arabella weir on why we must send our kids to state schools

[nowirehangers]

Arabella on why she would never send her kids to private schools
What do people think?
Fwiw I find the tone unbelievably smug. I also disagree with a lot of what's being said. I don't think all parents send thier kids to private schools so they can avoid the great unwashed, though some do. I would love my dcs to go to a state school for the reasons she mentions.
What puts me off is the fact the teaching is so often mediocre - as the Chief Inspector of Schools admitted this week. Of course there are so incredible teachers in the state system but I fear there are a lot of second-rate one too. I went to a state primary where the teaching was awful then was moved in to a private school and couldn't believe how much more stimulating the atmosphere was and how much more inspirational the teachers were. I dislike the idea of my dcs mixing only with posh kids, so I'm going to put mye experience down as an unlucky one and give the local state school the benefit of the doubt but if I feel they're being taught badly I will remove them and remortgage the house or whatever to make it work. Anyway, that's my opinion, interested in others.

Privately educated children can't function normally in society. What offensive bolloxs that is. Ms. Weir's children may be confident enough to walk through council estates. Well so did I when I was a kid. Big deal. What about privately educated kids who have nannies (not the Xenia variety) and grandads, aunties, uncles etc. who LIVE on council estates! Perhaps they all too frightened to visit them?

My ds who now goes to private school spent lengthy periods of time at his grandparents house over the summer. To get a flavour of where they live, a few years agao I was asked by a fellow dinner party guest where I'd grown up and when I told him he replied that he had visited it as a student and found it to be the most socially deprived town he'd ever visited. My ds happily attended several sports courses there, and guess what, he fucking survived and made friends.

Not ALL kids in PE are bubble wrapped you know.

Sounds a bit plucked out of the air to me that's all. I wonder who asked the question and how (like was it if you had all the money in the world would you send you child to private school?)

As I have said before...I can afford to send my kids to private school but dont. Perhaps the situation is different in Scotland. I have always been more than happy with the education that I received and that DD1 is receiving. My PIL says that education provision in England is not very good. I dont really know if that is true...

if it is anything like when I was at school, it is very, very different in Scotland. I would start on the barnett formula, but that is a different thread

I wonder if she'll be so pro-state when it comes to secondary.

Lack of inspiration and lack of ambition were the things I found most sad int he last school I worked at. Couldn't understand how children, at just 13 or 14 (and older) could have no desire to want to do anything more with their life. Far far too many said they'd leave school as soon as they could and go on the dole - how sad is that. And lots of the girls just wanted to leave and have a baby - when they were 16.

It was really hard to get them to understand why it was a good thing to try hard at school and pass some exams.

K999 - the provision varies greatly between good and not so good schools in England.

Our local state secondary school is dire.

It was on special measures until three years ago and the legacy lives on.

We live in an area with fantastic state primaries but a history of poor state secondary schools across the whole borough. 40% of children in my borough go to private secondary schools (and I'm aware that many will say that this is what causes the schools to be dire.)
There are a couple of good schools in the borough but they are so oversubscribed that the chances of us getting a place for DS1 are nil.

DS1 loves school at the moment but I know that he will struggle in our local state secondary (which is all we will be offered, despite what we choose.)

I see a lot of the children out and about as the school is near our nursery. Most of them have dead eyes and a bad attitude.

Why would I inflict that on my child? He is going to have enough of a task getting used to 'really big school.'

And yes, you are right. I don't want my child to go to school with 'kids like them' - so shoot me now.

I am not shooting you, Bubble! Our local comp children do dead eyes and bad attitudes too.

The Independent Schools Council says it's 57 percent of parents who would like their children to attend indep. schools:

www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/business/825691/private-education.thtml

FWIW, whoever it was who says that being a Times journalist guarantees you connections and privilege (or whatever it was) really is very badly mistaken!!

My feeling is that a child would have to have a sense of commitment beyond their years to do (academically) well at a school like our local comp.

He or she would be swimming against a tide of 'poverty of aspiration.'

We're going to use an internet school for at least KS3 and expose our son to 'naice' children via evening clubs and his existing vetted friends. (double )

I was talking to someone today who was the cleverest child at their very very large Scottish comp, didn't go to university (even though they were the brightest child in all exam results etc) That seems amazing to me and entirely because they were from a poor working class background at a state school really.

I didn't say Times journalists had connections and privilege but I did say that a survey of how people get jobs in journalism found much more nepotism in terms of getting work experience and your first job from university than in most other professions.

In response to the OP.

I think it is incredibly easy for smug lefties to send their children to state primaries.

