We must end free education for the middle classes

[outofteabags]

Did anyone see Anthony Seldon's article in the Times on this? www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3645129.ece
I am very interested to know what people think about it especially as I happened to hear a particularly heated debate on this at a party.

I think sweden uses the voucher system. It seems to work well for them.

I do, Iorek, but not brave enough to share on Mumsnet

You are absolutely right re society and us, ud

Yes quite, UQD.

lol ScienceTeacher, fair enough. Save it for an AIBU thread.

Regarding you last comment a colleague of mine once suggested (not totally tongue in cheek) that if a child deliberately spoiled a lesson by their bad behaviour the parents should be billed for the lesson! He calculated that on average, in the school we work in this came to £120 per lesson!

He figured that this would make the parents sit up and take notice.

And I do realise that this isn't really practical in many cases.

One thing I would like to do is to place the parent of a child who constantly disrupts in front of a class, and to let them try to control the kids. that way they may not be so forgiving of their kid's poor behaviour.

What many parents don't seem to understand that a little 'quirk' from one child, when you are in a 1 to 1 situation can become an utter nightmare in a class of 30!

To be fair to the oft-misquoted Maggie (and I'm no great fan of hers) it's what she was saying too. If you look at the context, "There is no such thing as society" meant "there's no separate entity called 'society', it's formed by what we do as individuals."

Rather belied by her policies, no?

Well, here's the full quotation, decide for yourselves!

A lottery system is a gross misunderstanding of what constitutes good schooling - but it is fair.

Unquietdad, thanks for the link. It is not fashionable to say this, but I did rather agree with Maggie there, especially the last bits.

You said: "I just want to send my children to my local school (note, LOCAL) and for that school to be a good one."

I would love for this to be the reality. Is it just a question of throwing more money at it eg smaller classes, more and better trained teachers. Or is the issue of how we can minimise the impact of disruptive students. Because at a local level, particularly in deprived areas, there will always be a cohort of disruptive children who spoil the learning experience for others.

Could this be by 'swamping' them with 'nice' middle class children who act as good role models (banning private schools and instituting lottery system being ways to achieve this), excluding them if continually disruptive and violent, the requirement to pass annual exams so that they do not progress before they have accomplished the basics and streaming so that they learn with others at the same pace without holding the brighter ones back?

I am particularly interested in the views of people in the education system like martianbishop and science teacher.

Agree about the impact of the "disruptive", blueshoes, although of course you get them in good schools too.

You'd never ban private schools - not in a million years. People just wouldn't let it happen.

I'm not sure of the answer. I'm as cynical as the next person about the the "throwing money" solution - I've seen failing schools in our city with all-new buildings, new resources etc. and they still get just as bad results at the end of the day.

(My DW is in the education system too, blueshoes: she's a teacher in a "tough" comp, probably the worst results in the city. Without being especially well-off, we choose to live in an area where we can send our children to a school at the other end of the scale. I've seen those who work in state schools and send own kids private use the "I gave at the office" argument to justify their own choices. Can we also?)

I don't know why anyone who chooses to send their children privately feels the need to justify their choice to anyone. They would surely only do that to someone they felt was opposed to independent education on princlple and was a bit 'right on' or perhaps they just do a blanket apology to everyone wearing Hush Puppies?

Well, I've seen the "you work in a state school so you think it's good enough for other kids but not your own" argument put to friends. Not saying I agree with it...

I do get faintly irritated by the idea that middle class children are always nice, well mannered role models and that working class children are the oiks who need to be shown the error of their ways by the nice middle class kids (presumably they can drop off some calved foot jelly at the same time as the good role model and patronisation)

My parents were working class. If I misbehaved in school they would have punished me. I behaved

Trust me I've seen lots of middle class kids who bugger about in school and their Boden clad parents excuse them by blaming the teachers! You can see it on a regular basis on MN

Would I be happy for private schools to be banned?

Well no principally because I would feel so disempowered. I think that the local school is crap and the overall standard of state education lamentable and what really infuriates me is that there is nothing whatsover I can do to change any of that.

My votes are useless, my taxes are spent on consultants and wars and any puny personal contribution I could make to a school would make no difference whatsoever.

What I can do for my DCs is carry on working hard in my job to fund their independent schools. So I feel I am doing the best that I can for them and just a bit more empowered.

This is going to sound completely naive, but From what I have seen on television and in films, (Beverley Hills 90210, Pretty in Pink, Veronica Mars, The Breakfast Club ), it seems quite common for children from very mixed social backgrounds to go to the same High School, without any question of the parents being 'liberals'.

How does that work? (or shall I just get my coat and join a less serious thread...)

Sorry, go to the same High School in the states. I am aware that these fly on the wall documentaries don't take place in this country.

Um- re the OP- what "I'D like to know is whether the smug middle class mummy who thought grammar was more 'moral' than going private had any of her DCs COACHED (or even prepped!) into the state grammar! If she didn't- so be it. If she DID she (and her DCs) should be drummed out. She would have effectively denied a poorer child of its rightful place at that grammar. Happens all the time in Salisbury. I have NO PROBLEM with catchments- otherwise you end up with the Salisbury situation with willing mummies driving 1 1/2 hours EACH WAY to get Sophie and Alexander to the grammars- because it's much cheaper than private, and "We can go to Klosters on the difference, can't we Gerald?". What you need IF you're going to have grammars (debatable- and I WENT to one of the Salisbury ones!) is transparency: A catchment where the tax paying parents see the result of their payments and a sliding 11+ entry scale dependent upon level of coaching/prepping. Like they do at Oxbridge.

As an aside, I always wonder what the marginally less well off Middle Class Parent does around Salisbury when despite their best efforts, their DC FAILS the 11+! There are no 'affordable' private secondary schools there!

'ALL schools must be good.' Nah, that won't satisfy us. What we REALLY want is OUR DCs to have the advantage over the others so that THEY can nail that well paid job. Endless research has shown that it doesn't matter WHAT you earn, it's HOW IT COMPARES with your peer group that counts. So improving ALL schools (we can say that because we know it won't happen in reality) will simply mean the ante is upped for US and OURS.

Putting the Middle Class Sense-Of-Entitlement Mummy-Role aside:

IMO, what we need as a society is to
a) discourage unwanted, unplanned teenage pregnancy,
b) MAKE those fathers pay, pay and pay again til THEY'RE the ones demanding the condom,
c) make benefit claiming dependent on societal contribution (with caveats, of COURSE) ie get the work shy orf their asses and into the sort of work we're destabilising our communities by importing Eastern European labour to do.

I think what we need to give schools significantly more funding if they have lots of children living on benefits/ dinners.

It would be nice to give all children small class sizes, but I think the country simply cannot afford it for every child. People who live in very rich areas who want smaller class sizes could either drive their children to the deprieved areas of the country or pay for private education.

I think that a class in a rich area can function perfectly well with 30 children (I worked at school with 36 children in the the year 6 class and good results) However inner city classes should have infant classes with numbers as small as 15. I suspect that this favourism of low income families would upset a lot of people.

Our county is closing lots of primary schools as the number of school children is dropping across the UK. I don't think that it would be necessary to build as many new classrooms as you think.

Our city has a huge imbalance - closing primary schools on one side and having them bulging at the seams to the point of needing new prefab classrooms and/or extra teachers on the other.

I imagine this is not atypical of English cities.

You can't persuade people to go where they don't want to (although our LA has a good go ) and so closing schools and expanding schools in the same LA are not mutually exclusive concepts.