I'm a diehard Leftie but my son is going to private school - Will Self

[Swedes]

Discuss

Will Self is a knob but he is right about most state education.Fucking useless.

I read the thread title as Wilf Sell.

I was more shocked then, TBH.

I don't blame him. Parenthood often tests one's principles and as my local state school is terrible I won't be sacrificing my children on the altar of those principles either.

It is a shame that every state school doesn't provides a reasonable education though.

maybe he should move out of London.
That would be a real sacrifice.

Paddingtonbore -

You know the secondary schools in Lambeth. What are they actually like? What are the Ofsted reports saying? It's just I've been thinking similar things but the secondary schools here don't engender such revulsion.

I'm with wilf in that you don't sacrifice your child's education for your principles. My dad was a paid up member of the communist party and enjoyed checking his share prices on teletext. Hypocritical or pragmatic?

Wilf. Doh! Sorry Wilf. WILL. Will. Will. Not Wilf.

I vowed never to post on mumsnet again never mind an education thread after the mawling I got the other day but having just polished off my bottle of champagne here goes.

I am a die hard leftie but my dd was supposed to be starting at Stonyhurst this September, if you search you will find my threads agonising over this.

I have had huge pressure from my family to put dd into a private school as she is a very very bright child and is also very sporty but has the potential to be very naught. My years as a teacher have shown me that bored very bright children can ruin their own education and that of others.

We have a relatively good income, above average but not extraordinary and my mother in law and grandfather both wanted to pay her fees. I had said no but dp took dd walking near the school and just happened to wander on the grounds and dd fell in love with it. We have friends whose children were educated there and they are all happy. I had to accept that I was not being fair in saying that I had to have my own way so agreed to a visit on an open day. DD was entranced by the place and as a strict Catholic I wanted a real catholic education that this place provided. So I gave in.

It did cause a lot of heartache, I was very politically active and had to stop this and felt a hypocrite going into my "sink" school to teach knowing where dd was going.

I , in a rather underhand way, started to look for another job and one of my motivations was to get a job in an area that had very good state schools which would stop dp and my family feeling the need to put dd in the independent sector. I have managed to do this and am glad that dd will stay within the state sector. Of course we know have the comp/grammar debate.

....I was a leftie once.

....and I would send my urchins (the non-SEN ones anyway) to a posh school if I could possibly afford it. I would dearly love to buy them the 'golden ticket'.

Sigh.

...fortunately, state provision in the environs of Goth Towers is adequate. Not great, but adequate. So I comfort myself that, as they are educated alongside both Jaydens and Jemimas, they receive a social education as well as an academic one.

Nowt wrong with self delusion....

TSAP can you get a job in the school your child will go to? That way you'll get a fee reduction too.

I feel it's worse to use your cash to buy a house in the catchment of a good state school and worse still to feign faith in order to colonise a faith school. Both these deprive the boy in the council house on the very edge of the catchment a chance at a good school place.

At least with private education it is an honest and transparent transaction. Taxed money for an education and the state don't chip in to help fund it and the state save the money on what it would have cost to educate and perhaps transport that child.

I don't get cross about the fact that my neighbours have a Mercedes, a Porsche and a Mini Convertible.

I teach in a state school and I hope my dd will get a place at the same state school.

I did not object to her getting a place because of the cost, I objected as I thought it was hypocritical of me and I do not liek the idea that people can buy advantage.

Last year I would have been unlikely to get a job in the independent sector as I lacked recent a level experience. I think without being bigheaded that the state sector needs teachers like me and that I would be a waste in the independent sector. But I cannot read the future.

I actually have not bought or rented a house in the catchment of a good state school, I think it is fairly average tbh. The school in which I teach though is a good school and we have other good schools near by.

my parents sent us to private school because our local comp got bad results.

A bright, but poorer child from the same primary as us, went to teh comp and got 10 As at O Level.

IMO, my parents wasted their money and our time (long commute). There is absolutely no evidence that I am earning more today, or am happier than if I had gone to the comp.

When push comes to Oratory - otherwise known as the new labour academy of hypocrisy ...

I don't mind the choice that Will Self has made - it seems to me to be the only rational choice he could make in the circumstances.

But I do mind politicians posturing/threatening/voting/interfering with education in such a way that it makes life 100 times worse for ordinary parents whilst simultaneously opting out of the system that they (a) profess to believe in wholeheartedly and (b) are buggering up comprehensively ...

I am state educated - I went to a Grammar school. I never imagined I would pay for education. Not really because it is against my principles but because I honestly thought the state offered an equivalent education, minus the uniform and vowels (which I really don't give a fig about). DS1 went through 2 years of state secondary and it was a real shock.

So now we pay.

I hate this Thatcherite idea that life is a scrap won by the person with the sharpest elbows/deepest pockets.

Right-wingers coming out with all this moralising about 'ooh, you don't really have any principles you'd send your child private if you could' OR 'ooh, you are so selfish with those principles, sacrificing your own child'. Sheesh. If they are so happy about their way of life, why make such a big fuss about where other people send their kids?

Swedes, was that where we both live now, or elsewhere?

(You've probably told me this before and I've forgotten. Oh dear... may I enter the second bottle of wine in my defence?)

edam, what right wingers are moralising? Do you mean politicians?

edam its not thatcherite, its british. it was the 70s that was teh aberration. We just grew up thinking it was normal, but look at british history, its the sharp elbows and deep pockets thats normal.

Edam - I was under the impression that it's the Leftwingers that have the monopoly on moralising and inflicting their principles on everyone else. Principles that are not really held, let alone dearly.

I have no axe to grind re people's education choices; if they are fortunate enough to have a choice. Dh went to comp, teaches in a comp, I'm a mix of prep and state ed and teach in a grammar, my dcs go to state but I have no problem with them attending state, grammar or independent later on.

What I do object to is educational hypocrisy: politicians pulling up the ladder behind them (Blunket, Abbott etc) or an anti-grammar stance yet who have gone private or moved houses to get into a good catchment.