Selective independants

[poppydoppy]

Do they look better on League tables because the standard of teaching is better or just because they select the children most likely to do well?

Mimandre- two things. Obviously not all universities are equal- I don't honk anyone has ever thought that!

However, many of the attitudes overtly expressed on this thread show why things have not changed. Depressing,isn't it? Privilege follows privilege.

It is not depressing at all. It shows employers have sense. It would be depressing if employers recruited less bright students over clever ones surely?

Seeker I agree - privilege follows privilege because many of these colleagues are not inherently smarter or better.

It is also not a case of just UK universities - we recruit internationally but also from a tight list of usual suspects.

The best contribution I can make is to ensure that students who want to get into financial services, law, consulting etc are aware of the facts and aim for the right universities. There is so much misinformation out there from unscrupulous universities pretending that you will work for Goldman Sachs as long as you just have a degree. You may but you will be the exception not the rule.

With all due respect russians I did not say that my DH had a more valid view that you. In fact I simply relayed his views on the qualities he values and looks for. It was you who jumped in with size 10s calling it rubbish! Indeed you've rubished everyone's views that don't coincide with your own. No suprise really considering you don't care about anyone elses views! What a joy you sound!

Seeker I agree it is a little depressing but there just isn't enough time or energy for people to interview all applicants in order to try to winkle out how bright they might be and how or why they ended up at less selwctive university. My DH spends enough time in work as it is.

So. Back to selective education. Are there still people on here who don't think it's damaging? Bearing in mind the last day's discussion?

Seeker isn't education at its core about selection? We may argue about what is the right point of selection - don't get me started about the way students are streamed in secondary schools in the UK which I believe is too early and does not take account of late developers or slackers who may find their interests later - but any system that involves exams and scores is modelled on selection.

I may of course have missed the point of your question (slacking at work is of course poly behaviour).

Mimadre, this thread is one of many about the desirability or otherwise of separating children at 11 into different schools- one for the clever minority (the size of the minority varies) and one for the less clever majority (ditto).

This was how State education worked in the UK until the 60s, when comprehensive education was introduced in all but a few reactionary pockets where it remains to this day. There is a constant background noise about bringing back selection at 11, and many mumsnetters are very much in favour of it.

The overwhelming majority of comprehensive schools set and/or stream- but the process is flexible enough to allow for movement up or down to accomodate late developers or early bloomers.

We separated ours at 4 not 11 as in fact do many state primaries with selection by houseprice.

In a sense the thread has got to the heard of selection - that in life you will be seleected for jobs if you have competence. That you will be picked as a spouse if you look quite good and are nice or clever or whatever else the other person is looking for whether 32DD chest or blonde hair or IQ of 150+. Selection is all about us from natural selection to life itself and all part of life's game.

I do wonder why it so often seems to come back to blondeness for you, Xenia!

Actually I do prefer men who are blonde but it's certainly not top of my list and it was just shorthand for whatever people look for in their workers or wives/husbands. It might as easily be that he's tall or very slim or very bright or earns a fortune or is plain nice.

Yes, I just realised I'd seen it a few times in your posts as one in a list of desirable things! I certainly hope my daughters aren't ever interviewed by someone who looks for blondeness in his or her workers though!

"The overwhelming majority of comprehensive schools set and/or stream- but the process is flexible enough to allow for movement up or down to accomodate late developers or early bloomers."
I just cannot accept the system is flexible for the early bloomers or late developers. This is just not my experience it is the experience of many others. seeker I can only assume that you can keep repeating this argument with such conviction when the actual evidence from those with direct experience of these two group doesn't back this up becasue you are lucky enough not too have either.

Blondeness would not be a legal criteria to have except for dating I suppose. For some reason i have 3 blonde children but neither of their parents are blonde.

Apart from race it is not illegal do recruit on the basis of looks and/or IQ which is why you can exclude everyone fat or badly dressed or with an accent you don't like (unless it's foreign). Discrimination on grounds of class and IQ is lawful.

Yeah, I know it wouldn't be legal, it just reminded me of an earlier post about thin blonde Oxford girls or something!

Very minor aside!

happy I do certainly know of children who've been moved both up and down sets: whether the ones I know of are enough, or whether there are lots of others who should have moved and haven't, I don't know. But definitely there is movement, and I would imagine more than there is between sec mods and grammars after the major sorting at 11. Or any other schools, come to that!

I accept that there are some decent schools out there but if you look any any forum for parents with the early bloomers and I mean early or the late developers there are rafts of parents detailing how their individual children have been let down by state an in some cases independent ed. Look on MN same. story. These parents experiences are legitimate and sadly the same story is told over and over again.

I'm sure: I'm just putting on record that the point about movement between sets isn't a silly or unsubstantiated one either.

There may not be enough movement between sets. But such movement is at least possible in a comprehensive school. If children are sent to different schools at 11 it isn't actually possible.

Ha! Just checked in... the private v state debate is still going strong, I see.

This could really be the true Neverending Story... ;-)

No, Tasmania- you've got the wrong thread. This isn't private v state- that's down the corridor, second on the left. This is overt discrimination in favour of Oxbridge in the interview process, and how it entrenches privilege. Reinforced by an education system that ensures that the vast majority of Oxbridge undergraduates are drawn from the privileged middle and upper classes- thereby entrenching privilege further.

Or even, why do selective independEnt schools appear higher in league tables of exam results, just to be really retro!

seeker this is so grindingly moronic. All I said was, which is true, is that if any applicant was a recent graduate from Oxford or Cambridge then that would be a good. It's unarguable these days that you have to be very bright indeed to get in to either of those two universities. There is also a small clutch of second tier universities which stand out. It's not in the least depressing since we're not now living in the 1920's when having attended a particular school or knowing a particular tutor at a particular college or promising a particular sum of money might have eased the path in. I really do think with all your angst about your own DC and their type of school and their Y6 SATs levels and their GCSE grades vis a vis their cousin's grades etc that it ill behoves you to be too precious about iniquity in the interview process for graduate jobs. Middle class self loathing writ large....

What a very odd post.

You know perfectly well that in order to get into Oxbridge you have to be no only very very bright but also to know how to work the system, and probably be specially prepared for the process. which is why 50%!of Oxbridge undergraduates come from 7% of the population. .So letting Oxbridge candidates automatically through to the second round of an interview process is overtly and covertly discriminatory.