The gap between the best public schools and the below average state school is still too large. Money does buy advantage. The best state schools show this need not be so. Money does not always buy success. The crucial ingredients of a great school are the attitudes of teachers and pupils and an ethos of can do and self advancement, more than they are a more expensive sports field or smarter and more modern school rooms.
I went to a state primary and won a free place at a Direct Grant school. When I go into one of the great public schools to talk I am usually impressed by the adult approach of the older pupils to any lecture and exchanges we have. They are often keen to find out how I got the jobs and opportunities I had. They will respond to a complex lecture on economics or politics with informed questions and see the exchanges as worthwhile in their own right.
We need to create the same can do and will get on approach in all state schools that have to compete with these institutions. Pupils need stretching. They need to hear there is nothing stopping them achieving good things, but they also need to be told the people who are the most successful are often the ones that work hardest. In sport the more you practice the luckier you get. In academic life the more books you read and the more viewpoints you consider the better you are likely to perform. If you want to write well read well.
July 30, 2022
Let’s get real John, this isn’t the 1970’s mate.
The State education system is under assault by the progressive cancer doled out by destructive and poisonous teaching unions whose aim is nothing less than the absolute indoctrination of all pupils. Your party has been in power since 2010. It has aided and abetted this process
The sexualisation and racialisation of children should not be part of education but it is now, under your party in government pandering to Stonewall, the slimy NEU and vicious activists peddling their warped ideologies
I am annoyed by Tories talking the talk but doing the opposite when we’re not looking. This grubby deceit is beyond the pale
How is Stonewall more powerful than for example 80 Tory MPs?
Tory MPs want the cake and they wanna eat the cake as well. Well, at some point the public will become conscious of the hypocrisy and the deceit across all areas of policy
Only Badenoch is prepared to expose the hate of leftist ideolgy that is coursing through the veins of our nation and a SILENT Tory party are part
of the problem
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
Liz Truss would do well to initiate her own 2022 equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, and Baden Powellâs Scout Movement. Those attracted & motivated young folk to strive and achieve better things personally, and for the good of all.
In London and throughout the UK, boy scouts and girl guides were often seen on the streets or in the woods at night, openly wearing sheath knives with 6-inch blades on their belts. The notion of causing harm or needing self-defence was as alien to their thoughts as using their axes as soup spoons.
Youngsters now need a new attraction, for their own good. Be Prepared!
July 30, 2022
You saved me writing this. Thanks.
July 30, 2022
DOM, +1,
July 30, 2022
Correct Dom.
July 30, 2022
Agreed – why is the Government so frightened of Stonewall and “Twitter mobs” both of who seem to have more influence than Party members.
July 31, 2022
Because the party lacks confidence of its own conviction
July 30, 2022
Too right.
Don’t expect children to grow up knowing right from wrong when those teaching them are telling them right is wrong and wrong is right.
How about teaching children that a child’s best chances in life is to be brought up by both their natural parents, who have a lifelong and exclusive duty of care to each other, and are responsible for providing for their children?
July 30, 2022
Well said DOM
July 30, 2022
Thank you for saying this.
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
Well said Dom. The vast majority of the Toriy MPs are gutless. We suffer, they have protection.
July 30, 2022
+ 1000 Dom. The Tories ARE the problem.
Back on the main topic. Eton is no better at producing doctors, vets and dentists than decent grammar schools are. The problem has never been the disparity in opportunity at this level. It is what happens after that is concerning. How many end up in political and financial power ? Why ?
Why so few in science contributing where it really counts to humanity ?
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
The ongoing silence of so many Tory MPs in response to this accusation speaks volumes.
July 30, 2022
All good points DOM
July 30, 2022
DOM
Correct in every detail. The evidence would suggest that public schools are going the same way with recent dire PM’s and deputy PM the products of public schools and Oxford!
July 30, 2022
Excellent comment DOM. Not impressed either with the quality of leadership to emerge from Eton and Oxford lately.
July 30, 2022
From an article in the DT about the plans of Liz Truss to give No. 10 more control over the economy:
‘The Tory leadership frontrunner has vowed to challenge Treasury orthodoxy and is understood to have identified a quartet of key allies expected to act as her economic team.’
Sir John is one of that quartet. Sunny uplands in view.
July 30, 2022
@ Mary M – I have seen Liz described by a highly reliable source as a “breath of fresh air” so sunny uplands indeed! She has, however, said if elected she would be Ukraine’s best friend: I would be very much happier had she wanted to be my best friend.
July 30, 2022
It is perfectly possible, desirable even, to have more than one best friend.
Have a little faith đ
July 30, 2022
She knows very little about Ukraine then.
July 30, 2022
I would much rather Sir John was appointed as Chancellor than merely an adviser, who can be ignored, but this is better than nothing (maybe). I have also seen that she wants economic growth of 2.5% per annum. Sir John, if you are going to be her adviser will you PLEASE make her understand that the only metric of any value is GDP PER CAPITA. Trying to achieve higher overall GDP by increasing our already monstrously excessive population will NOT improve our standard of living or quality of life. Quite the opposite.
July 30, 2022
After all JR’s “Memo to an incoming Prime Minister” posts, he would be sticking his head out of the trench only to get it shot off. A Truss administration is going to get a very large dose of UK economic reality, fantasy Brexit version on day one.
July 30, 2022
Sounds like Truss is the best candidate if acorn is not liking her.
Thanks for the cryptic tip
July 30, 2022
I agree with everything you said Sir John.
I feel however, you have left out one key factor Viz, the attitude of the child’s parent(s) to education. Unless the parents accept the importance of taking advantage of the opportunities offered and actively encourage their children to attend and to learn, no matter how good the school and the teachers are, the kids will not achieve their full potential.
