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.

soul like so many you seem to labouring under the impression that children from Westminster Eton SPS etc only get into Oxbridge because some one pulls strings not because of academic ability. If it was that easy then other big names would be sending an equally high number. Westminster and SPS and others of their ilk send so many to Oxbridge because they are completely free to select the brightest and the best I accept that parents have to have sufficient wealth to pay the fees but it is very foolish to assume that the global elite and their offspring lack the level of intelligence needed for Oxbridge and that it's all about money.
If my DS decides to apply to Oxbridge I hope he gets a place on academic merit nothing else.

Universities use contextual information about the individual, it is not a blunt instrument that categorises schools. It is the pupil that is achieving above the average in a school, often in spite of poor teaching etc. they want to reach. This was an interesting article on the Cambridge admissions process that demonstrates it is very much focused on the individual www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/10/how-cambridge-admissions-really-work

rabbitstew All universities are required to have fair access strategies and part of that will be reaching into the state schools in their own communities where the pupils tend not to have had their eyes opened to the opportunities, so no it is not just London at all, though obviously London has plenty of universities involved in schemes and indeed does quite a bit under the University of London umbrella. The Oxbridge scheme stretches far and wide, they really want the applicants, the frustration is getting the message across to pupils and making sure the schools equip them to apply. There are also summer schools and workshops etc. open to pupils nationwide with help for transport costs for those who need it.

passedgo Isn't that the idea of setting, certainly in the outstanding comps around here the children in lower sets do get particular focus to help them achieve potential (as well as quite possibly benefiting from the pupil premium. They need them to be pushed to achieve the various targets to push the schools up the league tables. In fact there is a particular problem if your bright child is achieving above the average but perhaps not achieving their potential because of a learning disability or whatever. The resources often don't stretch to supporting above average pupils with SpLDs.

Thats not the point Happy Gardening. I have no doubt the pupils from those schools are bright. The problem though is how do we reduce the difference in equality and give a chance to the vast majority. If we do not do anything very shortly the gap is going to be to huge.

I accept the costs are huge for public schools and the salaries required are big. However we got a situation on here where people who are in the richest 1% of earners in the uk claim to be average. This just goes to show that serious social problems are coming, when educated people on this site start thinking 200K Pa is Normal. I have been a Conservative Party Member for 24 years, i am absolutely disgusted with Dave/Boris and my MP Gideon. They do not represent anything i stand for. I am not Racist/ and believe in Europe so could never vote UKIP.

The point is i think the gap is too big now, it needs reducing urgently. the country needs to get the Aspirational Working/Lower Middle classes, up the ladder in the way that "Right to Buy" did in the 1970/80s. We need to see ex pupils from "Thornhill" and schools like that Reading the News on tv (SILLY EXAMPLE) but you get the point. The only time you see Working Class people on tv is if they have made it in Sport( SOME SPORTS). Even Football is getting more middle class. Music is Middle/Upper class now.

Soul You are way behind the times here. It is practically impossible now to get a job in the media if you are privately educated and Oxbridge. You have to spend many more years building your CV with endless work experience, recruitment to graduate entry training schemes like the BBCs once dominated by Oxbridge are heavily weighted to achieving greater social and ethnic diversity. There are many avenues of life where Eton on your CV will more likely hinder than help. And when public school bands make it in the music industry they really do have to have worked the same circuits as working class bands, there are plenty doing that who don't make it and plenty of Arctic Monkeys, Rizzle kicks etc to prove there are ways in for people with talent. You certainly don't have to have money to get into the Brit School for instance.

The exception of course is Politics, and frankly the institutions so mirror public schools, including the misogyny that it is barely surprising. They aren't exactly flooded out with ex St Pauls', NLCS. LEH girls (Harriet Harman excluded) either.

Do you think , the newsreaders are Working Class, do you believe that even those on Radio five were normal kids from below average families. It depends what you class as average though. My brother has a few friends on Radio Five in Manchester , and the daughter of my fathers best man has just made it on to North West News. You may think they are Working or Lower Middle Class , the truth is despite their accents their are solid middle class.

DJs that we used for our businesses , who were on local Commercial Radio, we constantly told their accents were a barrier for them getting any further.

The exception of course is Politics, and frankly the institutions so mirror public schools, including the misogyny that it is barely surprising.

This is what John Major was getting at. The people with real power are those that were born privileged. He thinks it's shocking and so do I. It really makes the UK look like some backward colony.

