Education and social mobility - John Humphrys is coming on for a discussion, Fri 29 Jan, at 11.30am

[GeraldineMumsnet]

John Humphrys is filming a documentary about education for BBC2. He is embarking on a journey around Britain to meet parents, teachers and students.

His task is to examine the relationship between education and social mobility - why is it that education cannot close the attainment gap that exists between children from the poorest and wealthiest backgrounds?

Government education advisor David Woods has accused parents of being prejudiced against their local state secondary schools. Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, calls the current independent sector an apartheid system. Professor Stephen Ball, from the Institute of Education, concludes that grammar schools, parental choice and faith schools have all been responses to middle-class concerns.

John is coming to Mumsnet this Friday (29 Jan) at 11.30am to hear your experiences. Are you benefiting from parental choice in education? Is it at the expense of others? Does the current system put too much responsibility on parents to make the right choices? Is it too stressful? Do you feel you have to top-up your children's education eg home-tutoring, learning an instrument, employing a lawyer? Are they worthwhile investments, or necessities that cause resentment?

Please post your thoughts here. Thanks in advance.

[hotspot]

I was surprised that, given the BBC's choice of "priviledged school" being Wellington College, there was no reference to the Academies which wealthy schools like Wellington have opened specifically to bridge the "divide" to which Humphries was at pains to illustrate last night. Being part-Government, part-privately funded, these schools would have kids enjoy the benefits of its sponsor school - their facilites, their ethos and their experience - but without the fees.

I suspect their ommission was because the programme was entitled "Unequal Opportunities" and presented by someone with a chip on his shoulder for not getting any A levels.

I agree with MumInBeds by the way. I can add at least another half a dozen to your estimate.

[MollieO]

I saw our catchment primary go from Ofsted outstanding to special measures. The only change in staff was the head - the old one retired and the new one (external appointment) couldn't cope.

[psammyad]

I used to be sceptical about 'superheads' being brought in, but I was lucky enough to see the difference at Primary School level, that bringing in an excellent Head made.

So I wonder - and the programme seemed to make this point as well - if it is poor leadership as much as poor teaching that is letting children down?

Our new Head worked with mostly the same teachers as before, some good, some mediocre, but in spite of that the overall quality of learning improved hugely.

Of course I'd love all teachers to be brilliant, (not to mention have a basic command of grammar) but a mediocre teacher who is well managed may be better value than a good teacher who is overworked, & badly led.

[OliviaMumsnet]

BBC iPlayer link to catch up

[senua]

"the purported statistic that half of school children in London have private tutors"

The statistic was from the lady who ran the tutoring business so of course she is going to cherry-pick data. However, IIRC, she actually said half of families, not half of children.

So did Mr Humphreys come to the same conclusion as OFSTED the other day? - that it is poor teaching that is letting the children down. He showed a couple of examples where inspirational Heads achieved good results despite the deprivation of their catchment area.
It's what we keep saying on MN. There would be no problem with sharp-elbowed MC parents if all schools were good, because then there would be nothing to be sharp-elbowed about.

[MumInBeds]

The only parents I know in London with private tutors have them in addition to private schools not instead of them. Many private schools are very competitive and if you want your child to pass the tests to stay in the school you often have to get extra help.

Obviously this is my very limited experience of knowing half a dozen London families though.

[psammyad]

I'm more staggered, that (living in London) I don't know a single child with a private tutor.

I don't disbelieve the statistic, but it makes me realise how utterly separated my life must be, from the type of parent who does this. (Or who would admit to it).

Can't work out if that's a good or bad thing!.

[MollieO]

I'm staggered at the purported statistic that half of school children in London have private tutors.

[fabsoopergroovy]

I've booked a seat.

[edam]

I heard him on Today this morning - interesting discussion. He interviewed a tutor and pointed out there's a shadow education system for children whose parents can't afford to go private but can afford tutors.

[HelenMumsnet]

Morning!

Just to let you know that John Humphrys' doc on Education is being shown on BBC2 tonight at 9pm and, we're promised, will feature this webchat with y'all.

[EducationDocTeam]

Thanks TiggyR for the suggestion, will follow up with MNHQ!