I would like to see a return to the education system we had when I grew up. Grammar schools for the academically gifted pupils, technical schools for the bright, practical kids that want a trade and secondary modern for those that need more help with the three Rs.
July 30, 2022
Cliff, indeed certainly agree that scrapping the technical colleges was the greatest act of vandalism by Government, as it was a bridge to further education for those who were labelled failures due to the then 11plus system, or who were slightly slower developers, who eventually saw the light !
The greatest influence on a school is the headmaster/mistress, get that wrong and the school fails.
Another big problem is discipline in school, with disruptive pupils causing problems for the rest of the class, this also needs to be resolved so that those who wish to learn can do so.
A good PTA if there is one, can also be a positive influence.
July 30, 2022
CW, +1, yes, that system worked
July 30, 2022
Cliff. Wokingham
Very well said. Glad to know I am not alone in my thinking. Parents are the foundation.
Too many abdicate their responsibilities to the teachers.
July 30, 2022
Indeed but with plenty of movement between the two where this is appropriate. Education vouchers and relatively free choice as to how they can be used at competing educational establishments would be my preference.
July 31, 2022
@ Cliff Agreed.
Compare the parental attitudes of the Asian communities with the “entitled” groups. We don’t take a chance with quality of schools and teachers but make sure that the home is a constant learning environment, regular after school and holiday cramming classes, after school activities, ancillary subjects such as music and languages, then competing for the good schools and universities then supporting the children through life.
If you have a child they are your responsibility, always.
July 30, 2022
Great aims. You have to take on the educational establishment to achieve them, so it requires a decade or three of consistent pressure. With the political cycle as it is I can’t see that happening.
It’s a chicken and egg situation: schools currently churn out woke leftist types who would like to teach, who then go to woke leftist universities to do their teaching degrees. You have to break that cycle so there’s a inflow of untainted trainee teachers into the profession, and the schools they get placed in are not run by woke leftists.
Taking on the entire leftist establishment…
July 30, 2022
Wanderer
Been happening since the 1960,s with the LSE types starting to infiltrate the whole system, and has continued at pace through all sections of education, including Universities, the Civil Service, Local Authorities, Government and politics in general. Unfortunately as you comment, it will take decades to turn back, if ever it does.
July 30, 2022
Reply to Berkshire Alan. Fully agree. You can’t separate one area of education from all the rest, and cleaning out all the stables is a massive task. It would take decades, even if there was the will to do it. I’m afraid I remain pessimistic.
July 30, 2022
Indeed Alan: in the early ’90’s, a friend’s son took a teacher training course after obtaining his Geography degree. He was asked what he would do if he had a pupil in his class who only spoke Chinese. The correct answer was, apparently, that he (the teacher) should learn Chinese!
My friend’s son gave up all ideas of joining the teaching profession.
July 30, 2022
Surely nearly all schools should be private and compete and parents who cannot pay should receive education vouchers but have a choice over where they spend them and top them up. The last thing we need however is more and more people with ÂŁ50k of student debt, interest on this at 6% PA and worthless degrees in grievance studies or similar from the ex Bognor poly or similar. Then not working until about 22. Many would be far better suited to working from 15/16 and learning on the job with night school or day release.
The current rigged market in education means that to go private you have to pay three times over (tax for other children, tax on the money earned for the fees and then the fees). Socialist dope Gove even want 20% VAT on the fees! The result is a virtual state monopoly other than for a few rich people. Government rigged markets are a very bad idea. We have rigged markets in schools, universities, energy, transport, housing, employment⊠with totally disastrous results in general in all these areas.
My parents had four children and could never have paid for them but we were lucky to all get free grammar or direct grant schools places. Alas most of these were destroyed by both Tories and Labour – many destroyed under Thatcher. The voucher system is the way to go give people real freedom of choice.
July 30, 2022
I think this is your best post ever. I agree with pretty much all of it, and would simply add, to the idea of vouchers for: REAL apprenticeships in needed services and industries and vouchers for degree courses in REAL science subjects.
July 30, 2022
Indeed I would stop soft loans for most degrees let people pay for their own hobbies also for people with grades below BBC or similar. Let them resit if they have not understood A levels what is the point in university?
July 30, 2022
So 40,000 people are to finally to perhaps get some compensation for the contaminated blood scandal ~ some forty years later. So what compensation will the rather larger number of vaccine damaged people get? Will they too have to wait until about 40 years, spend a fortune on lawyers and fight for 40 years?
July 30, 2022
Dangerous nonsense- very disrespectful to those who suffered the blood transfusion scandal. There may be a handful of people who did not react well to the vaccine but that is so for most/all vaccines. Do we stop driving because 10 people die each day on our roads.
July 30, 2022
The Government’s Yellow Card system which, it has been estimated, only records 10% of vaccine adverse effects, currently reports the following on the Covid jabs:
Reports: 469,261
Total reactions: 1,503,321
Deaths: 2,207
That is hardly “a few” injuries.
The German Government, which operates a similar system to our Yellow Card one, has publicly acknowledged that the Covid vaccines cause serious side effects for one in every 5,000 doses.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/07/21/german-government-acknowledges-covid-vaccines-cause-serious-injury-for-one-in-5000-doses-but-its-own-data-show-the-real-rate-is-one-in-300-doses/
July 30, 2022
A very interesting interview on GBNews this week between Mark Steyn and Professor Richard Ennos. The evidence for Covid vaccine damage is overwhelming yet the Government is covering this up. Serious questions need to be asked and answered. Why are the other news outlets ignoring this data?
Reply Plenty of data is published on adverse reactions to vaccines. Most of the adverse reactions were slight and short lived. No-one had to have a jab.