WERE constantly told...

passedgo but you missed my last sentence, it isn't the middle classes sending their offspring to a few elite schools that are cementing priviledge is it? because if it were then 50% + (because there are actually more places for girls in these schools) of them wouldn't be effectively excluded as well. It is all the networks of traditional patriarchal power, the institutions that haven't changed and that includes the trade unions and their power base in the labour party. I used to negotiate with a major trade union and the routes to the top in that were every bit as misogynistic as parliament, even if I was prepared to sacrifice my liver being one of the chaps in the bar. In fact it provided a much quicker route to power for a working class man than working up the managerial hierarchy, so some very able working class men gained power, but most definitely men. Maggie did nothing to change that either, she embraced it and manipulated it and anyone who does try to change it, even that dreadful Louise Mensch (or whatever she was called), gets worn down.

The reason we are back to a parliament dominated by white elite men is that the unrepresented sections of society, ethnic minorities, women, whatever, responded to the rhetoric of opportunity in the 70s, 80s and 90s, then found that in reality the institutions of parliament, society and the media colluded to keep them excluded. You won't change that with quotas.

Shooting the concept of 'privileged' perhaps could be used in the wider sense then. Of course Trades Unions and other organisations of representation and power are closed and suspicious of newcomers, especially TU negotiators! It may also be a 'who you know' culture but that's just another political game that you have to play. Ed Milliband's education didn't make him PM but his Dad's intellectual dinner parties definitely did. Another kind of privilege.

Political power and power in the professions is far more based on where you have come from, whether you are safe, the right kind of person. The more power there is the fewer risks they want to take. And that's the nub, diversity means dealing with people we don't understand.

I think what John Major objects to is the lack of social movement. Children that go through school without advantage, whether it is pushy parents or pushy schools, do not move ahead.

Changing school funding would help but we would break this nonsense up completely if we enhanced the status of vocational skills. In Germany it is quite common for one child in the same family to go to the tech school and the other to the academic school. Neither child is more privileged than the other. Parents are proud of both children equally, both children earn roughly the same money because the educated professions don't cream off the cash from the vocational and skilled workers. A focus on equality in the labour market would really help I think.

The focus on Oxbridge admissions in this discussion is missing the point. You are talking of perhaps shifting a few hundred places rather than debating the real issue which is the vast swathes (hundreds of thousands of kids each year literally) of white working class underclass who are not achieving as well as they should.

Oxbridge incidentally are already losing out on the extremely bright children from the London superclass schools (your 4 A-level A* crowd). The trickle to the Ivy League is now a stream. Perhaps, soon a flood?

My grand father was a trade unionist he was born in 1900 and came from a working class family but in a culture of "bettering yourself" through education. He was exceedingly well read, played the piano, listened solely to classical music, new about art, was an avid chess player and an excellent public speaker. He didn't get any if these opportunities handed to him on a plate he didn't go to a good school he went out and got them.
I'm shocked that in the 21 st century how ignorant even the MC's are and I should think my grand father is spinning in his grave. At a recent lunch (comfortably off MC mums) all were talking so earnestly and enthusiastically about tv series you'd think it was real life (I don't watch TV). Meanwhile in the real world God knows who many had been blown up in a car bomb in Iraq, we were on the verge of bombing Syria, the Eurozone hangs on by a thread etc etc. I"m not so boring that I think these should be our sole topics of conversation but most seemed indifferent/ignorance. It seems to me our minds have been numbed by a celebrity/media obsessed culture. This is great for our government (of any colour) and the financially elite around the world who let's face it are the ones pulling the strings of our governments, they can pass legislation that has a serious impact on our lives and most people cant be bothered to put down their copies of OK turn of "Strictly" and even show any interest let alone protest.

passedgo it is a similar value system with vocational training as an equal route, and an empowered and valued teaching profession with the resources to enable them to teach children as individuals that puts Finnish schools at the top of the world's tables but you won't see Gove visiting there to learn lessons in a hurry. Far too far removed from his 70s Grammar School experience, so he prefers Singapore where the education system is more familiar. Gove remember is not the product of an "elite" school so like John Major he wants to see the routes he exploited left open to people like him. I don't think JM is anymore interested in diversity than Gove or Cameron, and not really surprising, they are conservatives, with a small as well as large C.

happy yup the same style of moronic conversation predominates in certain sections of school mum activities at DDs' schools but I am not sure you can extrapolate to widening ignorance, it is just some of us avoid those forums like the plague. Just because someone has a child at an elite school doesn't mean they had a decent education themselves or a background that encouraged them to think and be aware. I too have encountered shocking levels of narrow mindedness, thoughtlessness and downright ignorance. I could go on for several hours about the exploits of the alpha mums in DDs'schools and their complete detachment from the reality of the rest of the world but I don't think that is a reflection of wider society, in fact quite the opposite. If anything it is a reflection of the crappy education given to girls especially ironically amongst the most privileged sections of society.

