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.

Slipshod. Hmm. Putting my extreme pessimist's hat on, I could say that I think the whole world is hurtling towards disaster, given the huge numbers of people living in it, the finite number of resources and the other living things on the planet being ignored. I think on balance I would rather perish in the country of my birth, near my relatives, than somewhere in China.

Are we saying here that people in the UK countryside should be grateful because their poverty isn't being exploited to the same extent it is in China?

All a brilliant school is is a happy synergy of clever pupils and good teachers. All easier to achieve in places with large numbers of people. So of course to a certain extent it will be possible to gather together enough people to create a high-achieving school (or several) in a large city. That doesn't make Londoners cleverer or higher-achieving, just means there are more clever and high achieving people overall there.

The country in the world with the largest number of truly globally wealthy people is India. That doesn't make India a wealthy country.

Dairy farmers are "getting out" of milk at a very alarming rate their currently paid 33p a litre they were paid only 26 p a litre this time last yr. I can't find my most accurate figures but in 2009 it cost about 30 p a litre for the farmer to produce it. That was before diesel and grain prices rose. This price favours high input high out out farmers who farm on an industrial scale although there is no evidence that welfare standards are lower because happy healthy cows produce more milk. What we need to understand is that those "blue remembered hills" that so many love were and are created by our farmers in particular grassland and chalk grassland most of all . As one farmer said to me once as we stood on his chalk grassland looking at his 200 cows surrounded by the beautiful orchids you often find there in an AONB and looking at a breathtaking view "who's going to look after all this when go out of milk?"

Duchesse, 'born to it' is, to me, a slightly positive spin. In truth, it is all they are trained to do. Part of the reason many youngsters will not carry on the tradition is that their parents are telling them not to.

Family farms will be replaced by the dairy equivalent of battery farming. It isn't a job from which you can easily 'get on your bike' once you have started in that occupation. I don't know how much longer they will be able to provide the authentic landscape for folk like you and Rabbit to enjoy. Unlike many incomers with some spare cash, they are not going off to London for the day let alone a weekend. For one thing, who is left milking the cows?

X post with Happy

Not sure why you feel you need to explain that to me, Slip. That's pretty much what I said!

"Born to it" as an ex employee of the NMR I can assure you that most sons and daughters of dairy farmers can't wait to get out of it. It's not about the money it's a slog morning noon and night, you have to look at a dairy cow and just love them. To make it pay you have to have hundreds now gone are the days when 60 cows supported 3 families.
But we have the highest regulated and cleanest milk in Europe and we should be proud of this.

Thanks happy for that, note taken of all mentioned

Actually I would rather be in China than the homogenous and complacent suburbs of London...... Ask any expat, there is an energy and an optimism, and a focus on what you can be rather than thinking you should be. And it is bonkers. Of course there is also corruption, people trafficking, especially women and children, a market for bodily fluids including blood that infects the donors with aids, organised crime (within social traditions going back thousands of years), food adulteration, no health service except for the rich, human rights abuses, the privilege of being a citizen is you can find yourself having a bullet put in the back of your neck by the state with little legal formality etc etc etc alongside beautiful countryside, history and a civilisation that has at times in history left the west standing........

Sorry Duchesse, you did earlier. I was responding to the post you made about passionate food producers and fourth generation milk producers - taken out of the context of your earlier post it seemed a bit idyllic

My parents live next to a dairy farm - their house and their neighbours' houses were originally part of the farm so they really are surrounded by it. The farm has been in the same family for generations. The DC who can, leave, and go to Cambridge to read vetinerary science or London to read medicine. The DC who don't shine at school take over the farm... Generation after generation...

Gunz I hope you enjoy all that was recommend do let us know what you think.

duchesse Are we saying here that people in the UK countryside should be grateful because their poverty isn't being exploited to the same extent it is in China? no just recognise that their problems are first world problems and get them in perspective. There is a lot to be grateful for living in the UK, including a health service and something in the way of a safety net, and even with this government, an underlying unease with true inequality, and a belief we should try and make things better for everyone. Gove may be an arse, but there is an upward arc in some aspects of educational provision, if not teacher's lives but that is a whole other thread. We even sort of have a say in government. My local Councillor leader may have asked me as one of "several well ventilated voices" to keep my mouth shut but he can't send any thugs around to do it. Good grief you started on here with a smug post on how great your life was compared to the "bear pit" of London so it can't be all bad and having your life sucked dry by the big city.....

