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.

eli I am so pleased. The pupils there are now beginning to be young adults and getting facial hair etc. yet still seem to be happy and well adjusted. In so much as you can tell these things from the outside. None of the snogging outside school, or orange faces and peroxide birds nest hair you get outside other "elite " schools

This by the way is a new "elite" school actually set up by venture capitalists..........

more than duchesse is right. London is a bigger pool so a sort of league table has arisen so that some of the private (and indeed state grammar) schools can be more selective than others. In fact incredibly selective to the extent that you need to be in the top 3-5% of the population in terms of reasoning if you take that as a measure of ability. If you get clever pupils you get good exam results, and they get to good universities. However with good teaching you will get good exam results for clever pupils at any school. Frankly the measure of a good school is whether they enable a pupil to achieve their potential, it is not how many A/As they get overall but did they enable the pupils to get the a/as they should do. These clever pupils would get good results in any good school state or private. To be honest some of the teaching at these schools is not the best, you can get away with a lot with a bunch of eager motivated pupils. I suppose what you can say is that success in attracting pupils etc does mean the schools have impressive resources for extra curricular etc. so they do give them amazing opportunities but It's not all about London. Best rowing school for girls eg is Headlington near Oxford.

happy - and you say you don't like the Archers any more! Loads on there about all these issues. I am under no illusions about who creates our countryside and how hard it is to live in and work on it. I grew up in a tiny village in the middle of the countryside, went to school with the nearest tenant farmer's daughter and a few farmworkers' children, and did not opt to return to that - as has been said, poorly insulated houses, limited services and employment opportunities, and grindingly hard work for those working on the land, rather than being the GP, teacher, commuting to work elsewhere etc, etc. Plenty of businesses currently in London could relocate to other areas, though - it isn't a choice between London and farming.

Interesting the point about India having hugely wealthy people but being a poor country. We hear a lot on the news about the power and wealth of China and its amazing growth rate. Yet as it pointed out itself when it gave something like $40,000 in aid to the Philippines (which, admittedly, is not its best friend), one of its reasons for this was that it actually has a lot of its own natural disasters to cater for and a vast, poor population. Yet it is often described as "wealthy and powerful." If it ever were to become a truly wealthy country, I'm not sure there would be much in the way of resources left for those outside China!

Which schools though duchesse? By any chance grammar schools? My DD point blank refused to take up her place at the local super selective grammar for which 2000 heavily tutored (though whether it is necessary to the extent it happens and why it happens is ) because she said it felt pressured and cold. They openly admitted that those who did not do well in each set of end of year exams left, not clear whether they jumped or were pushed. Refugees do seem traumatised and yet of course parents say it is a happy school . However as I say it isn't a London or SE phenomenan. Some prep schools too are heavily infected by alpha parents. But these "elite" schools have the status to tell pushy and unreasonable parents to butt out.

It didn't seem all that elite, but I am an ignoramus in these matter - good to hear no snogging in sight at school gates though
I wasn't impressed by the art department, to be honest, but the kids were lovely, the Head seemed human, and the drama teacher was wonderfully nutty!

dd liked that it was small, I think she feels a bit swamped in the bigger schools, though I'm sure she'd adjust.

Sorry for minihijack - back to work

Thank you duchesse that really explains a lot.
Of course there are pockets like that up here, but it is only a few locations in Lancashire and a few more in Cheshire, maybe a couple in Yorkshire. We don't tend to have many grammars here neither, schools aren't over subscribed either.

Rabbit true. The Chinese government is actually impoverished. It is far from the huge totalitarian megalithic bureaucracy that reached into every aspect of people's lives that it was pre 1970s (if it actually ever was in any way but in people's minds). When Dengue Xiaopeng introduced marketisation he took the CCP lid off a pressure cooker that had held all sorts of forces, entrepreneurship, corruption, organised crime etc etc that went back centuries, back. The Central government has little control over local officials, all it can afford to do is have occasional crackdowns as a deterrent. And it's revenue systems are a very leaky sieve......

Shooting - did your DD get in without any significant amount of 11+ prep (NVR/VR etc) DIY, to a school that has 2000 applying (which school is that Tiffin?) all of whom are "heavily tutored"? Seems improbable she just sailed in without any prep ..(or perhaps she is genius), but then why did she apply in the first place if you are not buying into the super selectives...seems like a lot of waste and time and effort if you don't buy into that ethos - any schools that selects the top narrow band on academic ability alone is of course going to be heavily focussed on results and I imagine there will be a lot of peer pressure too.

