The UK's "Dickensian" society...

The stories of Jack the Ripper's victims told at last!

Click HERE to read a book review in The Guardian!

Click HERE for more information!

Climbing the social ladder...

‘Why I believe in teaching middle-class values’

Article from The Independent by Sean O'Grady dated Wednesday 5^th March 2014

                                

(Sean O'Grady is deputy managing editor of The Independent and a former economics editor and leader writer for the title).

Schools should train working-class kids to be more middle class. That’s what happened to me. Learning to ‘act posh’ has its place in tackling social inequality.

I think I may be the sort of person who Peter Brant, head of policy at the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, had in mind when he said that working-class children should be taught to think and act like the middle classes - ‘act posh’ - if they want to get on in life. In particular, Mr Brant warned, poorer pupils are less likely to apply to top universities for fear of ‘not fitting in’.

Well, there’s a surprise… Of course they are terrified of social isolation. I know, because I was too. Yes, I was that working-class child, back in the 1970s, at the fag end of the great British state grammar school experiment. When the time came for me to think about university I was fortunate enough to have been schooled at the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester, that, laughable and pretentious as it may seem, sought to ape the public schools in every aspect. Apart from the fees bit, obviously.

The school spent the best part of eight years getting me to ‘act posh’. They failed, as anyone who knows me can see, but I, and the few other working-class kids who passed the 11-plus, could manage a reasonable version of the manners of the middle classes. The masters all wore gowns, we stood up when they entered the classroom, they were called ‘Sir’, and we were frit (as we said round our way) of them (i.e. afraid of them).

We also had a uniform, strictly enforced, a house system, and a formal hall, where tables were chaired by one of the prefects, and we were taught proper manners and conversation for communal meals, a sort of junior dinner party training. There were plenty of societies where you could learn middle-class stuff such as chess and debating. Football, regarded as common, was only played informally, during the breaks; rugger (as it was referred to, i.e. rugby) and cricket were the school sports.

The school was rightly proud of its record in sending its boys to Oxbridge (Oxford University or Cambridge University). All paid by the taxpayer. Money well spent I say. So all this gave me some confidence when it came to thinking about going off to Oxford, which I was encouraged to do. I needed it, even after all that grooming; the class thing was still putting me off.

At that time, The Sunday Times ran a series about all the ‘Hooray Henrys’ who supposedly populated the university. There were big pictures of toffs (posh people) in dinner suits and ball gowns chucking champagne around, something I had never encountered in my entire life to that point. These were people who, and I can recall the phrase distinctly, got ‘hog whimperingly’ drunk, and were clearly dead rich. God, they had cars.

It was clear that the likes of me were not going to find it easy to keep up with these types. Socially, at any rate, I was going to be pitifully out of my depth.

Still, I persevered, and when I arrived at my strange medieval little college I was dismayed by the lack of hog whimpering, and somewhat disappointed by the feeble brainpower of some of the products of our great public schools. Instead, I found lots of ex-grammar school boys and girls who were just as surprised as I was that they had got this far. Like them, I was also able to tell my soup spoon from my dessert spoon, and go for the right knife at the right time, and avoid embarrassing myself at formal dinner.

Nowadays, I don’t care much about such things, I’m that middle class. I know what I need to do to fit in. Social mobility¹ is a wonderful thing, but, without a school that can help you learn such subtle aspects of proper behaviour, it doesn’t come easy.

¹Social mobility is a person’s ability to advance their place in society through income, status or education.

Is everybody in the UK becoming middle-class?

UK map showing the diversity of the English language

Why are schools trying to wipe out regional accents?

Adapted from an article by Lynsey Hanley

theguardian, Monday 23 May 2016

The news that trainee teachers are being encouraged to adopt a more middle-class accent and lose their regional accents in order to be better “role models” for schoolchildren is part of a worrying trend…

Call it the “Downton effect”, or the return of old-fashioned snobbery, but there is, increasingly, one acceptable way to be in society: middle class and from the south-east of England.

As if further proof were needed that the dominance of middle-class values and identity is becoming more powerful, the linguistics researcher Alexander Baratta has reported that trainee teachers from the north and Midlands are being asked by their supervisors to lose their regional accents in order to be better “role models” for schoolchildren.