I know a couple of parents who crowed about it....until year 3 - when they suddenly moved their children to private schools.

What really irks me about all this is paying for an education that should be free by right to all children. I find that grotesque and absurd. Why is the state system such a mess?

Quattro.

It's a mess, IMO - because a lot of the children don't want to be there.

Some children just don't 'do' academia.

My DS2 will probably be one of them. He is obsessed with cooking. He loves trying new foods. He and I often go out to restaurants to try new stuff.

He tolerates school. He can read and write etc but doesn't enjoy the whole classroom thing.

He will now have to stay at school until he is 17. Why?

If DS2 could get a job as a washer-up for Gordon Ramsay at 14 he would probably end up being a fantastic chef.

I think, instead of raising the school leaving age - the govt should lower it to allow those with a wish to learn a trade to do so.

That way, schools would be left with pupils who want to be there.

I can't find anything about that survey on the ISC site. I would be suspicious of how the survey was phrased though, as the Independent schools council has a vested interest in saying that all parents would like their children to go to private schools.

I think that bubble has a point about forcing adolescents to stay at school, but there is also something abut how schools inspire children to stretch their aspirations, especially where the children have few role models of their own (outside the vacuous word of slebs that is).

Then I also think that making so many vocational careers into degree subjects probably doesn't help either.

Oh everything I know is of secondary... in Tottenham and Hackney. It's fine, really it is. Kids wanted to work hard, no stigma.

A huge proportion of top journalists and news presenters have been independently educated. And the figure is rising. Our news media is more unrepresentative than the judiciary.

Research from the Sutton Trust here

Dalex, you sound like our head. Dcs are at a non academically-selective independent primary in a very un-arabella nondescript suburb (lower-middle white monoculture, so the roll is, as others have said, MORE ethnically diverse at our school than the two local state primaries). She has many years experience in the state sector, as have a lot of the other teachers, and I feel that as independent education goes, ours is a pretty realistic school as well. That is why most of the families choose it . We're in Zone Four and not on the tube, and therefore right off the radar for fatuous commentators like Ms Weir. No right-on frisson for walking through edgy council estates round here.
I feel that Martin Samuels was unnecessarily pointed and chippy in his deconstruction of her article, but tbh, I think she had it coming. I never have much time for underwhelming actors telling other parents how to contribute to society.
I daresay her dds will be sent to Camden School for Girls (old girl connections? I wonder) with South Hampstead as a fall-back.

This is just newspapers (more private school people than amongst judges even)....

"Lee Elliot Major, News Editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement, who led the research, said: "What the research does not suggest is that editors routinely favour those from privileged educational backgrounds.
But it does point to a systematic bias towards the better off at the crucial entry level into national news organisations.

There were a number of reasons for this. They range from: low pay and insecurity at junior levels; the high costs of living in London; the increasing costs of postgraduate courses; a bias towards those with family or personal connections within the industry amid a largely informal but highly competitive recruitment process; and finally the stronger skills and attributes attributed at an earlier age by those from private schools.""

more unrepresentative
less representative

In my day (ahem, 20 years ago) after university most of my peers went to live in London.

Following on from Xenia's post, now I'm sure that now and in the future kids from London homes will have first dibs on sought-after yet initally low-paying jobs (or indeed 'work experience' positions where the employer can avoid paying anything at all) because youngsters from farther afield will not be able to afford to make a start in London.

If Hermione only has to travel in from Hampstead to her internship she beats hands down Penny from Portsmouth who would have to fork out hundreds of pounds on a train ticket and set off at 3am.

Dalex I won't spit tea at you unless you make me laugh!
I am starting to research secondary schools for dd1 (year 4 in state primary) at the moment. Threads like this make me so anxious. I'm the main breadwinner and just can't be sure that i could cope with London school fees for 5 years (10 including dd2 who is only 2!). I'm already 38 - will i even be employed in 14 years when dd2 is ready for 6th form?
I went to private school & know the advantages I got from it. DDs may end up at not especially impressive local comp nontheless. Pity there isn't a bursting into tears/self pity emoticom.

i think that has always been the case fircone

Fircone - I think you absolutely right.
Social mobility is becoming increasingly harder.
I remeber when I went into the law I became a soliciotr rather than a barrister a. because they paid my way through law school and b. because the starting salary was workable for someone just moving to London.
My friends who went to the bar had no help at bar school and then spent their training earning peanuts while still having to live in London.
How can anyone do that without family help?
Ditoo the world of publishing. When I last met up with my editor I was introduced to a lovely girl doing a placement for three months and my first reaction was where is she living and on what?!?

Excuse typing - have shocking Carpel.