Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys Run Britain

[TapselteerieO]

Did anyone see this?

I have just watched it and thought there might be a thread here about it. Sadly I am not surprised that it happens but I am still surprised by the statistics.

(Going to get dc from school so might not be on here until later.)

Just callous favouritism and crude selfish networking "Gabby"

Herpoine. I don't think people are happy with having a mainly public school elite in politics. I'm certainly not. When you have the Labour party parachuting in the Right Honorable Tristram Hunt as PPC for Stoke-on-Trent, is it any wonder that the working classes are not represented?

Did those who voted for him know he is the son of Lord Chesterton? Do they care? Did they think that this man who is party of an elite would speak for them? and there working class ways? Hunt is just as privaledged as Cameron (more so) as Cameron is not a Lords' son, Although his wife is s the Right Honorable Lady Samantha Astor. Being Lady Astor's daughter.

How can we have a meritocracy, when we cannot elevate ourselves into politics, unless we have the right 'connections?'

DH has informed me that I would not get on in the three main parties, none of my degrees are from the 'right' universities. As long as the elite, only employ the elite (and their freinds) not much will change.

Sorry. Heroine.

Small they flood our tv screens and it shows.

We talk of people at the top (who you may well worship)

HEROINE is on the right lines.

cheers "Gabby"

smallwhitecat - I met quite a few at Oxford, particularly at the Oxford Union. And one or two in the City.

But apart from the fact you know I've met quite a few people from Eton and Harrow and am married to someone who went to public school, himself, how do you know what my experience actually is? I don't remember saying that everyone from Eton or Harrow is arrogant, just that it's the perfect breeding ground for arrogance. I don't remember suggesting my own dh was arrogant, either.

You could say, given the tiny proportion of people who go to the top public schools, they produce more than their fair share of arrogant people. That's not the same as them all being arrogant. And if your dh isn't the arrogant sort, then I doubt he made friends with that sort, either, so limiting your experience.

I havent read all of this thread but some years ago we lived in a country village and the lady next door had been a teacher at a top public school,dh and her were discussing the merits of private education.....dh said surely not all the children of the upper classes could be super intelligent?? ....my dear boy you dont really believe they send them to xxxx to learn do you? they send them there to make contacts.

I was a bit but am beginning to see her point now.

Rabbitstew. By the same token do you believe that state schools, produce the same amount of 'dossers'? As public schools produce arrogance.

As said my DH went to public school and is 'quitely confident'. The public schools IMO encourage pupils to 'speak out' and the state schools do not. Public schools expect that 'their' boys will be the leaders of tommorow, whilst many of the state schools, expect the boys to do manual work.

Perhaps it was my 'imagination' but the public schools, seemed to encourage the boys to feel part of the school 'family', and as such should not let the school down in any way, academicallly or otherwise. I did not get this impression with the state schools.

I think that is a huge difference.

Having recently visited both public schools and state schools, they appeared polls apart.

academically!

Complimentary - Samantha Cameron is the daughter of a baronet. Her maiden name was Sheffield. Her mother is now married to Lord Astor. She is not Lady anything, still less Right Honourable anything.

Traditionally, the route out of poverty was education. So able children could go to grammar schools, receive an academic education (for free) and go to university (ditto).

It's ironic that policies designed to eradicate social inequality - such as abolishing grammar schools and widening access to university - seem to have entrenched social inequality.

Oh, most definitely public schools and Oxbridge encourage a sense of belonging and wish their alumni to go out and achieve in their name. I love my old College. Some State schools do the same, probably most don't. Many parents of State educated children foster the desire to do well and contribute something to Society in their children, as do many parents of privately educated children - to contribute something because it is the right way to behave and the right thing to do. Some State schools also try to foster this aspiration, without doing it by trying to get their students to "do it for the school" rather than because it is simply right. Some State schools just flounder in the wilderness, not knowing how to impart the right message to the children they supposedly serve.

Sometimes there is a misguided loyalty to the institution, rather than the principles it supposedly fostered, and the danger of this is that it produces the wrong sorts of loyalties later in life - to support your own sort, rather than the right principles.

Ironic indeed, Quattro. But now bound into the mindset of a whole generation, or more, of teachers.

When I explained to the head of our state primary that we would be using private secondary schools as they had more rigorous curricula and we wanted them to be nudged towards sciences and languages and history and English, she told me that 'old fashioned' A levels weren't appropriate for modern society. She is a lovely, intelligent person but has not a clue about what employers would like to see. She is stuck in a seventies frame. Everything has to be inclusive and accessible. The idea of telling a pupil that it's rewarding to study something hard and stretch yourself seems alien in areas of the state sector.

Counties in the UK which still use the divisive grammar system have overall worse results than counties who educate comprehensively. So the many posters who think grammars are better - for whom exactly? They have worse 'value-added' scores too, which means they take bright kids aged 11 and don't push them to the max. Results may look good, but those kids may well have done better in a non-grammar.

I've taught in grammar and non-grammars in the same borough, and I hate the system. It's very unfair to the 80% of kids who are told they are failures aged 11

But those with children clever enough to get into grammar schools tend to think that what is better for a minority which includes them is also better for Society in general. They change their tunes, of course, when they turn out to be in the majority - you don't often hear people whose children went to Secondary Moderns praising the fact that they could relax in the knowledge at such a young age that their children were never likely to amount to much.

Phoey - do you have a link for that research?

I have no grammar school axe to grind as both my DCs are at independent schools. I'm just observing that abolishing the grammar schools hasn't done anything for social inequality. It just means that unless you can afford to pay, you can't benefit from an academic education (IMO)

Samatha Camerons mother is still lady Astor.

P.S. how many Baronets daughters do you know?

Is the increasing gap between rich and poor the result of the abolition of many grammar schools, or more the increasing distance between now and the Second World War? In other words, as the ruling elite feel in their cosy little bubbles that they have less and less to owe to the masses, and more and more alternative cheap labour and goods from overseas, maybe they just feel more confident to leave a larger proportion of the population high and dry?

Rabbit whatever it is the argument on here so far has been very focussed on state versus private and the good/bad points of grammar school education...

Nothing about democracy, the effect this has on voter apathy, the lack of representation of women and minority groups being under represented in parliament. The fact that increasingly it seems that unless you are ultra rich it is very unlikely that you will get selected to stand as a candidate or chosen for any important government positions. That this is cross party elitism and it hurts the whole country.

Clearly it is more important that we talk about the benefits of state versus private.