July 30, 2022
Reply to reply
Sorry Sir John but the pressure to have the jab has been enormous. Peoples livelihoods were threatened as was their freedom to travel. There have been more harms, and serious side effects than all other preceding vaccines. They are still being pushed despite there being no long term data.
July 30, 2022
Reply to reply: ‘No-one had to have a jab’? That is false, Sir John. On instructions from your government, care home staff were given a Covid vaccine mandate deadline of 11 November 2021, and were mostly being required by their management to submit to Covid vaccination right up to 15 March this year.
July 30, 2022
Reply to reply â Iâm sure the 2,207 deaths mentioned in Donnaâs post wouldnât consider the adverse reactions slight although they would definitely be considered short-lived. Yes, the data has been published by the ONS but anyone who posts it on YouTube is immediately banned. The Scottish Government who commissioned the latest study covered up the conclusions. People didnât have to have the jab but many lost their jobs for refusing it. The US courts have this week awarded compensation to those who were coerced into having the vaccine or lost their jobs as a result of refusing it.
July 30, 2022
To reply – No but they were certainly coerced into them for job (Javid) or travel reasons. Even the young and children who were at never at any real risk and even those who had already had Covid.
July 30, 2022
Per “dose” note not per patients so perhaps 2 or 3 times higher per patient.
July 31, 2022
JR, simply untrue. Javid said no jab no job to care home and NHS workers. He later backtracked after 40,000 lost their jobs. You need to apologise for your completely false assertion.
Reply He rightly changed his mind
July 30, 2022
I think you will find this is the number of people who died shortly after taking the vaccine but could be from any number of causes. The actual number according to UK Statistics Authority isâŠ.9.
July 31, 2022
The number of people who died OF covid was far smaller than the 185,000 claimed …… most of whom were very elderly and/or had several co-morbidities so,sadly, weren’t long for this world anyway. But to keep the scare campaign going, they were all counted as covid deaths.
Post-jab deaths don’t have to be immediate. If you get myocarditis, or blood clots which lead to a stroke or heart attack it could be several weeks post-jab.
July 30, 2022
You need to check your facts Paul Edwards as you are clearly out of touch.
July 30, 2022
I have every sympathy for the contaminated blood scandal sufferers and their 40+ years of waiting for compensation.
July 30, 2022
Apparently they are being offered ÂŁ120k if their claim succeeds. Im not sure whether this is only for death though. I think one person has been compensated so far but it would seem there are numerous people who have got long term problems from the vaccines.
July 30, 2022
The Government’s compensation scheme offers a maximum of ÂŁ120,000 for death or 60% disability resulting from a vaccine. You need to be able to prove 60% disability; potentially difficult and very expensive. If you suffer cognitive disability and have no-one to fight on your behalf, tough luck.
It’s one of the reasons I chose not to have one. If a Pharmaceutical Company won’t accept liability for their product, I won’t accept their product.
I’m in my early 60s, very healthy, but live alone. ÂŁ120,000 compensation wouldn’t last long if I suffered 60% disability and needed constant care.
https://www.gov.uk/vaccine-damage-payment
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
The position is different elsewhere.
In e.g. France, those responsible for similar negligence were promptly put in prison.
No one even lost their jobs here.
July 30, 2022
Thedailysceptic.org today:- âU.K. Companies Threatened With âActionâ if They Downplay Climate Riskâ yet more moronically government rigged markets, The incompetent FCA also gave us one size for all overdraft rates at circa 40% in the UK only and daft mortgage lending rules. By downplay climate risk they mean âtell the truth about climateâ. Moronic Government policies are the main causes of both the high inflation and the very expensive & unreliable energy.
July 30, 2022
Can’t have companies, or highly qualified scientists, telling the truth about the climate change scam old boy. Best silence them.
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell.
July 30, 2022
Donna
Plus hundreds!
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
See what happened to Stuart Kirk at HSBC and at James Damore Google. Telling the truth is rather risky!
July 30, 2022
The biggest risk is climate policy. It has already destroyed much of industry, and is now causing severe economic dislocation that will see many in poverty, struggling to afford to heat or eat or house themselves.
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
Maintaining the cultural anti-intellectualism of large swathes of the population is crucial to the election of Tory governments though, isn’t it Sir John?
So I doubt that we’ll see any attempt to change that, and therefore teachers will continue to struggle against it, and to find that it drags down their classes as ever.
Reply A new low for your consistently hostile comments.
July 30, 2022
Did you know, in 2010 the UK was spending 5.6% of GDP on Education. Today it spends 4.2%. As ever, a government’s largest enemy is always an educated middle class, who tend to question big numbers painted on the side of a big red bus, the rest don’t.
July 30, 2022
Quite.
July 30, 2022
A vast amount of money has been pumped into the NHS. Far more than the amount quoted on the bus. Has the service improved? I don’t think so.
July 30, 2022
Waiting list has more than doubled to 6.5 million and is still rising not falling.
July 30, 2022
The austerity story is the same for Health spending. 7.5% of GDP in 2010 which dropped to 7.0% in 2019 before the Covid, forced it up to an average of 9.6% for the last two years. It’s the same with Social Security; 14.4% of GDP in 2010, down to 12.2% before the Covid, forced it up to an average of 13.3% for the last two years. We have a nation where a large part of its population, for the last twelve years; have been exemplars for the “boiling frog syndrome”.
July 30, 2022
Give us cash figures acorn
Percentages of GDP isn’t a good way of comparing from 12 or more years ago.
July 31, 2022
Yes it is. Another subject you don’t understand.
July 31, 2022
So still no proper reply then acorn, just an assertion that your use of statistics is best.
I know what you are doing.
July 30, 2022
Acorn, âEducationâ spending does this include university funding or not? A lot more university funding was passed through to student loans ÂŁ9000 up from ÂŁ3500, is this included in total Education Spend?
