Why are independent schools so influential in the UK?

[Yamin151]

if we get comprehensive education right then the private sector will naturally diminish.

And therein lies the problem. I'm not sacrificing my childs education on the alter of hope that they will 'get it right'. All of us on here have made this choice. GS or private, we are all looking for the best education for our children and are prepared to actively seek that through an entrance exam or paying in some cases. I'm not sure on that basis anyone on here can take the moral high ground against those of us who pay as well as use GS system (not that you were tree)

[Tree]

I'm not sure on that basis anyone on here can take the moral high ground against those of us who pay as well as use GS system (not that you were tree)

Obsoletely no moral judgement implied everyone has to do what they think is the right thing individually for their own child.

My point was at a country wide level and my reasons for pursuing a properly resourced comprehensive school agenda for all and the benefits it would bring to the country as a whole. It would naturally follow that people would choose that education for their child as it would provide the opportunity their child needs and deserves.

[Guest55]

Some of us do not have the choice of a comprehensive school, Bucks is a totally selective LA ... if we had not moved I would have been more than happy to send my child to the local comprehensive.

You cannot equate the GS system (state schools which are free) to private schools ...

[moved]

Some of us do not have the choice of a comprehensive school, Bucks is a totally selective LA ... if we had not moved I would have been more than happy to send my child to the local comprehensive.

You cannot equate the GS system (state schools which are free) to private schools ...

The only assumption that may hold water is that the parents of both systems are interested in their children's education. However, there are plenty of children in the independent sector as a status symbol for their entirely disinterested parents. There are also children in grammar schools whose parents are indifferent to them or even disapprove of their child's choice.

I've never taught in a GS but have known children with utterly disinterested parents. I have worked in the independent sector and have been shocked at the level of social and emotional deprivation faced by some children. I have also seen families really struggle to give their children the best opportunities available.

[neveragain*]

I see a lot of people dismissing the idea of themselves as "being in the elite" - I.e, being able to afford private schools.
Of course this is being in the elite, I think the danger of overlooking our privilege is a huge loaded social bullet.........

[tiffinboys]

Elite is not just financial muscle. One can be elite without being able to afford private education and vice versa.

[Catseye]

I would say that the members of this forum particularity the more vociferous ones are quite elitist, its a very self selective group who have an obsession with education.

If someone from Mars came across it they would rightly think that humans think about little else whereas most sane people have a passing interest only, and if it was as simple as pumping in £billions into the system we would have had it sorted by now the Blair/Brown Government tried this and the results were very disputable and it would be fair to say very poor value for money.

I am naturally quite left leaning politically except when it comes to my own children,( one in the private sector only 7% of the national cohort go there and one in the State selective sector which is even more elitist only 5% go there) I cannot wait until my DC finishes their schooling so once again I could hold my head up high

I am of course in very good company Diane Abbot immediately comes to mind, Black female Oxbridge trained Socialist

[Yamin151]

I would say that the members of this forum particularity the more vociferous ones are quite elitist, its a very self selective group who have an obsession with education.

If someone from Mars came across it they would rightly think that humans think about little else whereas most sane people have a passing interest only, and if it was as simple as pumping in £billions into the system we would have had it sorted by now the Blair/Brown Government tried this and the results were very disputable and it would be fair to say very poor value for money.

I am naturally quite left leaning politically except when it comes to my own children,( one in the private sector only 7% of the national cohort go there and one in the State selective sector which is even more elitist only 5% go there) I cannot wait until my DC finishes their schooling so once again I could hold my head up high

I am of course in very good company Diane Abbot immediately comes to mind, Black female Oxbridge trained Socialist

Completely agree with you, we are hardly a representative sample and that's exactly what I meant. Huge difference of opinion over whether or not it's right to pay for private education, but both state and private groups here do have a higher than average interest in their childrens' education, at least enough to research the choices.

All fair weather to you for reaching the moral high ground again - I'm a big fan of retrospective moral high ground!! Surely an issue with those old public schools where parents were taught then send their children, can't claim a perfectly behaved childhood when your old teacher is telling your child how naughty you were, lol!

[Amber]

Outside central London and the home counties there are an awful lot of not great schools that no one notices.

It's easy to forget that if you live in London/Home counties where there are an awful lot of great state schools. Elsewhere the choice is a lot less.

Do you have any evidence for this sweeping assertion, other than the fact that you and now your nephew went to a poor school somewhere presumably outside London and the Home Counties? I have taught in some fabulous state schools outside these areas and a pretty dreadful one plop in the middle of your own county, as it happens.

I also went to a comprehensive school - mine was in an inner city and it was very far outside London. I hadn't even heard of private schools before I got to university. Unlike you I do not resent my education and have recently begun to feel very proud of what I have achieved through my own hard work - I was also the first in my family to go to university, we didn't have books at home, that kind of thing. I think too much now is made of the idea that parents have to be scurrying round encouraging their children to study from the moment they can talk. What happened to kids having a bit of spunk themselves, a bit of a drive and determination to get on in life? It doesn't have to come from the parents. Which isn't to say that some kids don't really have a chance - I have spent a lot of my life working with those who don't.

