Does having kids affect the option of commuting

linsen

Greg66 wrote:

blu3cat wrote:

Am dreading the secondary school thing as well, and obviously want the best for my child. But am in a quandry, by putting your child into a private school are you not "ghetto-ising" London state schools further and underlining the class divide as well. :?

It was often said when we lived in Islington that if all the parents in Islington sent their children to the state schools in Islington, they'd be great.

Underlying this idea seems to be the notion that the children then-currently at those schools would someone be removed altogether from the school system in order to make the necessary space. Never did see how that end of it held up.

This is sort of happening in our local comp. Was a boys school frequented by an "interesting mix" of boys. They came from all over the city and everyone in catchment sent their children elsewhere. Now the school is in its second year of co-ed, and there has been a massive shift in local parents deciding to be part of the solution. The school is now turning into a middle class school in a middle class area and seems to be doing well.

As a teacher in the state sector who teaches in an outstanding school which gets GCSE reulst I can testify that you get "challenges" everywhere.

bigmat

londonlivvy wrote:

MatHammond wrote:

Cheers Livvy, is that a nice route in then? Ideally want to avoid anywhere too dodgy and have as quick a route in as possible. Would be great if I could be there in time for summer, so I could stop off for racing at Crystal Palace on the way home!

I liked it because it was mostly bus free / pretty quiet traffic wise but there are some fiddly bits (particularly round Elephant and Castle) which you might be able to get avoid in order to go faster, especially if you don't mind large roads.

The only dodgy bit is Portland street (but I am a wimp and even I wasn't unduly intimidated).

Racing at Palace eh? Brave man. I felt tired just watching it.

Well Elephant & Castle is on my current commute so if that's the worst bit it should be OK! Only done one race at CP so far, it just about killed me but I'm hoping to make it a regular thing this year and with a bit of luck I'll get up to pace after a few efforts...

the_hundredth_idiot

londonlivvy wrote:

MatHammond wrote:

Do they have decent schools in S E London? We're moving out that way, but a bit further out to Beckenham. Had to take school catchment areas into account for the first time, makes things a lot more complicated but we seem to be getting there at long last.

(OT if anybody has a good commute route from Beckenham to the City, I'd be interested to hear about it!)

I live in Crystal Palace and that area is pretty much split between Lambeth, Lewisham and Kent. I discovered that the flats on the Kent side of Crystal Palace hill were much more expensive and asked why. I was told that if you live in Kent, your kids can go (I assume they mean your kids can apply to go, but anyway) to Bromley Grammar School, which is far better than the average Lambeth Comp.

This route isn't exactly what you want - it's CP to Soho - but I'd hang a right to go other Southwark bridge and you're nearly there.
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-ki ... 5565277589

That's almost exactly my route! I start in West Dulwich (so just off Rosendale Road, just before you get to the South Circular) and follow that route all the way until just south of NKR when I head a little further east to Bricklayer's Arms RAB and then up Bermondsey Street. I can vouch for it as being quite a pleasant bus/traffic free route.

And I'm going to try my hardest to avoid getting sucked into the private vs state education debate.

rjsterry

Being a product of a suburban state school (a good one) and seeing the calibre of some of the people the independent schools in Bristol churned out (some good, some spoilt little ***ts), I am firmly of the belief that independent schools tend to have 'better' results because a) they throw money at it, so they can have all the best equipment, textbooks, etc. and afford to have smaller classes; b) they are frequently selective, filtering out the less able pupils who bring the stats down. It'll be an easy decision for me as I haven't got the spare cash to pay school fees, especially as I don't think it's money well spent. I could rant on, but would be increasingly OT.

Doh! typed too slow. Sorry everyone, back to bikes.

greg66_tri_v2.0

blu3cat wrote:

But are private schools actually better, or is it that a larger proportion people who send their children to private school have an intrinsic interest in doing the best for their children (that's why they send them), and are more likely to take a choice in the child's development. This will lead to better parenting as they care.