Which is why I would rather live in the UK, where I recognise how lucky I am and how free to complain about how I don't feel we will be so lucky or so free in future... and how we are all kidding ourselves if we think we can all have lives where the world is our oyster.

indy We were coming back from abroad, so I had no idea what went on. She tried a few VR/NVR papers and she scored highly so it seemed worth a try. I don't want to stealth boast but since she has since been diagnosed dyslexic we know , yes, she should have cleared the threshold. The thing about VR/NVR is that they are tests of reasoning and properly maintained as they are when used in business and for the indies, they are unpredictable and a reliable test of ability. The trouble is that is expensive and grammar schools can still get bright cohorts if they don't invest in them. So they are predictable and tutorable, stories tell of tutors waiting at the gates to debrief candidates as soon as possible after the exam. However that doesn't mean someone with the untutored ability won't be able to score highly. It is at the borderline it makes the difference. Tutors being able to keep improving scores by getting the pupils doing practise papers for years just would not happen with decent tests. As I say once she visited the place she hated it, it was in very stark contrast to the warm welcome she had in the indies. It was to her fathers great chagrin that we realised we faced £00000000000s........

Oh and indy we had no other state alternative, couldn't apply to other state schools until resident, and then it was too late, not that we would have got in with an on time application. All we were offered otherwise were unsatisfactory schools.

Shooting

I totally agree with your point about reaching potential.
A completely different scenario but my ds1 who is now 22 went to the most awful secondary school imaginable. It had a permanent Police presence and as you can imagine, nobody wanted to send their dc there. For some reason my son upon allocation wouldn't let me appeal for a closer school but wanted to go.
It was the time of super heads, not sure if they exist now, but she completely turned the school around. The children were individuals and supported for interest and talent. He gained 3 levels in science over a term and was presented with a lap top from the LEA. Obviously funding was going to this school as it had been so poor.
He gained about 12 or 13 GCSE all grade C. This doesn't sound brilliant but he wasn't a particularly bright boy and struggled a bit. I am convinced he reached his full potential and had he gone to a school I'd appeal for would have been a number and imo not done as well.

morethan - like with many things, schools are often at their best when they are on their way up and wanting to prove and improve themselves. Once they've achieved popularity and recognition, it's hard to maintain that energy, because getting there really takes it out of the staff. Also, once you have huge popularity, you can get away with coasting for quite a significant amount of time before people realise you are no longer what you used to be, because you have probably started to attract a higher proportion of people who would have done well anyway, thus maintaining results, and everyone feels good about you and thus gives you the benefit of the doubt when little niggles start to crop up.

I think maybe that's part of the reason why superheads seem to move on quite rapidly: they come in with lots of energy and vision, exhaust everyone and then leave before the rot sets in, because their skillset is more in the line of radica, rapid change than long sustained excellence.

rabbit

After she left, this is what happened, the new head coasted, it never did become popular though and was always a last resort, now it is closed. This is due to LEA numbers etc.
It also wouldn't have suited ds2 because he was a follower at school and I'm under no illusions that he would be in prison or dead now had he gone there. He went to the nice CofE school round the corner, which failed him completely, he never reached his potential.
Now dd completely different ball game, she is H.ed now, not sure about secondary yet, but know she won't go to a local secondary.

Education eh!

rabbit I find the farming side of the Archers slightly predictable and patronising but I can live with that its the endless Eastender style dramas that I cant abide. Every so often I come back to it. The Matt and Lilian thing was awful, the Helen and her endless tedious relationships just mind numbing. After listening to about three episodes I get bored and stop for a few months. For me Brian remains the only joy he is just so funny when he goes that really will be the end of it.

Agreed, it is slightly predictable and patronising, Helen is tiresome and the Matt/Lilian thing was awful, but when it is on in the background (I never deliberately tune in, so only catch bits of it once or twice a week, or bits on a Sunday) there is something comforting in its seeming endlessness! And Lynda Snell amuses me.

Oh I'm glad we can now measure threads by the yard, makes them seem shorter.

Much as I'd love to discuss the cell count of milk (although I would agree that land-based careers are more scientifically demanding than some science jobs), I'd like to go back to the 'London-centric kids-are-a-project' thing.

I know very few people with lots of cash to flash and have lived in London all my life. The thing is you need to spend it on where you live to gain the privilege. So the tiny catchments in some parts of London are surrounded by tiny flats that people move into at an exorbitant price. Those people have nothing left (and certainly no clutter) at the end of the month either. They get the 'decent' schools but it tends to be at the expense of other children in the area and it means the only thing they have over the, let's say, Northern families is possibly slightly better contacts, rubbing shoulders with a handful of b-list intellectuals. They also have to live with their conscience, that they have 'bought' their children success rather than allowed their children to gain it for themselves.

