tell me about a 'privileged' education

[Frostycake]

If you attended a grammar or private school or if you teach in one (or taught in one), tell me what I may have missed by having a comprehensive education in the 1980s.

I sometimes see glimpses of the education I could have had if circumstances had been different for my parents (the recent TV series on Harrow, meeting and working with people who went to Oxford, Cambridge, Malvern College etc.) and I often wonder what it is I missed out on apart from the obvious opportunities and overflowing confidence and maturity this type of education seems to instill in pupils.

Come and talk to me about the detail as I'm bursting with curiosity.

I was at Grammar School from 79-86 and hated it. It was an 'academic' school and I was not academic. I was good at tests like the 11+ though!
I wish I had gone to the local technical college as I was creative and loved making things.
The school had a good rep but the teaching was pretty poor - copying out of text books mostly. I think a really good comp, where everyone gets the same opportunities and access to good facilities and excellent teaching is the best bet for everyone.

Hakluyt. There are plenty of private schools that don't have entrance exams, they accept almost any child. You will say though that fees in themselves are a 'entrance' exam which I get !.

motherinferior of course it was a dig / joke or whatever and no I don't want to retract anything since I am not somebody who takes all opinions and contributions in hushed reverent tones whoever the poster.

My point Hak in case you missed it is that some people just don't have a clue about what other 'options' are out there and see the world of education through their own particular prism.

MN is great for highlighting the kinds of things that independent schools can offer DC. People that bang on about how great their local comps are are missing the point. If you can afford it send your kids to the school that will give them a rich and varied experience in education. For some people that might be their local comp. But don't kid yourself that you can make up all the extras - the point is that being immersed in a 'rich' environment on a daily basis = a privileged education.

Oh, and in case it isn't obvious, you don't have to have a privileged education to be successful but sure helps.

pickledsiblings

I concur. I was able to find a lot of options for our child 1 because a) I am OCD about it, b) I had time, c) we had finances, faith and brains. It was also to do with my upbringing making education and parenting v. important and a priority.

However, it is clear that at our state primary very few are "blessed" with all that. Whilst the majority want the best for their kids, they are unaware of some options and also lacking faith in their kids ability to aspire to something better than they had.

I offered the headteacher a sort of parent to parent mentoring service (very patronising of me I know) where they thought there were kids of potential that might benefit from being pushed towards grammars or bursaries, or even just a comp further from home that would be better for them.

I think, identified in at the end of year 4, from a class of 30, the "pathway" for about 4-8 kids could have been very different if the school or the parents had been more "pro-active" and aspirational. The kids that were clearly ahead of the curve did fine (2 grammar schools, 1 private) and a couple did OK with faith schools. It's the ones that you know have potential to do better in year 5/6 that just get left on the "1 sub level a term is fine" improvement line that is a shame. Extra learning support for them and guidance on secondaries in London would be a massive game changer for 20% or more of the class.

Pickled - that sort of self delusion works in both directions though. I have seen private school people time and time again who are utterly convinced that the music/drama must be better at their school than any state school because their school is private. And sometimes, the music/drama is better than the surrounding state schools. And sometimes...it isn't. Two of my kids have been ringers in the past for posh school productions. And I know posh school kids who've been ringers for state schools too. The (overweening) confidence imbued by posh schools extends to the parents too...

Due to divorce, I was ejected from a 800 pupil East Anglian grammar school at thirteen and dispatched to 1600 pupil state comprehensive oop north.

The contrast, was as you might imagine, striking.

I had a very 'posh' southern accent by their standards, but not by mine or anyone else I had ever met, which marked me out from the off

The comp was huge and impersonal, and I quickly got lost, and faded into the background, particular when my arm was broken by another pupil and I was largely forgotten about for two months. [This event clouded my judgement of even more]

The racial composition was different too. But not in the way you'd think.

The GS had pupils of South Asian, Chinese and Italian backgrounds. The comp was almost 100% white Anglo-Saxon. My closest friend at the GS had Bangladeshi parents and was a Muslim.