I certainly wouldn't claim that all private schools are better than all state schools (at secondary level).

FWIW, speaking for myself, I think the principal benefits of private schools are (a) peers and (b) teaching quality [ducks in readiness for bollocking from state school teachers].

I had some genuinely brilliant teachers, who were able to invest quite dull subjects with enough energy to spark my interest in them (and in case anyone's still reading, this is not done my making subjects "fun". Chemistry is not, and will never be "fun").

And something that I think is true generally in life: if you surround yourself with people who have a particular characteristic, you'll adopt it. In schools, a good work ethic will get you a long way, whereas bone-idleness will feck up the rest of your life for you. To that extent, the general claim that private schools produce better results because they have better raw material is partly true; but it's also to do with the fact that they have an environment that allows that raw material to achieve its potential.

Again, from personal experience, the parenting thing can help to foster the desire to do well, or the desire to take pride in what you do, but I don't really think that parental pressure that tries to drive a child further than they will go is a good thing (and I have in mind the typical middle-class pushy parent here).

The bottom line is that it's futile to think that everyone can achieve the same thing if only [fill in the ideal of your choosing]. Some children are simply brighter than others. That's it. It's like saying every child can run as fast as the fastest child, if only they try harder. It doesn't work like that.

Eau Rouge

Maybe I'm just massively naive on this, being child free, but as long as your child avoids getting dragged into the group of junior delinquents and getting a drug habit then how they do at school is basically down to them, and you as their parents. Yes, some teahcers are better than others and working equipment is better than tatty old text books but the difference isn't night and day. If your child is going to do well, they will do well at most schoold in the country and if the struggle they will struggle at any school, state or private.

No doubt this attitude will go flying out the window about 5 seconds after being presented by a child.

Bassjunkieuk

FWIW both me and my brother attended a "failing" high school and I don't think either of us have turned out bad or could have done much better had we gone another school in the area.

I started at college but dropped out due to starting a family a tad earlier then I anticipated ;-)
Since starting with my current employer 4 1/2 years ago I've been given plenty of training opportunities and have built up quite a collection of IT related qualifications and accreditations from a far few of the big industry players.

My brother went down the academic route and is currently studying quantum information theory (I just call it super-complicated physics.....) at Bristol Uni having completed a stint at Brighton Uni studying physics after he finished college.

For my growing tribe we have rather fortunately managed to get the eldest into a school that is consistently amongst the top in the borough and is a 5 minute walk from the house. Thankfully once we got her in we've managed to get the others in with the sibling policy and they all seem to be doing very well.

So DDD move back where you used to live, I could do with some competition for the commute ;-)

cjcp

Eau Rouge wrote:

Maybe I'm just massively naive on this, being child free, but as long as your child avoids getting dragged into the group of junior delinquents and getting a drug habit then how they do at school is basically down to them, and you as their parents. Yes, some teahcers are better than others and working equipment is better than tatty old text books but the difference isn't night and day. If your child is going to do well, they will do well at most schoold in the country and if the struggle they will struggle at any school, state or private.

No doubt this attitude will go flying out the window about 5 seconds after being presented by a child.

Making sure they "don't fall in with the wrong crowd" is certainly part of it IMO. However, the quality of the teacher is also key. An enthusiastic teacher is more likely to stir a child's interest in a subject. In my case, I started off in a comp (anyone remember the extensive teachers' strikes in 1986?) and then changed to a private school after two terms in Form 1. I'm pretty sure I'd have been doomed if I'd stayed in the former.

linsen

G66, sweetie..........

You asked for the b*llocking so here it is. Well, here are some facts:

One of my recent "state educated" GCSE classes all gained a higher grade at GCSE. The lowest grade in the class was an A.

Most state schools who are good or outstanding have pretty decent CVA (contextual value added) figures. This means, in layman's terms, that they do better than expected for their latent ability.

Which, given that the average state school educates those who "struggle" in various ways as well as those who don't (at least not financially, or academically, particularly), is good going.

