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Original poster

Article on Toby Young's west london free school - I don't understand admissions

384 replies

PollyParanoia · 22/06/2010 12:15

Ok article is here from yesterday's standard.
I do find all this stuff about "we want a school with high standards" a bit strange - is there anyone head or parent who actively wants a crap one?
But my main question is one of admissions. It says that the site is 3 miles from Toby Young's house. Presumably that would mean that his four children wouldn't get in if it's done on catchment. Is this the case? If true, it seems strangely admirable and altruistic of him to be doing all this hard work. I suppose I should be applauding his philanthropy rather than assuming he wants an education he can't afford to pay for...

OP posts:
Colleger · 14/09/2011 20:41

I think it's offensive to the working classes or those with poor economic means to state that they can't possibly understand terms such as Michaelmas. Why should they be educated at the lowest common denominator level? Why cannthey not receive a classic and intellectual education? Are you saying they don't have enough intellectual potential? What holds poor people back is other poor people's mentality!

yellowsubmarine41 · 14/09/2011 21:00

No-one's said anyone can't possibly understand anything. I think it's offensive to leap from someone saying that a particular term is a potential barrier to speak about the lowest common denominator of education - who are the lowest denominator of which you speak.

The fact of the situation is that TY's free school is very unrepresentative of the local community in ethnic and economic terms and it's reasonable to ask any this is.

2rebecca · 14/09/2011 21:24

If there are enough people within the catchment area interested in his school and it is oversubscribed then isn't that a good thing? I'm in Scotland so no free schools here but if I lived in an area with alot of deprivation and it was private school or Toby Young's school or state school where hardly anyone spoke English and the parents weren't aspirational I know which I'd choose. When it comes to encouraging your kids in music the chinese ethnic origin parents beat the europeans easily.
I wonder if alot of people are anti his school because it is Toby Young. It doesn't sound that bad a school.

yellowsubmarine41 · 14/09/2011 21:32

"state school where hardly anyone spoke English and the parents weren't aspirational"

Oh, yes. Those ones.

Michaelahpurple · 15/09/2011 10:53

Tortu - why are non-middle class parents not familiar with the free school, as middle class parents are? Can't they read papers, listen to radio 4, ask other parents? Are they just stupid and uninterested in their children? Presumably not, but this seems to be the implication behind all of these comments about insidious middle-class bias, sharp elbows etc. And for the unemployed, as a further subset, there is far more time available to find out about things.

What should be done to force information down the throats of these neglectful idiots?

yellowsubmarine41 · 15/09/2011 19:52

"neglectful idiots"

Oh, yes. Those ones.

chrchrch · 15/09/2011 21:11

I know of at least two children who have places from a lottery. Their parents are mighty relieved because the alternative schools in central London were frankly places that are enormous and very scary for adults, let alone kids, e.g. teacher rape type history. That's why parents support the school. It's simply somewhere where they hope their 11 year olds will be a little safer than elsewhere. Of course there won't be any older kids threatening them this year... Who cares about Michaelmas or Lent or Play or Election etc terms? We're talking much more basic level here, those of you lucky people who don't have the London problems.

yellowsubmarine41 · 15/09/2011 22:09

I live in London and tbh I find TY and his cohort quite scary.

chrchrch · 15/09/2011 22:37

Sure. yellowsub, can't argue with that. Just that for some, it's a case of choosing what's less scary. Good that you've got less scary options, these parents haven't, and believe me they have tried.

yellowsubmarine41 · 15/09/2011 22:45

Sorry, how do you know what my options are?

chrchrch · 15/09/2011 22:48

Why should I have to know your options to make a reasonable assumption you'd make the best choice for your kids? If that assumption is mistakened, then I shall have to bear the mistake as best I can.

yellowsubmarine41 · 16/09/2011 07:12

Eh? You've completely lost me now.

chrchrch · 16/09/2011 07:32
Biscuit
areyoutheregoditsmemargaret · 16/09/2011 13:42

It's patronising in the extreme to say some people aren't able to access the information about the free school, of course they are

My dcs go to what is not considered a "good" state primary locally (though imo it is) because it serves a big, poor, very ethnically-mixed estate very similar in makeup to the estates in Hammersmith around the Free School (and there are some v wealthy patches too, just as in Hammersmith).

Many people who live on this estate actively shun the school (again imo mistakenly, based on its old reputation but that's up to them!). They find religion, move, or do whatever it takes to get their dcs into other schools.
They can do it at primary level and they're also, I know, doing whatever they can to avoid the crap secondary school for their dcs, so why would it be different in this case?

yellowsubmarine41 · 16/09/2011 16:25

I don't understand your point *areyoutheregod".

Is it the 'poor and ethnically' mixed who are shunning your local school?

