Innocent poll: Would you willingly send your DC to a so called poor school for the sake of.....

[fireflytoo]

...improving the standards of that school? There are often threads about all the issues revolving around so called good or bad schools. Many factors are blamed; class sizes, teacher child ratios, the middle class influence, sociological environments etc.

What I would like to know is whether anyone (especially anyone who gets cross at parents who move to good school areas or who pay for tutors etc) would willingly send their DC to a school where they know the DC would not nessecarily (sp?) get the best education....but where the school would benefit from having them there. (Presuming these said DC have supportive parents and the DC are quite capable of doing well.)

Hope I am not stepping on any toes here... I am genuinely interested in this question though.

That's what makes me cross about the whole Oxbrige and private school debates which come up again and again on Mumsnet. These aren't relevant to the vast majority of children. And too often schools and teachers are blamed for the failures of the government, society as a whole, and the inequalities in the education system.

I like league tables but they have to be read carefully. There should be far more emphasis on Value Added.

Swedes - re. the 'pure' intelligence thing (sorry, went to dig an allotment): I think I mean intellectual or academic capacity and potential capacity. IME, along with a lot of extremely bright people, Oxbridge and similar institutions have a lot of students who aren't particularly clever, but who have been very well drilled for the selection process, and whose social profile puts them at ease in the interview.

DOn't agree. If you get rid of proper league tables you just deny those parents who aren't in the know access to information about which are the better schools. If you make class sizes smaller you just deny children at A level classes with lots of other bright children to bounce ideas off them. More streaming perhaps might help.

if you believe Sutton then state schools are doing much worse than they were for the brightest children and need to do something about it. If you don't then you leave things as they are because state pupils aer doing pretty well at the better universities. I think it's harder now in 2008 then in the 1960s if you're very bright and poor to make your way through because the easy route into the middle class world through academic selection at 11 something the middle classes who pay fees now buy for themselves in order to achieve that academic segregation for their brighter children at 11 has been lost.

No one had ever been to Oxbridge from my small private school (until my younger sister went). It has made no difference to my life that I didn't go but it did matter that I went to a good university. And I'm fairly neutral on whether I should have gone or not. It just doesn't bother me or seem relevant. My daughters didn't try despite their schools having extra help for Oxbridge because they didn't want to spend the extra time on the extra lessons and didn't think they would get in which was a pity but I don't really believe in pushing teenagers to something they don't want to do and it hasn't made any difference so far to their career paths. indeed the oldest and her best friend from school who did read English at Oxford are both now doing the same thing career wise and it will have made no difference to either of them.

Nope.

They only get one chance at an education- why waste it putting up with other people's badly brought up children instead of learning? (which ultimately is why most underperforming schools underperform) It's not about intelligence or social issues, but about basic politeness, willingness to listen to teachers or display moderately civilised behaviour.

signed

jaded sec school teacher who pays to educate hers

Policywonk - tbh I think Oxbridge are very good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps I'm easily impressed though. The older I get the harder I find it to measure other people's intelligence. I wouldn't necessarily want to go out for a drink with the cleverest person I have ever met

Standing Ovation for Duchesse coming out and saying exactly what I have secretly suspected (but been afraid it is not PC to actually come out and say) for years.

And so we're back full circle again.

In my view there are two positions.

Either you can balance out the hierarchies in our education system (which simply mirror class hierarchies) which run through universities (Oxbridge, Russell Group and new universities) and schools (private, grammar, faith schools) exacerbated by league tables and within schools (setting, streamin, G & T) and in so doing improve the achievements and access to funding, expertise etc for ALL our children leading to greater academic achievement, social mobility and equality.

Or you can continue to praise and fund the elite institutions which educate a privileged minority (Oxbridge, private schools and then grammar and faith schools) and exclude the majority. While at the same time bemoaning the fact that more of the majority don't choose or get in to these institutions which are pretty much designed to keep them out.

Or, of course, you can criticise segregation and elitism while hypocritcally choosing these very institutions for your own children.

Fact: the vast majority of people who benefit from elite and exclusive institutions (Oxbridge, private schools, grammar schools) are already privileged.

Fact: what benefits the privileged minority does not benefit the majority and is often to their detriment (e.g. a private school which creams of the aspiring, middle-class children of supportive, wealthy education is taking these children out of the local comps)

Well said, duchesse.

But I'm loving the eternal optimism (or pessimism) of those of you who really believe that there is such a thing as 'pure IQ' which is inherent and is not at all dependent on social class. And which either will 'out' naturally in whatever circumstances the child who has it finds himself or will be mercilessly suppressed by the terrible, monster-like teachers and state schools.

A child with supportive parents who value education is likely to do well in any school. A child with supportive parents who value education, are comfortably well off and are well-educated themselves is likely to do very well in any school.

A child with unsupportive parents who do not value education, are not well off and are not well-educated themselves will not do well in any school. But they are also not likely to go to 'any' school. They are likely to go to the school which is lowest in the league tables while the child above goes to the faith school or grammar school or private school next door.

While it would be fantastic if all state schools encourages their brightest students to go to the top rated universities, I think there are other things that would be top of my wish list for improving state school education as a whole.

