Working class? Don't think that Oxbridge is for you.

Interesting that a few posts refer to people from ‘up,north’ or ‘northern council estates’ who got into Oxbridge. Have I missed the references to down south?

First in my working class family to even go into 6th form. Progressed on to Oxford. Met husband there from a northern council house family. Sister followed me 9 years later. My son also ended up with an Oxford first in mathematics after a state school education.

When pressed, Birbalsingh's views about Johnson were this:

"I like Boris, I don’t think he’s a bad guy you know, but I don’t know enough about what he’s got up to, but I do not think that he is a good role model for children."

"When pushed on why she believed this, she said: “His personal life, for instance, that does make me raise an eyebrow. The other day I saw a picture of him in the Metro and I looked at his hair and I thought, oh my goodness, we expect our children to have professional-looking hair."

“Now, you might think that’s a bit pedantic and that’s a bit silly, but it isn’t actually. It’s important to look professional and sometimes Boris looks professional, but sometimes he’s not professional enough for me. Put it that way.”

So the thing she pinpoints as most distressing about Johnson is his hair!!! Nothing about his lack of honesty and integrity and law breaking.

She thinks girls don't like maths and physics because its too hard. And after saying that she says that all the lefties are out to get her.

That's quite controversial. I like people who speak their mind but I'd like them to be right about things if they are going to have responsibilities to live up to.

I think some people love to hate her and are very happy to cherry pick anything she says (or doesn't say) to make a good headline (or opening title to a thread). She's a controversial figure but that doesn't mean that her views aren't worth considering and I like the fact that she speaks her mind even when it is clearly going to be unpopular or out of step with current thinking. She doesn't think BJ is a good role model for children and said so. Good for her!

Fair enough.

I read what was actually there and you imagined some things and got the purpose of her role wrong. ??

We read this very differently volver and I've no more to say about it.

And I watched her speech and then read the transcript. No intervening journalists.

The left love to misunderstand this woman?

The right love to deify this woman.

Balances out.

foxie48 That sums up perfectly what she said - I actually read the article in the Telegraph covering her speech (and was really annoyed at the clickbait headline - I don't pay my subscription for tabloid crap like that) and saw her interviewed by Dan Wootton on GB News last night. She was NOT saying that children from disadvantaged backgrounds shouldn't aim to go to Oxbridge, she was saying that people who are not capable of those dizzy heights should also be praised for improving their circumstances and that too is social mobility. The left love to misunderstand this woman - her school has many disadvantaged puptils and some of them do end up at Oxbridge.

The chap who runs Pimlico Plumbers (Charlie something?) is a pretty good example of social mobility isn't he?

FarNorth

Dickens
The message is that social mobility works at all levels. We shouldn't focus on just one goal.

To some limited extent, it always has worked 'at all levels' - long before it became government policy.

People have extricated themselves from poverty and climbed the ladder. My own mother did - but she did it with the financial help of the then government.

Is there equal weight to vocational and academic skills?

So, correcting some inaccuracies first…

foxie48’s long quote in her post at 14:52 is not from Birbalsingh’s speech yesterday.
Her speech yesterday was not about widening access to Oxford or Cambridge.
Her speech yesterday was in her position as Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, not as a head teacher.
winterwhite - It is not the role of the Chair of the Social Mobility Commission to be "lifting people out of poverty".

I think the headline from the article I quoted yesterday has had the effect of making people focus on Oxbridge admissions numbers and produced a long line of stories about people who went to Oxbridge from “poorer” backgrounds. But the Oxbridge reference is to encapsulate what she was saying – that if you are from a “poorer” background, you should be happier with less achievement.

She has a general modus operandi that she is following in this instance. Set up a straw man, saying that everyone considers success as being a CEO, or a lawyer, or similar, and that other successes are being ignored. Well that is an inaccurate position from which to start. That is an idea that she has made up in her own head, and she goes on to explain how she is going to fix this non-existent problem. And it’s mainly by encouraging the ones at the bottom (her actual words) not to expect too much and to be happy with less.

I don’t have the knowledge to know if she is a good educationalist or not, it’s not my area. But as a person from a poor/disadvantaged/working class background – choose what you want to call it – I can see that her approach is not going to be one that encourages people like me to aim to be the best they can be. And that’s her job, six days a month. Appointed by Truss who said she would be addressing the issues of low expectations. She’s not doing that. She is advocating the concept of low expectations and painting that as a virtue.