July 31, 2022
The “grant equivalent element of student loans” was removed from Education in 2012 due to the large impact of written off student loans on the Education (COFOG 9) budget.
July 31, 2022
Acorn, doesnât that explain the drop in Education budget from 2010 if a large part of the education budget was moved sideways into rather large loans for the English? I just do not believe that Education spending reduced.
After all there were an extra compulsory two years education paid for by the government from the age of 16 to 18 years of age and this expanded the original education budget, there is something seriously wrong with the statistics and figures if it shows a drop. 2013 to 17, 2015 to 18.
July 30, 2022
@NLH
Sadly anger management classes are not yet part of the national curriculum.
July 30, 2022
You’re unable to refute my claim, aren’t you?
July 30, 2022
Its just the never ending claim that you don’t like Conservatives NHL
i
July 30, 2022
The Left are in charge of education and have been for generations. Never have there been more 18-year-olds in education. Never more A pass A levels (now we need A* and A** to discern !) Never have there been more 1st class degrees.
Whatever did we do right ?
(Those accused of the Red Bus beliefs were educated in the fifties.)
July 30, 2022
NLA saved me typing a similar comment!
July 31, 2022
I haven’t read many Nott Lad comments John but many feel that there is a movement of anti intellectualism and those wanting right good old fashioned science ,maths and shout about it are tories. The new science in Civil Engineering and Information technology will make a sound competitive base, the green science will at least help with many areas of selfishness and greed. The intellectual is needed to stop the barrage of bigots.
July 30, 2022
I do tend to think primary schools are in many ways more important than secondary in building solid foundations of reading, writing, maths and basic science (alas so much in primary schools is now climate alarmist, race, gender and other PC or religious indoctrinations).
Hard to get most people to learn languages well & with good accents after primary school ages though some manage it.
July 30, 2022
your first paragraph is spot on.
July 30, 2022
After all what chance do you have of being a top footballer, tennis player, cricketer⊠if you do not start well before age 11/12 not much I suspect. Raducanu started at 5. Surely similar for other pursuits. I remember rewiring our house aged ~ 10. Due to misguided OTT red tape regulations (and even though I read Maths/Physics/Electronics at Camb. then Manchester and worked on military jets) I am no longer allowed to so much as change a socket or fit a new light fitting!
July 30, 2022
They’re determined to ruin our own accents. They want us all to speak with the same Multi ethnic London English and to drop our Gs.
I’m still tryin’ to find a channel called “Beee Beeee Seeee ARR Pleeya.”
And a fried chicken-in-a-bucket takeaway that costs “Naaaan naaanty naaan.”
I’ll keep huntin’ for an outlet that does this.
This is quite deliberate of the BBC to normalise baby speak so that employers and universities will not be allowed to reject candidates who use it.
July 30, 2022
PS, Lifelogic.
When I was aged nine my Dad made me use power tools and got me to build a roof ladder out of a plank, some old fencing and a trolley. He then made me go up to a height of 40 foot on it and re-seal the flat roof on the loft extension.
Happy days.
July 30, 2022
+1
July 30, 2022
+1 and not a risk assessment in sight
July 31, 2022
It is a problem, – innit! People from some areas forget to pronounce the sit-e as sittee.
Important events are massive.
July 30, 2022
Education has lost its way. I assume public schools are judged on results and the willingness of parents to pay for a good education, whereas the majority of people have little influence, if any, over state schools.
State schools appear to care more about left wing (and sometime inappropriate) ideology than the three R’s. While I agree that children should be encouraged to stretch themselves both physically and mentally, it is counterproductive to tell them they can be whatever they want to be and that every child should be a ‘winner’ regardless of ability and effort.
This pushing of all children towards university is also detrimental to both child and country, in my opinion. It has lowered entry standards, but increased expectations which can never be reflected in real life, even though many relatively low paid public sector jobs now demand university degrees. It has created a new ‘class system’ ie. those with degrees, and those without. Those without are assumed to be stupid and incapable of academic work and this is very detrimental to the country and business.
Blair did so much damage to the UK, with devolution and all his other failures. Unfortunately the damage continues and nobody appears willing, or able, to reverse it.
July 30, 2022
Shirley M
+1
July 30, 2022
+1. Totally agree.
July 30, 2022
Good comment Shirley, I often wonder if the mental anguish of too many young men is fear of not living up to expectations and the all can win and get the top job mentally.
July 30, 2022
Sir John, you seem to be forgetting that your Government virtually closed down our schools for the best part of 18 months, ruining the education of millions over a virus which it had already identified as a Low Consequence Infectious Disease with low mortality rates amongst clearly identifiable groups, which didn’t include children.
For 18 months, a combination of militant left-wing Teaching Unions and a cowardly, pathetic, incompetent Sec of State for Education (Gavin Williamson) systematically destroyed the life-chances of a generation.
I, for one, am not in a forgiving mood.
The CONs have had 12 years to improve education standards in our State Schools. Instead you’ve allowed left-wing universities to churn out left-wing graduates who then go into teaching and indoctrinate the children with left-wing propaganda. Repeat ad infinitum ….. until you break the cycle.
Why haven’t you done it?
July 30, 2022
Donna.
Situation normal when you have top down leadership. Maybe it was, is, part of a cunning plan, so cunning no-one understands it what we need is a leader who is prepared to kick ####
July 30, 2022
+1
Teachers academically unfit to teach. They only have to pass a basic English and Math test. Some are very poorly qualified (e grade A level). It should be no surprise education is so bad- children are taught by people who are not fit to teach. We are told it is not about qualifications. Universities accept on potential rather than grades!
Your party, your govtâs have had long enough to bring about change. Your party and govt. chose not to.
