How do we ensure all UK children regardless of back ground/ability receive high quality education?

[happygardening]

Contrary to what some may think I'm not anti state ed and as someone who works with disadvantaged children it really matters to me that they receive a high quality broad education and they fulfil their potential. But sadly in many cases they are not (there are I know exceptions) frequently their parents cannot assist them for a variety of reasons.
Is there an answer to this problem or are they condemned by their circumstances which are not of their own making to remain at the bottom of the heap?
No judgey DM comments please.

[Bonsoir]

Don't be so pedantic, Xenia. To parent is the gender neutral rendering of to mother. I thought you liked equal parenting.

[Xenia]

(I am just making the point that many of us do not use it as a verb because it feels and sounds wrong grammatically and if there is a mumsnetter writing her CV or job application today and we save even one mother from writing "I parent my child" rather than "I am a parent of a child" then we will have helped that mother impress an employer rather than annoy an employer. It makes me wince whenever I hear someone write - I parent. I don't even allow shower in our home - you can go have a shower but "I will shower now" grates. Someone can probably find me something which shows people showering rather than having showers is fine, but it grates on me and feels wrong and we must of course all all costs keep Xenia happy.

I suppose it not inappropriate on a good education thread to discuss grammar. This is just another issue of advantage given to children, no different from their education. Their parents may well teach them to speak well or eat well and that is fine. I do not believe moral principle requires all children to be driven down to the lowest common denominator and nor do I believe that if a parent speaks well then its children should be removed every evening and subjected to conversation with a parent of low vocabulary to make things fair.)

[Chandon]

Talkingpeace, I guess they do not "have to" accept all children, but like I said in DS class there are 5 children with sen or sn, ranging from dyslexia to autism and aspergers. One child needs almost full on one-to-one as he can be violent and does not understand consequences. This extra support is partly paid by the school ( everyone can get 5 hours extra help) and for the largest part by the parents.

I have seen quite a few state school children with similar levels of SN, who have had to fight toooth and nail to get any support for their child ( taking the LEA to court).

I have definitely seen kids with N so severe they shoudl be in special school rather than ordinary state school. The "inclusion policy" is just a money saving operation. Not all children can fit in with their local primary. In DS year was a boy so violent the class had to be evacuated once or twice a day, whilst the teacher tried to calm down this poor child. Not fair on the class, not fair on the teacher, not fair on the child. It is a scandal how underfunded state schools are when it comes to SN.

[lljkk]

Genuine question, is there a politically correct way to refer to the
British white Underclass
Karen Matthews' types
or
High scorers on the IMD2010?

Because "poor" isn't remotely accurate, either.

I think a lot of this thread is talking about trying to make all schools above average, which is by definition impossible.

Average primary class sizes in England is only 26 or 27.

I am delighted that the English language is evolving and new uses for words emerge all the time; I try to parent my children to believe likewise.

[wordfactory]

xenia langauge is a living thing. It develops. And yes, grammar develops.

The verb to parent, means somehting very different to be being a parent. The later is a state. It's what we are, even when our DC are 45, married and living in Tasmania. The former is the action we take. The conscious decisions we make on behlaf of our DC.

A bit like being a nurse is different from nursing. You're still a nurse when you're stood in the queue at Tescos, but when you're nursing you're actively engaged in your craft.

[wordfactory]

lljk I think the disenfranchised or the chronically disadvantaged might sometimes be used, but actually neither really sums up what we mean by the underclass.

The underclass denotes not only how that group see themselves, but how others see them. And yes they are disenfranchised and chronically disadvantaged, but more than that as well...

[purits]

There aren't many who are chronically disadvantaged. All get free education. Some cannot take advantage because of caring duties but many more choose not to take advantage.
We should go with the Chinese proverb: when the pupil is ready the teacher will appear. If the pupil does not want to engage then let them walk away - or even be 'sacked' if they disrupt others - but with the proviso that they can come back to education (to Level 2) at any age when they finally 'get it'.
You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

[wordfactory]

I think having a SEN could be said to be a chronic disadvantage, couldn't it?

And SEN is seen at much greater rates in the 'underclass'.

[Bonsoir]

to shower... to bathe... to wash...

to have a shower... to have a bath... to have a wash

to take a shower... to take a bath...

There are regional/national and perhaps socio-economic variations in usage of all of the above but none of them are incorrect English. You risk coming across as parochial and unacquainted with the globalised world if you condemn one or other as "wrong".

