Why do people send their children to private schools? It is a very simple answer, so that they end up with better jobs than other people with similar levels of intelligence who didn't go to private schools. It is a simple economic equation that parents on above average earnings understand. If all life was about was the accumilation of cash, there would be no problem with this at all. But there is so much more to life. I went to comprehensive schools and was a pretty poor student. Four of my five siblings went, for some or all of their secondary school education to schools that charged fees. It has never particularly bothered me, as my brothers had an awful time under Danny Coughlan at Challoner School. So much so that one enrolled to become a Priest and go to a Seminary when he was 13 to get away.
I personally always felt I learned little useful at school and the best lessons were in the various jobs I did as a teenager. Much of the time I was working with older men with life experience, who would pass it on, in rather harsh ways. When I started to do 'proper jobs', I soon realised that people who had attended private schools had very different skill sets. They were usually more confident, more eloquent and better networkers. Whilst we focussed on doing our jobs, they focussed on building their careers. It took me a long time to realise why some people progressed in the corporate world with seemingly little talent for the job. One day, at a team drink, the scales dropped from my eyes. Whilst we were all boozing and having a laugh with our mates, one individual was schmoozing the bosses. I actually got on pretty well with the bosses and so I went over. I was surprised to hear that he was giving them a monologue on how marvellous he was. It was quite subtle, but he clearly knew how to 'work the room'. I saw such opportunities as a chance to let off steam with the other members of the team. I realised that I was a novice at the game.
The team I belonged to had a monthly team booze up and after the third or fourth time he attended, everyone had realised he only wanted to chat to the bosses. It wasn't a tactic that worked in a software company, but over the course of my career I saw the pattern repeated time and again, usually with far more success.
One of the most interesting lessons I've learned in my 63 years on the planet is that intelligence and common sense cannot be taught in a classroom. You can however train people to network, schmooz and be affable. I realised that the reason Rugby is played at fee paying schools is because it is a game that builds such skills. Association Football is a game of mavericks at its best. Now interestingly in the UK it is the mavericks that made the country great. A great example is Mrs Shillings Orafice, invented by Beatrice Shilling, which stopped Spitfires stalling in the Battle of Britian. A talented engineer who perhaps changed the course of the war, purely because she loved racing motorbikes and understood how engines work.
The UK has developed an education system where the best jobs go to those who are trained to schmooz and those who are clever but denied opportunities to shine are relegated to a seat on the bench. When I was a kid, we were treated to names like Alexander Fleming, who invented penicillin and Frank Whittle who invented the Jet engine. Now the hero's are some bloke who can stick seveteen saveloys up his nose on TikTok. The best jobs, the ones that buy you a £3 million house out of legal and decent earnings are almost exclusively the domain of the public school alumni. What does this mean? That the UK no longer is encouraging creativity, in an age where it is a successful economies USP.
I don't blame the private schools or the parents. Who doesn't want the best for their kids. I would not ban fee paying schools. But what I would do is ensure the brightest children who are in the state sector get the personal skills to compete with them. It is totally unfair that a top acheiving child at an average schools is behind a dullard with good inter-personal skills that have been drummed into them at private school.
Rant over
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