July 30, 2022
Donna, the reason why is that many so-called Conservative MPs are themselves indoctrinated. I doubt if they have any realisation how socialist their own ideas are.
July 30, 2022
So: are you saying that there is a problem in the manner by which Conservative Party electoral shortlists are being drawn up? i.e. has there been a deliberate ploy to infiltrate the parliamentary party with members of socialist mindset?
If so, is there any hope if we keep voting Conservative?
July 30, 2022
Yes DONNA I’d also like to know why haven’t they ?
Also why do schools appear to be pro EU, Climate Change, Trans, BBC, Immigation and Labour – I don’t want our schools to be pro or con anything I just want them to teach
July 30, 2022
The golden age for state schools was when we had plenty of grammar schools, offering a good education free of charge. I was glad to hear Rishi Sunak indicate a return to them.
Reply As has Liz
July 30, 2022
@ Wokinghamite – there was not much golden for many of the majority who were sent to secondary modern schools though, nor for those whose pace of development meant that at the age of eleven they were not up to the challenge of the 11+ and the system gave them no second chance.
July 30, 2022
formula57
What do you feel was wrong with the education received at secondary moderns? Was it worse than they would get at comprehensives today?
July 30, 2022
The problem was the education system wrote off a lot of people (and I do not exempt today’s comprehensive system either from that tendency). What was worse was the system’s rigidity, meaning escape was improbable, and the fact the world at large viewed secondary modern schools as substantially inferior, reinforced by its second class public examinations (Certificates of Secondary Education versus General Certificates of Education).
July 30, 2022
Wokinghamite- it wasnât addressed to me, but as someone on the cusp with an August birthday that attended a secondary modern school I would like to respond, all of my best friends that Iâd gone all the way through primary with on the same top table went to the grammar school, (four of their parents could afford to pay one girlâs teacher mum to also coach them before the 11+ exams), we werenât set in the first year at the Secondary Mod, it was a wasted year for me – when we were set I was in the top set but it wasnât very stretching, people talk about time to move across into grammar that wasnât an option – ever. The pace of the class is much slower even though I was in the O level stream and achieved my C grade O levels, I spent years and my thousands of my own money after work taking courses to progress in my career. I donât recall anyone from my school year going on to college to do A levels. We were directed through careers to go into trades, military service, the police (not tall enough), nursing, banks/building society/accountants at 16 or on to YTS training schemes with no day release to college or qualifications. It was definitely a second class education and the pupils were seen by employers and others as the grafters and doers not the dreamers and thinkers deserving of higher education!
My eldest was in nagty the top 5% in the UK with an August birthday, and attended a mid league comprehensive school , he had no external tutors, but even though both us parents worked full-time we also assisted him reading, stretching his education standards with workbooks, we gave him homework because his comprehensive school wasnât very stretching, he was used a lot in the school to teach other pupils and badly behaved pupils were sat with him to improve their presence in the class. He got a full sheet of Aâs and A*s when they came in but he was let down in a subject at school due to poor quality teaching and a change of teacher mixing up the study plan in one A level. I think he did miss connections that he would have made at private school or grammar/grant schools, but at least his comprehensive school did have a grammar type stream that was set almost immediately so he was working at a faster pace from term 1. I think that was the main difference and parental involvement, my parents told me to get out and play and not spend too much time reading, they also didnât want me to go to college as they wanted me to be independent as soon as possible.
July 30, 2022
There is no reason not to change that part of the system. Entry at sixth form level should be possible.
July 30, 2022
…..challenge of the 11+ and the system gave them no second chance’. I’m not sure that that was always quite the case, because I flunked the 11+ in 1952 and went to a secondary modern. But even back then I was hugely interested in radios and communications devices, built my first valve radio at 12 and so on. Someone at the secondary modern school must have realised my potential and sat me a test for the nearby Technical School. And to there I was duly moved and it started me on my long and successful professional career in communications engineering.
July 30, 2022
Formula57 :
The system did give pupils a second chance as there was some movement from secondary moderns to grammar schools.
July 30, 2022
@ Original RIchard and @ Martyn G – accepted, but two swallows do not a summer make.
July 30, 2022
Grammar schools fell out of favour because they were better financed than the secondary moderns and the late developers were prevented from excelling.
In abolishing grammar schools what they in fact achieved was the mixing of the higher and lower potential children. The lower potential resent the better pupils and bully them, damaging their education as well, whilst the teaching staff turn a blind eye. Rather than create a school of mixed ability (comprehensives), all you have is just a bigger secondary modern.
The elites are highly pleased, as they don’t want those plum jobs taken by jumped up grammar school leavers on the basis of ability, which they thought belonged to them and their posh school friends.
July 30, 2022
DA apropos your last paragraph there was a report that a certain MP who went to a grammar school is resented by some of those MPs who went to public schools as he has a similar arrogance to them but didn’t have to pay to get it.
July 30, 2022
Thank you. I am very pleased if this means that both candidates favour grammar schools.
July 30, 2022
I agree grammar schools gave children like Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo, and Dianne Abbott a leg-up to compete with public-school children.âIt would be good for the BBC to broadcast again Neil’s analysis in his documentary ‘Posh and Posher: Why Public Schoolboys run Britain’, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y37gk.
But Rishi Sunak has not ‘indicated a return to them’:
‘Asked by host Nick Ferrari whether he supported [the return of grammar schools], the former chancellor said: “Yes.”
‘After the debate, Mr Sunak’s team said he would expand existing grammar schools in “wholly selective areas”, and will maintain commitments under the Selective School Expansion Fund.’
â https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62340247
July 30, 2022
Mr Sunak should create grammar schools in the most socially deprived areas with the weakest high schools and insist they do some cross over lessons with the local comps.