Last year my school turned out around 88% of pupils with 5 or more A* - C grades. The bottom third of each year group that comes to us is deemed to be below the literacy standard required to access the curriculum (from all sorts of backgrounds). These are people who would never get in to most private schools and who could do with the type of balanced education that includes all abilities and backgrounds. If you constantly cream off your most academic pupils and hothouse them, then you are, of course, going to affect the rest of the education system.

Now, quality of teaching. For sure, the resources may be better. Until the school has a lean year because people can't pay the fees any more, or there is a small year group coming in (which is certainly the case in our local private school where the ratio of applicants last year was 3:1 and this year is 1.2:1). I have never taught in a private school, and I was educated in the local comprehensive, so my experience is limited. Given the amount of holiday private school teachers get, even compared with my ridiculously generous allowance, they jolly well should arrive in lessons bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to teach little “Hermione” all she ever wanted to know. All I will say is that I have privately tutored pupils whose parents have paid 12k a year for those lessons and the resultant knowledge in the subject area was a little lacking to say the least.

Peers? Friends come along in life in the most surprising fashion, you won't be able to choose your children's, and I know some thoroughly obnoxious teenagers. Where they were educated seems largely irrelevant.

Pay your taxes twice over if you wish for your children's education but come and see a state school in action these days before you start spouting sh*t about the quality of teaching.

(I will say there are some pretty rubbish teachers at my school too. I just happen not to be one of them )

Nothing personal here, but I think you wanted a response?

rjsterry

Eau Rouge wrote:

Maybe I'm just massively naive on this, being child free, but as long as your child avoids getting dragged into the group of junior delinquents and getting a drug habit then how they do at school is basically down to them, and you as their parents. Yes, some teahcers are better than others and working equipment is better than tatty old text books but the difference isn't night and day. If your child is going to do well, they will do well at most schoold in the country and if the struggle they will struggle at any school, state or private.

No doubt this attitude will go flying out the window about 5 seconds after being presented by a child.

That's put my thoughts much more clearly than I did. It's at least as much to do with the child in question and their parents as it is the teachers, and the equipment, although of course if these last two are terrible, then it certainly doesn't help. Having a child hasn't changed my point of view on this so far, but then my parents both played an active role in PTAs and as a school governor, and I would hope that I will do the same.

Aidy

Greg66 wrote:

It's a result of the pressure to get where you want to be at 5. Schools recognise that there is a big push to get kids in at 5. So they offer a smaller reception class at 4. Get into reception, and your chances of staying on at five increase [sic; not "are certain"].

Then reception becomes the "must get into" year. So schools open a nursery year at 3. And so it goes on...

But where does it end?

I mean, the logical conclusion is for people to start fornicating in school reception areas...

blu3cat

cjcp wrote:

Eau Rouge wrote:

Maybe I'm just massively naive on this, being child free, but as long as your child avoids getting dragged into the group of junior delinquents and getting a drug habit then how they do at school is basically down to them, and you as their parents. Yes, some teahcers are better than others and working equipment is better than tatty old text books but the difference isn't night and day. If your child is going to do well, they will do well at most schoold in the country and if the struggle they will struggle at any school, state or private.

No doubt this attitude will go flying out the window about 5 seconds after being presented by a child.

Making sure they "don't fall in with the wrong crowd" is certainly part of it IMO. However, the quality of the teacher is also key. An enthusiastic teacher is more likely to stir a child's interest in a subject. In my case, I started off in a comp (anyone remember the extensive teachers' strikes in 1986?) and then changed to a private school after two terms in Form 1. I'm pretty sure I'd have been doomed if I'd stayed in the former.

Hang on a minute. How does the wrong crowd form? I am sure every drug addicted, bank robbing general nasty person just falls in with the wrong crowd. Does the crowd form as kids gravitate together?

