Another Tory idea stolen by Labour

[expat]

It is quite interesting how Eton stirs up good old fear and envy (why else would people generalise about a group who they hardly know?)

Perhaps if the state schools were run more like Eton then maybe we would have a better education system.

Indeed, Eton is a good comprehensive school there is just one problem with trying to run state schools like that. A problem least likely to be solved IMHO by those who have never had to face up to it.

I don't envy people who went to Eton, or indeed Fettes, but I do observe the extent to which it is a ticket to the Establishment.

It doesn't actually make you use better grammar or anything like that: "a group whom they hardly know"

[Mich the Tester]

I don't envy people who went to Eton, or indeed Fettes, but I do observe the extent to which it is a ticket to the Establishment.

In Britain, possibly, but cross the Channel or the Irish sea and nobody gives a stuff which secondary school you attended.

[Doggy Styles]

I play cricket with three old harrovians. Two are doing OK, not through "the establishment", they are just good at selling themselves and are prepared to take risks with their own money.

(The other one is a very quick fast bowler who lives in the back of his old estate car. He doesn't wash a lot and we don't see him very often.)

[Mich the Tester]

(The other one is a very quick fast bowler who lives in the back of his old estate car. He doesn't wash a lot and we don't see him very often.)

Ten years in a cold boarding school dormitory with 12 other smelly, farting, snoring little tulips and being woken up at 6 o'clock to go on punishment runs in the freezing cold is good preparation for the comparative luxury of the back of an estate car.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Labour has "stolen" loads of previously Tory stuff;
The dome
Fuel price escalator
ID cards
Workplace parking taxes (proposed by Lawson)
Congestion charging
PFI

[Cyberman]

Labour has "stolen" loads of previously Tory stuff;
The dome
Fuel price escalator
ID cards
Workplace parking taxes (proposed by Lawson)
Congestion charging
PFI

They were invented in order that New Lie would adopt them and fail. Those clever Tories !!

[DodgyAgent]

I went to private school and I don’t believe that’s true. Private schools have a very effective marketing and lobbying machine and are very good at bumping up the averages of grades. They do this in two ways; firstly, select the brainiest kids at 13 using the common entrance exam, which was in my experience almost GCSE standard and says more about the quality of a select group of prep schools (which also select pupils with interviews). Secondly, make a selection at 16 of who’s going to be allowed to do A levels and who’s going to be ‘advised’ to find a place at a local sixth form college.

Another factor is that pupils at private schools are often pushed to study the subjects that their teachers believe they’ll get a high grade in, and not necessarily the subjects they enjoy and which will lead to a fulfilling working life. I left because I felt they were trying to turn me into someone I didn't want to be, just so that they could advertise my A grades in something I didn't find interesting.


Private schools need pupils to get into Oxbridge because that sells places to parents, even if the kids themselves would rather do something else with their lives. They can’t advertise about kids who’ve become motorcycle mechanics and are happy, ergo if your child happens to want to be a mechanic and that’s what will make him happy, the chances of him achieving his dreams via private school are reduced.

I’m amazed that this is still an issue in Britain. Every day I deal with happy, successful, well educated people who went to state schools in continental Europe, didn’t wear school uniform and didn’t go ‘boarding’. To be fair I’ve met enough happy, successful, well educated people who went to British state schools too, but there seems to be a crazy idea in Britain that to get a decent education for your kids you have to pay umpty thousand quid a year to send them to some backward institution in the middle of nowhere.

Find a grammar school or a C of E or catholic school, which are often just as good and don't let yourself get ripped off by the private school industry.

If you are not too bright and want a decent education then you go to a private school.

[DodgyAgent]

Indeed, Eton is a good comprehensive school there is just one problem with trying to run state schools like that. A problem least likely to be solved IMHO by those who have never had to face up to it.

I don't envy people who went to Eton, or indeed Fettes, but I do observe the extent to which it is a ticket to the Establishment.

It doesn't actually make you use better grammar or anything like that: "a group whom they hardly know"

Good attempt at backtracking

[Doggy Styles]

If you are not too bright and want a decent education then you go to a private school.

Good point (if you can afford it of course). It gets you out of the local secondary with the mandatory ten knob-ends per year disrupting every class they attend.

[Mich the Tester]

Good point (if you can afford it of course). It gets you out of the local secondary with the mandatory ten knob-ends per year disrupting every class they attend.

SO actually private schools aren't really all that great, it's just that state schools don't have the means to get rid of the knob-ends who disrupt evrybody else?