July 30, 2022
Whilst acknowledging the topic is schools, we might recall personal journeys start as soon as we begin travelling, so in the womb.
As remarked by Jordan Peterson, if by around four years old children have not learned to be sociable, there was virtually nothing that could be done later to correct that. The teaching profession typically seem to eschew responsibility for non-academic development, often enough its members exhibit resentment for what they characterize as “child-minding”. As business schools now tell us, it is the “soft skills” that are often the most important and these are not as commonly found as is desirable.
July 30, 2022
formula57
Good post. So true.
July 30, 2022
Formula57 another good comment, I agree with you.
July 30, 2022
Your headline says it all- these are personal journeys where two young people from identical backgrounds can end up with very different outcomes. I often hear how Michael Gove revolutionised school performance in the early 2010âs but now the state system is a disaster after 12 years of Tory rule – it seems the leadership contest is an excuse to re- invent the truth to suit the contestants for the benefit of 160000 voters. Not impressed with either candidate.
July 30, 2022
Sir John you rather avoided the doors opened in the cv (resume) with a reference to being educated privately -especially the likes of Winchester, Eton etc. Then you avoided the ‘old pals’ network, and the son/daughter of a well-placed individual and nepotism. Hard work and ‘breaks’ only goes so far.
July 30, 2022
I agree broadly with the thrust of your piece Sir John but I would submit that the personal journey starts before school. An attitude of ‘can do’ and ‘get on’ should be instilled by Parents. I wonder how many children at Home hear; ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’, ‘if you want something you must work for it’ and even ‘hard work can be it’s own reward’.
I would like to contest some remarks hostile to the recent Conservative Governments concerning the progress (or otherwise) of state education. The ‘lefty’ tendency in education started with New Labour. They not only devalued university education but they dumbed down state education also.
July 30, 2022
Good morning.
I am very worried about some of the things children are being taught. No longer are they just being taught the basic STEM subjects but a distorted version of British history, and subjects that I believe most parents feel are unsuitable for younger children. There is also too much emphasis on getting a university degree rather than obtaining a decent jobcareer.
We are not investing in our future
July 30, 2022
Valid points.
That emphasis on getting a degree – any degree – is driven in large part by employers. They infuriatingly insist that job candidates have “a degree”, when very often 90 % a degree is of no practical use whatsoever in the role being advertised.
Also in many professions there used to be non- degree routes to membership. People could learn the ropes on the job and do any relevant academic training at night school or by correspondence. They were often a heck of a lot better than the degree holders, who were parachuted in at an advanced level and had few of the technical and interpersonal skills needed.
July 30, 2022
I still canât understand why our government insists on nurses and police having academic degrees when their profession is vocational
July 30, 2022
It is the left wing/liberal educational establishment that is responsible for the poor performance of our schools, starting with infant and primaries. It is interesting that the worst educational performances in the UK are in Scotland and Wales where there are still socialist governments run by the SNP and Labour.
Like our host, I am 70, and was educated in Berkshire. ( In Maidenhead ).
Our education started at 5 with formal classes of at least forty children from mixed backgrounds. (By that I mean socially – all of us were white). There were some from very poor families and others who, judging by the size of their houses and the cars in which they were brought to school, might well have gone to private rather than our state school. We all got on well.
We were taught the basics of maths by chanting tables until we knew what are now called number bonds by heart. To this day I do not have to think about any multiplication calculation as long as it falls into any of the times tables up to 12. Yet I see young shop assistants use a calculator to achieve a simple result that I know instantly. My own children (36 and 37) are better than that, but are nowhere near to our level of skill in this regard.
We learned to read using a series of cards and progress was monitored carefully. I do not remember anyone in the class who did not progress. There were no children who had obvious “special educational needs”, which today is often a euphemism for catastrophically poor parenting.
The teachers were able to satisfactorily handle 40 children as we sat in rows and the regime was regimented, but not unreasonably so. It worked, and it is interesting that some of the most successful education systems around the world still teach in exactly the same way. Our has descended into an unruly hotch potch which benefits nobody because discipline and concentration are lacking.
Leaving junior school with a sound base of reading, writing and arithmetic is the foundation of all future development. I was fortunate to be one of seven boys in my class that went on to Maidenhead Grammar School. We have all done reasonably well in life.
July 30, 2022
@ChrisS
“We were taught the basics of maths by chanting tables until we knew what are now called number bonds by heart.”
This made me smile. I remember one teacher having a stop watch. We were timed to see who could chant the quickest.
July 30, 2022
Yes. 44 in our class and no disruptive pupils. Most of us were worried about our parents reactions when we got home if we had been disruptive. Nowadays little Johnny can do no wrong.
July 30, 2022
Now-a-days little Johnny is in charge of the class
July 30, 2022
Yet more horror on the horizon. Johnson has a resignation honours list.
July 30, 2022
It’s time they scrapped the so called “Honours” system. It has been utterly devalued.
July 30, 2022
A PM who has been removed shouldn’t be allowed to issue a list….he’s not a king and we’re not in living the 18th century
July 30, 2022
He has been removed as leader of his party. He is still the constitutionally appointed PM until he offers his resignation to the Queen and she accepts it.
Previous leaders who lost the confidence of their parties while PM – e.g. Mrs Thatcher and Mrs May – did draw up lists. So did those who resigned as PM before their term was up – e.g. Wilson, Blair, and Cameron. Your reference to Kings in the 18th century is relevant as a PM advises the Monarch today as he did then, but with greater force.
July 30, 2022
We should evolve and do betterâŠ.Rome burnt because it kept hold of out dated traditions
Britain became Great Britain because we modernised and maintained our leading edge âŠ.in everything
July 30, 2022
Now let me see- who could possibly be on the list- probably a few friends close to the ERG side- then there could be a few from the garden parties and maybe partygate? also probably one or two from NI DUP who need somewhere to hide. Then of course there’s J R-M himself- he probably needs somewhere to go and stretch himself out. That’s it can’t think of anyone else deserving.
