'Occupation of main breadwinner' on Secondary Form??

[gingertoo]

Just had the confirmation offer letter from the secondary school where my son will be going in September along with loads of forms to fill in - personal details / emergency contact / photo consent etc (they are very on the ball!)

I'm puzzled by one of the questions - 'Occupation of main breadwinner'.

Not puzzled by how to answer (!) but puzzled by why they would want / need to know...

Any ideas?

(It's a state faith secondary if that makes any difference!)

[Tortington]

i think you should ask them why they want to know, to what purpose would the information e used for.

i would e proper tempted to go for the ofsted inspector suggestion.

stupid form faith school muppets

[justagirlfromedgware]

It is the implication of "main breadwinner" that I would find troubling. My DH and my salaries are so similar that it is only because of my added pension contributions (making up for too many years studying) that my take home pay is marginally lower than his. An obvious point of annoyance is that in this day and age to assume that there is necessarily a significant difference between one income and the other is to ignore the wide variety of familial economic situations present today.

More specifically, it's not being anti-school to ask for an explanation for the question; more the fact that without a reason why it's being asked, the school might not get the most useful answer.

For example, if this was me, I'd be wondering if my obscure academic specialism is of greater relevance or my husband's mainstream legal job? In the context of careers talks, clearly his might be, as we saw this year at our DS's state faith school: When they asked for volunteers to talk to year 10, both of us offered and only DH was invited. I'm not offended, oh no ! But seriously, if they're asking in order to know something entirely different, a different answer might apply.

[spiderpig8]

It might be to do with GCSE grade prediction.My DB says that social class of parents is fed into the formula.