school friends who are surgeons and one is an anaesthetist.

Some school kid saying they want to be a cardio surgeon clearly knows nothing much about medicine. Study it for 5 years, then decide what you want. There's not a lot of openings in cardio-thoracic surgery.

Also, I'm not sure that cardio-respiratory is actually an option. Lungs and hearts are quite different!

It is

(a) unlikely that she is sending her son to the one private school in Eastleigh. A few miles up the road you have www.winchestercollege.org/ for example.
(b) unlikely that her son was offered a place at the top state school in Eastleigh.

According to this:

www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupDownloadFile.asp?GroupID=25437&ResourceId=406613

the catchment doesn't include any of (rather grotty) Eastleigh at all, but rather the leafy and expensive Chandler's Ford - the catchment conveniently excludes all the lower quality housing on the other side of the M3.

A quick look on Rightmove shows houses at £535k summarised as

"APPROX 1/4 ACRE PLOT- Much improved detached family home set within mature gardens. Thornden School Catchment"

Another at £520k listed as

"The property is within Thornden School catchment. "

Meanwhile in actual Eastleigh, there are lots of houses like this:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-22391076.html

A similar house in the catchment for this so-called Eastleigh school are nearly twice as expensive:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37161043.html

Fact is that parents (those who can afford it) pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds for access to better (read: those without many poor people) state schools, yet get all high and mighty about those who are upfront about this process and simply pay the money directly to the school rather than some blood-sucking estate agent.