Unfair towards private school kids

[Angelkid]

Hello everyone,
I have seen an advertisement about national youth choir north east 2024. I am shocked to find out that they only admit state schools and home schooled kids. I am wondering if it is even legal. It is a clear discrimination case.
We have already experienced about music competitions/festivals are biased towards state schools. Judges don't have impartiality and blindly towards state schools.
Why aren't not judged by its own merits nowadays.
Very frustrated.

Don't private schools have their own choirs?
Funding can sometimes be targeted, in this case it seems towards musical young people in state education.
We have similar where I live for some sports.

Not everyone has equal access to life's opportunities, but I guess OP knows that or she wouldn't be paying for private school. Ironic really 😀

I have a (teeny weeny) bit of sympathy for the OP in so far as I think the criteria used to determine eligibility for widening participation schemes are often rather blunt instruments. My DC have received invitations to such things on quite a few occasions. They have 2 high earning professional parents, live in a big house in the country and are not in any shape or form lacking in opportunity. But they do go to a state school, and our village happens to share a postcode with a nearby small town that is an area of high socio economic deprivation. So technically, my kids are eligible for quite a lot of the same things that genuinely needy children are. I've never taken up any of these opportunities because I think it would be morally wrong to do so, but I do know of other parents in similar positions to ourselves who have.So I can believe that if the selection criteria allow some children who aren't really the intended targets of the programme to get in, then they might also exclude a few children who should be eligible.
But in reality you will never have a perfect system, and most privately educated children, even if they are in receipt of scholarships, are advantaged compared to most state school children. They have other routes into things like the National Youth Choir so they are not being excluded at all, just not offered this particular programme. I would imagine NYC have identified that their intake is skewed towards independent school pupils and that this is probably because they have more opportunities and not necessarily more talent. Contrary to the OP's belief, it looks like they do want to select on merit which is why they are trying to engage with a wider pool of young people. There is no reason I can think of that private school pupils should have intrinsically better voices than state school pupils but there are lots of reasons why they are more likely to participate in things like the NYC. This outreach programme probably isn't perfect but is likely to improve access for far more youngsters than it excludes.

Stop being an idiot. I fully intend to send my kids to private school for secondary so I am not anti private education but you need to wake up and have a reality check re the benefits it provides particularly now the state sector is so financially strained. For music, there is literally no provision at my daughter’s state primary. We are doing lessons privately but there is no doubt she would benefit from lessons in school, access to orchestras etc. private school makes it easy to have all that on tap without having to fit in stuff outside.

it is clear that there are huge advantages. These sorts of schemes should absolutely be targeting talented kids in more deprived areas who otherwise wouldn’t get a look in. Your kids will be getting enough of a leg-up as it is.

I had the fortune once to employ a gifted music teacher who had grown up in poverty, never paid for a music lesson or bought an instrument, but the excellent local education authority scheme had given her free lessons and free loan of a violin, which she had to hide under her bed as her father would never have approved. She was a massive talent and went on to become an inspirational music teacher inspiring many children to follow in her footsteps. I bloody wish we still spent money on projects like that. What a wonderful return on government investment.

You bought advantages for your child already and now want someone else's piece of cake too. Unreal lack of social awareness.

I find this expectation from private school parents that their children can hoover up every single opportunity they fancy to be quite common. They are less used to being told "no"!

@BlusteryLake and sadly within our circles that sense of entitlement seems to extend to the kids too.
Expect everything

@MCOut I absolutely know that woke isn't an insult - but that's how OP and many others use it. That being woke is a bad thing. But I've never seen anyone use it to say giving opportunities to children is a bad thing. That's a new one on me.

Play that tiny violin op

I'm confused by your post. All of the children I know in NYC are at private schools and I always thought the fact that they were at private schools and had traditional school choirs rather than karaoke style ones (for want of a better description) like the one at my DC's state school made it easier for them to get selected.
I don't know how the finding for the residentials works and if there are subsidised places but I also thought that the residentials and family members travelling to the concerts is likely to be more affordable for families with children at private schools and that it must rule out some people.

Christ get a grip.

Honestly, the tone deafness of this post is unbelievable.

You do know people can move their children to state school at any time and avail of these great opportunities only open to state school pupils?

My point is things should be only judged by its own merit, nothing else.

Most children at private school are not there due to merit, but because their parents can afford it.

I am surprised my post attracted anti private schools posts.

Surprised? I can't imagine why.
Your post was clearly biased against disadvantaged state-educated pupils being given similar opportunities to those already enjoyed by those who are privately educated.

Move your child to a state school then op, if you think they get more opportunities than the private kids. Except you won’t because they don’t

I moved my dd to a private school from a bog standard state comp in year 10.

It is truly a different world in terms of opportunities.

I did the same but in year 9 Tea and I would agree.

This is shocking.

I have a dd in the national youth choir. It is full of children from private school. She was state when she joined (though is at specialist music school now). It is great they have these outreach opportunities for those who would otherwise not even consider auditioning. Dd's move from ordinary state school (and she has two well educated parents who own a home etc) to a specialist music/indie school has been truly eye-opening in terms of the gulf between the two - these outreach schemes are so needed.

My son is NYC and at a state school.
He's a great singer and his school did loads to nurture him and give him the confidence to have a go.

We are just above the threshold for earnings so pay for his courses and concerts but they are always fundraising to support less privileged kids. They are brilliant and I hope their outreach works and more state kids feel they can sign up, it's been brilliant for my child.

Ps NYC don't look for trained singers necessarily - so if your child's school only does Katy Perry you tube singalongs at choir, then you are absolutely not missing out. They just look for a love of musicality, a clear tone and an ability to be coached! Anyone can apply, I highly recommend it!

DH had a full scholarship to private school from 8-18 and had many amazing opportunities available to him.

I attended our local state school and had a fab time but nowhere near the opportunities he had.

With the music facilities and lessons available to him and his peers it would hardly have been a level playing field if schools like his were pitched against schools like mine.

I have kids in private, so I don’t have an axe to grind on this front, and I think your view is incredibly entitled. Those programs are aimed at helping kids get exposure to things that they might not otherwise have access to. Why isn’t it enough for you to just enjoy the many advantages and opportunities you are paying for (musical and otherwise) with private school?

Surely it's obvious that outreach programmes are designed to target children who won't otherwise hear about or access an opportunity. That's about Equity and very hard to object to (assuming the pp who made the link to the SING 24 programme is correct). Outreach programmes targeting pupils from less advantaged backgrounds are right and proper.

But my reading of @Angelkid 's post is that her concern for the future relates to competitions where (in her judgement) substandard competitors were placing higher those from private schools whose performance was better. I would agree that competitions should be about recognising excellence, not social engineering- otherwise what is there to aspire towards? The affirmative action should come earlier, to attract and create opportunities for talented but non privileged children, rather than manipulate their scores to create perverse outcomes later. Independent schools can be hot houses for talent of all kinds, but it would trouble me too if top athletes, musicians or other creative were ruled out because of early privilege. Independent schools develop talent- they don't create it where none exists. Characterising privately educated children as talentless just because they are privileged does come across as fairly hateful- and incidentally fails to acknowledge the huge disparity in privilege, opportunity and outcome within the state sector. I would be delighted to support outreach programmes based on indeces of deprivation, but struggle to see that a child of high earning professionals attending a top rated state school in a leafy suburb needs uplifting to access opportunity....
I can't say whether @Angelkid 's assessment of the competing choirs and musicians is correct. But if she is right that judges' marks differentiate by school type, I would agree that's a bad look out in all sorts of ways.