Eccentric brain-chip admiral expelled by toff schools

Posh People Privately Prepared

"*For foreign readers: in Blighty, this means the expensive fee-paying schools where the children of the wealthy are educated and, perhaps, plugged into the hidden networks of power. The state schools, despite insisting that every teacher have a postgraduate teaching qualification (the pay schools dispense with this) are often seen as less effective."

"Children of the wealthy"... not round here mate. Some of us have chosen to forgoe such pleasures as going on holiday (furthest my kids have been is Herne Bay), buying a car (10 year old Mondeo with cracked bumpers) and wearing quality clothes (actually, no change there) in order to give our kids the best start in life. Not to mention the ones who have remortgaged. As a product of the state system, it gives me no end of displeasure to have to pay for the privilege of giving my kids what their parents took for granted 30 years ago.

I'll tell you why state schools are less effective, in reverse order:

5. Red tape

4. Class sizes

3. Government meddling in the curriculum

2. Too many proto-ASBO kids making it impossible anyone else to work

1. No discipline

Mines the one with the holes and string around the waist.

Wouldn't this make an awesome, action/adventure, movie?

The middle classes of the west, all connected to an electronic hive mind and assisted by attack robots, taking over the 'free' world!

Lets get started on a screen-play and casting eh?

Re: Posh People Privately Prepared

Sorry Arnold, you are missing to see the wood behind the few trees in front.

There is an underlying reason for all this and it is that over the years the British School system has evolved towards a state where the teachers do not have any control of the class and do not aim for a control of the class. It has however retained its "abuse the child" Roger Waters lirics stlye design from days past.

In any other country in Europe if a teacher cannot control the class (or a pupil) there is only two choices - the pupil is expelled straight away or the teacher leaves (or is made to leave). The teacher has the sole and full responsibility of controlling the class.

In the UK there is a third choice - the pupil is shovelled off to the assistant (the one normally with the class or a dedicated one). As a result any kid who is bored, sleepy or otherwise unwilling to concentrate at this particular moment goes and plays teacher vs assistant straight away to get off. Kids learn it from their first day in school and this is exactly how the proto-ASBOs and the later lack of discipline is generated. It is inherent in the system.

In addition to that, the entire system both private and public is geared towards creating psychotic/neurotic kids. I would suggest that you actually take a holiday once in a while, but not to where British go. Go to a place where German, French or Italian go like south end of Fuerteventura (Costa Calma) or Gran Canaria and observe. After that go to the part where the Brits go like Costa del Fuste and observe again. There is a staggering difference between the two. On one side you have kids that are composed, self-sufficient (you hardly ever see a parent chasing their offspring) and how to put it - complete. On the other side you have screaming neurotic wrecks that rip out car window mirrors for the fun of it and have to beat up someone or something just to vent their frustration at least once an hour.

This once again is not surprising. UK is one of the only two countries in the EU that deliberately forces children into school before they have completed their initial social development. No other EU country does it. From there on the children are stressed and further lack of discipline is even less surprising. You cannot expect a person stressed to the bone to have discipline. Sorry, humans do not work this way. And if you doubt what I am saying check children obesity data. There is a well proven and well established link between obesity and stress. The only other country in EU to have the UK children obesity levels is the only other country to put children in school at 4. From there on you have decreasing obesity to the point where it is nearly 0 in the countries which do it at 7 like Germany.

Me coat now. The one with the "Subject the Education department to Decimation" sticker on the back (by the way, I have moved my own kid from public to private to discover that they are no different. It is all Roger Waters lyrics all over again).

It's Friiiiiiiiday

@AC

"Ah the great universities. Oxford. Cambridge. Hull."

"Oxford's a complete dump!"

</Blackadder>

Mine's the local-comp blazer.

@Arnold Lieberman:

You don't know you're born! In my day we thought people who had a ten-year old Mondeo were posh! We had to make do wit'Flintstones car, 'oles in't'floor, no roof.

Goths?

Ah! *Those* Goths. You had me worried for a moment there, what with civilisation about to overrun with dark-clad, pale faced, angst-ridden hordes of aging refugees from the eighties.

The tail coat with the mirror shades in the pocket please and that bag with the Sisters of Mercy LPs and the box of L'Oreal "Naples Black" hair dye.

<Title />

.... I for one welcome our new depressed-blacknailpolishwearing-angst-gothic overlords!!!

Paris - for she had a proper education, and she turned out fine!! :) A drunk/drug-driving, ex-convict, pornstar with a shoddy grasp of science and a terrible singer.... but by god she's hot.

Sounds familiar

Hold on... isn't that just the plot of the last four J.G. Ballard novels?

Hmm...

it's still better than America, where teachers are robbed in the parking lots, then beaten up by their students in class, then get locked in closets. And not to forget, shot at during gang-style drive-bys (which is why the teachers leave work at least an hour later than class lets out for the day).

Maybe some students need brain-chips...nah, the students just innately understand that a high-school education is basically worthless today (at least for decent-paying jobs). They're actually just angry about their poor education. Or perhaps the lack of sex and violence in it. Ah, the MTV generation, there's nothing wrong with them...sorry, the sarcastic and sardonic humor just doesn't come out so well in words.

I guess my point, if I have one, is that the chips would be needed by government to control the people who know they're getting screwed (to keep the peasants from revolting). Which is 99.9% of the world. Hmm, that's a lot of chips to be implanting...gives a new meaning to "well-adjusted".

Contraversial economics....

Well unlucky its your own fault for having kids in the first place... ...you take enough of my tax money already!

