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?

Vespasian thank you for the washing machine tip.

You're right, there was a church school near us which offered order, rigour and set a great value on reading levels and early maths. But the rest I've seen of state curriculum primary has been a horrible muddle.

Well in my experience you do, I didn't have the time to personally visit every state primary in the area to eyeball the heads and decide if they were telling the truth about how the school is run.
I read the ofsted report, listened to local gossip, visited 1 school and took my chance, I got it wrong.
It's a gamble but with private school they have to deliver what they promise otherwise people take their custom elsewhere. Three have closed locally and having visited all of them and indeed had our child in one of them for a year I can see why. When you are spending your life savings you don't hand around to see if improvements are made, you move and when a lot parents do the same the school folds.

No worries about the washing maching, I always feel rather smug about my second hand miele that keeps going and going.

My dd primary school is utter chaos, as a secondary teacher most of what I know about primary comes from my dd. We are having to HE in the evenings/ weekends and holidays,

And I think while the curriculum improves, which I gather it is somewhat, with more of a traditional focus, the parents of the children now at primary have had the crappy education, a lot of them, so they are unable to respect and contribute to their children's education appropriately.

I should say, my children attended a private school which used the state curriculum completely, it was one of their selling points (abroad). The demographic was almost one hundred per cent professional educated two parent family with normal attitudes to education, aspirational and keen. The results were mediocre. Any children that excelled did so because of parental input. Many children had to have tutors. The problem was the curriculum.

If that is what you have experienced mamatomnay I cannot question that.

I have experienced otherwise, unfortunatley not for my dd presently ( although her previous primary was very good) .

I am not naive about the state sector, I think tbh that is where the true division lies, between excellent state schools and those that are crap or just get by.

Although I don't agree with it, I can understand why you would want to put your child in the independent sector if they are heading for crap schools.

Not everyone does pull their children out though mamatomany, I have taught in dire independent schools and we have been allowed to get away with it because we were assumed to be doing the right thing. There is a well known independent near my house, huge fees and probably good if you have a nice but thick child who wants a nice time at school loooking at landscaped gardens. But if you want them stretched and challenged or even just taught well you are at the wrong place. The school has no problems attracting familes though.

Looks good on the CV though

Well that's probably because there are plenty of nice, gentle but less academic children around that there is no place for in the state sector.

Education is a minefield. We have three independents within range. One caters for the nice but dim, one is selective and highly academic, and the third is mixed and slightly hippy but surprisingly effective. You pays your money and takes your choice - depending on what is right for your particular child.

I agree mamatomany, I have nice, gentle but dim children in my classroom. I ensure they make progress though, this school is not even doing that. But they get to do not a lot while wearing an odd uniform in posh buildings so no one seems to question. I know of 3 people who have pulled their children out of this school, but am amazed at the reputation the school has generally. The village consensus on the people who pulled their children out is that they must be mad or poor - probably both!

Having said that if I had a dim child I may be more likely to use the independent sector, nice, quiet but dim children can get a rough deal in too many parts of the state sector.

You trip over independents here, we seem to have
1)dim but sporty,
2)dim but so rich I am going to marry someone so rich or inherit Dadd's company so I would just like to play in fields and learn to canter,
3)bright but arty
bright and sporty.

We don't really have independent hot houses that I know of, perhaps because we have grammar schools.

Can you imagine the uproar if I called state educated children dim.
Am off to bed now, goodnight all

I did not limit my use of dim to independent schools. Quattro was actually the first to use the word, not that it matters.

Yes, I wasn't thrilled with the assumption that anyone who is in a private school that isn't a hot-house for Oxbridge must by definition be rich but dim.

And we've been accused of sterotyping?!

Anyway, the answer to this problem is not about the private v state sector - the thread is going down a blind alley. If it were all about that then Dave and Nick would just be forcing private schools to take a bigger percentage of bright but poor state school children, or bringing back more grammar schools.

