Postby southmum » Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:00 pm
I find this post interesting as one of the local mums of a child in year 4 in one of local 'outstanding' primaries with the next school destination being the top priory. I have been to all schools mentioned and although agree St.Paul is probably top academically, I know this is outside of the reach of my daughter based on her current school results.
However from my personal experience there are things beyond school environment which are important, so for those whose kids can not go to top academic schools, nothing yet has been determined.
I come from overseas and do not have any kind of elite academic background. I work in the City and some of my colleagues come from Oxbridge (which I suppose the end goal for those who want to go to St.Paul and other elite schools), however, I was able to progress further in my career compared to my more privileged colleagues (I was very surprised now to learn from Labour tax manifesto that I am supposed to be in the top 5% of all earners in this country) . It just shows that other things like personal drive matter more. All my education was for free and from overseas and unfortunately I am not talented in any traditional ways but just very determined and self driven. Now like all parents I would like to give the best to my children and prepared to invest what I can in their education, just to be constantly watching over then to ensure they do their homework and benefit from all my 'investment' in them. In my heart I understand this is wrong because I can not be watching them all the time and they must learn to be self efficient, but as all other parents are doing the same, it feels necessary to keep them on the level playing fields with others. Not sure if anyone has similar dilemmas, but just wanted to stress that elite education is not that necessary on its own and I know of some firms in the city who now dropped university degree as a requirement for enter.