[Xenia]

That is a fascinating issue. A lot of English which is used today by non-nationals (and many UK nationals) is not what many UK companies would regard as proper English. All I seek to do is to ensure those who speak foreign -English and colloquial English are aware of how some of those interviewing them will regard how they speak in a very competitive jobs market. Knowledge is power. Of course you can do plenty of jobs whilst also saying "to parent", for free, you was, haitch and all manner of other things but it is good to know what views others may have of you even if you decide - "good that is all the more reason I would never work there".

I don't say to "draw a bath" although I know there will be some on here who will say that's what you ought to say, not to run a bath..... To draw a bath is not often said these days. Any mumsnetters use that rather than run or have a bath.

Another one I hate is "I play guitar" rather than "I pay the guitar". Including the the says a lot about you.

[purits]

So we need two different solutions to two different problems: inherent disadvantage (SEN etc) and transitory disadvantage (circumstances or state-of-mind, which are changeable). I know that there will be crossover to muddy the waters.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

How funny that xenia has turned a thread about 'how can we make things fair' into a thread about 'new and complicated reasons to despise people'!

[Bonsoir]

Xenia as usual is stuck somewhere around 1979 and hasn't seen the world evolve.

[thesecretmusicteacher]

there's no noun that can't be verbed........

[thesecretmusicteacher]

Xenia "I play guitar" is correct American English I think.

It is richly communicative for a British person to say "I play guitar" rather than "I play the guitar". It tells you that the person does not merely have lessons, but that their music-making is tied in with a sense of ownership and self-expression.

I think it's ok to make a fuss about language if communication is being blocked (I don't like the way we are losing the word "disinterested" because there's no other word to take its place). But not if communication is becoming richer.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I don't like the way 'disinterested' is used as though it means 'uninterested', and nor do I like 'impact on'. But is suspect I'm going to have to stop pulling students up for 'likely' rather than 'it is likely that', since all my American and Canadian colleagues use it!

[BoffinMum]

Lest one forgets

[thesecretmusicteacher]

naively, you'd think things would be far more equal nowadays because if you are in the "underclass" you tend to not be starving and have access to most of the world's ideas literature via the internet.

Theoretically, it ought not to matter a jot whether a house has paper books in it or not provided it has an internet connection. In 20 years' time, most houses won't. We'll cease to fetishise paper books.

I think those who have quite a sophisticated understanding of these things should explain the basics to me please. Presumably, in the old days, "access to books" didn't really mean "access to books" - it meant "a sense of possibility, of being singled out, of being special, of your efforts being rewarded, of being given access to scarce and precious resources.....". The anecdotes about children walking 10 miles to school in central Africa sharing one book between 60 seem to suggest this.

If we don't understand this, we're going to think we have done our bit by top-down volunteering as with the Princes' Trust volunteer post above. We'll think we've led a horse to water and it isn't drinking .... but we haven't actually led it to water, we've just done something that would have been leading it to water in the 19th century.

[Chandon]

musicteacher, I was thinking of Bowie singing: "Ziggy plays guitaaaaaaar" and that sounds right. End of ;)

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I was thinking of Ziggy too!

[seeker]

Jilly Cooper and Evelyn Waugh read in parallel will provide a thorough grounding in U and Non U language. And behaviour actually- cf Rupert's reaction to Helen putting stuff in the cistern to turn the water in the lavatory blue.

[rabbitstew]

So far as I'm concerned, if you stand under a shower, you are not doing the work of the shower, so you are not showering - the shower is doing that. However, if you are bringing your child up and acting as their parent, then you are parenting... my Oxford English Reference dictionary agrees with me. If you were actively spitting on someone's head, you could of course, be showering them with spit...

[wordfactory]

I think the idea that some language is right and some is wrong completely misses the point.

Language moves on. That's what is fabulous about it!

A human's ability to communicate in endlessly new and fascinating ways is what makes us so special.

[wordfactory]

As for the shower example...well

I showered, I took a shower, I had a shower are all perfectly acceptable.
As a writer, I'd use a different phrase in the context of a particular sentence, but that would be as much for texture and resonance, as meaning.

[seeker]

People who take the U- non U thing seriously are just perpetuating ways to judge other people- a secret club of gits who enjoy despising anyone who doesn't know what to say when someone says "how do you do" to them.

It's a good idea to know the "rules" though, just in case one of the aforementioned gits might be useful to you one day.