Does coming from a deprived background really seal your fate?

[Pinkjenny]

Just wondering, really, listening to Nick Clegg on R5 live. I come from Anfield in Liverpool, not deprived really, but certainly not affluent. My mum worked in a shop, and my dad was (and still is) an engineer.

I credit all of my success (relatively speaking, of course) to the way in which I was brought up, and the attitude of my parents, who told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, as long as I put my mind to it.

Does giving children money for their first shoes and first suit really help break that poverty cycle?

Or does it depend on the attitude of their parents and their general upbringing?

What, so you can rip them to bits? ..nah think I'll pass on that one

OK, Fine.

Givesheadlesshorseman your posts on this thread have been spot on IMHO.

Also agree with Violethill's excellent post and this para in particular "The biggest limitation for many people is themself. If I had left school at 16 having not worked hard and passed my O levels, I could blame it on the fact that my school was pretty rubbish and I could moan forever about privileged people who'd been given a private education etc. But what would be the point of that?"

ok then ,fuck it ...I think that all private education should be abolished and all schools made truly comprehensive..so that there was a level playing field in education for all children ..I think that less academic children who take b.techs as opposed to A levels should not be sneered at .I'm not so niave to think that there is not a problem with some parents attitudes towards education in this country .I don't know what the answers are though ..so there you go, my idealistic solutions for you to pull to pieces

hmm I'll start using state education when they start looking to the successful private sector, seeing what it is that makes it so much more successful and implementing it in every school.
We pay around £7k, of which £2500 goes directly on the children I know this for a fact. State schools are allocated a very similar amount and yet cannot achieve the same results, why is what I would like to know.

Hey watch it. My boy's doing Btecs. What's to sneer at?

Yes, headless, you've said so much that I wanted to and articulated it so well. Also your point was a good one violet.

Private schools don't have to follow the state primary curriculum. They don't all select and they have a varied demographic. I do believe that with a much more varied demographic they would still do extremely well.

I seem to have talked myself back to assisted places. Why on earth state doesn't look at private and wonder what they are doing that is so much better -- I just do not get it.

Another one here who is pretty unimpressed with the disparaging comment about BTEC by usualsuspect. What's to sneer at? Quite frankly the only prejudice and snobbery on this thread is coming from you

I don't disagree with you Usual Suspect. But you can't stop with just abolishing independent education. You'll have to follow with abolishing the remaining grammar schools. Then you'll need to abolish faith schools. You'll also need to abolish home-educators. Then finally you'll need to take account of the postcode effect by bussing children around to ensure that more affluent parents can't just all throw lots of money at expensive houses.

At the end of all that you'd have a truly equal education system. But you'd really need to do the whole package. You can't abolish independent schools without abolishing home edding for instance because then people would just get tutors and home ed.

If we abolish private education then it just exacerbates the supposed middle class stranglehold on 'good' state schools in nice areas. The arguments would be the same - but the focus would just shift onto the perceived advantage they gain from that. It happens already with affluent state educated children in good schools in nice leafy areas.

Though with only 7% to absorb it probably wouldn't make that much impact anyway. We'll probably have upped the state school intake by at least that much over the next few years as a result of immigration alone.

Though I agree, there would be no advantage to the rich, no elitism, and their exam results may drop slightly, more in line with the top-end state school pupils. But you'd be kidding yourself if you thought that they'd all sink into obscurity in state schools. They'd still in all probability dominate the 'better' schools, and the top streams.

I won't argue with you about all schools being made truly comprehensive. I am about state grammar schools, as I am about state faith schools. I'm not sure elitism should have a place in state education. All children should be treated equally by the state irrespective of ability or religion.

Yes I think the assisted places scheme was great. Why dont the condems bring it back? It was cheap and it worked.

I dont think the solution is getting rid of private schools. The very rich would just go back to the old days of tutors/governesses.

The private schools should have to allocate at least 10% of their places to socially excluded kids.

