So called left wingers who pay school fees

Time to stop worrying (or even bothering about) what your mum thinks, redblue. Unless she's offering to pay, it's none of her business. Your life; your choices from what's available (which is not to say I'd make the same choices). Good luck.

This discussion interests me and makes me sad. I am a mum of 2 (girl aged 3 boy aged 2). My parents in the 70s/80s were strongly left wing. I was the eldest of 4 children and we all went to state schools.
Both of my parents were sent by their parents (my grandparents) to expensive private schools. My mum frequently boasted during my childhood that she could read at the age of 3 and that she won many academic prizes at her prep school and private secondary school. If any of us 4 children showed any slowness at reading or academic progress she was quite sneering. At the same time both of my parents regularly influenced us that it was and is "morally wrong" to send your children to private schools. They are both extremely defensive about the schools we went to which were a mixture of middling to good state schools.
I reluctantly returned to work when both of my little ones were 6 months old and the combined nursery fee for both of them per month is £2,200 - although it killed me to pay this I thought - well if I can afford this i can afford private schools for them when they get to school age. I thought this especially as both the primary school and the secondary school in our catchment area in Oxfordshire are both under special measures (the primary having been so for 3 years now and showing no sign of coming out of special measures). I told my mum i might consider paying for private school for my 3 year old (who can not yet read) and she went ballistic. It is all theory now anyway, having done the sums not even £2,200 per calender month (my entire salary) will cover the majority of fee paying schools for 2 pupils which are within my driving distance and which I could take them to and get to work at a decent hour.
so i will have to send them to the special measures primary, or move house again. Meantime my mum is distinctly disappointed at me working 4 days per week instead of 5 (betrays feminist ideals) and even thinking about private schools.

I sent my children to a private school & I don't apologise in the least. We were not floating in a sea of spare cash & had to effectively re-mortgage the house to do so. But the alternative was that my bright daughter would have continued to be bullied and spiral into a state of depression and completely lose what little self-confidence she had left. When we asked her to be moved to an alternative state school we were told that 'we were outside the catchment area'.

Within a term at private school the difference in my child was remarkable and my husband said it was the best money we had ever spent. This does not mean that I don't care about other young people & feel that successive governments have failed a generation of young people. It also makes me angry that as a working class grammar school girl, I had to pay for my children to receive the standard of education that I got for free 30 years ago.

I was recently rounded upon by a couple of 'chamapagne socialists' who had made such a big thing about not sending their kids to private school. They live in a large comfortable house in a leafy suburb and take their 3 kids on foreign holidays that we couldn't even begin to afford. Oh and they've just bought a second home in an area where the locals can't afford to buy a first one.

Where we lived in the UK, many parents got children babtised and then went to the CofE Church quite regularly and helped with charity events - to ensure a place at the CofE Church. Then the school made sure that the Curriculum prepared for the 11+ exams for the local (now private) Grammar school. that CofE primary school was therefore used as a free prep school - and the majority went on to the Grammar school or other private school at the secondary stage. The other local primary school suffered terribly from that 'creaming off'.

I absolutely agree, Alison. I also know that there are lots of independent prep schools where my daughter lives, that coach the children very heavily for the 11+ places. There have also been children at the GD's school who come for the first couple of years and then go off to prep school after a couple of years. This means that parents who would have loved to have sent their children there miss out on a place. It seems wrong to me.
My daughter has friends whose children have been completely heartbroken when they have "failed" (and that is the way they see it) the 11+. One girl missed out by one mark and her best friend passed by one mark.

JessM While it is true that many secondary modern schools were under-funded and of poor quality, that is not true of all. Mr absent attended a secondary modern which had an entire science and technology block. It also had playing fields where a wide variety of sports took place. He became a competitive junior gymnast through his training at school. He frequently relates how they made canoes in their woodwork class and then launched them successfully on the river and practised canoeing. He didn't learn a foreign language, but certainly has a grasp of grammar and punctuation in English. Many of the practical skills he acquired at school have served him well in later years.

Yes, I do think that those who 'failed' had a poorer education and were expected to do the practical subjects. I don't think anything would convince me that children should pass or fail after one exam at the age of 11.

Yes, I know there are some left, but not enough to go round!

There are still plenty of state grammar schools (164 nationally according to Wiki), Anagram. Next year will see the frantic private coaching and preparation of many of the children in my eldest DG's class. She will not be taking part.

I'm sure that's true, but we no longer have Grammar Schools as an alternative, unless you count the selective schools.

A very distinguished retired professor whom I know well failed his 11+ and eventually gained several doctorates. His family were all educated in the comprehensive system and have succeeded in their chosen fields. A former colleague failed hers and was able to gain a degree in languages and have a successful career in teaching - ironically, in the selective system. Some sec mods were better than others, and the same can be said about present-day comprehensives.