How come a child who performs well doesn't fall in with the right crowd?

cjcp

blu3cat wrote:

cjcp wrote:

Eau Rouge wrote:

Maybe I'm just massively naive on this, being child free, but as long as your child avoids getting dragged into the group of junior delinquents and getting a drug habit then how they do at school is basically down to them, and you as their parents. Yes, some teahcers are better than others and working equipment is better than tatty old text books but the difference isn't night and day. If your child is going to do well, they will do well at most schoold in the country and if the struggle they will struggle at any school, state or private.

No doubt this attitude will go flying out the window about 5 seconds after being presented by a child.

Making sure they "don't fall in with the wrong crowd" is certainly part of it IMO. However, the quality of the teacher is also key. An enthusiastic teacher is more likely to stir a child's interest in a subject. In my case, I started off in a comp (anyone remember the extensive teachers' strikes in 1986?) and then changed to a private school after two terms in Form 1. I'm pretty sure I'd have been doomed if I'd stayed in the former.

Hang on a minute. How does the wrong crowd form? I am sure every drug addicted, bank robbing general nasty person just falls in with the wrong crowd. Does the crowd form as kids gravitate together?

How come a child who performs well doesn't fall in with the right crowd?

Heh heh. I've no idea. Just want to make sure they don't fall in with it.

rjsterry

What's this linsen? There are some of not-so-good teachers? Next you'll be saying that not all nurses are angels

Making well-off kids slightly better off isn't really that much of an achievement I don't think.

lost_in_thought

I think the only things the independent school I went to gave me that my state school friends didn't get boil down to wider learning, that's obviously helped by funding.

We had various societies, scientific, debating, mathematical and literary, run by pupils with speakers every fortnight, including people like Stephen Hawking, Tony Blair, Prof. Sir Frank Kermode... oh and Peter Stringfellow! He was funny. Being based in Cambridge and in touch with the Union helped with speakers.

We went on a lot of trips, tours (sports teams, yeargroups and musical groups) and such, all abroad, the most memorable being to Israel for 5 weeks in the Summer holidays.

We also had famously fantastic sports facilities, sport was seen as something you had to do rather than 'uncool', and the school also provided 'activities' for boarders and non-boarders (home boarders as we called them) which were fantastic. We had to do at least 2 non-sporting activities out of 5 per week, such as photography, one of the musical groups, sculpture, or a craft. We also had to do CCF, DofE or charitable work.

Seeing as the majority of teachers lived on-site, there was a lot of scope for extra tuition, for example as I was one of the Oxbridge applicants, I was tutored in interview technique, and received extra, Oxbridge-entrance-specific tutoring as well as taking S-Levels.

Oh and we went to lessons Monday to Saturday 8:15 to 4:30...

I mean, of course it's what you make of it, but with all that on a plate for 7 years it's easy to turn out OK.

If I can afford it my kids will be going there too.

bigmat

lost_in_thought wrote:

I think the only things the independent school I went to gave me that my state school friends didn't get boil down to wider learning, that's obviously helped by funding.

We had various societies, scientific, debating, mathematical and literary, run by pupils with speakers every fortnight, including people like Stephen Hawking, Tony Blair, Prof. Sir Frank Kermode... oh and Peter Stringfellow! He was funny. Being based in Cambridge and in touch with the Union helped with speakers.

We went on a lot of trips, tours (sports teams, yeargroups and musical groups) and such, all abroad, the most memorable being to Israel for 5 weeks in the Summer holidays.

We also had famously fantastic sports facilities, sport was seen as something you had to do rather than 'uncool', and the school also provided 'activities' for boarders and non-boarders (home boarders as we called them) which were fantastic. We had to do at least 2 non-sporting activities out of 5 per week, such as photography, one of the musical groups, sculpture, or a craft. We also had to do CCF, DofE or charitable work.

Seeing as the majority of teachers lived on-site, there was a lot of scope for extra tuition, for example as I was one of the Oxbridge applicants, I was tutored in interview technique, and received extra, Oxbridge-entrance-specific tutoring as well as taking S-Levels.