But that is peripheral. Those of us who would like to see a fully comprehensive system know that it is not at all the same thing as the fragmented collection of disparate schools we have now. No one is well-served by that and no one suggests that it is right to send kids to poor schools for the sake of some kind of social experiment. Yamin is right - the people who can take an alternative will do so and I am as guilty of that as anyone else - I have never tried to hide that. And well done Catseye for admitting what we are all doing here - me for sure. It does not mean that we can't aspire to doing a lot better than we do, particularly in terms of children who are born with fewer life chances than our own.

There is a truth, however unpalatable, that many low achieving poor kids are low achieving because they aren't very bright. Their parents have low educational backgrounds because they too were not very bright and it is genetic. Hence why educational background of parents is the biggest indicator for attainment. That is about intelligence, not poverty mostly, in my experience.

Could you just remind me what 'experience' that is, which qualifies you to judge the intelligence of poor people at a glance?

I would tentatively suggest that I may have a bit more 'experience' and have worked with some stunningly bright poor kids who will just never get to university because there is no aspiration for them to do so and they don't see it as an option. One amazing boy comes to mind who not only was chronically ill but also had to spend most of his spare time looking after copious younger siblings. His older sibling had managed to get out and off to study at a RG uni, but for him there wasn't going to be that option because of his health issues. It was awfully sad for me to accept that whatever I did I couldn't help him. I reckon he would give most GS kids a run for their money on 'raw intelligence' scores.

It is all very well dismissing poor people as genetically stupid in order to justify sending our own rich, genetically superior offspring to better schools. But as I said earlier, we do that at our peril - as neveragain* correctly states, it is a social bullet waiting to hit our own precious children if we don't address it.

[Catseye]

@ herts-dad


"There was a bit of a spat about my own trade last week. Intelligence, so Michael Gove’s special adviser told us, is due to genetics. Dominic Cummings is convinced that a child’s fate lies in its DNA. He claims that as much as 70 per cent of academic performance is genetically derived – and that the quality of teaching, as a result, fades into the background.


That statement, and many like it, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how biology works. Cummings is, no doubt, talking about a measure called “heritability”, the proportion of total variation in a population that is due to genetic variation. There have been endless squabbles about this, with estimates for adult IQ varying from zero to almost 100 per cent. But his figure of 70 per cent is not far from recent estimates based on the similarity of relatives, on adoptions, and on studies of twins.


Heritability is, crucially, a statement about populations, not individuals. It certainly does not mean that seven tenths of every child’s talents reside in the double helix, and that teachers hence become irrelevant. If anything, it means the opposite.


Nature and nurture always work together. Almost everything is genetic, but we usually deal with it by changing the environment. If you have, as thousands do, an inborn error that makes it hard to deal with cholesterol and pushes up the risk of heart attacks, the treatment is to cut down on fat and take statins. Being run over by a bus might seem the ultimate piece of environmental bad luck, but genes are much involved – for men, with their pesky Y chromosomes, are at twice the risk.


Biological differences in intelligence fascinate both ends of the political spectrum, and it is difficult not to become entangled in vulgar quarrels about doctrine when discussing them. But variation in height does not have that problem. There, heritability for adults is even higher, with figures of around 80 per cent; proof, perhaps, that the vertically challenged are born to be stunted.

In fact, that is not true at all. My father knew Dylan Thomas slightly (and disliked him a lot: in his words, “a terrible snob”). Once, writing of himself in the third party, Thomas claimed: “He was of normal height; normal for Wales, that is.” Well, at five foot seven, so was I – but not any more, for since the early Fifties, the average Celt has shot up by two inches. IQ scores have risen to match.

In Wales and everywhere else, the DNA has not changed, but circumstances have. The evidence is everywhere. Second, third and fourth children are shorter, and score less well on IQ tests, than firstborn, although they share the same parents. Whatever the importance of genes, the environment (be it a school’s cook or its maths teachers) plays a major role.

A closer look shows just how misleading it is to use heritability as a key to educational policy. For both height and IQ, the measure for children is far lower than for adults, since they respond much more readily to their circumstances: the IQ of a poor child adopted into a well-off household usually rises by several points. For 10-year-olds, the heritability of IQ is, in some studies, as little as 20 per cent.

With adults, social position also plays a major part. In America, with its extremes of wealth and poverty, the heritability of IQ among the poorest tenth is a fraction of their equivalents at the other end of the income scale: their miserable circumstances allow few among them to show their potential.

For geneticists, the more we learn about DNA, the more important the environment appears. The lesson from the double helix is that we need more and better teachers, rather than wringing our hands about the unkindness of fate. A few lessons about elementary biology might be a good place to start.

Steve Jones is Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College London"

I think it is best to think and research before making such sweeping statement just a bit of friendly advise(especially in such erudite company-not including myself on this measure)-although I do agree with some of your opinions

source

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... d-DNA.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and those interested how nurture/environment can actually change the genes expressed via a process of Methylation( chemicals that cap/block certain genes from expressing themselves ) and the hottest topic in genetics- Epigenetics

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... genes.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;