However, when I tell local people which school I went to, and I mention the comprehensive, they say 'oh, I'm not surprised you went to the posh school'

The comprehensive is now leafy, middle-class and oversubscribed academy. And it was much the same then. Even when I was there it sent five to eight of its 200-strong sixth form to Cambridge, where it had links to a particular college.

I, however, never regarded it as anything other than a poor substitute for what I had snatched away from me.

Strange world.

The way I convinced my husband that the local very selective private school was best for our kids was the Wikipedia game. Basically if anyone came on TV newsreader, actor, comedian, sportsman, naturalist you name it I would look them up on Wikipedia. With very few exceptions they were all educated at selective grammars or privately. It was so striking we couldn't stop doing it. Yes I know people can do well from state school before someone spells it out again. DH and myself both did. But statistically the odds are way against you. I remember being at med school and they stood everyone up then said ' sit down if you went to private school' then ' sit down if either of your parents are a doctor' . Just those two questions left me and about two others standing. Bet you wouldn't get away with that now

Dino, well those questions are still asked. In law they do surveys every year now to find out who went to fee paying schools. In a sense that type of survey is good so you can know where your doctors and lawyers come from although doing it in front of the rest of a class rather than just anonymously on a law firm website would not be so likely to be done now.

In general it is good to discuss these things as different parents communicating with each other gives us all insights into the lives of others and how people get to where they are from where they started.

Don't get me wrong I had no problem with the question. Totally right to ask it. Also had no problem with the more privileged students, they were lovely on the whole.

I have no problem with any kind of schooling tbh. If I ever got up on my high horse about my 'struggle' in my crazy teenage years my long departed dad (who left school at 15) would call me an inverted snob. It took me a while to understand what that meant

I do the Wikipedia thing too and have noticed the same, although it's not surprising that any famous person who went to school pre around mid 70s or who grew up in a grammar area didn't attend a comp as it may not have been an option. The people who have stood out as not attending a selective school are Lucy Worsley, Brian Blessed, then the well known ones Colin Firth and Jk Rowling (although she hated it.)

Daniel Craig, Keira Knightley and Robert Peston went to comps.

I'm not saying everyone did! (Again). That said Keira Knightley lived in the hugely affluent borough of Richmond and both her parents were actors. Robert Peston was the apparently son of a labour peer. Both sure as shit not the sort of people I went to school with. Oh and Daniel Craig went to grammar school for sixth form. This is why we love the Wikepedia game

The son of a Labour peer.Don't know what an apparently son is

Well said Dinoroc. The differences in the outcomes from my sisters 1980s (ordinary Kent coast grammar) and my modern school are huge. My sister for example rebelled in her A level exams but has still ended up a partner in a accountancy firm , she is 'finally' going to Oxford to do a Masters in October at 46 !. The truth is all her classmates from school have gone on to do well, in stark contrast to the pupils from my school. This is just a average grammar school.

In case y'all think I am unhappy with such schools I'm not. My Wikipedia research means I am more than happy to choose them for my kids. And I think most people would be. Hence the extensive threads filled with angst . As I tell my nine year old , life sadly isn't fair

We didn't say you said everyone did. In fact I said that I had noticed the same as you. It's ok to list exceptions though isn't it?

I couldn't resist looking up Colin Firth on Wikepedia - his parents were academics and his maternal grandparents were missionaries. At his comprehensive school in Winchester, "he was an outsider and the target of bullying.To counter this he adopted the local working class Hampshire accent, and affected a lack of interest in schoolwork." Well, it raised a smile in this house.

*Wikipedia

I don't find it surprising that people who passed the 11+ would go on to be more successful in careers that require one to be academic.

than those who didn't

it raised a smile?

Clavinova . Toffee list away !

Smile as quoting people as ' common man' when they clearly aren't raises a smile ( amongst those of us who are) .