It's the educational bear-pit I was referring to!

I quite enjoy going to London from time to time. Just glad I'm no longer educating my children in the SE.

The able ones have always had to leave as you can't keep splitting a farm down the generations. But now those left behind will struggle to make a living at it, even in Kent which has some of the richer grass and sizeable, most profitable farms

I do half an hour's work and you lot have filled a yard of thread with wonderfully literary allusions and knowledgeable posts about dairy farming. All without a row

Pigeons, I love your timely reassurance re transient insanities, thank you as always. I think it might be easier to lay my hands on enough valium to insulate myself from SW London hyperventilation, rather than doctor the entire water supply, but it is a wonderful thought! I am feeling fairly sane myself, as dd has fallen in love with a place quite near you - and I am happier and happier about the prospects of her state alternative

And I couldn't agree more with the 'entitled and bitter' realisation about us UK dwellers. Perhaps it's the aftermath of colonialism - we need to let go and move on?

The problem "bonsoir" is that as many fathers and mothers will tell you "their DS and it is usually the DS heart is just not in it. "he just wants to spend all day in the tractor" was the commonest complaint I used to hear as I went round dairy farms, or "he's just got no feel for cows he just views it as a job", dairy farming is now very scientific embryo transfer is common, feeding is a science in its self no longer is it the right job for a less academic DC. As the parents retire then the attraction of beef or arable with its higher profits becomes to much and one day the cows have gone. We are now under quota, and importing milk from outside of the UK with questionable welfare standards and I also doubt as clean as our milk is.

duchesse

Can you tell me why you are glad your dc aren't educated in SE.
I have no idea about schools in south and we are up north.
Colleagues of my dh and general impression I have had is that you are to be envied if your dc go to school in SE, and that the education is second to none.
I take it this is a wrong perception and impression then ?

slipshod I'm not trying to be a nerd (you just happened to stumbled into an area which I have extensively worked and have experience of) but in 2008 Kent only had 76 dairy farm that only 1.3% of farms in the county and I know at at least 10 who've gone out since 2008 and thats only East Kent. Kent has historically never been a big area for dairy farming.

Yes indeed Happy. Unfortunately many people have little interest in or link with where their food comes from- price seems more motivating than quality. The result decisions are made more and more with the supermarket's shareholders in mind than its customers.

I would rather not use milk with a statutorily allowable level of neutrophils (aka pus) which comes from pushing cows too hard to increase their production. It causes untold damage to the cows as (not least from continually having to swing their hind legs past their enormous udder, which causes multiple hip problems) they are pushed way beyond their healthy level of milk prodcution.

Compare and contrast with our organic neighbours who receive a lot more of the cost of their milk directly, and whose cows are happy, healthy and calm.

I taught in schools in the SE. The pupils were often neurotic and miserable, and their parents pushy and over-bearing. It wasn't an enjoyable experience for any of us. Being pushed to high achievement is fine if the child can do it, just very stressful and debilitating if it is too much. I get the impression that many children in the SE are being coached way beyond their natural level of ability.

Thanks for the info Happy. I enjoy reading your informative and up to date information and I would love to know what it was you were doing for a job!

Dairy farmers loose money for high cell counts their price per litre falls so most farmers test their milk monthly and the cell count is one os the most scrutinised tests. All the farms I was involved with took this very seriously in fact we had high cell counts on lo inout low out out farms where animals were often not kept in such clean conditions that we did on the the high input high output farms where animals cows never looked at a blade of grass. Repeatedly high cell counts are treated.
Its easy to make assumptions about dairy farming and to assume that welfare standards are low and that our milk is full of anti biotics (it isn't) and unclean but this is in fact not the reality. But I wouldn't like ti vouch for the milk coming in from other counties.

I've lead an eclectic life for a period I worked for the NMR (National Milk Recorders) I think cows have pure poetry unlike horses which I've developed a loathing of much to mu husband relief but also have been involved in the dairy industry since I was a child. Landscape management and usage (in Kent) just happened to be part of my dissertation!
Sadly I always return to my original profession.