July 30, 2022
I am pleased to see the emergence of Liz Truss and admire her approach already. Let us hope she is an exception to a string of Tory PMs who are weak and easily influenced.
Cameron, May, Johnson. What a bunch!
July 30, 2022
Kids today arenât allowed to hear different viewpoints. Our education system and the MSM have seen to that. Debate is dying in this country. Thank goodness GBNews has been created.
July 30, 2022
+111111111111111111
July 30, 2022
After party members, in every poll, wanted Kemi to be PM they are now being told by a large party donor that they will appear racist if they vote for Truss rather than Sunak.
This is the new warped world we live in.
July 30, 2022
Truly warped. Vote for the best person for the job, period. No pandering to those who take offence at the drop of a hat and don’t accept that selection on the basis of race is itself racist.
July 30, 2022
On this issue you may be a little out of touch with what goes on in State schools.
I read my first full book at 4, taught by my parents, these days primary school kids arrive in nappies at 5, unable to drink from a glass.
They get mobile phones at about 8 or 9 and they start getting “sexting” messages at about 11. This sounds much less than it is – the pressures on people to show naked photos. They come into a secondary school as naive kids and are rapidly bullied into the “school not cool” ethos often by kids from homes with parenhts who don’t care and tell their kids they should get out asap and get a factory or warehouse job.
You have a heck of a job to change this culture BEFORE you can even BEGIN to reach kids. In lockdown I really hoped that the online lessons would become permanent because the root cause of the issue seems to be the way kids behave when their social interactions are primarily with other kids and the non-academic kids are seen as being the cool set.
All this woke twaddle about how they need to be at school in classes of 30-40 to “learn social interaction”. Actually what they learn is how not to do social interaction – but time and again we fail them by abandoning them to that setting and see so many of them emerge as woke, lazy with a sense of entitlement that is not matched by their abilities – work shy people who are utterly useless in the work environment (which is why so many businesses wanted to import unskilled labour from the poorer EU countries).
Teachers have no power and kids know it. When the wokesters removed corporal punishment they removed the only deterrent a teacher really had to keep control. NOw we see parents berating teachers for giving their kids bad grades, or for failoing to select them for a football team. We see parents screaming obscenities at a referee in a school sports match. The school and teachers are powerless to do anything but take it – how does that make them look to their charges? They are seen as weaklings, with all the power in the hands of their parents- so if the partent is useless, the child has a role model that is useless.
Before you start educating, you need to solve this problem. And it won’t be easy by any stretch from where we are now. Can you imagine trying to re-introduce corproal punishment? The wailing and gnashing of teeth would be heard in Outer Mongolia.
That’s the reason most people move their kids from State school to public – but if they do it much after they start secondary school it’s usually too late, they’ve already been infused with the dullard values of the State school population and nothing will get them to change.
P.S. Find a way to stop anyone under, say, 16 or 18 having a mobile phone?
July 30, 2022
KISS Keep it simple is basic thinking for children in primary school.
I was horrified to see some of the artwork resulting from ” indoctrinated kidz ” at a local open day recently. The blob control the vulnerable before they can read and write telling them how they see the world. Truly frightening indeed. The intelligent and smart ones eventually twig nonsense and will read more but the majority will just have to suck it up and then get bombarded again on BBC and groupthink MSM.
July 30, 2022
Unsurprisingly after the poor fayre on offer after primary school parents seek to take their children out of school altogether as local travellers do and parents wanting to teach them themselves or not be indoctrinated by the state school system.
I too went to a direct grant school and benefited immensely from it and the grammar schools should be boosted by the government to correct the imbalances in today’s “progressive” regressive education.
July 30, 2022
SirJ Iâm glad you included the word âjourneyâ in you titleâŠ.I enjoyed walking and sometimes taking the bus to school, talking and playing along the way with friends in the local community â I feel sorry for the children on the âschool runâ being dropped off by mum or dad in a car
July 30, 2022
My post absolutely Mark Steyn seems to have vanished within trace?
Worse than the censorship on Twitter you are
July 30, 2022
About and without
iPad
July 30, 2022
The rotting of education started when Labour decided to destroy grammar schools because they were enabling working class children to become upwardly mobile and thus possibly become Conservative voters.
The Conservative Party did not repeal this terrible decision and in fact over the years have allowed the educational establishment to be run by a communist fifth column with the inevitable result that we now have teaching in diversity studies and CRT and no longer train sufficient electricians, plumbers, carpenters, nurses, doctors etc. for our rapidly expanding population.
Schools have been over-loaded by massive immigration and the universities captured by the presence of 120,000 Chinese âstudentsâ.
July 30, 2022
I assume JR has been motivated for this article by the latest stats produced by the Dept for Education with regard to participation in HE, particularly ‘high tariff’ participation by school type which clearly shows that privately educated pupils are generally at an advantage over those in state schools. These data also show that English children particularly boys have worse outcomes than other ethnic groups except for ‘Irish travellers’ and ‘Roma’ (Irish and Indian?); it is also not clear how other people who sometimes claim to be white but aren’t are classified.
There is no doubt that the best private schools provide an excellent education on the whole and their outcomes are manifestly superior. However what is lacking from these stats is any form of classification of children by I.Q in relation to outcomes both overall or by ethnic group or by spend per capita by location. These latter data would show which parents and children were being deliberately disadvantaged by the Tory Party.
Selective schools are a good idea because they can offer a distinctly academic education which is not suitable for children of lower ability. Furthermore, the range of abilities within unselective school catchment areas will vary substantially so in a given area there may be insufficient bright pupils to furnish streams destined for a high tariff university.
