Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Education - state vs private
On the day following the recent Town Meeting with David Lammy, Christy added a short post to ask how the meeting had gone. Matt was the first to reply. In that reply he echoed a question asked at the meeting about the education of MPs' children.
That question opened a debate about whether the education of MPs' children should be a topic for public debate as well as about private vs. public education more broadly. These two related issues came to dominate the discussion which asked a question about a meeting which was 99% focussed on other local issues.
May I suggest that we continue the debate in general terms about MPs choices about education. There is significant question as to whether we should have any debate which results in a focus being placed on any particular MP's children.
To allow the debate about the main issues of the meeting to flourish but to also allow the education one space, I have moved all the education related debates to this thread.
The first post below is Matt's original one and so includes issues other than education. I have added it in its entirety to provide context. All other comments have been added in full. None have been deleted or altered.
Reply by matt on 13 February 2009 at 7:01am It was well attended, possibly because it's the first general public meeting Lammy has had in Harringay ward since becoming our MP 9 years ago (that I'm aware of). I learnt the following; 1. Lammy was at the inauguration of Obama 2. Lammy wouldn't commit to sending his children to his nearest local school, located in the very road he resides in. 3. Lammy was happy to publicly lambast the local Labour councillor over the issue of HMOs and has started to take certain cases to the ombudsman rather than deal with this Labour Council 4. HOL was praised by Lammy as an important local forum, after Hugh & Liz met with Lammy last week. 5. Lammy emphasized that he has little power as our MP to represent us decisively on the issues of traffic & gambling and can only 'lobby' the council and/or fellow MPs.
6. There's a general election in the not too distant future.
Reply by Julie on 13 February 2009 at 9:44am
David did not say he wasn't sending his children to local schools, he said he wouldn't allow them to be brought into his political life and wasn't going to discuss their schooling plans.
The local councillor who attended the meeting was told off because she began to fall into the trap of emptily defending the council and the meeting, rightly, got annoyed with her. All elected members have got to stop boasting about how many awards and stars they've got, when there are clearly problems. However, she was the only councillor to attend the meeting and she is a respected and hardworking councillor for the ward.
It is not David's role to 'deal with' with council. He is not a member of the local council, he's actually a local resident, perhaps with a bit more clout than other residents. He doesn't line manage, or appoint, anybody in housing, planning or enforcement. His role is to represent Tottenham constituents in parliament. The council are very annoyed with him over the ombudsman case, in fact, and his office has uncovered landlord fraud that council officers should have discovered.
It was a courteous and constructive meeting and David put himself up, for more than two hours, to take open questions. Not many MPs would do that.
Reply by chris~ty on 13 February 2009 at 10:28am
I am going to get shot for this I know, however,
If anyone wants information on how to send their kids to public schools very cheaply or for free please contact me, I did it. Before I am shot, my kids also went to state schools too. I assume David Lammy is considering not going state...
Reply by chris~ty
Its a contentious issue and a very political one.
Bursaries and Scholarships are the way to go, public schools are crying out for clever kids of all backgrounds to take up the scholarships etc.
Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE)
As Matt says, there's probably a General Election in the offing, even before our next local elections. Perhaps North Harringay School should get a big banner up: "DAVID LAMMY, GET YOUR KIDS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!" (btw, does chris~ty mean 'public' or 'private' schools?)
Reply by chris~ty
I mean public ie, excellent education, centuries old and private. Unlike private, expensive for no real reason in most, but not all cases.
Reply by james walsh
christy please explain "..... centuries old and private. unlike private,........."
i'm lost.
Reply by chris~ty
What I mean is private = all fee paying schools. public = some some of the fee paying schools.
OAE was asking what I meant. And, also the local primary schools are excellent, my kids went to one.
Reply by james walsh
i thought that it was generaly accepted that public school and private school were the same thing. whereas state school was where ordinairy folks went. non brits get confused which is no suprise.
Reply by chris~ty
Ordinary folks at Public Schools too - Westminster, Harrow, Eton, which was my original point. People in Harringay with not much dosh and who have clever kids can send them to top schools, if anyone wants to know how - they should contact me.
Private = schools people pay for not necessarily public. These schools are sometimes very good, sometimes not.
Public = schools people pay for that are famous, offering excellent education and old. These schools are often very well funded and are crying out for clever, not wealthy kids to attend.
Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE)
Chris~ty, OAE wasn't really asking for information - he was just being a little historically mischievous, as is sometimes his wont. As this belongs in a different thread, I'll try to be brief. Your original point ("ordinary folks at Public Schools too ... people in Harringay with not much dosh and who have clever kids can send them to top schools") goes unintentionally to the heart of the matter.
Eton, Westminster, Harrow, Rugby and the rest were all founded for the education of the poor - in contrast to the elite private schooling reserved for the sons of their lords and masters. Nobody with an income of more than 'five marks' per annum could send their kids to Eton. The original Wykehamists of Westminster were 70 sons of the poor - but Wykeham wisely provided a further 10 places for sons of his wealthy benefactors. All of these schools were for "clever kids" (male) of the public poor. THAT's WHY THEY WERE CALLED PUBLIC!
Of course the skullduggery set in in the following centuries and continued right up till the so-called Education Act of the 1860's/70s. The Public School foundations were hijacked and the deserving poor had their public schools stolen from under them. Read up on how Westminster was grabbed on the grounds that it didn't really have an Elizabethan charter with an option for the poor. And that scamp, the supposedly great Thomas Arnold of Rugby managed to de-register the poor and ensure that they couldn't make it up from the lower school to Rugby proper.
So now the clever and deserving poor (or not-so-poor) of Harringay Ladder & Gardens should go cap in hand to fill up a few spare places in the back rows of the halls of Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Westminster and the rest - places that were originally theirs by right? Chris-ty, if they take up these places will their History syllabus cover the truth about their new 'alma mater' ?
Unfortunately, England's deserving poor never had even an inglorious revolution - mainly because they'd been castrated after the first Poll Tax revolt. They didn't have to wait for Thatcher.
Reply by james walsh
Nice, i like that oae.
Also don't forget that cambridge university was set up in reponse to a botched murder investigation at oxford of a young girl in 1209. When the suspect, a student at oxford, appeared to have fled it was taken out on his room mates and they were hanged. In protest scholars moved to cambridge and the rest is history as they say.
Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE)
Ta, James. Excuse my unpardonable lapse above. "Wykehamists of Westminster"??? I don't think so. Winchester, of course.
Reply by chris~ty
OAE.
"A few spare places in the back rows of Westminster?!" What an interesting statement. My son sat on no back rows when he went to Westminster. His history syllabus did cover the 'truth' as you put it. The headmaster of Westminster at the time sat me down and said the following: "Tell your friends, we need kids like him" and without kids like him, ie, the not so wealthy of Harringay, at these schools, the best schools in Britain are full of rich kids. Eton, Westminster etc are desperate to give clever kids a chance from ALL BACKGROUNDS, clever kids from Haringey SHOULD go.
I have made it my work to tell my friends and this is what I am doing.
When my son went to the awful sink comprehensive I tried my best and become a governor there, I supported my local school and it was simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Reply by Birdy_Too
It is up to everyday folk of Harringay to make them good enough. The local primaries around here have come on leaps and bounds in recent years due to parents showing interest and confidence. Secondary schools are a problem for every parent in this area and you have to do what you think is right, which differs from parent to parent.
Education begins at home and a large proportion of it continues at home as they get older. Most of the people I know came through the disfunctional comprehensive system and are doing fine.
Reply by DavidJ
The idea of a LABOUR MP, a LABOUR MP not sending his children to the (perfectly decent) local school over the road is beyond parody.
Reply by Julie
The MP is entitled to keep very quiet about where his kids are at school. He's also entitled to say it's none of your business. It doesn't mean he's enrolled them in a private prep school. Accept the idea that they may well be at (or be going to) either of the excellent ladder schools, Stroud Green, St Mary's, or the wonderful Seven Sisters for that matter. You'd be annoyed if he asked about where you intend sending your kids. Give him the same space and be fair.
Reply by james walsh
i think it's right that lammy or anyone else should be left alone to choose where their kids go to school. i also, paradoxically, think it's ok to ridicule members of the labour government whos responsibility it is to maintain state schools to a sufficient standard yet do not and opt out when ordinairy folk do not have the means.
i agree with those that say leave him alone yet i also agree with those that are angry with a system administered by those who choose not to be affected by their OWN parlimentary actions.
Reply by chris~ty
That paradox is spot on. He is entitled to his privacy and to make private decisions on his children's education however, will he send his children to local secondary schools? And if not why not?
