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.

I almost want to shout about this. All credit to JM for raising the issue.

Do you not realise this is happening? Do you not realise that your kids (yes your kids) will not be able to compete because they do not have the TOOLS to compete, despite having the ability? Is that not inherently unfair?

Wuldric I wouldn't argue at all that there aren't huge inequalities of opportunity in the state system but actually in London with the London challenge huge strides have been made in improving the chances of bright kids from poor families. In fact they have led the way in proving to the rest of the country it can be done,and now Ofsted are focusing on the comps in leafy suburbs that are failing to get the same results for clever children from poor families.

But these schools we are talking about are neither the problem or answer, they take maybe 600 clever children each year, from mainly middle class backgrounds, but some on bursaries and they get the results that clever middle class children are also getting in the grammars and outstanding state schools in the leafy suburbs, they really are because I have seen where my neighbours children have ended up.

Focusing on a misleading stereotype of wealthy bankers buying able to
elite education is a complete diversion from the real issues.

Shooting

Completely agree. I am sure the top independent schools contribute to the educational end-product that we pay for but the influences of all the other variables: healthcare, diet, family values, educational attainment of the parents, cultural activities, sporting and musical interests, family expectations, social networks, preschool learning etc etc are also important. Schools can do so much but a lot of education and its inequalities occurs outside the classroom. Teachers I am sure understand this point.

A crucial step in increasing social mobility is increasing the wealth of the country.

Happy - Westminster fees are 7.5 k a term and then over 8k a term for sixth form, not a year ...so hence the figure for 2 DCs was up to 50k a year after tax income needed...and that's only the day school not the boarding fees. I was just questioning whether that really is accessible to "normal" middle classes, when you take into account 2 children, living in London, property prices and all the extras (and not the "jet set" extras just the ones that you normally associate with being comfortably middle class).

OddSins - if increasing the wealth of the country is a crucial step in increasing social mobility, then how come social mobility decreased in the boom years? What was not being done when it should have been done, and why can we not try doing now? It seems to me that in boom times, nothing is done for fear of scaring the wealthy people off overseas and in poor times, nothing is done for fear of all the wealthy people moving overseas.

I know Indy it's 7k + a term just not feeling myself today; wine and a streaming cold. Still within the reach of a couple of GPs.
I do accept outside of the reach of a couple of MC teachers and similar unless they have senior positions.
Although having said this SPS do offer bursaries as probably do others.
Many on here seem to believe the same education is on offer in the state sector so what does it matter if SPS Westminster etc is outside of the reach of your average MC family? Do we want our children to be politicians etc I certainly don't.

Think I'll give up in a minute! Let me write that again; many seem to think the education on offer in the state sector is a good so what does it matter if SPS Westminster etc is outside the reach of your average middle class family?

I agree with Wuldric that the tool kit that the best educated DC have when they exit the system and enter the workforce is so broad and so powerful that their advantage in the world is almost a foregone conclusion. That tool kit is one that only money can buy - and not merely through paying school feels. Modern parents are able to buy many forms of advantage for their DC.

Rabbitstew

I suspect (but am only guessing) social mobility declined due to the influx of better educated, skilled migrants, particularly in the financial sector, during the boom alongside the dumbing-down of UK educational qualifications.

Professor John Goldthorpe (Nuffield, Oxford) who studies social mobility says that social mobility has not declined but has remained the same for a century: the chances of an individual working class male miving up a class is the same. The apparent mobility for a period of time was due to the expansion of jobs.
//www.spi.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/pdf/Goldthorpe_Social_Mob_paper.pdfa

He was interviewed in last months 'Prospect' on this issue

Oh dear, if it was due to an influx of migrants into the financial sector then for all their education, it didn't stop them making a massive balls up! If only these people would use their education to improve things!

But bonsoir they cannot buy entry to these schools, plenty of the wealthy middle classes in London are seething that at 11 and then 18 they were not able to control the process and buy or influence their way into elite schools and universities. Oh how it hurt when Cambridge pushed up the proportion of state school pupils again last year. The complaint from parents in the elite schools is that they perceive it is harder for their bright offspring to get into Oxbridge now than from state schools. It isn't of course but the playing field is levelling. It's not perfect but it is changing.

If a school sector is thriving in London it is the crammers who step in and try to salvage the pieces when all those pressured children crash and burn.