What are your views about the unrepresentative demographic of TY's free school? (phr outlines the disparity between the local FSM % and that at the free school above).

areyoutheregoditsmemargaret · 16/09/2011 18:06

Rich people avoid the school because of its "dodgy", in their minds, demographic. But so do many of that very demographic too because they perceive it as rough.

My view on free meals is that TY has said he hopes the gap will close in two years time. If parents are aware about the school - and why on earth would they not be, as someone else said unless they are "neglectful idiots" which 99 per cent of parents are not? - then that ballot should reflect the mix of the area, as he hopes.

yellowsubmarine41 · 16/09/2011 20:07

That's TY's 'hope' for the future, not any sort of explanation about the unrepresentative demographic of the school at the moment.

Tortu · 16/09/2011 20:28

Hey Michaelah- good question. I was grandly sweeping. I guess, technically my parents have access to the same Media as everybody else. But the target audience of Radio 4 is blatantly educated, middle class people. It is not people who struggle to speak English and don't know their rights. I've spent the afternoon talking to a couple of students following a gigantic examinations cock-up involving the papers of 500 students (basically, our school's fault). How many parents complained? None. How many students? Two.

HOWEVER........I'm on here as I have gossip. I was on the train today and two lovely girls got on at West Drayton who attended TY's school. They were really enthusiastic and a great advert for the school. We had a lovely chat......starting with why they were boarding the train so far away from the school (applied from relatives addresses. Meh) and they're having a fab time. The school has had its first exclusion. Can't read too much into that at this stage as we'd definitely have excluded a child for behaving in the same way as this kid- but thought it was interesting that they are already facing the same challenges as everybody else!

Oh and the kids were black (somebody must have said something about race).

I feel, on the basis of this that I have been too harsh on TY!

fivecandles · 16/09/2011 20:37

'It's patronising in the extreme to say some people aren't able to access the information about the free school, of course they are'

Eh? The sort of skills and knowledge you need to make a judgement about which are the 'best' schools are enormously complex not to mention the sort of resources you need to actually acess them. I'm a teacher and intelligent but it takes huge amount of time and effort to analyse my own results (before I spin them) let alone thinking about where to send my kids.

If you are a poor and not very educated parent, you are likely to send your child to the nearest school that you can get into. And that schools should be perfectly adequate. Shame on the system which means that that means you lose out.

yellowsubmarine41 · 16/09/2011 20:46

Didn't the free school also need a separate application form this year?

Xenia · 16/09/2011 22:47

Why would anyone wanta non selective school? They don't work. If you strip out the proportion of children from selective privaet schools and state grammars and proportion at good universities is very very low.

Toby Young picked a career and presumably a wife which means they canont afford to pay school fees. Thus their children are damaged by their career choice and they are having to stoop to a state education which cannot even include any selection on the basis of IQ.

Even so given the private system has lots of places for not very bright children and does wonders if they can replicate that they may not do too badly.

yellowsubmarine41 · 16/09/2011 22:55

You have an interesting slant on TY, Xenia.

I like that you think his children are damaged by his and their mother's career choice.

I wouldn't like it if you said this about practically anyone else on the planet, but in this context it makes me chuckle.

Xenia · 16/09/2011 23:01

Yes, it's an interesting argument.
He chose journalism and we all know if you do that and are bright and might have become an actuary or many other proper jobs you would be able to buy a decent education for your chidlren. But no - they indulge themselves with scratching a living writing and thus they cannot buy any advantage for their children.

"Education

Young was educated at Creighton School (now Fortismere School), Muswell Hill; King Edward VI Community College, Totnes; and William Ellis School, Highgate. Young initially failed most of his O-levels and got two Bs and a C at A-level,[4] but gained a place at Brasenose College, Oxford, after he was sent an acceptance letter by mistake. After gaining a first class degree he worked as a News Trainee at The Times, then went to Harvard University as a Fulbright scholar, where he worked as a teaching fellow in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, followed by Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming a teaching assistant in the Social and Political Sciences Faculty."

So because his father was labour he sacrificed his chidlren on tha altar of his politics and TY got not particularly good exam results. I wonder if his lo w income arises from the fact he went to a state school.

yellowsubmarine41 · 16/09/2011 23:08

Sorry, how did TY's father "sacrifice his children on the altar of his politics".

In what way do you think that his first class degree from Oxford is a poor exam result?

areyoutheregoditsmemargaret · 17/09/2011 10:25

fivecandles, as I said, most of the parents where I live are "poor and not very educated" and they are very aware of which are the "good" and "bad" schools i the area and the wider area. We're also not that far from the free school and all the talk in the playground is of what an exciting development it is. I totally disagree that they're unable to find out about a school just a few miles away, it's insulting them to suggest otherwise.