I would want to see a change of ethos so that laddish and laddette culture was replaced with one that valued life long education. I'm sick and tired of battling children who have no interest or desire to learn anything....in fact to do anything.

I would like to see an end to constant spoon feeding kids through pointless tests and generate an environment where children were taught to think! And to value education. And to enjoy learning.

Getting them to Oxbridge/Russell group would be fine icing. But we need to get the cake right first!

There has to be some innate element, though, 5Candles, or how do you account for the children in the previous generation who came from working class backgrounds that weren't too bothered about education and went to grammar schools and did well academically?
My mother and my in-laws came from that background (my dad less so because they were working class but believed in education.) Obviously it is only ever going to be a small minority, but I think there is a real issue that for that minority it is harder now to do well than it was 50 years ago.

In fact, I am hugely depressed by your comment,

"A child with unsupportive parents who do not value education, are not well off and are not well-educated themselves will not do well in any school."

They are less likely to do well, yes, much less likely. But to put it in such absolute terms is awful. And effectively writes off a whole group of children.

I have to say that I don't fully agree with that comment about children having unsupostive parent not being sucessful. the odds are stacked against them, but some of them can and do break the cycle of deprivation that they have grown up in.

Some of the members of my family have done just that.

It is depressing but in our current society (where class divisions are both mirrored and exacerbated by the education system) it is absolutely true.

Ah, yes, the good old days of the grammar schools. I was waiting for that one to come up. Grammar schools have only ever educated a minority. Maybe 1/3 of all schools were grammar schools. Within each grammar school there would be a very small minority of working class kids 'made good'. Those kids are now in comps where they still have the opportunity to do well academically but they are not separated from their brothers and sisters and neighbours.

I meant to say unlikely MB. There are always exceptions. And they are increasingly exceptional in every sense of the word.

There is an innate element Kathy. Some kids are born with learning difficulties; some are born with exceptional brains. But research suggests that if child A and child B are born with the same potential than child B will already be ahead in academic ability by aged 4 if child B is middle-class and child A isn't.

The main issue is language and litacy. Child B's parents have books and read to their child, they sing, they have a good vocabulary. They talk to their child etc.
By the time child A gets to school he will already find it difficult to access the curriculum because his langauge is underdeveloped. He recognizes he is being outstripped by his peers. He is demotivated and starts misbehaving.

This is one reason why most countries do not start formal education till aged 7 because aged 4 is very early to be put off school and learning and see yourself as a failure.

In my father's grammar school (in a mining village) the vast majority of the children were 'working class made good'. In others, in posher areas, it was the other way round.

You are missing the point of why I mentioned grammar schools. The relevance was that you claim that ability is irrelevant and that the only factor is background. The many (a minority, but still many) children who did well in grammar schools despite their background proves that that is false.

It is not only grammar schools that enable that, of course - it's any good school. As you say, 'those kids are now in comps.' SOME of them now have the opportunity to do well academically - the ones that happen to be in good schools. Unfortunately not every comprehensive is good.

No I wouldn't.

Before having children I would have subscribed to this view but now they are here I want the best for them in all ways, education being one of the paramount factors, and would sacrifice all, including my principles to get it for them.

OK, you are now admitting you were only talking about the majority and there are exceptions. That's better. What I was concerned by was the absolute way in which you phrased it.

I obviuosly move in the wrong circles- I have never heard the expression'poor schools' for state school before
I also don't believe that all children leaving school with no qualifications are doomed to failure.
I am sure some will lead happy, productive lives
Education is a wonderful thing but there is more to life

But you're missing MY point kathy. If you've got supportive parents the school is irrelevant. As I've said I'm teaching 2 kids who've got into Oxbridge (one Cambridge; one Oxford). Both are from badly performing schools (I'll look up their A-C but they're bad). Both have supportive parents. They're lovely.

I'm not saying ability is irrelevant and I'm not saying there's no hope. There ARE exceptions and they are to be encouraged and admired. I do this. A lot. But it's really really hard even to stay on post-16 for example if your parents are not in favour of education.

Swedes - I haven't any recent experience, but my brother went to Oxford so I ended up knowing quite a few people there through him. Some of them were incredibly impressive, and some of them - to be quite frank - seemed rather thick. However, this was about 20 years ago, so things might have changed in the meantime.

I'm not quite sure what Swedes and fivecandles are arguing about (which might explain why Oxford turned me down ). Swedes, do you really think that social bias plays no part in Oxbridge/Russell Group entrance? That admissions processes are all about intellect, and no other considerations (however unconscious) come into play?

Also, fivecandles point about Oxbridge being a tiny and ultimately irrelevant part of the system for most people is impeccable, surely?

You cannot be serious, mrsrufallo

The school isn't irrelevant though. It's one factor among many.

I don't know what you think 5candles, but the biggest impediment to good learning for many of the kids that I teach is a general low level of background disruption.

So you spend 20-30% of your time addressing behavioural issues, which is time wasted. And this happens most often with the kids who need your help most.

this sort of disruption just didn't happen when I was in a comp in the 70s, and we benefited from our education is a way that passes many of my students by.

My first step to improving education in the UK would be to improve standards of self discipline and self respect