The issue of primary education is a red herring, having travelled all over the UK seeing both private and state primary schools I am not sure that there are any differences worth talking about or worth paying for. Where it really does make a difference is at secondary school level and I really do wonder, why is it our MPs don't feel confident in their local schools?
Reply by DavidJ
"You'd be annoyed if he asked about where you intend sending your kids."
Why on earth would that annoy me?
I do not understand the argument that suggests that this is a private issue. To me education is a serious public and community issue.
That question opened a debate about whether the education of MPs' children should be a topic for public debate as well as about private vs. public education more broadly. These two related issues came to dominate the discussion which asked a question about a meeting which was 99% focussed on other local issues.
May I suggest that we continue the debate in general terms about MPs choices about education. There is significant question as to whether we should have any debate which results in a focus being placed on any particular MP's children.
To allow the debate about the main issues of the meeting to flourish but to also allow the education one space, I have moved all the education related debates to this thread.
The first post below is Matt's original one and so includes issues other than education. I have added it in its entirety to provide context. All other comments have been added in full. None have been deleted or altered.
Reply by matt on 13 February 2009 at 7:01am It was well attended, possibly because it's the first general public meeting Lammy has had in Harringay ward since becoming our MP 9 years ago (that I'm aware of). I learnt the following; 1. Lammy was at the inauguration of Obama 2. Lammy wouldn't commit to sending his children to his nearest local school, located in the very road he resides in. 3. Lammy was happy to publicly lambast the local Labour councillor over the issue of HMOs and has started to take certain cases to the ombudsman rather than deal with this Labour Council 4. HOL was praised by Lammy as an important local forum, after Hugh & Liz met with Lammy last week. 5. Lammy emphasized that he has little power as our MP to represent us decisively on the issues of traffic & gambling and can only 'lobby' the council and/or fellow MPs.
6. There's a general election in the not too distant future.
Reply by Julie on 13 February 2009 at 9:44am
David did not say he wasn't sending his children to local schools, he said he wouldn't allow them to be brought into his political life and wasn't going to discuss their schooling plans.
The local councillor who attended the meeting was told off because she began to fall into the trap of emptily defending the council and the meeting, rightly, got annoyed with her. All elected members have got to stop boasting about how many awards and stars they've got, when there are clearly problems. However, she was the only councillor to attend the meeting and she is a respected and hardworking councillor for the ward.
It is not David's role to 'deal with' with council. He is not a member of the local council, he's actually a local resident, perhaps with a bit more clout than other residents. He doesn't line manage, or appoint, anybody in housing, planning or enforcement. His role is to represent Tottenham constituents in parliament. The council are very annoyed with him over the ombudsman case, in fact, and his office has uncovered landlord fraud that council officers should have discovered.
It was a courteous and constructive meeting and David put himself up, for more than two hours, to take open questions. Not many MPs would do that.
Reply by chris~ty on 13 February 2009 at 10:28am
I am going to get shot for this I know, however,
If anyone wants information on how to send their kids to public schools very cheaply or for free please contact me, I did it. Before I am shot, my kids also went to state schools too. I assume David Lammy is considering not going state...
Reply by chris~ty
Its a contentious issue and a very political one.
Bursaries and Scholarships are the way to go, public schools are crying out for clever kids of all backgrounds to take up the scholarships etc.
Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE)
As Matt says, there's probably a General Election in the offing, even before our next local elections. Perhaps North Harringay School should get a big banner up: "DAVID LAMMY, GET YOUR KIDS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!" (btw, does chris~ty mean 'public' or 'private' schools?)
Reply by chris~ty
I mean public ie, excellent education, centuries old and private. Unlike private, expensive for no real reason in most, but not all cases.
Reply by james walsh
christy please explain "..... centuries old and private. unlike private,........."
i'm lost.
Reply by chris~ty
What I mean is private = all fee paying schools. public = some some of the fee paying schools.
OAE was asking what I meant. And, also the local primary schools are excellent, my kids went to one.
Reply by james walsh
i thought that it was generaly accepted that public school and private school were the same thing. whereas state school was where ordinairy folks went. non brits get confused which is no suprise.
Reply by chris~ty
Ordinary folks at Public Schools too - Westminster, Harrow, Eton, which was my original point. People in Harringay with not much dosh and who have clever kids can send them to top schools, if anyone wants to know how - they should contact me.
Private = schools people pay for not necessarily public. These schools are sometimes very good, sometimes not.
