Ending Educational Hypocrisy on Mumsnet

[zanzibarmum]

Do you think we might end educational hypocrisy on these threads by having to declare what type of school our DC go to - you know the sort of thing the mumsnetter who wants to abolish faith schools on the grounds of fairness while sending own DC to private schools or the mum whose children are in high-performing postcode protected state schools and wanting to abolish GS.

Or is the apparent inherent hypocrisy ('do as I say not as I do') so favoured by politicians and some MNs part of the fun.

So academic jobs are now the only worthwhile ones are they?
Not to me they're not! My whole point is that pupils should be taught according to their strengths and to prepare them for the life they are likely to lead. Of course academic pupils need a grammar school. The same way as creative schools should provide for those who are creative, business schools for those who have a business mind etc.
NOT that grammar schools should exclude all working class! Quite the opposite. I think middle class parents should buy private education to leave places at good state schools for those who cannot afford it!

fivecandles - I think that same report also highlighted the fact that gs were, however, LESS, socially exclusive than many top-performing comps (including faith-based comps - but I'm not keen on adding that particular educational item to the bonfire!).

Honestly, education in this country is just seriously bloody unfair.

Anyway, fivecandles-
I thought we were meant to be talking about what would work in the future, not what is failing to work now! The grammar schools left now are nowhere near what they were designed to achieve!

Heaven forbid there should be a child who is creative and business minded...

...he/she had better make her mind up by age 11!

pugs you really don't know very much about social class do you?

Do you honestly think that MPs get to be MPs because they are born with the brains of MPs and that bricklayers are born with the brains of bricklayers.

And that what a child can expect to be when he or she grows up is entirely down to his or her 'ability'??

Honestly, you are making me very, very depressed.

So we shouldn't aim to reach our potential then?

Well, cherry, it says 80% of the top performing schools are selective grammars but I think we are all aware that the top comprheneisves are also socially exclusive. That's part of what this debate is about.

Grammar schools did help social mobility for a very small group of people. But that's not to say that good comprehensive schools couldn't do the same, when well run and with a good push on aspiration. I went to private schools, and remember being amazed (yes I was fairly crass) when I went to university that my friends from big out of London comps (ie the sort where pretty much everyone went there) had excellent equipped and taught schools. It is perfectly possible to have an excellent school that caters for different abilities and interests. Just sad that this often doesn't happen.

The trouble with the grammar (tripartite) system is that it was never fully introduced. The grammar bit happened and the secondary moderns, but most of the technical schools were never built. Then the grammar schools got most of the money, making it very obvious that they were the prestigious choice (the original idea was that all the schools would be considered similarly good). So effectively what happened is that round about 70% of children had a very poor education.

So yes the social mobility for some was good, but the very poor standards for the rest was a big problem. Of course the promise of "grammar schools for all" didn't pan out either. What we have now is really just a bit of a mess, with some excellent schools, some schools selecting on all sorts of indicators, some schools pretending to specialise, some actually specializing, and some that are just appalling. The "choice" agenda is a total con IMO, available to very few, and with all sorts of restrictions pretty much built in.

Yes, fivecandles, completely and utterly agree there.

pugs, I don't think you're following this argument very well. It is my view indeed that everybody should strive to reach his or her potential. In order to do this it is important that every child is given the same opportuntieis which involves a good education regardless of parental income.

To be fair, though, as Starlight Mackenzie pointed out (second post on thread) there are some AMAZING schools that do amazing things without a middle class intake. so let's not overlook them. Well done.

And some crap ones that do poorly with a middle class intake ... what can you say?

But, usually, there is a, economics/class correlation.

nooka - yes, that sounds about right.

It is generally held that the UK system gets children to specalise way to early, and that's the view about A levels - ie choices at 18. How can any child or parent possibly know at 11 what their child is "destined" to be. And what about the people who change career as adults. I know people who have gone from being say stockbrokers to jewelers and teaching has lots of business people who change their minds too. If you don't have a solid academic foundation (with numeracy and literacy being absolute basics) then your options for the future are very limited. I'm all for apprenticeships and other options being available at 16 (I think making all children do A levels, or so many go to university is almost certainly not the way to go) but not at 11!

pugsandseals, if everyone reached their potential, society as we know it would collapse.

Whether you think this would be a good or bad thing is up to you.

Yes, cherry. I have worked in those schools and do work with them but you'll never find them in the top 100 in the league tables because almost all of the ones there are selective grammar and faith.