Why grow your own anyway, when we can outsourcing kids from foreign land already educated who work harder for the same money? AKA Poland, Eastern Europe....

Have a good weekend LOL

I say "public", you say "private".

Yes, England and the US (and Scotland, and Wales), all countries divided by a common language. Both of these terms were correct and logical when they were coined.

Back in the early centuries of the last millennium, a gentleman who wished to educate his son thoroughly had three options:

1) do the job himself

2) hire (and probably house) a scholar to tutor the boy

3) blag him into a seminary.

The seminaries were where the church trained its priests. They did an extremely good job - all priests had a full classical education, and the church authorities had no problem with their seminaries being used as boarding schools by the elite. However, some fathers were a bit uneasy at having their eldest sons and heirs trained as priests - generally the no-hoper of the family was sent into the clergy to get him out of the way - and receiving a minor ordination at the seminary could cause all sorts of problems later.

So, into the breach came the public schools. They were called public schools because they were intended for the general public (at least, those who could afford them), distinguishing them from the priest schools.

Then, in the 20th century, when compulsory education came in, the new schools were called state schools because they were mandated and funded by the state, distinguishing them from the public schools.

In the US, without this bit of history to get in the way, the first schools were called private schools because they were privately run and funded. When publicly run and funded schools were set up, they were called public schools. Simple.

Private School Vs State

I'm not sure if the differences that i have experienced is across the board but I can only speak from personal experience.

Basically until 16 i went to a variety of state schools and now i attend a boys only Fee-paying school on a Bursary for Sixth form. {Basically my family pays very little in comparison to the total fees.}

I was forced to do this because i wished to study Computing A-level. Not one state school in the county offered it.The reason was that it was simply too hard and the pass rate too low and so it would look bad. That says it all really.

Here are some of the differences i have encountered:

The standard grades to enter are 5 B's , easy to get get but higher than needed virtually anywhere else which immediately results in the idiots being forced to leave, not only that but the school can make it clear they do not wish people to return into the sixth form regardless of results, something state schools can't do.

The discipline is far higher, they employ someone to make sure you look smart and presentable, cut hair, top button done-up, tie done up. Saturday detentions. Now it all sounds a bit draconian but the fact remains there is discipline and by breaking rules you know there is a risk of your Saturday disappearing.

Other things such as the massive amount of sport played also are wildly different. But the biggest change is virtually EVERYONE wants to succeed. Not just succeed but do bloody well, everyone works hard or is just bright enough to get by, and if you don't get an 'A or a B' it's seen as a fail. Basically It's time to resit the exam again. This culture of expected success forces people to work hard so they don't look foolish in font of their achieving peers rather than it being cool to cock around and fail your exams. {And in response to the comment about neurotic students, the motto tends to be work hard, play hard}

By and large I'm sure most Grammar schools have this sort of spirit which is what makes them so academically successful. (Even trouncing many Fee paying schools)

Please don't get me wrong and presume I'm slagging off the state sectors. At my secondary school the teachers were mostly good, some wonderful, and my peers were fairly easy going but i was lucky to get into a damn good Secondary school that i was way outside the catchment for, I was just fortunate unlike some of the poor teenagers in the inner city who are shafted from day1. I just don't see how the state sector can sort itself out without resulting to a similar grammar school system that we had in the past but with maybe more opportunities at entry (Instead of just 11+ maybe 13+ and 16+ also.) so late developers can still enter. That way those who are truly not suited to carrying onto university can study a worthwhile trade and benefit hugely. A self-employed Tradesman can easily earn 50,000+ if they are good in certain area, way more than the typical office worker or graduate manager. After all A-levels are preparation for university so I think forcing people to stay on till 18 is complete folly, especially if after that they will leave, go to college and do a two year plumbing course, which they could have benefited form in the first place.

Expecting a flaming but thought i would put this out here and see if i can provoke some debate.

Grammar Schools

Those things that Labour want shot of...

They seem to be the clear advantage for me, ok, i went to one... it was also a fee paying school so some sort of middle ground - however the main advantage of a grammar school is that people have to be of a certain standard to get in, sure people will still be intelligent and of the "can't be arsed" attitude so will be disruptive but overall the standard is much higher...

I genuinely don't think the Public v Private battle is at all relevant.... a paid for education is not necessarily the best, in Birmingham (UK) the best schools (and they're amongst the best in the UK) are King Edwards, they're grammar (non fee paying) they offer scholarships and do only take the most gifted pupils in - they even have a catchment area.... their results are phenomenal too. However the local rich folk who've raised a socialite need not apply as they won't get in, instead they pay £15k a year and send said child to a local fee paying school where whilst they have discipline etc rich, spoilt brats don't make a great environment..... then of course there are the state schools where anything goes and whilst many people can look through the disruption and excel, there are twice as many who can't.

Something needs to be done, and that is not being elitest.... some want to learn, others need encouragement and then there are those that have no interest in doing so but find it great to disrupt.... at the risk of sounding old (i'm under 30) we should bring back National Service and get a touch of control and discipline back into the country before New Labour destroys the foundations of it!

/rant.... awaiting flaming.

UK Education System

Is a fucking mess too many politicians both local and national want it to run in their prefered manner IE Labour dont like the Grammar schools Conservatives dont like the Comprehensives so starve the one that they hate of cash when in power,no matter how good a particular system is it cannot run on empty for long.

Chef?

I thought the headline said "Chef". Darn my public school education (only expelled from 2 year college twice).