But the fact that they are talking about giving all deprived children 15 hours of free nursery per week at aged 2 means they think a massive damage limitation exercise is required, to ensure that many children from deprived homes arrive in Reception class with even the most basic social, behavioural, concentration, communication and motor skills to get through their baseline assessment, and cope in a classroom environment.

In other words, the professionals will be taking over responsibility for much of the early parenting, to try and nip any potential problems in the bud.

The reason they fall so far behind academically compared to their non-deprived counterparts is that so many are already not equal when they arrive at school. Throwing money at playing catch-up seems a bit pointless to me if no-one is prepared to deal with the issues that cause so many people to end up in generational cycles of deprivation in the first place.

This scheme is very laudible and all that, but I'm not sure why it should be the state's responsibility to make sure that children can speak, wipe their own arses and not eat a roast dinner with their hands.

And please don't anyone dare say I think all poor children behave like this. You know very well that is not what I mean, and you know very well that we have problems with an underclass of barely functional children to deal with. It's a massive crisis, and they are the ones who will be holding back other poor but well-parented kids from achieving.

I agree with whoever said it earlier on the thread that it's down to the individual. I know people from deprived backgrounds who had incredible drive and have made something spectacular of themselves (e.g. guy I went to 6th form with who's father said "what's the point of studying, it's not going to get you anywhere" who then got into a VERY tough and exclusive Oxbridge college, got a first and then went on to do medicine) and others who have been given every opportunity going, and done nothing with it. IMO, that's what it's down to.

The only segregation in education I would propose is between those who can be bothered, and those who can't. I was appalled when I started schooling (A Levels) in the UK. The facilities were incredible, the teachers excellent, and 70% of the class were either chatting, texting or generally not bothering in class. Such a waste. I think part of it is the (IMO) stupid thing of having children start intensive education at 4. Repeated studies have shown that it doesn't lead to increased scores, and children who start formal education later (e.g. 6 or 7) catch up their reading and maths within a couple of years, resulting in no discernible difference

My very able son was failing in the state system- almost literally "failed" his KS1 Sats inasmuch as you can fail them, and bush diagnosed as "autistic" by his first reception teacher. We were unwilling to let him continue to be failing at an age when he might have noticed, and chose instead to put into the private system, where he has thrived. We are extraordinarily lucky to be able to do that, but I would have been doing him the gravest disservice by not finding him a school in which he could be perform well. He is now at a selective academic school and doing pretty well (although not as well as his ability might suggest).

Abs, so everything is okay because, very occasionally, an exceptional child from a deprived background can break through the system?

Why should children born into poverty have to be exceptional to have access to a good education?

Does the same theory apply to those with learning difficulties? Should we do away with trying to help dyslexic children overcome the barriers to education because a few of them will do okay if they want it badly enough?

What about race and gender discrimination? Why bother trying to level the playing field if a few achieve despite the odds being stacked against them.

If you read what I said, I said that the only division in education should be between those who can be bothered, and those who can't. Those who want to learn should be able to.

Good grief woman - learn to read

I agree with you hub but again, where is this notion that in order to get a good education you need to be either exceptional, or affluent?

As I said pages back, no-one sets out to give schools in deprived areas the worst teachers, the worst facilities, the worst management, the worst discipline. Where does this idea come from? It's a lazy assumption and there is too much emphasis on blame.

Poor children do not thrive in education because someone else is doing. What, exactly?

Do schools in deprived areas not have streaming, so they bright hard-working children can learn without disruption? It's the non-bright hard-working ones who suffer -they often end up in the classes with the badly behaved kids.

Schools that go into special measures or have reputions for being consistently 'bad' are very very rarely found to be in areas where there are few deprivation issues. It is unrealistic to always blame the schools.

If anything it is because too many kids who have grown up in an environment with low parental expectation and low aspiration are lumped together geographically, and so the benchmark would appear to be set very low in some schools. But unless all schools were forcibly mixed up and children were bussed all over town in a huge feat of social engineering that can never change.

