Middle-class kids do OK in poor performing state schools - Really?

[mumofhelen]

The headlines say middle-class kids do OK in poorly performing state schools. This surprises me. We have two state comprehensive schools nearby, and no child from any social background has managed to get into a "Russel Group" university, let alone Cambridge, Oxford or Imperial College.

Call my cynical but it sounds like a case of what we desire most earnestly, we believe most easily.

Does anyone know where I can read the report more in-depth than the headlines?

not sure where you can get more details online, but i would be inclined to agree that people from state schools do do OK regardless of class. Its intellect and ability, bright children will do well anywhere. Middle class children i suspect appearto do ok because their parents have more time to spend on helping them with homework etc

I'm working class, went to not a brilliant state school and am now studying at a russell group university. i am not an uncommon statistic.

here it is

No, it's nonsense.

As soon as a young innocent Bodenite is exposed to the socially disadvantaged, he/she will be dragged down into the quagmire of white sports clothes and Lambert & Butler. You can forget any aspirations of university - s/he will be leaving school at 16 to do an NVQ2 in Retail Practices at Dixons, where the manager likes his/her accent.

Yes Fio, but priviledge (SP!!!) buys certain things, like after school activities which keep the kids off the streets. Like internet access, like their own set of text books at home etc etc. This all can lead to better results from school.

my daughter goes to after school clubs and has internet access so maybe we are middle class money doesnt buy intelligence it just opens doors.

sadly Fio, I think it is probably true that average kids from very disadvantaged backgrounds do much worse in the same schools than equally average kids from more affluent families - tutors, homework just generally kept oput of trouble. I think that very bright children tend to do well where-ever they go on the whole and I don;t think its particularly a working calss/middle class thing but an attitude to edcuation and the opportunities it can bring. My very very working class family are obsessive about education and has resulted in most of my generation doing pretty well despite in some cases going to pretty crap schools. I would be really offended on their part if someone claimed becuase tehy were working calss that they didn;t bother to help/encourage homework.

thick MC kids get tutors
thich WC kids get a govt apprenticeship in 'building skills' whether they can build or not unless you are a girl.

Female MC get a tutor - mediocre degree in something arty/hippy - marry well become earth mother lentil weaver

female WC gets Hairdrssing/childcare Apprenticeship

and that was really badly out - making a lie of my "education"!

"on their behalf"

and my school were happy for me to go to the local polytechnic (obviously showing my age there) it my mother who insisted that my grades were good enough for university - which of course they were. People expect less of less affluent kids.

you are right kew, expectation and aspiration for the future is the key IMO

The article that I read on this seemed to indicate the all the middle class kids stuck together and formed a top set clique which got them through OK. So I don't think that it would work unless you have enough pals for a clique.

If you come from a family that values education, spends time on education and instills ambitition in you, then you will probably do fine in a State school, regardless of your class.

I went to my local Comp but my Mum worked very hard to make me value my education. She made it very clear that I was expected to go to a good university and have a good career. She spent time (and a bit of money) ensuring that happened). As a result I worked hard at school, got in all the top sets, made friends with other high achievers and did very well.

Its not class that matters, its attitude and effort.

thats what I was trying to say MMJ.

Fio you are right - there is no shame in being a hairdresser, builder, plumber... I'd be more ashamed to be an unemployed ex-student with a degree! However there is shame on an establishment that allows children to become hairdressers when they should be research scientists.

The more I think about it the more I object to the myth that the working class don't care about education. I think there is a hard core underclass which appear to have opted out of the idea of an education - I'm not talking about degrees but basic education. I don;t know why but suspect that its due to complete lack of an ability to see any point/future in it.

the end result we hope for any child is surely that they live happy and fulfilled lives whatever their abilities. Rarely is the route to that under-education.

I really hate this 'bright kids will do well anywhere' line. Having been a bright kid who was unfortunate to move house and be dumped in a sink comp, I can tell you it is NOT true. The experience of being at a school where the children didn't want to learn, and the teachers' expectations were very low, was very damaging.

And as far as I could see, the only class issue was that the teachers had such low expectations of children - expected the girls to be hairdressers or care assistants and the boys to be miners or builders. Nowt wrong with being any of those things, but it is no reason NOT to offer them a decent education.

I was the first person in our family to go to university ever. Bizarrely it was always assumed I would go (this in the days when it was far less common that it is now). Its only with hindsight that I think in some ways it was an odd assumption of a working class uneducated family in industrial South Wales. It would have been much easier for me if there were people in the family who could have advised me (the school weren;t interested) - again with hinsight I should have been doing medicine, I should have been stretched much more beofre that point.

But still not a bad result all things considered. Interestingly my cousin (who still lives there) and left school before sitting her GCSE's to go work in a factory went back to get a degree in her 30's.