The problem with the old grammar schools was that the 11+ selection did cause the rejection at the margin of pupils with potential for academic study. This is why the German Gymnasia which select the top 30% is better. Of these as with the old English grammar schools selecting 20% only a minority will qualify for a high tariff university. However, the old system failed in comparison to the German system again in that there was no provision for Technical schools in many areas so the outcome was 20% grammar and 80% secondary modern.
It is also a matter of concern that universities are filling their courses with foreign students in order obtain the extra income they need to subsidise the funding shortfall caused the Tory party and the excessive salaries which Vice-chancellors pay themselves. Tertiary education is not suitable for half the population and will actually reduce GDP per capita if it is not focused on those that will be able to repay their student debt.
July 30, 2022
I feel John Redwood is talking about a remote historical period, not even just fifty but sixty years ago. Direct grant grammars were destroyed in the late 1960s by the public-school Labour grandees who could not stomach the idea that a poor child might achieve professional parity with them and their offspring.
And even in the heyday of direct grant schools, the public-school intake patronised the grammar-school products to death at Oxbridge, and ensure they were excluded from the professions via the elite OB network.
These days all state schools are a no-no for any concerned parent. There are vast numbers of teachers who are unmotivated: only there because it is the only option they can think of, and vocationally and intellectually not up to the task. The classes are filled with the inattentive, aggressive and badly brought-up whose truancy and behaviour goes largely unchallenged. Immigration has increased this problem tenfold.
Creating more grammar schools simply means the parents with money will corner the local property and raise the house prices in the catchment area to exclude any less well-off children.
At least Sunak’s parents realized that they must use their valuable NHS salaries to finance his Winchester schooling, when he did not get the scholarship he’d tried for.
You can always tell a Wykhamist – but whatever you tell him, he’ll always know better.
July 31, 2022
I don’t think Harold Wilson could remotely be described as a public-school grandee. In the North of England there was not a plethora of private schools. Grammar schools were built to accommodate the children of the new middle class that came to prominence during the industrial revolution. These northern schools produced the doctors, scientists and engineers to complement the southern drones such as the ‘classicist’, Anthony Crosland who obsessed about equality of outcome to be achieved by equality of schooling. I do not recall being told by my parent who had come from the north that he felt resented by public school types at his southern university but then he was studying a subject dominated by grammar school boys who had been taught science.
July 31, 2022
Wilson (of middle-class, grammar school bakground himself) was happy to see the ladder pulled up behind him – typical of socialist grandees of all epochs – and made the abolition of the grammar schools one of his key Labour policies. It was a useful chip-on-shoulder catchpenny for voters resentful that their children had failed the 11-plus.
It was his ex-public school Labour ministers Crosland, Crossman and Williams who enthusiastically carried Labour’s abolition of the grammar schools, while sending their own children to public school.
Wilson – a massive inverted snob – invented an autobiographical myth that he had had to ‘walk to school with no boots’. Macmillan, who saw through Wilson humblebragging from the start, said: ‘If Mr Wilson ever had to go without boots, it was because he was too big for them.’
Btw, there are (and were back then) quite a few public schools in NW and NE England, and in any case parents often send their children far away to public school as boarders, so local provision is largely irrelevant.
Admittedly, when I said ‘professions’ I should have qualified it as ‘all except strictly scientific professions’. In the 1960s STEM subjects at Oxbridge were almost entirely the preserve of grammar school entrants, so in those subjects they could not be elbowed aside, and nepotism had little or no place in their professional recruitment. But in the 1960s the large employers (e.g. ICI) still automatically went for public school graduates in such subjects as history and PPE.
July 31, 2022
typos: enthusiastically carried out / Wilson’s humblebragging / had to go to school without boots
July 30, 2022
“The strikers disrupting rail services are undermining their own jobs. The railways need to win back many lost passengers to pay the wages and expand services. Strikes will mean fewer fares and a smaller railway.”
What a wasted opportunity! They could be wooing new passengers who can no longer afford to run cars.
July 31, 2022
I’m afraid that – like many others – the rail workers do not see any connection between the success of their employer and their continued employment. Many simply see the prospect of more customers as a threat to their way of life.
July 31, 2022
I have had the occasional very mentally bright tenant from a lower working class background who had failed to get anywhere in life to match their potential for I think two main reasons.
One reason is neighbourhood and background – in their families and in their housing estates there was little aspiration and no belief because nobody among their family or neighbourhood friends had really succeeded.
Secondly, the schools they went to had failed them and the most crucial failure was in not forcing them to do and persist with difficult academic work they didn’t really want to do. So they are not now used to nor able to concentrate and persist for long so as to master what is academically difficult and stretching to get into.
Much of the state system is failing badly. One of the failures is to plough resources into remedial education rather than concentrate on encouraging, motivating and developing from an early age those with the most potential who could ultimately contribute most to society.
July 31, 2022
Nearly 50 years ago my younger brother (aged 6) and myself (aged 9) were sent away to private fee paying boarding school. The comfort, warmth and love of home life was substituted for the austerity and severe discipline of our new institution. Quality and quantity of food was so inadequate that by weekend home time I was in a terrible state after hardly eaten all week. Punishments were regularly metered out for the slightest of offences and the manner in which house masters and prefects spoke to children was shocking.
Standard of education was inferior to our former village church school and, I imagine, to the comprehensive that otherwise would have naturally followed.
Seven years of private education yielded 21 end of term reports that made for dire reading, all concluded at the age of 16 with the award of a single O level in English Language grade c.
Nearly 30 years later in middle age I had gained my science A levels from a state further education college and then a science Masters degree from a former polytechnic.
Who says that private education, particularly is superior and high quality?