Why on earth would you go state if you could afford private?

[Schmedz]

This thread is for Maisie and happygardening . I like dares!

Tongue slightly in cheek, happy, but I suppose in order to be 'better', you have to be 'better than' something, that's all.

musicalfamily

As it so happens, most of the schools I went to had no uniform (on the continent). It worked well at primary level. But by the time I was in secondary school, there was peer pressure to wear ugly, oversized jumpers that in today's money would be around GBP100 each.

Not having one = Not having friends...

Also, some girls ended up wearing age-inappropriate clothes to school. I leave you to imagine what happened to the boy's concentration afterwards...

"academically selective environment, if the school took everyone, people would then start avoiding them."
Obviously academically selective independents aren't going to take "everyone".

TOSN maybe its what you actually offer that's better not the actual pupils being better (now there's a radical idea).

The private schools are already differentiated. Some are for chidlren who aren't very bright. Every local area with several private schools has a pecking order and everyone knows were you do if you have a low IQ, where you go if you are very very clever. So even if all schooling in the UK were privatised you would still have differentiation.

Maybe it is - I'm only making a slightly facetious point that the word 'better' is, by it's very nature, a relative term, and therefore any perception of 'betterness' is going to depend for its meaning on being better than something else.

I think the detours via dill and Victorian Medievalism were better!

Tazmania did you really find "Not having one = Not having friends..."? My DS doesn't have a Gieves and Hawks suit but he still has plenty of friends.

Re educating privately being the 'right moral choice' because it frees up state resources 'to educate the poor'

I would have thought state educating, whilst putting time and money into supporting school enrichment via PTA or whatever, would be a reasonable moral choice, no?!

As for differentiation.

People are all different. Some have academic strengths, some creative, some technical, some pastoral. If only we valued them all equally - therein lies the kind of differentiation I would go for.

Ok TOSN I personally cant stand Victorian Medievalism have you any thoughts on the subject?

Elibean I would rather boil my head than support any school whether state or independent via the dreaded PTA.

I find it quite charming! I'd like a folly

Well, that's sad...our PTA is inclusive, and on very good terms with the school and parents. I am talking primary, however.

I suppose I just wish people would get a bit more interested in facilitating change rather than avoiding what they don't like and fighting over the insufficient stuff they do like. IYSWIM. Sorry, rushing!

And I realise, from former posts of yours Happy, that you do a lot to try and change things - I'm talking generally.

happy

Might have just been my generation and the particular country (Germany). During my stint at at my beloved US high school, the same "no uniform" policy applied, and student's there laughed about the Germans' eagerness to wear something with a huge label/trademark stitched onto it. It was only then that some people realized the stupidity of it all, but by then, I was about 16!!

I know that at some public schools, there's inverse snobbery going on.

Where I live the houses range from £million+ homes to Housing Association homes.

Walking around the town centre the children from well off families are easily identifiable. They wear stuff loike Hollister and Jack Wills. The children from less well off families are also easily identifiable by their Primark and Matalan clothing.

Uniforms aren't just about posh schools and posh uniforms. At least within the school walls kids aren't being judged by their clothes.

I'm surprised that posters who go on about private education being divisive, take the position that they do when it comes to uniforms.

I am equally surprised, TifflsKool.

Tas - when I said reimagined as middle class I meant that many well intentioned people think that if the disadvantaged were only given the opportunity they'd begin to look like, act like and think like the middle classes. As if somehow that culture is superior and simply wahat the poor are waiting to embrace. These folk love the poor working class but are not as fond when they become successful and earn a bob or two lol.

The British like school uniforms because they are crap dressers and cannot work out what looks good and suits them individually. They are crap dressers because they never learned in childhood to use their own brains to dress appropriately and attractively because of said uniforms. It's a vicious cultural circle that's really hard to break.

wordfactory - thanks for the clarification. Still have to get my head around the British class structure.

In the countries I grew up, class was mainly defined by income and education (which inevitably changes the way you behave). So if the working class was given the same education and aspirations as the middle class, they would become that within a generation or two. FWIW, my parents were the first in their families to attend uni, and they are firmly classed as upper middle class, where they live.

I guess it's different in the UK???

"The British like school uniforms because they are crap dressers and cannot work out what looks good and suits them individually. They are crap dressers because they never learned in childhood to use their own brains to dress appropriately and attractively because of said uniforms. It's a vicious cultural circle that's really hard to break. "

I think the Germans are worse dressers - so I'm not sure the uniform argument proves anything!

Bonsoir - American tourists are easily identifiable on the streets of London. The older men by their elasticated trousers, white trainers, wind breakers and baseball cap.

You have a hard time convincing me that uniform-free kids grow up to be well dressed adults :)

Oh come on Bonsoir, if that argument held any water the dutch and the americans would be fashion leaders.

The Americans and Dutch and Germans are much better dressed than the British, if you care to go to their countries and look and compare like-for-like.

Only the Irish are even dodgier than the Brits

Tas - with us Brits, 'class' is a state of mind and not of income or education.

One only has to read the comments about how they can afford private school but they don't want their kids going to a snobby school. Their income might make them MC but the mindset is still WC v MC.