Education superclass?

[Amber2]

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100245274/it-is-much-worse-than-sir-john-major-says-a-new-superclass-is-being-created-in-london/

This is interesting coming from John Major ...sounds like more lobbying along the lines of the Sutton Trust but do people really think it's much worse than it ever has been..? and this is do with with the inexorable rise of London...and the global money flowing in there...and so to creating an elite superclass of private schools also ...not just any old private school but a small handful of elite ones, applications to which have reached record numbers, presumably more and more from London and from overseas with over inflation rises in fees pricing out the traditional middle classes that used to be able to afford these schools.

So paterneras what car do you drive and what cars /helicopters predominate in the car parks of Eton?

You'll be surprised Shootingpigeons, the car park at my DD's grammar school have more posh cars than any of the car parks at Eton. Me? I walk and go by public transport more than i drive these days. Can't afford the penalty tickets any more.

I thought the Volvo estate was supposed to be the car at just the right level for the posh boarding schools, country person, not showing off anything because you've nothing to prove but I might well be wrong. Grayson Perry the artist did a good programme about class - can't remember the name of the programme and his last of the 3 in the series went on about the scruffy cars which are the symbol in a sense that you are not nouveau riche etc.

Not really Pateneras The parents I know with boys at Eton all fall into the tiger parents from immigrant community stereotype. And just one middle management in high street bank banker. Of course the not posh cars may be the understated shabby aristos but as I said upthread I just think you have to be very careful with these stereotypes and wild generalisations.

It was the Channel 4 documentary on the making of his tapestries. It was wonderful www.channel4.com/programmes/in-the-best-possible-taste-grayson-perry/4od I think me and my Volvo fit into the Guardian reading vegetable growing coiffing urban middle classes www.artfund.org/news/2013/06/05/grayson-perry-tapestries-to-tour

Too rich and cultured to care about appearances or material goods is an affectation in every European country I have every spent time in. Though there are important coded nuances wherever you go.

In the sculpture class DD and I go to on Wednesday there is a multi-billionaire mother with greying hair who gets round Paris on a vélib' and sends her DC to the local state secondary (after the most socially sought after Catholic primary school in the 7th arrondissement). That's the Parisian version of a battered old car.

I love how doing an unpaid work experience placement as a journalist is seen as unfair for those who need to be paid in order to afford to be able to do it, but when it comes to cleaning up old peoples' poo, everyone can suddenly afford to do it for free! And yet both involve muck raking.

I thought all Parisian cars were battered - when I lived there, I found watching the way Parisians park (and drive, come to that) an excellent spectator sport. They all appeared to leave their handbrakes off, so that when the next person to park by them bumped them out of the way, the dent was less bad...

("in order to be able to afford," that is...)

I would just like to say, that £250,000 after tax, PA is just an obscene amount of money! To the poster who said they were poor on that - really??????!!!! What's your definition of feeling poor?

I was just going to invite her to come and sit next to me, she'll feel like a billionairess next to a London parent on under £10,000 PA long term, but just as much interest in seeing my children suceed.

I do actually understand how with bills matching income and sat next to some of London's elite, she could feel vaguely poor though, and I'm sure stress and worry feels just the same whatever level you’re at.

That aside, this thread is fascinating and is of just as much interest to those of with low incomes who are hoping to find ways our children will be able to compete, somehow.

But unpaid internships are the work of the devil and truly socially divisive!

For once and for all:

it was 250k before tax (apologies...my original typo which was corrected in later posts) and tax plus NI. It is not an obscene amount of money really if you factor in tax, mortgage and several years of fees including boarding fees in the future for two DC. I could also argue that I pay an obscene amount of tax and NI but am happy to pay that to live here as long as its not paying for wars.

My job (and my small team) could be located anywhere in Europe should I choose to relocate including to some low tax jurisdictions and a couple of my co-workers have moved overseas. We've never claimed benefits, or tax credits, we use private health care and private education so while the taxes are high, our use of the state is low ...so I think that's a plus on the contribution side. Can't see anything obscene about that.

My employer is an overseas company that have invested increasingly in people and jobs here because they were able to find the right skill sets. Thy've grown considerably creating further employment. I hope my DCs develop a skill set that is also valuable for the economy and draw employers to invest here and that benefits the economy as a whole. Choices to go private include trying to give them the best chance to do that.

Any concept of one own wealth all depends on what you've committed yourself to in outgoings over the years.

The point was not feeling poor as a whole at all (and that was made clear but people can insist on reading what they like because they prefer to) but pointing out that - with that salary, ridiculous as it may seem to some, in some of the elite top schools in London, I observed we are likely in the bottom 20% (i.e. poor relation) of the parental wealth or at least it seems that way to us ...and with private fees increasing every year above well above inflation makes some of these schools out of reach of many folk who could have afforded it years ago.

The observations are about relative wealth in some of these schools that is more obvious in London prep schools. Not sure why an observation about RELATIVE wealth causes so much flak. It's is just an objective point about who else is increasingly attending these schools.

The other observation is that choosing such schools in that case also risks skewing your children's sense of what is "average" and what is above average ...I have made it very clear to my kids that they will have to work hard for a living ...and their skewed view that we are somehow below average based on going round some of their school friends' houses is something else to counter ...again not sure why that observation should offend anyone.