We didn't mean to completely kill the debate! I hope people aren't put off because they feel like their own story isn't important enough. The focus of the programme is on everyday education issues that the majority of parents face on a regular basis. As the debate here has shown, lots of people are wrestling hard with the decisions they have to make, and these decisions have can big impacts on their lives. We don't want to gloss over the realities of the issue by just talking at a policy level.

If you have any other thoughts please let us know, and feel free to post me directly.

[jackstarbright]

Ooh Tiggy. I just clicked on thinking you'd posted to volunteer yourself .

Edudoc - Tiggy's advice is good!!

[TiggyR]

Well, that killed the thread, didn't it! We've all gone strangely quiet at the thought of actually meeting JH and stringing an intelligent sentence together.

Seriously though, this thread was colonised by only half a dozen people or so in the end and perhaps we don't feel we have a relevant/interesting enough story to tell.

I suggest you should start a new thread with your request in the title, or ask MNHQ to make an announcement for you. Most people who stopped contributing to this discussion after one or two comments will not be getting this flagged up on their
'I'm on' thread list any more. Hope you get some interest!

[EducationDocTeam]

We've just finished our first block of filming for the programme and are now planning the second. Thank you to everyone who talk part in the online forum, it was a great springboard from which to start the journey and it has been very useful in helping to shape our thinking about the film. We are still looking for contributors for the programme and we wondered whether anyone would be available to have a chat with John in person? We would be keen to talk with parents who have found a way through the parental choice system, by making big changes in their own lives. As a parent John appreciates the pressure that many are under, although he admits himself that he has the finances to try and address some of these issues; but John would like to find out more about some of the very real pressures that the system has places upon you and your family - for example, school fees you can't really afford, moving house, renting flats, attending church etc..? Are these pressures now just part for the course?

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I have not even got my marking out of the car yet, I can't face it.

Got to write my own essay first before I mark theirs.

[ellokitty]

Sorry, that sounds a bit teachery . Ahem, back to marking exam papers for me!

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I know I should have listened harder in a level sociology. So the fact that I am clearly a bit thick means I now must qualify as working class.

Seriously though you would only have to be in my company for a few minutes to know I am not middle class. The same for both if my sisters as well.

[ellokitty]

No twinset, Karl Marx talked about the Proletariat and the Bourgeoise. This is most definitely not the same as the class system and you should not confuse the two.

The Proletariat are the workers of production, and that includes all the people who 'work the machine' - so would include our concept of middle class and working class together. The Bourgeoisie are the owners of production - but that could also be middle class and upper class, but could even include some working class people (if they owned small businesses etc).

Just because you are Proletariat, that does not make you working class. Just like a Solicitor, doctor, dentist etc are still classed as Proletariat, but I do not know of (m)any defintions of class that would classify them as working. Aren't they mostly classified as Upper Middle, as opposed to you as a teacher, who would be classified as Lower middle?

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I am sure Karl Marx described the working class as those that have to sell their labor for wages and do not own the means of production.

Admittedly as a teacher I do not labor as such but I have to work for my wages and do not own anything other than a second hand car. I don't own any land. Tbh I would be in trouble if I relied on physical labour to bring in a wage as those jobs are in decline. I was for much of last year working as a cleaner to make ends meat due to the fact that I had run up debt. Another working class trait I don't do deferred gratfication. As a single mother I spent years relying on welfare benefits.

I love a working mans club and would still drink in one if I didn't live in Tory heartland. I do love talent shows which are in essence entertainment from such clubs put on TV.

Anyway I have an essay I should be writing.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

TiggyR

No because I was that disadvantaged pupil who started reading a broadsheet, I was well spoken with a northern accent and would and still do self correct my grammer. I never did that to change class though!

ellokitty

Aftert I left my husband I had to move back to my working class town. I was too mortified by what had happened to catch up with any old friends. So I had to start again. I was accepted as just a member of the community albeit with a few expensive clothes and a degree.

TiggyR

Well obviously I disagree about the clearly you are not. I guess there may be an element of that. Although I don't think I have achieved that much tbh but nothing has been given to me everything has and probably always will be a battle. The same for my dp which is the thing that binds us together. I do think it is important that you remind young people that your family circumctances need not hold you back and that obstacles are there to be overcome.