And actually my DDs and I do quite like to bond over some crap telly, though of course we do it ironically excuse of the intellectual snob

Has everyone heard of cognitive dissonance, where what we say and what we do do not tally?
So whilst we are bemoaning the elitism of our politicians, may I remind us how we voted over the last few elections:

1997
Winner Blair (Fettes College, Oxford)
Loser Major (comprehensive, no Uni)

2001
Winner Blair (Fettes College, Oxford)
Loser Hague (Grammar/comp. Oxford)

2005
Winner Blair (Fettes College, Oxford)
Loser Howard (Grammar, Cambridge)

2010
Winner Cameron (Eton, Oxford)
Winner Clegg (Westminster, Cambridge)
Loser Brown (High school, Edinburgh)

Isn't the dire remuneration and lack of job security for politicians a significant reason that so many are people of private means? I am not sure that a career in modern politics is very attractive to capable, ambitious people.

"Oxbridge incidentally are already losing out on the extremely bright children from the London superclass schools (your 4 A-level A* crowd). The trickle to the Ivy League is now a stream. Perhaps, soon a flood?"

I don't think this is a problem at all. Applications to Oxbridge from the EU and the ROW have increased massively in the past 5 years. Undergraduates are more mobile than ever before and it is a very good thing for students to experience other learning cultures. Cross-fertilisation of practice and ideas is the root of innovation.

I don't think 'Oxbridge' believe they are 'losing out'.

Slipshodsibyl - lack of job security may be a significant reasons why politics isn't attractive to people without private means, but if you think the remuneration of an MP is dire, then you are still revealing yourself to be in that group of people who fail to realise how well off they really are, because they only ever bother to compare themselves with people earning more than them, without considering for one second whether those earning more than them SHOULD be earning more than them for what they do, and whether those below them in the earnings stakes should actually be earning any less... Yes, if you are commercially minded and only driven by personal gain, then I'm sure being an MP is not attractive, because such a person could make greater personal profit doing something else. If you want to work to improve society and earn enough to lead a reasonably comfortable life, the salary of a politician is not remotely unattractive, only the job insecurity is, and I'm really not sure what you expect people to do about that - let them stay in the job when they've been voted out?!...

If you want to work to improve society and earn enough to lead a reasonably comfortable life, the salary of a politician is not remotely unattractive

But not as attractive as, say, some health professionals. Backbench MP = £65,000. Average dentist £89,000. Average GP = £104,000.

Happygardening, the story about your grandfather going out and getting opportunities is similar to my own although on a much less grand scale and without the culture of bettering yourself through education. What strikes me is that it is much easier to go out and get 'it' now - in my day you had to actually walk miles to get to a library and then work out a plan for sneaking in. Now it's so much simpler and you can find out all you want to know about human psychology etc at the click of a button.

An education is widely available to many, what's missing is the desire to have one. Could it be that we make our kids so comfortable now in their schools that they are 'happy' so they're not looking for a way out? I'm talking about kids aged 10/11 here. Certainly in Suffolk there is a laid back attitude that if the child is happy then there is no need to hold the school accountable for something silly like progress.

I am a primary school governor and I make it clear as often as I can that if your child is reaching the expected level at the end of each key stage then that means they are pretty much in line for a grade C at GCSE. Many parents that want more than this for their children are perfectly happy to be told that their DC is reaching the expected level/making expected progress at KS1 and KS2. Not sure if that's pertinent or not.

I'd like to know what this 'toolkit' is that Wuldric and Bonsoir are speaking about and why money is a factor in acquiring these mysterious skills. Surely there are creative ways of exposing our children to skills (and to helping them acquire them) that will make them attractive to employers.

I think the issue is that, really, we are still all obsessed with the idea of developing and nurturing an elite of some sort. It used to be an elite where inheritance was hugely important - at least then everyone "knew their place." Then the wealthy started wanting to join the top table. Now we apparently have an "educational elite" and everyone is talking about looking for the "natural talent" elite, instead, because none of the other models appear to have avoided the fact that the wealthy still have the monopoly when it comes to ensuring their offspring get the best education... It is all getting a bit boring. The establishment of an elite who are pulled out from the crowd to live lives and have experiences far removed from those of the majority is never going to bring the world peace, justice and harmony. It's just putting cleverness on a pedestal, which isn't a very useful place for it to be.

purits - there you go, proving my point. You are comparing MPs only to people who earn more than them, as though salary is everything and it must be small because even though the vast majority earn considerably less than MPs, a minority earn more.

Rabbit I don't think I am unaware at all. Schools in the area I grew up in received a premium for being in an area of rural,deprivation, but for someone with the ability to take on the role of a competent mp for a salary of 65000 (a good salary in many areas,but an mp spends time in London) but no job security, I think they need a financial cushion, a salaried partner or a far stronger desire to serve than most. The mp in my home constituency has the back up of a farm.

I would love all MPs to have a far stronger desire to serve than most. Wouldn't that be lovely? It isn't just a job.