So its not a deliberate misunderstanding winterwhite, it’s a sensible reading of what she says and what it means. She is clearly totally unsuited to the role of Chair of the Social Mobility Commission and having a school which seems to do well isn’t going to let her off justified criticism in other roles.

Transcript of her speech. www.gov.uk/government/speeches/bucking-the-trend-a-fresh-approach-to-social-mobility

Summary of her role: publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Social-Mobility-Commission-Chair-Candidate-Information-Pack.pdf

If working class children don’t go to Oxbridge, the syst3m will never change will it??

I should just point out that getting ‘good enough grades’ alone will not get students into Oxbridge. There are many, many people with top grades who don’t get a place. On the other hand, I know somebody who was offered a place at Oxford if he got two E grades (though in the end he did much better than that). He happened to be a brilliant organist, and that’s really what got him the place.

Well said, winterwhite.

Just how it should be.

My son went to Oxford from a bog standard comprehensive in Hull .
He got the highest marks in the Maths faculty finals , earning himself a First and a substantial financial prize .
I did worry that his school was pushing him into a social strata where he would not fit in .
I couldn't have been more wrong.
He had a wonderful time and made lovely and life long friends.

Maybe she is making a different point? I hate voxpops where the loss of a young person is added to by “he / she was going to be a doctor / lawyer” as if other occupations aren’t just as worthy of grieving. Oxbridge is great but nothing wrong with striving for other universities or an apprenticeship

I went to Edinburgh University and the LSE. There were quite a few English students from Eton, Harrow etc studying at Edinburgh. The other students called them ‘Yahs’ because of how they pronounced the word ‘yes’. ?

NoddingGanGan

Has anyone actually read the linked article? Or anyone else's informed comments on the current rate of state school admissions to Oxbridge?

Did all those free thinking intelligent contributors realise that this has nothing to do with admissions to Oxbridge?

to be continued...

That's not a quote from her speech.

I have to go and do something right now but I would like to answer your points foxie4 so I'll be back in a while

Sorry @winterwhite, you obviously had. I read the first couple of pages of comments and was so frustrated I went off half-cocked. I apologise to all the free thinking, intelligent contributers on here.

Has anyone actually read the linked article? Or anyone else's informed comments on the current rate of state school admissions to Oxbridge?

There seems to be some almost deliberate misunderstanding here of what Ms Birbalsingh said, and some pretty unpleasant posts.

The speech mentioned "poor families", because her role is supposed to be about "lifting people out of poverty". I didn't see the words working class but I'm sure someone will correct me if I missed them..

I read nothing about discouraging children from poor backgrounds to aim high. Quite the opposite. The point was that published measurements of success in improving social mobility concentrate on a few talented children growing up in poverty who reach the top of the ladder and high-profile careers. And that the success of the many more less talented children who get a firm footing on the lower rungs is equally important.

No doubt it could have been better phrased, but I think it's a powerful message.

Volver we've become so polararised that the interpretation of what she said depends so much on who is saying it. I have found this, which I believe is a quote from her speech. I don't agree with everything KB says, she's her own worst enemy at times but I don't feel the need to misrepresent her. For most children, wherever they come from, Oxbridge is not going to be a realistic goal, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to widen access and tbh in this I think there's been a degree of success but that shouldn't be the focus for measuring social mobility. I think that is what she is saying and if she is then I agree with her. There are many ways of succeeding in life other than an Oxbridge degree.

Ms Birbalsingh said: “For my top 5%-6% of children at school I’m really excited for them to be able to possibly get into Oxford or Cambridge.

“But I just recognise that for the majority of my children tI deliberately chose hat isn’t really a reality, and that we’re too often distracted by that romantic Hollywood-type film of you’ve been born at the bottom and now you’re at the top and so on.

“When in fact most of us don’t actually even want to be prime minister and we don’t want to be millionaires – what we want is to be able to find a job where we can find purpose and fulfil our talents.”

She said this was not about dampening aspiration for working-class pupils.

“I don’t dampen it at our school, most certainly. But it’s also the case that it’s important to remember that not all of us want to be bankers.

“We need to value a whole variety of different careers that are out there and options for young people.

“And valuing their talents, because not everybody is going to get top 9s in their GCSEs, not everyone is going to go on and do A-levels, and to then take the sort of condescending view of people who don’t do A-levels is wrong, because they are fulfilling their talents and doing something that’s got equal worth.”

GovernmentParentsEducation SecretaryBritainITV