Champagne Socialisnm Is Alive And Well !

[bazwillrun]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/437771/Tony-Blair-s-son-Euan-lavishes-3-6m-on-stunning-marital-home-with-new-bride

not that you need me to point it out !

and the little boy is going for a "safe" seat, ahhh bless ....well what did you expect him to do !?

[mikey4444]

On the button fred !

[Sqad]

Fred

\\\\But they don't instil feelings of inferiority or superiority, which is surely a hazard of the old system; nobody should feel different or condemned as failures, academically or otherwise\\\

Fine...mediocrity has been accepted and failure has been neutralised.

Great.

[Sqad]

Off to my Club now....I am late!

[naomi24]

Sqad, exactly.

Fred, // And she would have access to the same type of teachers as in a grammar school, throughout.//

Fred, // And she would have access to the same type of teachers as in a grammar school, throughout.//

That's debateable. Most of my teachers at grammar school weren't plain Mr or Miss Bloggs - they were Doctor Bloggs - and I doubt there are many of those teaching at comprehensives.

[naomi24]

Oops, sorry for the double bit of posting.

[Khandro]

Come to think of it naomi, my high school turned grammar school headmaster was also a Dr, but he could flog us just as well as any common 'Mr'. :-)

[ludwig]

// they were Doctor Bloggs - and I doubt there are many of those teaching at comprehensives. //

Naomi, there's a Doctor Bloggs that teaches science at my son's comprehensive.

[pixie373]

Fred

\\\\But they don't instil feelings of inferiority or superiority, which is surely a hazard of the old system; nobody should feel different or condemned as failures, academically or otherwise\

that isn't true, actually. I went from being in the top at junior school, to a Grammar where i was pretty much average. If anything, i felt more inferior because of it. Children are not all the same academically and we don't need them to be. We just need to stop thinking they are failures if they go for a vocation instead of a degree. People have different strengths.

[FredPuli43]

Don't quite get the my teachers in grammar school had doctorates and you won't find them in comprehensives , point. Where are such teachers now? If the answer is the Public Schools, well the moneys much better, as are the surroundings, but that was true when there were grammar schools.

If such teachers want to teach the brightest of the generation, they will find classes of those in a comprehensive, just as , in theory, they did in grammar schools. Must say, if many of the teachers in grammar schools had doctorates, my direct grant school was a failure; I don't think we had any.

I wonder how many teachers , masters, at Eton have doctorates.

Nothing wrong with mediocrity, Sqad. I was a good second XI man myself, the limit of any true British boy's ambition.

[naomi24]

Ludwig, really! Haaa! Love it! :o)

Fred, I imagine most of them teach at university now - except Dr Bloggs at Ludwig's son's school of course. ;o)

The point I was making is that from age 11, that was the quality of teaching that was available to me at grammar school, and I don't think that's the norm in a comprehensive school.

[Sqad]

Fred....all your points are well taken.....but the object of changing a system is to improve the end result............nothing has convinced me that that has happened.

Fear not, in a decade all the old " Grammar school types" will be dead and then who cares if comprehensive education has been the better....;-)

Have you been watching " Harrow" a series on TV?

[FredPuli43]

Agree pixie, me too. The 'brighest' at 5, among the brightest at prep school, age 7 to 11, arrived in upper school, and found, rather to my shock, that there were boys who were better at my subjects than I was . That was an eye-opener, but not one that put me off for long, mainly because the prep school was pretty academic and had quite a tough exam for entry. Had I been in the village school until 11, the shock would have been greater

It shouldn't really be a surprise that others are brighter than we are; we all know that as adults; but discovering it at a young age may make it a surprise. Even then it is only part of growing up.

[FredPuli43]

Watch "Harrow ", Sqad. What ,watch a lot of people who are inferior, in every way, to me? Why? Never, by Jove.

I like Harrovians though. The school has a culture of loucheness which lasts into their pupils' old age. Wholly admirable. Not like Eton.

PS My TV is on the blink.

[horseshoes]

LOL squad.... I hope I'm still here in ten years.

[FredPuli43]

How to feel academically inferior as an adult. I went into a dry cleaners. The assistant asked "And the name, doctor, is ?" Well , it is in Cambridge.

[jno]

all that education and you can't fix a TV, FredPuli? A Harrovian could.

[Sqad]

jno....LOL

[horseshoes]

I'm 100% in agreement with Naomi on the subject of Grammar schools. Perhaps I'd even go step further and say that I'm in favour of single sex education too. I see a world of difference in the grammar school I attended and the comprehensive school we have here now. I hate the fact that my granddaughter is going to have to go to a comprehensive school. I dearly wish that we had a Grammar school near us and she could take an entrance exam. My two nieces who live on the Wirral both attend West Kirby Grammar School. Having said that, their parents, my sister and her husband, both who have doctorates, both went to comprehensive schools!

[ludwig]

The grammar school system was a good way of identifying the thick kids. It's hard to tell which ones are which are now as they all get the same grades.

[Sqad]

Ludwig...LOL