Alison, are you saying, then, that Secondary Moderns didn't provide a 'good education'? As far as I can remember, the friends of mine from primary school who failed the 11 plus seemed to have a similar education to those who went to the Grammar School, apart from not doing Latin! They did do more practical subjects later on, such as typing, woodwork and cookery, but so did we at the Grammar School (not woodwork, unfortunately) if those were the subjects a pupil wanted to take up.

And of course in those days (60s) everyone either went on to higher education or got a job after leaving school - unemployment was very rare!

Gracemem I do find that those who went to grammar schools are all in favour of them but what about those who didn't? Were they not worthy of a good education too? Is it really fair to judge a child at the age of 11 on one exam? Was it fair that in some areas 30% of children went to GS but in others it was as low as 5%? For those 95% of children who 'failed' in those areas there was not such a good education. I fail to see how any parent can think that is a fairer system than allowing those who can afford to pay for their children's education to do so whilst also subsidising the education of everyone else. If you abolish the private system where is the extra money to come from? Yes, in an ideal world all children would have the best education for their needs but we don't live in an ideal world.

POGS - Don't even get me started on Yasmin Alibah-Brown, boy does she have one big chip on her shoulder given that she has done very well in her adopted country? Although I think she writes very well about the many problems Muslim women face, having to cover their face etc., I nevertheless find some of her articles relating to race unbelievable, she even finds nude shoes an issue would you believe, because they don't match darker skin tones. Well personally I'd say black and brown shoes are more prolific and they don't match paler skins, is this a problem? I didn't see it, but I believe it is on Youtube, an interview she had with Richard Bacon, where she said something along the lines of I wish you white middle class men would all just go away, so we could step in, (I'm not quoting verbatim), but you get the gist, how she got away with it I don't know. Very prickly woman who sees slights everywhere.

The 'wealth of the church' isn't the personal property of the AofC! The income from church investments goes to pay pensions for retired clergy, train priests and laypeople, run charitable foundations, support dioceses with no money, and above all, help to maintain the thousands of crumbling ancient buildings tourists love to visit. A £1 in the collecting box doesn't go far to replace the lead nicked off the roof or replace the 12th century gargoyles. And a lot of Bishops' 'palaces' are already used for other purposes while the bish lives in a 3 bed 2 recep down the road. Clergy don't have much choice about living a frugal life given what they are paid!

petallus

Butternut I too got a Masters in my (late) 40s.

Didn't marry a posho though. It was someone from an even humbler background than mine but he made it through to Grammar school.

baNANA'

I agree with everything you have said, gracesmum also.

Yes Polly Toynbee and the likes of Dianne Abott are hypocrites of the first order. I have watched and listened to them annihiate the fee paying school system.I find those who proclaim the loudest to be true socialists usually are the most disingenuous actually.

Take the likes of Billy Bragg and the church. They are very wealthy property owners, they bang on about poverty and the homeless. Do they give their property to the poor, like heck they do. The Arch Bishop of Canterbury is a classic hypocrite socialist. The church has it's own property department with a megga portfolio. The 'palaces' lived in by him and others would make fantastic accommodation for the homeless wouldn't it.?

Polly Toynbee, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Joan Bakewell claim to be socialists. They worry about the poor elderly and societies less well off telling us it is our duty to help pay for their care. What happened when the so-called Granny Tax came in. They ran for the hills crying wolf In other words it's O.K. for me to tell you lot what you should do, oh but hang on a minute this is going to cost me money, bugger that for a game of soldiers, sod socialism on this one.

Bono, Will Self, Polly Toynbee, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown etc., are all as much a part of the hypocritical political machine as anyone, left or right of politics, take your pick.

home

No chance of that for me, nanaej. My classics teacher was a maiden lady with a PhD who had been at school with my mum. She didn't half make me work hard.

The girl who did classics in a class of one at my school ended up running off with the (married) classics teacher!
IMHO many parents who pay for education are not always worried about education but are buying exclusivity so their kids are not mixing with children they think are less worthy than theirs.

I reckon that I had a better all-round education in an 'ordinary' Scottish Academy than my ex had in a second-rate public school where the only advantage I could detect had been small classes. Having said that, by the time I reached the Sixth year, I was doing classics in a class of one.

petallus- That was me, too. Married a man from a posh public school.
Opposites attract, eh?? Got a Masters in my 40's.

Annobel, I think I might have done the same in those days as some of the Sec Mods were so awful. Very different situation as he only did so in extremis, when his son was failing, partly due to the system. He did not 'choose' to do this, but felt he had no choice in the circumstances. I respect that.

Nowadays, in good Comprehensives, and there are plenty around, that just would not be necessary.

Gracias amiga