Once their dcs are in secondary they all move to bigger properties further out but still have no cash to flash after they've covered the organic veg box (bitter). It is a crazy treadmill mentality and it is very irritating for people who can't afford to live where they were brought up, near family and old friends.

I still think the only way round this is a lottery application system where there are oversubscribed schools.

passedgo

Your post has made me realise have thankful I am to be Northern.
Our schools are mostly under subscribed as nobody wants to live here, from outside anyway.
It must be awful to not be able to live in the area you were brought up and be priced out. I witnessed a similar thing when we lived in a little village in East Anglia. House prices were pushed up and holiday homes bought, pricing out the locals.

We do have some highlights though, my dd today is on her way to work with a very famous comedienne, because she was looking for specific Northern dd, we have our moments. I agree though sometimes it is an impossible task to become involved with some things if you don't have the London connections and live on the M25? is that the road?

Sadly the M25 is the road although few live on it many live "inside" it. The delightfully named M4 corridor is another favourite place some may to aspire too or maybe not.

Morethan, living on the M25 will be a bit noisy.

Most of my family struggled to find somewhere to live and now their children are all living with them as prices have gone up even more. One niece got a council flat when she had her baby but there is only one bedroom and they won't get a larger one until the baby is 8. Fortunately she and her husband are petite so both can fit in the kitchen at the same time.

Plenty have never been able to live in Central London where they work and that was so even 30 years ago. They commute in . It will ever be thus.

Wiothin the M25 can be a ver lovely place to live. It is much more mixed and much less segregated by class than say Devon or Northumberland are. People of all kinds live and work together on the whole and to a greater extent and it is largely a meritocracy. It is much easier to be different there too whether that be purple hair, in a gay relationship, single parent or whatever, than in the country and there is a regular supply of workers for a wide variety of jobs, even fixing your plumbing or minding your baby compared with rural areas plus there are even more jobs for your children than if you lived in the back of beyond.

House prices have become ridiculous in the next village up from ours Justasquaintsville they're building "affordable houses" a mere snip at £325 000.

saragossa you are missing the point about the education being segregated and elitist. Of course there are lots of different people living in a smaller space but they don't mix, or their children don't, because of the elitist nature of education.

In a rural area it is more likely that people just go to the 'nearest' school because it's only 5 miles away and not 20 miles away. In this kind of environment children learn to get along and schools learn to make the best of the pupils they have, rather than trying to appease the children they want to have.

"In a rural area it is more likely that children go to school 5 miles away and not 20 miles away"
This may apply at primary level but not a secondary level as a mother of a DS who was in a rural state comp (where according to the head 80% came in on the school bus) and now in a 6th form college I can tell you from driving him to see friends that the vast majority are coming in on buses from quite away. My own DS now travels 12 miles one way. I was talking to friends in west and south east London they were stunned that he travels so far. What we don't of course have to quite the same degree is congestion I was moaning the other morning when I took him to college that I was stationary in traffic for about 1/4 a mile!
The big problem is that the school bus is also the only way to get back and forth so finish early for the day and your stuck till the bus leaves at 4.

I well understand that. In the villages my family now live in, though schools are 3 miles away, there are only two buses a day that wind around the lanes, so next to no independence for my nieces and nephews, the ones that are grown up aren't even in this country anymore. Though it was my own fault, I got into a direct grant grammar (and quite "elite" it was too, even a woman cabinet minister amongst it's alumni), and not the local grammar or secondary modern, school was 10 miles away, and I faced the same situation, the bus took 1hr 20mins didn't leave until 6pm, and the last one went at 10pm. Where I grew up is stunningly gorgeously beautiful, it has inspired novels, romantic heroes and some of the most sublime poetry ever written and though even at 17 I got that, and I could keep a pony for next to nothing and gallop across it, I still came to totally and utterly hate living there and all that I missed out on with my friends in the big city, and was desperate to get to any sort of bright lights.

Part of the reason we live where we do is that all my DDs friends are within a couple of miles, they can walk to their evenings out, or use any manner of public transport or even night buses . And they have so much on their doorstep. (Actually scrap the nearness of nightclubs and night buses and the not really being able to sleep properly until 5 in the morning ) but overall I think where we live gives them a better quality of life, if not me.

But passedgo I totally agree with you the situation on school place provision in London is scandalous. In our borough we have a high proportion of state church schools so it isn't just that you have to buy an exorbitantly expensive flat or house, you also have to go and sit in a pew on Sundays or even think ahead and get your child baptised before six months, even clean the church and it's silver. They have even got the middle classes skivvying