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

Are they all working class? Serves them right then.

She's annoyed me previously but I am trying to work out what she wishes to achieve.

If she's saying that 50% of students don't want to go to university or that it is not the best for them academically, then those 50% should be given every opportunity to achieve the very best they possibly can.

I didn't think she was saying that poorer children who are extremely bright should be denied a place at Oxford or Cambridge or given every opportunity to go.

Not so much WPIS, more having had a proper education unlike anything that MissSnuffy can imagine

Are you saying that only people who have been to university then gone on to take a PhD have had a proper education?

Or can detect BS?

No, that's just something you've made up to try to make me look unpleasant, isn't it?

I was actually thinking about the education I had in a state secondary school that didn't think I had to not speak in the corridors or that I thought Maths was too hard. And didn't exclude children who they didn't think were likely to pass all their exams and so make the school look bad.

And taught me to construct very convoluted sentences. ?

volver

MerylStreep

FarNorth

Has no-one here read the article?

I have and agree with every word. She’s one of the few who really ^gets it^

No she doesn't! Jeezy peeps.

There is value in what she says about setting achievable goals for everyone. For one person, that might be getting to Oxbridge. For another it might be becoming the first person in your immediate family to get a permanent job.

But why in God's name does she phrase it this way: Stop fixating on getting poor children to university and celebrate "small steps up the ladder", Boris Johnson's social mobility chief has said.

Why not say Stop fixating on getting not very intelligent children to university? Because she is associating being poor with being not to cope with being at University, that's why. She makes my blood boil, really she does.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61745817?at_campaign=KARANGA&at_medium=RSS

I've got used to her platitudes, so my blood no longer boils. What does make my blood boil is that people sheepishly swallow what she says. She knows perfectly well how her words will be reported by the press and plays the game.

growstuff ??

Callistemon21

She's annoyed me previously but I am trying to work out what she wishes to achieve.

If she's saying that 50% of students don't want to go to university or that it is not the best for them academically, then those 50% should be given every opportunity to achieve the very best they possibly can.

I didn't think she was saying that poorer children who are extremely bright should be denied a place at Oxford or Cambridge or given every opportunity to go.

She's the country's social mobility tsar. Giving out the message that Oxbridge isn't the right place for poorer children is just so wrong. Maybe she could actually do her job and come up with some kind of solution to the low attainment of young people in areas such as the North East, which is holding them back.

Giving out the message that Oxbridge isn't the right place for poorer children is just so wrong.
But is she?

Yes.

You can bet your life she'll be reported telling us that's not what she said or meant, and all the big bad lefties are getting at her and she will not be cowed.

She is so transparent.

Not so much WPIS, more having had a proper education unlike anything that MissSnuffy can imagine, as a result of which it became possible to identify BS when I see it.
I don't think I misread that

Isn't her school in a deprived area?
I thought she encouraged her pupils to achieve the best they possibly can?
Or have I got that wrong?

Not that I agree with her methods, particularly.

No, just chose to misinterpret it, I think.

I'd mention a good broad based Scottish education, but the thread might explode.

No, just chose to misinterpret it, I think
It seemed plain enough.

Oh? And some people think its plain that Birbalsingh knows what she's talking about.

They're wrong too.

Could you support that with some evidence, please, V?

Meanwhile, I was making cauliflower cheese just now and recalled something I read this morning about political discussions (others too but that was what the writer was talking about mainly). He said he thinks we "have lost the ability to argue in a spirit of charity."

I'm making a renewed resolution to try and do that.

Baggs

Could you support that with some evidence, please, V?

Which bit? The bit about Birbalsingh not knowing what she's talking about?

Well, there's this.

www.iop.org/about/news/work-together-to-encourage-girls-to-study-physics#gref

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10845937/Britains-strictest-headmistress-slammed-online-critics-suggest-pupils-need-therapy.html (Daily Mail!!)

www.newstatesman.com/culture/2022/05/is-britains-strictest-headmistress-a-visionary-or-a-tyrant

The New Stateman one is mainly about how she approaches people who criticise her and her methods. TL:DR; she belittles them and plays the victim.

Ms Birbalsingh must be on GN, sounds a familiar modus operandi

Perhaps, but I don't think any of us are meant to be the social mobility tsar, advise the government and have a seat in the HoL in our sights.

Giving out the message that Oxbridge isn't the right place for poorer children is just so wrong.

The message sounds to me to be that there is too much concentration on statistics of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds getting into university and there should be more focus on education and training that helps pupils towards good careers that may not require university.

I agree NittWitt. Her message is about so much more than disadvantaged kids going to Oxbridge. Whatever is right for a particular pupil to progress beyond their disadvantaged background is surely what should be aimed for. Maybe it's training to become a hairdresser or a plumber. Maybe it's going to university. Are Oxford and Cambridge the only good universities to aim for? No.

Grandma70's " we cant claim to be working class"
So you or your family never got paid and depended on wages to live ?
Regardless of what your jobs were IF you worked for pay and to pay your bills..your working class!
Honestly the snobbery of the class system is ridiculous .

Germany has a very good system of vocational training which the UK would do well to look at, in my view.