Private school pupils banned from work experience in hospitals

[beelegal]

“Pupils who want to be doctors 'barred' from vital work experience at NHS hospitals - because they go to private school”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15007121/amp/doctors-work-experience-NHS-hospitals-private-school.html

This will be extended to all civil service jobs.
Bridgitte Philipson is a nasty bully. What next, private school pupils to sit on certain sections on buses? I cannot wait until the next general election, this shower need a wipeout.

Goody, misleading title OP.
It's not Government policy, where this happened it was the NHS hospital or a trust policy and referred to formal work experience schemes, leaving oppprtunities for work experience where the student has personal connections.
It's an attempt to level the playing field for those that don't have personal connections. Personally, I'm all for it.

The open secret in West London is that many families send to prep schools to avoid mixing with the "diverse" set from those many housing estates, even in Notting Hill, many of whom don't even speak proper English. NHS doctors are diverse too in the sense that many don't speak proper English and are apparently trained (or not) in the 3rd world.

“Coming over here, staffing our hospitals…..”

If there’s any accuracy in this ‘open secret’ then I’m very glad I don’t live in west London.

And yet there is a whole other world outside London 🙄

Hardly anyone actually gets onto the organised schemes - work experience ime is almost all done through parents connections. So if you privately educate I wouldn’t lose sleep over it!

This is not true at all, all work experience has to go through the education department.
Our schemes are widely advertised in our local schools and we have had open workshops in our hospitals for a day where schools in our area can register and bring children who are interested in doing medicine.
Some of us gave up our own time - took various medical gadgets, dummies etc., to participate in this.
I haven’t been involved in this post covid as taken other roles but to say that all the work experience is organised through contacts is plain wrong and misinformation!

As a previous poster has suggested, all this angst has to be addressed with your local schools to improve their standards . Hold the government accountable now that they have extra 20% private school fees.

The only area in London where I would be happy to send my children to state schools would be certain areas of SW. You walk around W or NW London like Maida Vale or Notting Hill after school time, you see many children don't speak proper English or yelling "fcuk fcku" on the bus.

DD is at a private school. We don’t have any ‘personal connections’. (NB: implicit assumption everyone at PS goes to somewhere like Eton and has a superior network of perfect work contacts).

We paid our taxes just like everyone else for the NHS. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to apply?

It’s hard for schools because pretty much everyone uses their personal connections for work experience so it’s definitely not equality of opportunity.

Only close friends / family would want someone else’s teen hanging around them at work for a week. At law firms it’s usually clients children that get work experience. The organised schemes take a tiny fraction of pupils.

My children and their friends go to state schools and are not in the habit of shouting “fuck you” at strangers on buses any more than their friends at private schools do 🙄🙄🙄🙄

My children and their friends go to state schools and are not in the habit of shouting “fuck you” at strangers on buses any more than their friends at private schools do 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Well said. One of mine is at a private school; the other was at private school because the state system couldn’t meet his needs, and then went to a special school. The younger one has a lot of friends from a wide range of local schools. I’m not aware of any of them swearing at people on buses, regardless of which school they go to. However there will be students at all types of school who choose to ‘entertain’ their fellow passengers like that, regardless of the school they’re at.

The pecking order now is Refugees > state school children > private school children

They send to prep for primary and grammar for secondary to get the both of both worlds while keeping their kids away from low to middle income people.

It isn't the low, middle income people that are the issue. It is the children with SEN who are being failed by the Gov, who have no business being in mainstream. If you removed all children with moderate/severe SEN from mainstream schools and put them in schools where they could thrive and flourish with additional support, the state sector would be absolutely fine.

No. They should just be levelling.
If private school parents were honest with themselves, they would agree that if their child had gone to a bog-standard comp they would not have got the same grade as going to a private school.
You cannot compare grades equally across schools - universities need to look at the student’s underlying ability and take the schooling into account.

This statement is simply not true for all children at private school, Perhaps for the average child who was admitted purely on the fact that their parents had the ability to pay( Private schools are a business after all and know they need bums on seats to break even and make a profit so admit under this guidance despite sitting an exam) BUT there are naturally gifted children who would do well at either state or private schools and have support at home for their education. Private schools have an ethos of hard work and plenty of homework that underpins what has been learnt in the day and high expectations of this work to be completed. When they are not met interventions are swiftly put in place to protect their reputation and grades. Grades are going to be better under those circumstances for an average child.

That’s what the poster was saying. Grades achieved within context is the right way to view them.

Maybe but the truth is that private school kids are still most likely to become doctors at the end of their degree (drop out rates are 50-60% higher for state school kids). This is obviously due to many of them being the children of doctors / knowing doctors and so they truly understand the workload but their parents’ ability to support them financially during the junior years is also a massive deal. If the NHS truly wants to increase state school representation in medical schools (and beyond) they have no choice but to increase junior salaries or lower academic requirements. Expecting a top state school student to go into medicine (over highly paid investment banking / stem careers) for all the money they might make if they worked privately at 30 isn’t a sweetener for kids who need money now.

There are many middle class DC with affluent parents in state schools who need no special considerations. Many DC in top grammars and other leafy comps live in houses worth several million pounds and have very well connected parents. Looking at things with a state/private school distinction is far too blunt and misleading.

I totally don’t agree with the ban but by a weird coincidence was listening to the Sutton Trust talk today about access to the medical profession and privilege. 56% of those going to Med school are from private or selective schools. It is one of the least equal professions class wise. I think this policy is a bit daft but something has to be done to make medicine open equally to all

You don't need experience in clinical setting to apply for eg medicine.
Private school pupils can go volunteer in care home and speak about that.
The schemes for local state schools aim to simply to open up the idea of eg medicine as an option.
Private school pupils will have it instilled already that they can apply for professional career jobs like medicine. And many will have the connection anyway.
Moaning about a scheme which puts state school.pupils first is naive.

@Walkthelakes That is because doctors privately educate their dc!! My neighbour did. My old school friend Dr did. My GP did. They now have Dr children. These dc get a curated childhood to become doctors and they don’t need any more help. They already have a very big advantage.

Most doctors I know come from families that also work in the medical profession. Does seem to be quite a follow in the footsteps profession

this is why contextual offers from university don’t just go on state/private divide. To receive a contextual offer for medicine you need to meet a list of criteria. Your state school needs to have a below average progress score (so if your state school is non selective but gets incredible results you are not considered as you haven’t been disadvantaged by your education), your home address needs to be in an area of deprivation (this is done on a granular post code level rather than towns) and often you need to be the first generation to go to university. Each of these factors do really really afffect attaintment do I think it’s fair. You are right going to a grammar or an outstanding state school gives you as much as an advantage as going private in some cases but admissions now recognise these nuances