..."From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
In the 80s my 2 kids secondary school choice was only to the local school in Knowsley and it was near the bottom of the pack.
Using the Assisted Places Scheme
#1: Did the scheme reach the right children?
One of the main criticisms of the scheme was that it didn’t reach the right pupils. While it was often framed as an attempt to “rescue” bright children from working class families and disadvantaged communities, the main criterion for eligibility, other than passing the school’s entrance examination, was financial need.
This meant the policy was significantly “colonised” by parents who might have been suffering short-term financial hardship (often because of divorce), but who were in many ways quite culturally and economically advantaged.
An
early study of the scheme in 1989 found that fewer than 10% of those with an assisted place had fathers in manual jobs, whereas 50% had fathers in middle-class jobs. Almost all the employed mothers of assisted place pupils were also in middle-class jobs.
In general, it became clear that the majority of children who received assistance came from families with relatively strong educational inheritances, meaning the gap between what they’d have achieved without assisted places and what they managed with them was probably not as wide as imagined
Me and mrs degsy + 2 other families each put a son in for the scheme, got accepted, swotted like 'k and passed the entrance exam.
In the factory where I worked...a small cog in a major multi-national...I used to do car repairs and such for people in the office, one of the women there told me about the Company University Grant Scheme...basically for middle and higher management obvs.
She said, If you ask for a form they will eventually have to give you one, but they won't tell you about the scheme unless you ask.
So I did, I asked my Foreman - nothing, then his boss.
One day 'Big Sir'...call me Bill...was talking to me about some machine problem...how we going degs, will it be going for Monday, the usual stuff...yeah Bill no problem - hey, can you get me one of those university grant form things, I asked Frank, but he seems to have forgotten...yeah come up after you've clocked off and I'll get Carol to find you one
Sorted - eventually the lad got £4 grand a year
He finished Eddies with 9 O levs and 4 As
One of the other 2 lads, a right speccy 4 eyes went on to Cambridge to read Maths
I / We got lucky and worked the system in our favour.
But the system has to be there to be worked, there has to be pathways for a speccy 4 eyed kid with an unemployed father and 6 brothers and sisters to get to Cambridge
So don't give me any of that Ideological rollocks.
It only stigmatised the kids in your mind.
A dumbed down one low base line fits all education system stigmatises
Everybody.
