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.

[loungelizard]

Yes, well said Custardo.

[overmydeadbody]

and I agree about making children stay back a year like the american system. Tihs is what I had as a child and beleive me, everyone in my school worked their butts off to pass their exams every term, no one wanted the humiliation of being kept behind.

[UniS]

Parental choice? there isn't any if you live in rural area. with no school transport if you chose an out of designated area school.
We chose designated area school or have to travel 20 miles day just to do primary school run. Further at secondary level.

[elvislives]

When I went to school as a rising five in the 1960s parents had no choice. You just got a letter telling you which school you would go to. But each primary school's catchment area took in a variety of different areas/ houses/ estates, so you got a mix in each school.

By the time my children went in the 90s there were (allegedly) no catchment areas. I went to a lot of trouble to choose a school but as it turned out I made the wrong choice. I did feel responsible when it all went wrong. Our second attempt at choosing was better but we ended up with a 300 miles a week school run and spent a fortune on travel.

We were lucky that we were in a grammar area and 2 of our boys got in. We were also lucky enough to get 2 into private school on Assisted Places. We were even luckier that the child who didn't get into grammar had a fantastic and nurturing experience at the local high school- which has gone sharply downhill since he left due to a change of Head.

Now we are in the situation that we've moved area for work and need to be living practically next door to a good school to get our DD in. Where we are we just can't afford the house prices around good schools. We need to put apply for a school at the end of this year and it is worrying me sick. There really isn't any excuse for any primary school to be a sink school, so why are they?

[Doobydoo]

Would like to know where David Woods,Anthony Seldon,and Stephen Ball went to school.
If we had money ds would go to the Dragon school first.
He will be going to one of two Grammar schools.If he had not passed 11+ he would have continued to be home edded.
It is very complicated.We are not well off.We did not have a tutor for ds1.We feel Grammar schools are also not ideal and that regarding social mobility you have to pay for a school where you meet people that will have the most chance in running the country etc.
Not well written...sorry, in a rush.

[loungelizard]

What distresses me most about the current education system is that an averagely intelligent child who is educated privately comes out with such better GCSE/A level results, and thus so many more opportunities and chances than their state school counterparts.

My DCs all passed to our local highly academic grammar school. Lucky them. The difference in the results from their contemporaries, who went either to decent local comp, local private school, local not so decent comp, is pretty depressing, even though they all started off at probably more or less the same level academically.

[GeorginaWorsley]

I agree with Custado.
Dumbed down Britain.
Never mind 'broken Britain'
There will be countles houses with wide screen tvs,computers,x boxes galore.But no books.
Nevermind,offer every low income family a laptop.That 'll get them all into Cambridge.

[Doobydoo]

It's not all about results though is it.It is who you meet.

[Lymond]

I think we need proper access to grammar schools back. And I say that as the daughter of parent's who failed their 11 plus, but ended up very successful in their chosen fields after vocational training that they were well suited for.

[Doobydoo]

They need Canon Fodder Custardo.

[UniS]

I think a lot of rural comps do a pretty good job. they HAVE To serve all the children in catchment. City schools seem to get away with being pants and claiming specialist status for a handful of subjects and ignoring the rest.

[Lenni]

Wow! This is my Masters thesis topic and my absolute passion.

I recently did a study with 5 parents in a rural primary school and even there there is a lot of pressure on parents with the current system of choosing secondary education. One parent described it as the most difficult thing they had ever faced as a parent and all 5 of the parents said it was a stressful process. Only one child got their first choice and two were appealing, both of them children with SEN. I agree that urban schools are more able to stratify their intake but in many rural areas the old Grammar school hierachy still persists which is just as divisive.

[Lenni]

Hello Lenin - nice to make your acquaintance, I often get mistaken for you.

I think the answer lies not with education if I'm honest. There is evidence that no matter how good the school system the attainment gap is not affected. If you think about this anecdotaly so many schools get better by attracting families who are able to actively make the choice to send their kids to a 'good school' albeit by moving into the catchment area, going through the appeals process, understanding the choice system in the first place... all things that require planning, literacy, ability to represent oneself and money. So those without these skills are more likely to end up with their children in a poorly performing school. I think the parental choice system should be scrapped along with faith schools and other voluntary aided schools and children should go to their local school. But that is not without pitfall either as schools being in competition has improved them.

