Christina Lamb on state v private

[MollieO]

here

One of my favourite journalists. Knowing her previously published views I was interested, although not surprised, to read what she chose and why.

,sigh with relief

No
he might not.

If competition is important to you, then you can send your children to any number of locally run activities.

Another lame excuse for claiming that private equals better

paolos girl - that's all very lovely for mc children whose parents have time, money and transport.
But what about those children whose parents have none of that? If they do no sport in schools when do they get a chance?
I absolutely hate the idea that it's okay for some stste schools to be lacking because the parents can take up the shortfall. I hear this on MN so often as if the kids whose parents can't or won't do extra curricular stuff can just do without.

My children's schools have competitive sports days which include everyone. It's easy. Just have an obstacle race or an egg and spoon race or a rounders ball thing in amongst the quite serious races.

DD is very sporty but actually can't run very fast. This sounds like a contradiction in terms - she's in every school team and district ones too but sports days are mainly about people who can run quickly rather than being to hit a ball with topspin. So sports days really aren't her sort of sports and I think she is quietly grateful for the obstacle race.

So the best thing a woman can do is earn stacks of money so she can send her children to private schools? Really?

Is that not a valid choice, ladylush?

Quattro I was the opposite to your dd - very fast runner but really cr*p at team sports! I'm with Litchick in thinking that it is fine if you have the time to do the extracurricular activities but not all of us do. I tried and used to spend the whole of every weekend chasing around with ds so he didn't 'miss out'. Now he does those things at school so we have free weekends. Absolutely lovely and an unexpected bonus for both of us. We do other things now like day trips, visiting friends for the weekend etc whereas before we had to wait for holidays.

1. I really don't think that is the best thing a woman can achieve
2. It was a statement rather than an opinion

Those were my objections. Of course, we all have the right to choose our respective careers. I resent the idea that a woman is not doing the best she can by choosing a career that doesn't = stacks of money.

I agree ladylush.

Of course it is a valid choice to earn a lot of money.

It is also a valid choice to send your children to private school if that's what you (and they!!) want.

It doesn't therefore follow that the 'best' thing a woman can do is to earn enough money to be able to afford private school fees. Bizarre idea. Probably the best thing you can do as a parent is to lead a happy and fulfilling life so that you provide a good role model for your children. This may well involve earning a lot of money, but it could equally well involve having an interesting and worthwhile career that doesn't earn loads of money.

These articles by people who don't feel confident to send their children to state schools and then feel they have to publicy justify their choices are so tedious.

Well, bully for Christina. Once again, disagreement with the imperfections of the state system is automatically equated with the "choice" to remove one's children from it.

How nice that she can get paid to write an article boasting that she can find a spare £13,000 down the back of the sofa just so that little Lourenço (I mean, seriously? Did nobody else snort at Lourenço ?) can have the "best"? I wish these smuggo journalistas would shut the fuck up.

And "non-competitive" sports days sound like a loony PC London thing. We don't have that in my children's state primary. We have proper winners with trophies and everything.

Thanks Violethill - you said it with greater panache

UnquietDad think that criticising the writer's choice of names is pretty low whatever you feel about those who choose private education. Her husband is Portaguese, their choice of name for their son.

There is an interesting post on the Times 'School Gate' following on from this about Jade Goody's wish for her children. I was going to link it here but the comments are all a bit weird (nothing to do with private school and all about Jesus!)

Portuguese even!

My DC's first primary school had the non-competitive sports day exactly as she describes. The kids were bored stiff by it, and the parents were bewildered. The 2 primary schools I moved them to had houses, cups and winners.

I hated sport at school and was always the last one picked for teams, but having been a TA at a really rough secondary school I can actually see the value in being able to shine at something. We had one lad, year 10. Could barely read, bottom of the lowest set. Really struggled with every single subject. Came sports day and that boy actually beat a record for sprinting. I have never seen anything like it. He was fantastic. It gave him such a boost to beat all the people who were so much better than him academically.

There has got to be scope for allowing the athletes to shine and compete, while providing for those of us less co-ordinated at the same time.

LOL at those pretending ennui at these deabates then entering every thread about state v private.
If it's that dull stay away. I don't imagine the chicken keeping section would have much to entertain me but I don't post 'God, you lot are boring.'
What I don't understand is why some are saying the journo had no confidence in state when she gave it quite few years. Surely giving it a go means she wanted it to work?
And surely if we want state education to improve ( which even those of us that have never used it for our kids have a vested interest in it)we have to listen to all criticims?

Oh sorry, didn't realise, I thought it was just poncy!

I think you're being charitable there Litchick! I expect she gave it a few years to give her a bit of credibility and to provide material for her wearisome journalism!

Would also add that the writer's background is anything less than privileged. Bright but working class girl who went to Oxford and was surrounded by people she had nothing in common with. She has worked really hard to get where she has and obviously didn't consider private school for her child at primary level as she is an advocate for state education based on her own experience.

violet - my understanding is that she's a well regared foreign correspondent so I can't see how putting her kids in state education would be to give her writing cred.
It seems to me that she tried but didn't like.
Why is that so hard to believe.
We have plenty of kids are our school who went to state first. Their parents tried.

We should have well balanced sports days as people have described, with some "straight" races for the good-at-sport ones and some less serious ones like sack race and obstacle race mixed in.

We should also celebrate academic success in state schools with end of year prizes, again a mixture so that some of the less academic ones can shine (best story maybe, or a few most-improveds).

But because we don't, we get a culture of under achievement and people only know who scores goals for the school team, which is small minority. It shouldn't be like this.

well, I find this whole thing. We are not a sporty family (it is genetic, i spent dds formative years going to endless gym clubs and stuff in the hope that they would not hate PE like me!), however I felt mega strongly that at Lower School there SHOULD be competitive races at Sports Day. If a kid is good at something, they should have the chance to shine at it, and publicly too. The state secondary schools that they have gone to have any amount of competitive sport for those that are interested and to be fair try very hard to push physical activity to those that aren't competitive(cheer leading, dance, circuit training)

In contrast, the Independent School i am considering for dd2 is small, therefore have trouble fielding teams and as the pe teacher told me "we lose practically every match, but it is character building!"

Call me cynical Litchick, but I really don't think she was writing the article because we all need to know that she 'really tried' state education but found it didn't work for her son!

It's cheap shots.

her mistake is living in London and wanting chidlren to go to state schools and also not being that into or understanding of schooling probably because her husband is foreign and she want to state schools. Another soultion for her might be to move to a better bit of London away frmo bad inner city schools.