Oh and we went to lessons Monday to Saturday 8:15 to 4:30...

I mean, of course it's what you make of it, but with all that on a plate for 7 years it's easy to turn out OK.

If I can afford it my kids will be going there too.

Viva la revolucion!

el_presidente

If I'd been made to go to school on Saturday I would have gone on strike. I thought child labour had been outlawed. To be honest LiT I'm sure you had a good time but that post filled me with horror.

Agent57

cjcp wrote:

However, the quality of the teacher is also key. An enthusiastic teacher is more likely to stir a child's interest in a subject. In my case, I started off in a comp (anyone remember the extensive teachers' strikes in 1986?) and then changed to a private school after two terms in Form 1. I'm pretty sure I'd have been doomed if I'd stayed in the former.

I agree that teachers and the school environment can make a big difference. I see myself as an example of that.

I spent my first 3 years of secondary school at a grammar school in Ramsgate, and I was in the bottom set for French, and doing pretty badly at Maths and most subjects. Then we moved to Lancaster, and I went to a different grammar school. All of a sudden, I started doing much better all round; set 2 for French, top of set 2 for Maths, that sort of thing.

I hadn't changed, as far as I know, so I can only really put it down to the school & teachers. Or, maybe more accurately, the way that the school, teachers and other pupils fitted with me.

The "best school" isn't necessarily the best school for a given child. My sister went to the "best school" for girls in Lancaster, but she absolutely hated her 7 years there. She did well, but would probably have done even better if she'd enjoyed her school.

solsurf

After going to both a comprehensive in London and Public school in Devon, I can say it depends on the kid and what they will get out of it. I loved my comprehensive but hated the public school for nearly all the same reasons that LiT loved it. If you didn't fit in it was a very lonely place.

greg66_tri_v2.0

el_presidente wrote:

If I'd been made to go to school on Saturday I would have gone on strike. I thought child labour had been outlawed. To be honest LiT I'm sure you had a good time but that post filled me with horror.

It's more common in boarding schools. Even though I was at a day school, I had Sat am school until I was 13 (the school dropped it because it was putting prospective parents off). Really though, it was just something to fill the time before Saturday sports fixtures (and if they were away matches in the distance, you got to bunk the lessons anyway). A typical Sat am timetable consisted of English, RE and double art. zzzzzzzzzzzz.

el_presidente

Greg66 wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

If I'd been made to go to school on Saturday I would have gone on strike. I thought child labour had been outlawed. To be honest LiT I'm sure you had a good time but that post filled me with horror.

It's more common in boarding schools. Even though I was at a day school, I had Sat am school until I was 13 (the school dropped it because it was putting prospective parents off). Really though, it was just something to fill the time before Saturday sports fixtures (and if they were away matches in the distance, you got to bunk the lessons anyway). A typical Sat am timetable consisted of English, RE and double art. zzzzzzzzzzzz.

yes but my Saturday timetable consisted of having a lie in then messing about all day doing what the hell I wanted. Or in later years going to the footy with my old man. Public schools suck and I diskard them uterly.

lost_in_thought

Greg66 wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

If I'd been made to go to school on Saturday I would have gone on strike. I thought child labour had been outlawed. To be honest LiT I'm sure you had a good time but that post filled me with horror.

It's more common in boarding schools. Even though I was at a day school, I had Sat am school until I was 13 (the school dropped it because it was putting prospective parents off). Really though, it was just something to fill the time before Saturday sports fixtures (and if they were away matches in the distance, you got to bunk the lessons anyway). A typical Sat am timetable consisted of English, RE and double art. zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Yeah, it is, seeing as the majority of kids don't go home on the weekend, it's good to have something to keep them busy.

We did sport tuesday, thursday and saturday afternoons, and wednesday afternoon was CCF/DofE/Charity so they needed to fit the lessons in somewhere!

lost_in_thought

el_presidente wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

el_presidente wrote:

If I'd been made to go to school on Saturday I would have gone on strike. I thought child labour had been outlawed. To be honest LiT I'm sure you had a good time but that post filled me with horror.