[Lenni]

Should also add that the community cohesion agenda has moved on from preventing violent extremism and the aim of a lot of that activity (including Extended Schools) is to try and improve social mobility by involving communities in education and providing parents with access to support and 'parenting classes' with the idea that parents become more involved in their child's education and access training relevant to them too.

[Lenni]

Yep - I had a bit of a terrible time whilst at school, one of my parents committed suicide when I was 11 and the other had a breakdown as a result and has been mentally ill ever since. I had to bring up my siblings, care for my parent and try and make it through school somehow. But I left school with straight A's, went on to get A's at A level and studied Physics at uni, then became a teacher and now research this exact topic. Not sure I would have been so lucky to have made it through that nowadays - for a start we would have been taken into care and with 4 of us would probably not have stayed together. I think there was more goodwill among the teaching profession then and common sense prevailed. We were not in danger and we probably wouldn't have faired any better in care unfortunately.

As for uni - I missed the last boat on funding and am still up to my eyeballs in student debt. I only made it through thanks to the generosity of DH's family who took in his then girlfriend and fed me and paid my last term of tuition fees so I could graduate. It was a very depressing experience.

[stealthsquiggle]

By whom is it assumed that there is a grammar option everywhere? Here (rural area, where I have lived on and off since I was 12) there is the local (rural, not bad, but lacking in ambition for the children) comprehensive, there is a CofE comp with a wide catchment area that needs vicar's references, etc, and there are independent schools with bursaries for those able to navigate the form that took DH and I (both degree-level educated) a whole weekend to complete and you have to have the confidence to ask for it in the first place. What used to be the boys and girls grammar schools are now, respectively, an independent school and a sixth form college.

The need to intervene is not new. When I was a child, at the beginning of the comprehensive system, my parents ended up spending every spare penny, plus scholarships and assistance from grandparents because my mother (a teacher) could not face the only state options available. The only difference is that parents can now choose to intervene by moving, appealing, hiring tutors/lawyers, etc as an alternative to beggaring themselves to pay fees.

DH and I have resigned ourselves to the same route, with less/no support from grandparents because they don't have the means to do it.

[seeker]

If you ask people if they want Grammar Schools they say yes.

Try asking them if they want Secondary Moderns!

[Heated]

I come from a London borough where there are no grammar schools but parents move house in order to get their children into one of 2- 3 good high schools, the other 8 or schools are mediocre to pretty dire. So houses from £350,000 upward sorts the 'wheat from the chaff' or they go private. But given the option of sending your child to a good school or stabvest high, you can see why parents do it. The intake doesn't totally exclude children from the poorest backgrounds since each of the good schools have within their catchment areas of social deprivation, but if you look at the % on free school meals, there is a clear discrepancy and also ethnic divide. Social mobility occurs - university and a profession are the expected goal - which is not the background of most parents in the area.

Imo, the competitive manoeuvrings to gain entrance to grammar aren't that much different, except it doesn't come at the cost of the price of a house, but training the child to pass the test (since the test covers aspects not on the national curriculum). So in theory bright poor children still get in but it depends on the aspirations and a certain level of education of the parents, rather than their bank balance or, as it should be, the child's natural academic ability. The intake as a result are mostly middle class, but given that encapsulates a vast swathe of Britain these days, that statistic is losing some of its force imo.

[BelleDeChocolateFluffyBunny]

They closed the Grammar school in the town where I grew up so I ended up at the comprehensive, in the top class with a vast majority of children who couldn't be bothered and didn't want to be there. It's really hard to learn in an environment where the teacher walks out during the lesson because people are talking over her and won't sit down. It's also really hard to work in a disfunctional home environment aswell. Times have not changed really have they. My life would have been so different if the Grammar school was still there, I'll never know though. As for private schools, I didn't know they existed or I would have begged for a place.

[stealthsquiggle]

seeker - OTOH, at tertiary level, bringing back polytechnics would be an eminently sensible (but probably politically impossible) option - why excellent Polys were made to enter the fray with, and become indistinguishable from, mediocre universities I will never understand.