And I don't sneer at Btechs. I think for many young people they are the most appropriate and the most useful way forward. What I am a bit sniffy about is the attempt to shoe-horn clearly very non-academic kids into degree courses when they are far better suited to apprenticeships, and practical training, in the belief that it offers them better chances in life.

We are in danger of creating a generation of young people who think it's beneath them to do any kind of skilled manual job, or blue collar work, but who do not have the intellectual ability to do a professional level job.

What REALLY angers me is that in our Borough all children have to take a Verbal Reasoning and Non Verbal reasoning test to decide which school the kids get. The official line from the Heads and the COuncil is that you can't practice for the test it is a genuine test of intelligence. So all the middle classess go and get lots of sample papers or a Tutor and increase their kids chances and all working class kids or those from disadvantaged backgrounds accept this statement and don't practice.

In our school there is a huge Somaili cohort and even if they knew the truth they can't afford it as poverty is soo commonplace. The lie that is told is soooooo wrong.

What better way to keep people in their place.

I should have added I think grammar schools and faith schools should be abolished as well

Violethill ..I have seen many negative comments about B.techs on MN haven't you?
Me I'm all for them

I have personally witnessed, on a number of occasions, an ex-boss of mine sorting through CV's and dismissing a number of applicants purely upon where they live.

These were 16/17 year olds, applying for an office junior position, highly unlikely that they had any say in where their parents set up home.

I don't know how common this is, perhaps such twats are unusual. I hope so.

No actually I haven't. You were the one who mentioned 'sneering' at them. Nothing wrong with them at all

The private schools should have to allocate at least 10% of their places to socially excluded kids.

PMSL do you really think i would pay for my kids to mix with the kids i moved from state school to avoid ?

Violet ,My ds took a b.tech in music and business and is doing very well thank you very much ...read my posts, I was saying that some people think that they are not appropriate qualifications

Headless I agree ..nothing wrong with apprenticeships, I just wish there was more British industry like there was back in the day when I left school

mamatomany, so you don't judge people on their postcode, just on whether or not they are privately educated?

So you didn't move them for a better education then mama? Just moved them to avoid the plebs. Niiice!

Mamatomany I suspect the success of the private sector comes from having parents able and willing to pay the fees. Just as the relative sucees of the grammar system comes from having paents who are willing to pay for/ go the effort of tutoring.

State schools do look at independent schools, I am in regulsr contact with schools near my own, indepdendent, grammar and state comps of all kinds. The learning is a two way process

A number of my children have to go private and I think assisted places are great. The children that get them would be hard workers and focussed about education, that's how it always worked. I wouldn't want my children in class with a lot of children abusing teacher or getting pregnant at fourteen or getting their girlfriends pregnant at fourteen, with the faculty having little or no control over behaviour in the classroom -- who wants that? I want order and rigour and regular wee tests and lots of sport and a focus on learning.

Do the hardworking children want to be there at secondary with teachers who have no control and a bunch of disruptive children? I wouldn't have thought so. But when you've got a hundred thousand children leaving primary two years below their age levels in basic numeracy and literacy what is their sense of achievement? They are still looking for it, and they find it in disruption and trouble.

The primary curriculum is the issue. TBH I think it is being improved now but for many years it abandoned children in the search for some let's-all-hold-hands-and-play-to-save-the-world ideology. The parents of today's primary children were let down and then they were expected to teach their children to read and do their times tables. This is all topsy turvy. I think it's cruelty and neglect of those less fortunate children at an age when they could be given a truly positive direction and sense of achievement.

The church school my children were in had an excellent postcode, it was still crap, some of the children in my girls current class come from dreadful areas because the parents can't afford the house and the fee's.

What makes them different from the ones at the state school is their values in my opinion. Start shipping in the very values we moved to get away from, materialistic, not caring about the quality of the work produced, messing around in class and everyone will potentially fail rather the 10% being dragged up to the previous high standards.

You don't need to go private to get order, rigour, regular wee tests and lots of sport and focus on learning.

Granted there are state schools that will not provide this - I have worked in some and unless we move my dd will go to a dire secondary and she is currently at an even worse primary.