Comment by rgblambda
Comment by rgblambda 4 days ago
There were problems with the grammar school system as well.
They were created to provide a pathway to the middle class for bright children from working class families. But the entrance exam was heavily biased in favour of children from middle class backgrounds.
Famously the first 11+ tests had questions like "Name the various types of servants in a household and what they do".
In later years, getting out of school tuition was the main way to prep for the 11+, which put grammar schools financially out of reach for a lot of working class families. It had basically become a parallel state funded education system for the middle class.
Can confirm.
My kid got in, and it turns out everyone else used a tutor (I stupidly took the advice not to do so from his teacher, who thought he'd get in just fine). This is in fact why playdates seemed to die out in the year or two before the test, the kids were being tutored but for some reason nobody would admit it.
When I went for the intro evening, the parents were simply the same kinds of people (often the same actual people) as the private primary where my kid went. Essentially, it is a private school where you don't pay fees. Same parents, with £30K more in the bank each year. The kids get into the top unis at a similar rate to the local fancy private school, which takes in all the classmates who didn't get in.
I have to say, they are a good bunch of kids. There's none of the bullying problems that everyone else is reporting in my kid's year. They have an environment where they have other quite nerdy kids doing nerdy kid stuff, without judgement.
But they are not a socially diverse bunch of kids. I'm not seeing any social mobility at all. Where are the kids whose parents are in the trades? Parents who aren't working? How come everyone I meet works in finance, law, accounting, medicine, or other white collar work?
I think it's the tutoring. It lets the marginal white collar kids win over the marginal "other social class" kids.