Sam Freedman wouldn't send his kids private

[noblegiraffe]

Because he went to a private school and had no idea that the world of working class people existed until he started working in education.

twitter.com/samfr/status/898845134028029952

I guess it helps that he lives in London where the state schools are great.

(Posting this because I've seen people speculate on here about where he will send his kids).

Okay. I see your argument now Lurked, but while I agree that it's the why that makes a difference, I still disagree that relatively homogenous private/highly selective state vs mixed more representative state doesn't make a difference.

To some children, the bubble created and reinforced for them by upbringing will be impenetrable whoever they sit next to.

But for others, the opportunity for them to mix with others who their parents don't choose for them will make a difference: a friend's parents were genuinely shocked that their little girl was playing with "an ethnic kid" (i.e. me) for example. Obviously their kids hadn't been bothered. I'd like to think it opened the parents' mind a little too. Similarly another friend was prone to talking about the "people in little houses" which she dropped very suddenly after they gave me a lift home to our teeny terraced house. I think she'd assumed I had the same comfortable background, instead of both parents on and off benefits as temp work ended.

Similarly I was equally shocked to realise that other kids in my class were worse off still than we were. At 7, I didn't immediately jump to trying to rationalise it away, as I might have done at 17 or 27, I just thought it wasn't fair.

I don't think it's a magic wand. I don't think it will magically resolve all social ills. I do think it helps.

My ds lives in a privileged bubble at home- and in most of his out of school activities. We do a lot of talking about society and politics, but the bubble very definitely there. If he went to a school where everyone was like him, or even more privileged, I fail to see how he would come across less privileged children except as people he might volunteer to help. Which is a completely different dynamic.
Continued
At a school with a very high % of pp children, he can hardly fail to be aware of the challenges some of his peers face. I won't deny that his friends were mostly "people like him". But he was certainly very quickly aware of how lucky he is. And the sense of the injustice of it stays with him. He will never find himself having to say what Freedman said. (OR what he was misquoted as saying!)

slightly if it helped then we'd have seen the results by now.

After all,the vast majority of people are educated in comps.

What would the results look like if it had been successful?
(What if we went back to "official" two-tier and things got worse?)

'The vast majority are educated in comps'- yet the small minority who are not are hugely over represented in high earning and high power jobs. They do not need to be segregated in this way as small children- it does create a social divide that is not only not fair but also not good for overall cohesion.

slightly I think we'd see different attitudes amongst the general populace to people poorer than them, or even people of a different class to them ( working class people with brass are demonised and othered).

We wouldn't see parents who attended state school and whose children attend state school constantly finding ways to display their superiority for example, here on MN. The endless threads that have people lining up to declare their snobbery, the grammar police, the constant 'fat kid ' threads...it all points to a societal lack of tolerance, understanding, human respect that comps have done nothing to help.

I suspect people who choose private might be doing so to get away from behavioral issues more so than poverty.

twisted it is true of course that privately educated are over represented and state educated are under represented in many arenas.

bert I get your point that for someone like your ds the mix has broadened his understanding at an earlier age. But even without going to extremes and benefit bashing, and he'd simply grown up without the discussions, and the idea his situation was down to you/your dh working hard, thus implying his classmates parents all didn't, I still don't think the school would have provided anything but more people to look down on.

slightly I see your point re ethnicity. But even then I think it depends on the area. I know in bigger towns state schools are more mixed, but dd's private is far more mixed than most of the local state schools. As to social mixes, I've had dozens of remarks that all stem from surprise that dd and I do not meet their stereotype. And I don't think knowing her or I has broadened their minds in anyway, because they were closed to start with. And they haven't been from those in/from the private sector. Or the very wealthy. (Although I accept that's down to personal experience rather than evidence the private sector imparts understanding).

I do think it certainly could help that middle ignorant group if schools all had similar intakes, but I think that would help lots of issues and unfortunately is unlikely to ever happen.

out as do some parents in the state sector. Although let's be honest, plenty of people seem to think the two are inextricably linked.

so lurked why did you choose the private School? And what do you think would have happened if she hadn't gone ? And what do you think it's like for those in the the local school without that choice?

Because the school dd would have got is awful in pretty much every way. And I know it's awful for the kids that had to go there. Most people avoid it. The school that she could hope for, but be unlikely to get, is good in lots of ways but still offers nothing to able dc. And I can't afford to move into catchment for a better state school, nor have I had the time to suck up to a church.

Private was because I wanted her to attend a school that offered an academic curriculum and suitable challenge. Possible because she got a small scholarship and a large bursary.

If she attended the dire school, I can only guess. She still socialises with local dc and lives here so no change in that regard.

Educationally, she'd be under the impression she could effortlessly be the best in school and that formal education was boring and easy. I'd have put her in for a maths gcse and maybe another to either appeal for a school that offers more than the legal minimum of academic subjects, or at the least to avoid the boredom of being taught maths she did years ago by a teacher who has no qualifications in the subject. I'd be homeschooling in the evenings, or maybe I'd have arranged pt school and dd studying while I was at work.

I'm also sure she'd be getting a reputation for being a trouble maker, because she's disgusted by the way some of her friends are treated by the school, and I'm under no illusions she would keep quiet in school.

Only possible gain if she'd gone there would be that a few less confident friends who have been/ are being bullied would probably not have been if dd had been there as she's confident. We've already had fall outs on social media and in one case a physical fight with one local bully, started by the bully and ended by dd before anything was hurt other than the bullies pride. And her friend with sn wouldn't have been managed out so easily because dd would have defended her from other dc and pissed off teachers asking in every lesson why her friends 1-1 was with y11s.

Hardly what I want from my child's education.

If the comprehensive system itself was fair and dc round here could attend the type so many mumsnetters consider the norm, I wouldn't have investigated private. Or if we had a grammar school in feasible travel distance. However now she's there I realise what she has is a big advantage on a good comprehensive, and given her other disadvantages in life, it evens things up between her and the many privileged dc at good state schools.