The point was being made in response to social mobility and that it seems the squeezed middle are much lower down the pecking order than they used to be especially in London with it drawing more and more of the global elite.

dotmania I don't know what schools your children attend but I can assure you that for the "elite" girls' and coed selective London secondary day schools I do not recognise the scenario you are painting at all. Are your DCs at some of those (non selective) smart set Central London preps attended by the celebs where the Daily Mail hangs out to photograph the supermodels and Beckhams each morning? The celeb / oligarch count really is very low at the selective schools I have also heard much moaning from those who want to get into Westminster etc. about how focused they are on getting the brightest regardless of wealth and background. My own DDs school spends a lot of time and resources providing local state primary pupils with opportunities to experience the benefits of the school and facilitating the brightest to obtain places via mentoring, bursaries etc. it isn't something they go through the motions to do to prove their charitable status. It was written into their founding aims hundreds of years ago and the teachers as individuals as well as as a community believe very strongly in doing their bit to even out the equality of opportunity, eg running classics classes in state primaries in their own time. Most of the "elite" schools share that ethos. Whilst obviously they are private schools, the majority pay fees so they are skewed to the offspring of the middle classes most of them are far from superich / in your income bracket, and certainly most of my DDs friends live like we do in a suburban semi, (when we had a kiwi friend over he sat in the back garden and asked "so what are those rooms?" We replied "next door" ) though granted a suburban semi cost us the same as a huge detached house outside London..... I suggest you move away from the Central London superich to get your salary and life in perspective.......

As a parent with two children at London 'superclass' schools can I just make a couple of points?

The kids at these schools are bright and selected predominantly on their CAT scores and Headmasters reports. The entrance tests marks in their pre-tests or 11+ maths and english are entirely subsidiary with this aspect of selection a closely guarded secret. The admissions process will readily overlook a bad paper if the serial IQ tests (whether its the CAT scores or CEM - getintu) are very high.

As for the schools, it is the sense of high expectation and holistic education and learning, rather than simple schooling for exams, that I think differentiates them. But it works best with children where education begins at the kitchen table.

I find the parents on the whole remarkably normal. A minority are super-wealthy as far as I can see and have retired in their forties but most are cutting their coat according to their cloth.

Obviously, you would find parents remarkably normal if they all have a similar mindset to you, Oddsins. That doesn't mean everyone would find them normal.

Apart from the obvious issue of saying you don't earn an obscene amount of money if you factor in how much you have left AFTER you have paid the school fees (which is a little bit silly, really - you should be judging how well off you are BEFORE the school fees have been paid, not referring to not having money left once you've chosen to spend it...), I think dotmania's posts are reasonable and very interesting. They have, until the latest, which she has been pushed into posting, not actually attempted to be self-justificatory at all, but to explain how peoples' thought processes work - in other words, she has attempted to describe objectively peoples' subjective feelings and is not being accused of failing to see what she herself pointed out.

(sorry, is NOW being accused of failing to see what she herself pointed out...).

rabbitstew considers making herself "less well off" by choosing to buy an extremely expensive house, employing servants, paying lots of school fees and having more holidays. Then I'll be more like people who aren't wealthy, because I won't have much money left in the way of savings after all that.

Hmmm. On consideration, maybe I can't afford all that in the first place.

Except rabbitstew if her DCs attend a school where £250k puts you in the bottom 20% of parents it simply isn't one of the selective "elite" London schools that the OP is talking about. I am guessing it is one of those Central London Preps where you'll find Elle McPherson and the Beckhams Nanny (who interestingly did go to one of the London elite selective schools, so that is the job the middle classes can buy for their children with their hard earned money ) gossiping at the schoolgate in the morning. Of course in any capital city you will find schools that cater to the superich who live in their centre but they aren't particularly elite academically. Schools like Harrodian and Ibstock which are known for serving the smart set are not particularly selective, you are buying a nice environment and facilities but not membership of an education superclass.

I think I'll find ways to pay less tax, instead.

No, I still agree with dotmania - it's all relative. And in general, we see what we want to see in order to justify our choices.

I too agree with dotmania £250 000 pa certainly in the world of the full boarding schools will put you easily in the bottom 20% if not 10%. Shooting I'm talking about the handful of "selective elite" boarding schools.

happy I don't doubt that is the case with boarding, we can stretch to the £15k for a day school, though I had to go back to work to pay for it, but couldn't contemplate £30k +. However the OP is talking about the Westminster, the St Pauls', LEHs, the London day schools that pop up regularly at the top of the tables and I can honestly say that I have not witnessed them being taken over by any sort of superich global elite, and £250k would put you at a guess (I've never asked anyone what they earn) in the top 20%. The fees have not risen beyond inflation by any great margin either, it has not become any less affordable on a middle class income. The doctors and teachers are still managing it. There are certainly girls from other cultures or expat back grounds in my DDs classes but they are not superich, their parents are doctors, accountants, the middleclass professions you would find in any private school in any city in the country. When they did a project on Sri Lanka at school it turned out no less than 5 girls in the year were from Tamil refugee families. If you are middle class and living in London and you have a clever child you are not being squeezed out of these schools. There is a population boom in London so there is pressure on school places generally (and not a few are in private school because they couldn't get a place in the good state schools.) so it is going to get more difficult for anyone to get any child into any school but it isn't down to the superrich buying up the places.