Yes, thanks for that Nooka. That's what I was trying to say but you put it better.

tether, depends what you mean by potential. I am always striving to meet my potential as a teacher. My sister is striving to reach her potential as a SAHM. Horses for courses though everyone should be entitled to the same opportunities IMHO.

nooka,
you explain the history so well!
I wonder if the history will discourage people from trying this system again?
I do hope that is not the case!

pugs, even the Tories have abandoned the idea of grammar schools. What planet are you on?

I do agree fivecandles, I'm just getting sidetracked into an argument about the bigger picture and the nature of the society in which we live.

I am not advocating it, I am just pointing it out.

I will get back to the topic in hand

fivecandles - honestly, there really are some schools out there that are not in gs area, have largely mc intakes and are still not v. good.

I'm not disputing that is gs areas, the non-gs are operating with a serious handicap.

I'm just saying that gs are not , entirely, the root of the problem - they can't be given that there are not so many gs areas left in the country.

The great thing about Fiona Millar is her attitude to comprehensives appears to differ according to whom she is adddressing. Certainly I've read articles where she berates middle class parents for wasting their money on private schools as, she claims, their dcs will do just as well in an inner city comp!

If Camden School for Girls was selective when she went there, she meets my criteria for educational hypocrisy.

Morosky - Glad you're ok(ish). Are you saying that maybe there is no such thing as the perfect school for all and there is a cost to letting the requirements of middle class parent's drive the development of a school?

What did happen to Boffinmum?

I think on the whole the remaining GSs make little difference (because of their relatively small numbers). I worked in Inner London, where there are none left (I suspect they went pretty early given the political make up of the LEAs - actually probably the GLEA) and secondary schools were a major problem, with really poor results, problems retaining teachers, disciplinary issues etc etc. Parents that could opted out (plenty of private provision) leaving real sink schools. Many things have been tried, but the only one that seemed to work is getting in inspirational head teachers and giving them a free hand as much as possible. However whether this is a short or long term answer is difficult to know. Ultimately the biggest determinant of a child's success is not their school, but their parents.

What I do wonder about is why even very deprived areas can have excellent primary schools, but it all seems to fall apart at secondary level.

Sadly, mt local schools are shocking. Most of the time spent telling the kids to sit still and stop fighting instead of teaching. I send my kids to school to learn. I expect them to revise and do homework because I had a crap education and I am suffering as a result of that.

It irritates the fuck out of me that those with money locally can afford to send their children to a school to learn, get an education. I am going to have to lie and go to church to get my kids into a decent local school.

If my parents had had a good education they might have understood the importance of me having a good education...even now they dont get it and think Im a snob. Yet I know that if my kids go to a crap school its likely they will have poor results unless I do something now.

In the meantime I am back at college at 40 trying to get the education I should have received as a child. I dont want this for my kids.

If that makes me a snob or hypocrite I couldnt care less quite frankly.

Unless there is a decent education system in place for EVERYONE that is fair then these conversations are going to run and run....

I went to a grammar school and my children are in the state system (DD will go to a state comp in 2 years), and I have close friends schooled in the private sector, so I like to think my experience covers a few bases.

The hostility to grammar schools is understandable, but is based on a false premise, or at the very least a misleading interpretation of the information given.

The problem we have is not with a divide offered in the types of education on offer (and I wouldn't be in favour of a straight return to the 11-plus - I've said that before).

The problem is with how they are perceived, and valued. After all, you can earn more as a plumber than as a writer, and so why is a plumber dismissed as an unworthy "menial" trade by some when it is actually a very difficult professional skilled job for which you "only" have to go to a comprehensive (and then do NVQs etc.)? It doesn't make sense.

If there was just one thing I could change about the system in the short term, it would definately be to broaden the primary curriculum first! It is in no way fair that only those that have the time/money get the (currently) extra-curricular experiences I think are at least as important as literacy & numeracy.

Not read the whoel thread, but often feel that suych debates about "choice" are incredibly London/big city-centric, in that it is only in areas of dense popultation that there is achoice of schools for parents to choose from (private or state or faith).

The number of times I have read thread on Mumsnet when people have "answered" someone's thread when the OP had issues with excessive "faith" at the local school by saying "just send them somewhere else" without taking into consideration that the "alternative" is not a real altenrative at all, being some distance away - particularly inappropriate at primary school