The gap between rich and poor widened in the last recession and this because it coincided with divisive government. Thatcherism in particular encouraged the seeking of money and advantage over other values, it is her legacy.

Money is not sufficient to buy educational advantage, I agree, but I did not say it was. You cannot obtain it without money (if you are very lucky, you may obtain it with someone else's money).

There is a terrible educational bottleneck in London for secondary school, that's for sure, with more DC chasing places in good schools than those schools have room for. It's probably the same in every big city - it's certainly true in Paris. And Manhattan, as everybody knows.

The Government should order that Universities have Quotas.
Private Schools should be only allowed 7% of places at Cambridge/Oxford and RG Universities . It would be great if Eton/Harrow and the rest could only be allowed to send one pupil each to Oxbridge each year. This will never happen but if it did, it would be the greatest way to improve social mobility. .

Gosh Maybe we could have Eton applying to become a state school. The Labour party before they lost the plot over grammar schools in the early 60s wanted Eton and the rest of the cabal to be state grammar schools.

I don't agree that quotas have any place in university selection. Universities should be free to select whomever they please, be they Etonians, bog-standard-comprehensivites, Chinese, Indians, Parisians, Milanese...

Universities should select on the basis of perceived potential. Hopefully, potential can sometimes be seen in the rough diamond, not just the polished gem.

You do if you want social mobility , radical ideas and social engineering are needed. If you just want the situation to get more entrenched and even more dominated by 1% of the population then do nothing.

However has much as we talk, nothing will be done and every year less and less normal people get to the top .

"It would be great if Eton/Harrow and the rest could only be allowed to send one pupil each to Oxbridge each year. "

Obviously, if this became law, we who have educated our children at Westminster and Eton, would not be encouraging our grandchildren to be educated at these establishments.

If you have strict quotas like that at Oxbridge, you know what will happen...there will be private universities set up..in any case a few already go overseas to Ivy League...can't see how quotas on anything but taking the best candidates will help Oxbridge maintain their world rankings either. Same issue if you abolish private schools here...other than not being feasible, there will always be international schools elsewhere close enough to send DCs to, ...the world is a much smaller place now. I think though places like Cambridge are looking at things like disadvantaged educational background to positively look for the rough diamonds.

The Fair Admissions Tsar tried to push through quotas for state schools, some nice simple soundbite politics so beloved by Gove et al but the universities were able to produce the evidence of all they have learned in developing their fair admissions strategies. That it is not the middle class state educated pupils from good schools that need the advantage, it is the pupils who have experienced real disadvantage, poor schools, difficult home lives, poverty etc. and that is where their efforts are rightly concentrated. My DD is at one of the elite universities and her cohort is genuinely socially mixed with fair access schemes, maintenance grants, bursaries used to good effect to help the ones most in need. I am involved with a mentoring charity and when we give the bright pupils from inner London schools the role models and support they don't just get to Oxbridge, they get firsts. That is where the effort needs to focus.

Shootingatpigeons I agree and support those policies and efforts however, when you say "middle class children from good schools", surely you are massively generalising.

There are middle class children who have very modest lives and access to mediocre schools and very limited opportunities, then there are the middle class children who are prepped to an inch of their lives and attend grammar schools or the best comprehensive school money can buy (in terms of small expensive catchments).

I don't think you can lump everyone in the same category and the problem is extremely complex.

I read the article, all hail John Major but do keep quiet or the Tories will win more votes.

Of course there is a superclass elite that runs this country and of course it's shocking.

And like many things it's not been dealt with by any of the parties.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10439303/Truly-shocking-that-the-private-school-educated-and-affluent-middle-class-still-run-Britain-says-Sir-John-Major.html

Blueberry, the universities have detailed data which allow them to distinguish pretty well between the groups you mention and those in between. They state that being state schooled alone is not necessarily an indication that a child has not received a sound education since clearly many students from maintained schools are doing very well.

Do these outreach schemes stretch much further than inner London?!

The problem would be entirely solved by focusing on children instead of parents. Where their educational need is greater the school should have smaller class sizes and more money for that child's class. Put the smart kids in big classes and give the ones that are behind more attention in smaller classes, across schools, even the 'outstanding' ones.

You should not be able to generalise and assume all children in a school are poorer or less educated than another school, money should go to the child and stay with the child. The less able get more money and smaller classes. This is something that needs to be micro-managed.

There is no equality for young people, even in the 'best' schools. None at all.