It's more common in boarding schools. Even though I was at a day school, I had Sat am school until I was 13 (the school dropped it because it was putting prospective parents off). Really though, it was just something to fill the time before Saturday sports fixtures (and if they were away matches in the distance, you got to bunk the lessons anyway). A typical Sat am timetable consisted of English, RE and double art. zzzzzzzzzzzz.

yes but my Saturday timetable consisted of having a lie in then messing about all day doing what the hell I wanted. Or in later years going to the footy with my old man. Public schools suck and I diskard them uterly.

Ah, but what I wanted to do on a saturday was rattle through a few lessons (I think it was English and German so I liked them anyway), then go kick some ass at a swimming gala or a tennis match. Sundays were for mooching. And they were dull. What did you do when you messed around all day?

And as a public schoolgirl I'm too polite to say that I think state schools suck. :P

el_presidente

Can you still get in your uniform?

lost_in_thought

el_presidente wrote:

Can you still get in your uniform?

As you're into football, I think we'll refer to that comment as an own goal.

jedster

I went to state schools (decent ones but nothing special) and ended up working in environments where most of the Brits (they have tended to be quite multinational places) were from Independent Schools and Oxbridge.

My sense is that the main benefit of private education comes down to ethos and raised aspiration. At the schools that I went to, no-one would have really seriously considered that they were candidates for the pretty elitist places that I ended up working (even if they had heard of them which is quite unlikely). My peers from Winchester etc, fully expected to working somewhere like that.

If we'd stayed living in London we would have found the money for private education. Given that we actually prefer the idea of schools that are open to everyone in the comunity irrespective of the ability to pay, we decided to move out to one of the remaining grammar school areas around London. We see this as the best of both worlds (albeit that it comes with the stress and potential pain of the 11+).

Getting back to the original topic, do kids alter attitude to commuting? Well if we hadn't had kids we would have probably stayed in leafy NW3 and I would have continued adding laps of Regents Park to pad out my commute. As it is I do a bike train bike coommute with about 20 miles cycling a day. Obviously, it is a compromise but one I am entirely happy with. Beyond that, I probably am more cautious that I was before kids. Risk and reward looks a bit different.

Cheers,

J

DonDaddyD

Sending kids to the right school is a combination of peers, the teacher, the area (which will determine funding and immediate social values) and of course the child themself.

I will never send my kids to boarding school.

OK, my experience:

I went to a school that no longer exists. It was bought out and is now a Harris academy. When I was there it was third from bottom in the "Ofstead league tables" or something, at the time we didn't care because 'failing' was cool. My English teacher (one of the few good teachers there) was molested by students in the year below, I know because a person that did it sat next to me in business studies in college. At least one person (having left school) went to prison for armed robbery. Altenatively I went to University and studied Business Psychology and Film and TV.

Those people's lives haven't changed much and they've had children who have often developed the same, similar or worse values than their parents. Those kids go to school. My kids won't be going to their school.

I aspire to a better life for me and my family. Much like my parents have done, whereas in their early 20s and 30s when I was growing up they were scared to challenge teachers, the establishment and take me out of school - a regret. Now older and wiser my brother was sent to private school, then prep and then when they found out he didn't like the pomposity of it, they sent him to a good state school.

Lit's post made me think that the extracurricular activites can be attained in different ways. My brother has choosen to go to Saturday school, since 13 I think. At 16 they offered him a weekend job once he leaves/starts college. My brother wants to and give back to the younger generation. Also he plays Sunday League football and my Dad (former national athlete) has taken up coaching athletics to a small group of kids (for a few years now), which my brother also does. I think he ran the 100m in 12 seconds last year, he's faster now. This also allowed my Father and brother to bond in their own way.