Public = schools people pay for that are famous, offering excellent education and old. These schools are often very well funded and are crying out for clever, not wealthy kids to attend.
Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE)
Chris~ty, OAE wasn't really asking for information - he was just being a little historically mischievous, as is sometimes his wont. As this belongs in a different thread, I'll try to be brief. Your original point ("ordinary folks at Public Schools too ... people in Harringay with not much dosh and who have clever kids can send them to top schools") goes unintentionally to the heart of the matter.
Eton, Westminster, Harrow, Rugby and the rest were all founded for the education of the poor - in contrast to the elite private schooling reserved for the sons of their lords and masters. Nobody with an income of more than 'five marks' per annum could send their kids to Eton. The original Wykehamists of Westminster were 70 sons of the poor - but Wykeham wisely provided a further 10 places for sons of his wealthy benefactors. All of these schools were for "clever kids" (male) of the public poor. THAT's WHY THEY WERE CALLED PUBLIC!
Of course the skullduggery set in in the following centuries and continued right up till the so-called Education Act of the 1860's/70s. The Public School foundations were hijacked and the deserving poor had their public schools stolen from under them. Read up on how Westminster was grabbed on the grounds that it didn't really have an Elizabethan charter with an option for the poor. And that scamp, the supposedly great Thomas Arnold of Rugby managed to de-register the poor and ensure that they couldn't make it up from the lower school to Rugby proper.
So now the clever and deserving poor (or not-so-poor) of Harringay Ladder & Gardens should go cap in hand to fill up a few spare places in the back rows of the halls of Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Westminster and the rest - places that were originally theirs by right? Chris-ty, if they take up these places will their History syllabus cover the truth about their new 'alma mater' ?
Unfortunately, England's deserving poor never had even an inglorious revolution - mainly because they'd been castrated after the first Poll Tax revolt. They didn't have to wait for Thatcher.
Reply by james walsh
Nice, i like that oae.
Also don't forget that cambridge university was set up in reponse to a botched murder investigation at oxford of a young girl in 1209. When the suspect, a student at oxford, appeared to have fled it was taken out on his room mates and they were hanged. In protest scholars moved to cambridge and the rest is history as they say.
Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE)
Ta, James. Excuse my unpardonable lapse above. "Wykehamists of Westminster"??? I don't think so. Winchester, of course.
Reply by chris~ty
OAE.
"A few spare places in the back rows of Westminster?!" What an interesting statement. My son sat on no back rows when he went to Westminster. His history syllabus did cover the 'truth' as you put it. The headmaster of Westminster at the time sat me down and said the following: "Tell your friends, we need kids like him" and without kids like him, ie, the not so wealthy of Harringay, at these schools, the best schools in Britain are full of rich kids. Eton, Westminster etc are desperate to give clever kids a chance from ALL BACKGROUNDS, clever kids from Haringey SHOULD go.
I have made it my work to tell my friends and this is what I am doing.
When my son went to the awful sink comprehensive I tried my best and become a governor there, I supported my local school and it was simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Reply by Birdy_Too
It is up to everyday folk of Harringay to make them good enough. The local primaries around here have come on leaps and bounds in recent years due to parents showing interest and confidence. Secondary schools are a problem for every parent in this area and you have to do what you think is right, which differs from parent to parent.
Education begins at home and a large proportion of it continues at home as they get older. Most of the people I know came through the disfunctional comprehensive system and are doing fine.
Reply by DavidJ
The idea of a LABOUR MP, a LABOUR MP not sending his children to the (perfectly decent) local school over the road is beyond parody.
Reply by Julie
The MP is entitled to keep very quiet about where his kids are at school. He's also entitled to say it's none of your business. It doesn't mean he's enrolled them in a private prep school. Accept the idea that they may well be at (or be going to) either of the excellent ladder schools, Stroud Green, St Mary's, or the wonderful Seven Sisters for that matter. You'd be annoyed if he asked about where you intend sending your kids. Give him the same space and be fair.
Reply by james walsh
i think it's right that lammy or anyone else should be left alone to choose where their kids go to school. i also, paradoxically, think it's ok to ridicule members of the labour government whos responsibility it is to maintain state schools to a sufficient standard yet do not and opt out when ordinairy folk do not have the means.
i agree with those that say leave him alone yet i also agree with those that are angry with a system administered by those who choose not to be affected by their OWN parlimentary actions.
