Lichfield Cathedral School (private schools) accents?

[Foresthealing]

Do private schools in Staffordshire tech Received Pronunciation ?

I don’t want our child to have a “street” style accent which is what most kids tend to do in London now and moving to Staffordshire I’m hoping they teach RP to keep it more neutral. Later on in life accents can sometimes matter or at least having a good vocabulary.

any experiences?

Thanks all

Can I be the first to say; YIKES!

In my experience kids code switch depending on situation.
They will all end up speaking with a variety of accents, and home influence is more important

I don’t know of any schools that teach RP these days. Children will pick up the accent of their peers. Visit the school and you’ll be shown round by pupils. How they speak is how your DC will speak.

Vocab is your job - conversation at the dinner table, modelling it yourself etc.

They will have an accent closer to their generation than yours, ‘RP’ changes like all accents, listen to news clips from the 80s to hear that. And as the pp says, they will code switch, I don’t know any schools that teach accents. Yes at a private school they will probably hear more RP than if they were at a state school but it’s not a given. If your child is say between 5 and 7 and doesn’t use ‘th’ you could get some private speech therapy to practice it.

No idea on this school but they tend to sound more like their parents and / pets. Singing helps though, choristers even at churches where they attend state school and families are not wealthy at all tend to have good diction and less pronounced local accent from personal experience. One of mine speaks like me (rp) the other like their dad but good diction and excellent vocabulary. Accent doesn’t matter, diction and vocabulary does

😂 god love you and your child.

Not pets, peers!!!

If you look at BBC clips from the 50’s and 60’s , even poor people speak clearly and coherently. Bring back teaching people to speak properly I say.

A-woof!

If you move to Lichfield they'll most likely pick up Birmingham/Midlands accents.

No, we all pretty much sound brummy in Lichfield.

No school ‘teaches’ an accent nowadays. This isn’t an Eliza Doolittle/Henry Higgins set up!

School don't teach accents. They teach grammar, spelling, comprehension etc. Accents are picked up from their peers, the other people around them and from media.

LOL. I knew plenty of kids who went there having lived in Sutton Coldfield for many years. Sadly they all had Brummie accents so no sadly. I think you need to send them to live with the royal family.

The only pet I could think of that might meet the criteria was a 🦜!

I would love it if people had accents like their pets 😅

On one level this post is mad - accent/pronunciation/vocab is your job at home and kids morph depending on context/peers. On another level I understand the concern - my two sons were in a SEcLondon prep school where the TAs routinely said “them two” - no amount of home concersation eliminated it. I took that as a sign they would not be exposed to correct grammar at school. For other reasons changed schools, the TAs were more carefully chosen (not just parents who fancied a pt job) and the issue nevercre-surfaced. Secondary is probably entirely different ballgame tho.

You all have very valid points! I guess, it isn’t the case I want my kids to sound “posh” but I have good diction and pronunciation. The kids in London these days have adapted this “ya Nar wot I’m sayin” and it’s driving me nuts! The thing is you want your kids to have a good start in life and vocabulary does matter.

Very true - clips pop up sometimes on my Facebook of old BBC interviews with regular working-class people with, say, a cockney accent, about a particular issue and they speak so clearly, articulately and with a good vocabulary. You don’t get that nowadays.

Braying public school accents are also annoying although they have toned them down a bit these days. Ideally we would all speak like the Beeb. I think a lot comes from home - both my kids luckily speak with a pretty BBC accent in spite of their state education and one being a bit of a YouTube addict. A few Americanisms have crept in.

Well, model it for them. No school is going to teach them RP. Most children understand codeswitching and aren’t going to rock up to a formal job interview being all street.

Just waiting for the private school parents to pop on and say Jemima’s accent definitely disadvantaged her at her Oxbridge interview… I live in Edinburgh and would much, much, much rather hear a Staffordshire accent on the streets than the braying yahs I’m currently surrounded by (Freshers). The reality is though, as pp say, all kids code switch. There are certain markers that you might want to watch out for, but home teaching and always pulling them up will nip those in the bud (as a pp says, them two is a particular bug bear of mine).

That said, I made a conscious decision to stop flattening my accent a few years ago. I will speak more slowly than I would naturally, but I’m 55 and I am actually Scottish, so fuck em if they can’t deal with a few ‘outwiths’ and ‘ayes’.

I mean I’ve seen videos of cats that miaow with a scouse accent but I thought this was a bit extreme! 😀

What do you mean OP. Do they only use teachers with RP accents or actual elocution lessons.

I think you’re on a hiding to nothing once they hit their teens anyway.

They won’t teach elocution at Lichfield Cathedral School. Is that really in fashion anywhere any more? Im sure it’s a nice school but it’s not that prestigious, if you want your child coming out sounding super posh then it’s probably it the one.

Going to school anywhere from South Staffs to South Warks they’ll end up with a Brummie twang of some variation. Further north into Staffordshire you swap Brummie for Potteries, South Warks and into the Cotswolds would be much more ‘accentless/generic’. You’ll need a proper old fashioned (boarding) school if you really want them to have RP accents!