I probably would take the uni place now, it does hang over me as the one thing that I wanted to achieve that I didn't. Having said that I chose my universty place because there were certain academics that I wanted to learn from.

My mum would have been whatever she wanted to be if she did the things she claimed she did. She claimed to read two broadsheets every day and do the crosswords at great speed. The only time she ever read a paper was if I left one lying around and then she would only manage a few minutes. Her motivation would be that this is the kind of thing m/c people do. She tried to make friends with people who gave her status rather than people she genuinely liked. SHe made up holidays, food that she ate. She would put on the most ridiculous airs anbd graces. She has told me a number of times that she was eternally shamed by her working class status which in private she would admit.

If only she was the person who enabled me to go to university and get a career. The exact opposite was true. She was however furious that I did not take my Oxford place, I suspect part of me didn't take it to wind her up. Teenagers can be daft and stubborn.

[TiggyR]

God, the more typos I try to correct, the more I make.

[TiggyR]

Sorry, that should be 'try to speak only in standard English!'

wasteinset I'm interested in knowing more about your mum 'trying' to be middle class. How did that manifest itself in your eyes? You say she was a union rep - that doesn't sound much of a MC calling to me! What does someone do to try to be middle class, as opposed to being a working class person who has aspires to rather more than most people around them?

[TiggyR]

It does irk me that the moment you have aspirations beyong scrubbing your step you become middle class...'

I love that line.

What is very telling about this thread is that almost everyone who has bothered to contribute is, by today's standards, middle class, but with the exception of a small handful of us, almost all of us appear to have come from working class roots on at least one side of our family within the last two or three generations.

I think the reason people like wastwinset still define themselves as working class even though they are clearly not is that it's a way of saying proudly 'I achieved my status all by myself, and from the very bottom. It wasn't born halfway up the ladder, like you, or near the top like you, and no-one smoothed the path for me. I had a longer, harder climb than you, with heavier baggage, but here I am, nonetheless. That make me more than equal'

It seems it's very important to you that people know that. (not a criticism, honestly - just an observation.)

But you are proof that SM happens by itself for people with intelligence and drive. I'm sure there were few well-meaning government initiatives in place to help wastwinset on her way. But to turn down a place at Oxford because you felt you wouldn't fit in?
You just contributed to maintaining the status quo! Shame on you!

If you were a young person applying to uni now (not sure how old you were, but let's assume that was 20 years ago) would you still aspire to an Oxbridge place, and would you would feel perfectly comfortable taking it? I'm curious to know whether the landscape has changed in that respect. It certainly should have, with the amount of time and money spent on manipulation of the admissions criteria to accept more state school applicants.

Also, you say you were always a bit embarrassed by the fact that your mother always wanted to be MC and tried to be something she wasn't. Surely she was whatever she wanted to be? Why should she continue fit neatly into her status pigeonhole just because she was born into it? Are you suggesting she should have known her place? Not had high-falutin' ideas above her station? Perhaps her lofty (social) aspirations were what enabled you to be the WC child who applied to Oxford. Had your mother not had MC aspirations she may have unwittingly held you back through a sense of inverted snobbery.

As a teacher, if you had a socially disadvantaged pupil who suddenly took to reading the broadsheets in his lunch break, and trying hard to speak on in standard English, and self-correcting his grammar, to 'improve' himself, would you tell him he was wrong to try?

[mathanxiety]

If there are no incentives for anything, why haven't the Finns, etc. died out? Why is Finland such a prosperous place? Why do the Finns even bother getting up in the morning? Does a sense of personal fulfillment outside of salary or material things or jockeying for place as in Britain count for anything?

I have to say I don't understand Xenia's whack-a-mole theory of society, with the ups and corresponding downs. What's available, even in material terms, has no limits. In spiritual terms, in terms of personal fulfillment outside of things material, that goes without saying.

Being Irish complicates my view of Britain to some extent, or maybe it simplifies it. There are Britons who would never think of me as anything but 'Irish' and whatever that connotes to them. There are people who would never be able to 'place' me, so I would be very confusing to them, because class is their overriding concern. (And I pronounce it Haitch ) I think when you travel, and especially when you live abroad, you get an entirely different perspective.