Reply by chris~ty
That paradox is spot on. He is entitled to his privacy and to make private decisions on his children's education however, will he send his children to local secondary schools? And if not why not?
The issue of primary education is a red herring, having travelled all over the UK seeing both private and state primary schools I am not sure that there are any differences worth talking about or worth paying for. Where it really does make a difference is at secondary school level and I really do wonder, why is it our MPs don't feel confident in their local schools?
Reply by DavidJ
"You'd be annoyed if he asked about where you intend sending your kids."
Why on earth would that annoy me?
I do not understand the argument that suggests that this is a private issue. To me education is a serious public and community issue.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Bob I haven't waded in here because I felt last night that you would be given the last word. These two boys are basically running out the "I was caned and it never did me any harm" argument. Forget that they are both pro porting to be "old" and imagine them as young school boys being brainwashed by an adult who should know better.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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John McM - I think you've opened up a real cane of worms there (can, sorry ;-) )
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Of course I think that it would be a bad thing if children grew up without any contact with people who are of different faiths. As I have said twice, and I don't propose to repeat it a third time, I lived in the West of Scotland and went to a succession of Protestant "Faith Schools" (with prayers every morning assembly - shock, horror ) but had plenty of contact with people of the other persuasion. I say "other" because there were no Muslims, Sikhs, Buddists or Jains around at the time. Had there been, I am sure that I could have been friends with them too.
You make the assertion that Faith schools generate separation and sectarianism as if it were an accepted fact, without adducing evidence in support. Engage with that if you will. :-)
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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From my experience the girls from my local Catholic School were all too eager to reach out to other faiths, preferably teenage boys willing to reciprocate!
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Permalink Reply by DavidJ on
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The problem with 'faith schools, certainly in London is that they are socially divisive as these researchers found:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndE...
"The researchers found that:
Many religious secondary schools in London are not serving the most disadvantaged pupils
Overall, religious schools educate a much smaller proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals and their intakes are significantly more affluent than the neighbourhood they are located in.
Within the religious sector there are both Catholic and Anglican socially selective ‘élite’ secondary schools which appear to ‘select out’ low income religious families, thereby displacing them to religious schools with less affluent composition.
The researchers argue that some religious schools may have undergone a ‘distortion of mission’ given that they now cater predominantly for the more affluent.'"
The problem is that as things stand they are taking state funding, educating the relatively affluent and are doing harm to the ordinary local schools as they distort the intake. -
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Ah Birdy2, you revive an old lad's fond memories. A good part of our middle and senior years in our Catholic boarding school in Armagh of the mid-1950s was spent in ecumenical lusting after our leggy Protestant neighbours on the tennis courts of the Girls' High School across the valley -especially during those long languorous pre-exam days of the summer term. Of course we liked to think that they were equally turned on by our robust games of Gaelic Football and handball. I know Bob would say that if the school had let us out more often we could have solved all Northern Ireland's sectarian strife fifteen years before it really got going. Not quite Wellington's 'playing fields of Eton' perhaps, more the tennis courts of the Proddy Girls' school. Ah well, how youth is wasted on the segregated young!
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Thanks John M., you're a pal. Like John D. I'm obviously still suffering from a surfeit of those old fairy tales. One day I'm going to grow up into a really human humanist, when I've finally got around to reacting against all the lasting damage those religious f-----s visited upon my innocent and impressionable little mind.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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The following was posted to another thread by FilmExposed about 45 minutes ago in response to something I wrote about David Lammy in regard to his support of this website. I've moved it here to keep the other thread focussed on its original topic.
Sorry Hugh - I find it extremely hard to 'treasure and laud' a local MP, who was born and partly educated in our Borough, lives on the doorstep of a decent local school - a school he heaped so much praise on last year, yet hasn't got the balls to says: 'Of course my children will be educated locally - why not?!"
It sends out totally the wrong message, and confirms to me that politicians will support the causes that suit them, and on the rest, gave reassuring soundbites when they need the vote at the ballot box.
Education is a huge issue nationally and locally, and I expected better from him.
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Very interesting article in the Guardian today on this, here. The basic premise is that intake is everything and fiddling in the education system by the government is often harmful. Or at least that's my take on it.
My initial sympathy with Mr Lammy (being someone who does not educate my children locally) is fading.
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Permalink Reply by BBL on
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Christy
I would be interested in getting more information about scholarships and busaries as outlined in your message on the 13 Feb.
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