And that won't happen. Not only is it impractical and prohibitively expensive, but the parents who are denied a place at their own very good catchment school would refuse to pay travel expenses to take their child 5 or 10 miles away each day, when there is a very good school on the doorstep - why should they? And the state can't pay the travel for every pupil, though of course they would offer to pay if for low-income parents.

And many would pull their children out if they didn't get their school of choice or didn't fancy the risking the experiment, and either home ed, go private, or set up co-op schools. No-one wants to compromise their own child's chances to even up the score.

That may seem selfish, but each parent's default setting is to want to do the best they can for their child, and let others take care of their own.

I agree with whoever said it earlier on the thread that it's down to the individual. I know people from deprived backgrounds who had incredible drive and have made something spectacular of themselves (e.g. guy I went to 6th form with who's father said "what's the point of studying, it's not going to get you anywhere" who then got into a VERY tough and exclusive Oxbridge college, got a first and then went on to do medicine) and others who have been given every opportunity going, and done nothing with it. IMO, that's what it's down to.

I have read it again Abs and it still sounds the same to me. It still sounds as though you think deprivation/poverty/chaotic homes have little impact on a child and their ability to apply themselves at school.

For what it's worth, my DH went through school with undiagnosed dyselxia. To you I'm sure he would have appeared disinterested. That may have had something to do with the fact that his teachers and peers labelled him as thick and lazy, it did somewhat curb his enthusiasm for school.

But true comprehensive schools do work..where I live there are 3 local comps to choose from, all have a mix of kids,some from the council estates some from the more affluent areas and many many different cultures..the results are good for all the schools ..they also teach a wide range of vocational subjects for the nice but dim kids ..

Please don;t refer to non academic kids as dim. It's insulting and when attached to nice but rather patronising too. The world needs a mix of academic and non, and using terms that seem to rank those children as lesser is unfair. Society needs it's electricians / builders / farmers as much as it's theologians (my degree is RE before anyone jumps) / historians / architects.

I do however agree about comps; there are no grammars where I come from (Somerset) and the schools in my town were each allocated a mix on village (generally, though not all, more affluent) and estate. It worked as well as any other system i've seen.

I wasn't I was using a phrase used further up the thread

I think its an awful word

'
For what it's worth, my DH went through school with undiagnosed dyselxia. To you I'm sure he would have appeared disinterested. That may have had something to do with the fact that his teachers and peers labelled him as thick and lazy'

Yep mine too; he's now student rep on his university course and getting marks up to 100% in exams.

Confidence is everything, IMO.

As a case in point I will present- me. I have no confidence, not really. During my degree I would always email and ask for resit dates and keep them free; even though in my exams I usually managed an A. I just never beleived I could do it. Partially as a result of my childhood and partially through being bullied at school (oh wait, was that becuase I had one outfit a year to wear for uniform and wasn't allowed haircuts...and the teachers were worse than most of the kids). I've had stuff published in magazines but would never have the guts to submit a manuscript; i;d never put myself forwards for promotion; I expect not to be good enough.

Yes, it's been me that put myself through uni, got off the eststae etc- but absolutely there are scars from a far less than ideal childhood that have caused lasting damage and do limit me. last saturday I was front of the performing group I am with, somewhat a position of honour, yet despite the videos showing otherwise all the way round I was convinced I was out of time and embarassing everyone. I interpreted apparent nods of approval from the committee as warnings to pull my socks up.

Now, I don't really want to discuss the elements of my childhood that caused this, but it's clear I have a fairly self reliant go getting attitude: even with a couple of disabled kids in my brood of 4 I am doing an MA, working towards a career goal. I sat my finals with my 5 weeker outside (with dh) and got an A. But noit beleiveing in oneself is something a bad childhood causes and is probably far more limiting than IQ or work ethic.