My best friend went to Allyens and with financially less he found it equally hard amongst people who mostly wanted for nothing. The silver spoon, lack of tollerance to those that are different, the prejudice and sheer number of people who didn't appreciate the value of things such as money didn't impress me. My kids won't be going to that kind of school either.

My secondary school taught me very little educationally, it did teach me a few things, however. Values, work ethic, not to be presumptuous, pretentious and it exposed me to diversity, the real world, different cultures and different people.

Personally, I'd like to send my kids to a school that delivers a good education but carries none of the superiority complex that some private schools do. Lastly, I don't want my kids in either a dangerous environment or an environment where they are made exceptions of.

It's a tough balance and the right school, a successful childhood is a combination of a variables. I wouldn't, for example swap any instance of my childhood for that of my friend who went to private school or my brothers. In fact I'm of the thought that I had the best childhood and teenage years going (though most my teens was spent drunk...)

linsen

We are getting into the territory of extreme subjectivity now. We are all bound to have very strong opinions about schooling, whether we had a good or bad experience. If you have money a plenty then your life experiences (including schooling) are likely to be very different than if you don't.

Life is about making the best of what you have available to you. If money were no object, would I send my children to private school? Maybe, but probably not, Would I live in an area where the local school is frequented by more middle class children? I expect that maybe I would, but I value so much else as well, and in the end decided not to apply to a "better" out-of-catchment school, because of the overall life experience I wanted to offer my children.

I just faced this internal debate. It ended up that I would rather my children walked to the local school than went on a bus, lived with me rather than with their schoolfriends, but all that is personal.

We are all a product of so many things and parents these days can be rather guilty of assuming that it is not ultimately their responsibility to bring their children up to respect others. The number of times I have heard parents say "once they get to school, they will be able to sort their behaviour out". Oh no we won't. I know plenty of people who had very disadvantaged backgrounds who are making a real success of themselves, and plenty who had everything handed to them on a plate and have ended up drifting through adult life with no sense of purpose whatsoever. I think it comes down to what drives you. A school can help with that, but it can't do it for you.

I have colleagues now, and know doctors and lawyers, as well as high-earning sportsmen, who were all educated at the first school I taught in. It was pretty rough, but they just about survived.

I went to a university where by far the majority came out of fee-paying education. I found it interesting that the people who had been state educated gravitated towards each other and ended up serving drinks in pubs to those who came out of the private schools. That doesn't mean a thing, but it amused me. Gave me a chip on my shoulder? Not at all. I suffered far fewer hangovers.

lost_in_thought

No, school can't do it all for you, but it can help. Jedster puts it well - when everyone else in your class intends to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a professor, or something high-flying, if you want to do nothing you're bound to feel like a bit of a plum.

A great friend who was state educated and is very, very bright always complained that he was bullied and ostracised for being clever, whereas at the school I went to I experienced exactly the opposite.

While he's done very well for himself, and is touted as an example by his school, I can only think of 2 or 3 people out of my group of 30-odd schoolfriends who aren't on their way to achieving their lofty goals, or there already.

I agree though, it is very personal, and a school alone can't make a person.

DonDaddyD

lost_in_thought wrote:

No, school can't do it all for you, but it can help. Jedster puts it well - when everyone else in your class intends to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a professor, or something high-flying, if you want to do nothing you're bound to feel like a bit of a plum.

That's almost 'urban-ethnic'.

Sorry, made me smile. Years of hearing my Mum or friends parents in very thick Jamaican/African/Asian accent telling their kids they're going to be a doctor. Then my best mates mum (who wasn't) saying it's up to you what you become. It made me smile is all.

I have this debate with my girlfriend all the time. She's all "Our kids will be whatever they want to and I'll love the all the same."

In the back of my mind (though I'll never tell her) I'm thinking "I wanted A grades! Now, wears my belt".

Though I'd never smack my kids.

A great friend who was state educated and is very, very bright always complained that he was bullied and ostracised for being clever.

A pain I know too well.