Working class children need to try to be more middle class to get on!

[rollonthesummer]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10671048/Working-class-children-must-learn-to-be-middle-class-to-get-on-in-life-government-advisor-says.html

[KatnipEvergreen]

I certainly felt I had to become middle class to fit in, when I moved five miles down the road aged 11. I couldn't claim to be anything other than solidly middle class now, but definitely with a working class/LMC background, which unlike some I am not ashamed of or try to hide at all!

[donttrythisathome]

Soft skills and a certain type of social etiquette (one that is practically anathema to a straight talking, unsubtle foreigner like myself it must be said) are transferable skills (wince at the terminology).

[KatnipEvergreen]

I sometimes still feel too common for some people and too posh for others though. Kind of a no man's land. Less so as I've got older and more confident in who I actually am.

[donttrythisathome]

katnip, I know exactly what you mean. You end up feeling you don't belong anywhere until you get some self-possessions and confidence in yourself and it seems less and less important.

[KatnipEvergreen]

Yes, and probably loads of other people feel the same anyway.

[StabInTheDark]

I am northern and working class, from a town that is in the top 10% of deprived areas in the UK.

There's a lovely young girl who's close friends with my eldest DD- her mam is a cleaner raising three kids on her own. This girl is absolutely lovely. She's well-mannered, exceptionally clever, funny, polite and kind. But even if it had been top of the agenda, there is no way her mam would have been able to find the time or money to take her to museums and art galleries and the theatre.

Everyone knew she was Oxbridge material by the time she was about five. She didn't even apply. When I asked her why not, she burst into tears and said one of her teachers had told her she wasn't the 'right sort of person' to go. She's now at an RG uni where comments in seminars such as 'Oooh say something again, listen to how funny it is when she speaks!' are common.

This girl had huge ambitions from being tiny. When she got older and more self-aware, they lessened. She freaked out at her uni interviews because 'everyone else had double-barrelled names and went with both of their parents and wore a suit.'

It makes me so angry that this bright girl was made to feel so inadequate. Just because she speaks with a strong accent and has probably never set foot in an art gallery doesn't mean she is any less deserving of that Oxbridge place. It makes me angry that Gove can push middle class values like they are the only worthwhile values for a person to strive for. Why is the onus placed on working class kids to change themselves? Why not put emphasis on making middle class professions and institutions more accessible and less daunting? I feel so strongly that as a country, our class system has failed this girl, and so many others.

... and breathe!!

[KatnipEvergreen]

I also thought Oxbridge was far too posh for me at the time. And expensive down south. You are absolutely correct, TakeFlight.

[donttrythisathome]

takeflight I completely empathise with that girl and your views.

It is a long hard road for people like her. I know because I have been there, and still am to a degree. The key to is believe in yourself of course, but that is blooming hard when everyone around you in your new life doesn't rate you at all.

[bishbashboosh]

I went to a too northern red brick uni and tbf in my course it was the upper middle class who didn't fit In

[ouryve]

I don't recall any accent snobbery during my stint at a Northern Red Brick university. Most people were too busy sneering at the MC students in torn leather jackets and army surplus combats who were selling the Socialist Worker.

[MerryMarigold]

bishbash and ouryve, you didn't go to durham then! i went for an interview and rejected it pretty sharpish.

[StabInTheDark]

donttrythisathome exactly, it seems like she's lost all self confidence in this new environment.

MrsDeVere she doesn't speak a 'made up dialect' yet her accent is still sneered at/commented on.
We live in a very deprived, rural area. Nearest museum is a half an hour drive/ 10 quid on the bus. Even then, it's a small, local one. Also it can be quite difficult to have university aspirations fr

[StabInTheDark]

Posted too soon!! Can be quite difficult to have university aspirations for your kids when you have zero knowledge of the system and are preoccupied with just trying to make ends meet. I don't think it's as easy as you're making out.

[usualsuspect33]

I've never taken my working Class kids to a museum. We like to go to the Dog racing of an evening and eat with our hands at Maccy Ds.

[Grennie]

Don't schools take kids to museums and art galleries these days?

[LordPalmerston]

my parents had very broad accents - deliberately dropped them
now they sound like margot and jerry

[LordPalmerston]

my mate shoppingbagsundereyes had a student who she got into a university in Devon ( specialist gaff) and she lasted a term, couldnt cope with the social interaction, the middle classness of it all and gave it up and went home - thereby blowing her chances

at the time we were gutted for her, but now think we had seriously underestimated the culture clash for her

[usualsuspect33]

Maybe the MC need to stop being so up their own arses?

[LEMmingaround]

We are members of English Heritage don'tyaknow we won it in a raffle Its fecking great, cos its free, innit

What the actual fuck does it matter what your accent is? so long as you are articulate and understandable.

I am working class, went to a comprehensive school, my DP tells me i have a mouth like a fishwife I have a PhD.

[MerryMarigold]

There are uni's to avoid if you are WC or even LMC. I can send you a list!

[usualsuspect33]

Most of my DSs MC mates only go to Uni so they don't have to get a real job for a few more years.

[Grennie]

Usual - Not the experience of kids from very poor backgrounds at all.

[MorrisZapp]

I went to Glasgow University, pretty much everybody I knew had a regional accent.

Surely only some parts of some Oxbridge colleges are truly still looking aghast upon anybody who isn't openly posh?

We're talking as if further education is a distant dream for the majority, but hasn't that changed dramatically in the last two decades? I thought many/ most school leavers went on to further education these days.