What he terms “linguistic prejudice” is essentially another form of class prejudice: northern accents, in particular, are perceived to be exclusively working class, with scouse accents firmly at the bottom of the value scale (a couple of months back, casting agents for a new Morrisons advert put out a call for people with northern accents to appear in the campaign, but with the firm instruction: “Nobody from Liverpool, please.”)

Teacher trainees from Leicester, Nottingham and Eccles interviewed by Baratta were told to “speak properly” – in other words, without a regional accent – and that their pronunciation was “too common”.

It provides further evidence that teachers are being inducted into an education system designed to produce, essentially, identical types of people. People with identical accents, communication styles and methods of personal presentation are well primed to work in the private sector, to earn above the median, and to compete for work on the basis of not being different, but of simply being better at doing exactly the same thing.

Becoming socially mobile is simply a matter of someone from a non-professional background getting into the professions. Take a rough diamond, polish it and send it back out into the world more economically productive than before. Such simplistic logic denies the experience of social mobility, which for many people – as revealed by the subjects of Baratta’s study – involves being asked to change fundamental aspects of who they are in exchange for achieving their ambition.

Schoolchildren interviewed by the education researcher Diane Reay noted how such forms of snobbery are passed down, from teacher trainer to teacher, from teacher to pupil. “Some teachers think a pupil is stupid because he hasn’t got a posh accent,” said one child. “I think telling you a different way of speaking is sort of good, but I think the way they do it isn’t good because they correct you and make you look stupid.”

Pupils realise the importance of clear communication, and are aware that being given the chance to acquire some of the skills of the dominant class may go on to serve them better than a well-meaning teacher who pretends such things don’t matter. What pupils resent is the implication that to sound working class is automatically to sound stupid.

As aspects of culture become more centralised and focused on London, it stands to reason that the “dominant person” – the person who is valued most, who is viewed as the most civilised – happens to be middle class and to speak in a standardised south-eastern accent. It’s especially the northern museums that are closing, the northern councils that have to prioritise adult care over libraries and parks because they can’t afford both. The BBC’s 5 Live and CBeebies channels may have moved to Salford, but you’d never guess it from the accents of its presenters.

The sociolinguist Peter Trudgill noted as long ago as the 1970s that language use had begun to change, and to some extent to level out, in smaller towns due to the undue influence of larger, more culturally dominant cities. But this is clearly not the sort of natural linguistic levelling that is brought about by people moving around more often. The urge to devalue regional accents is part of a deliberate process. We’re all being taught that the only acceptable role model – intelligent, authoritative, responsible – is now a middle-class one.

Measuring teenagers' happiness in England...

More friends and emotional security - how northern children in England top the happiness league

Polly Curtis, education editor

theguardian

Thursday 8 January 2009

(The text has been slightly modified)

1. Teenagers in the north of England are emotionally more secure ("happy") than those anywhere else in the country and are the most likely to report that they have more than one best friend by the age of 15, according to a major study of children's happiness that lays to rest the adage that life is grim up north.
2. Teenagers in Knowsley, Merseyside - one of the most disadvantaged areas of the country - scored highest in the friendship ratings published yesterday by Ofsted and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, while those in leafy Richmond, in south-west London, reported the lowest levels of emotional wellbeing.
3. The findings suggest that perceptions of London teenagers' lives as blighted by drug abuse are also misplaced. London boroughs consistently scored the lowest for drug and alcohol use among English teenagers, but a problem of substance misuse by young people in suburbs and poor rural areas was revealed.
4. The study gives every local authority in England a score on five measures: the emotional health ("happiness") of children (how many friends they have, and how much they feel able to talk to them about problems); levels of bullying; participation in sports and volunteering; substance misuse; and ease of access to parks and play areas.
5. The scores are based on responses from 150,000 children who took part in an annual survey conducted by Ofsted, called Tellus. A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said local authority chiefs had been told to set themselves targets to improve children's lives by next year, taking into account the findings of the study.
6. Children in Knowsley, which consistently sits at the bottom of league tables for educational results and health, report having stronger relationships than anywhere else in the country. Halton in Cheshire, Lancashire, Liverpool, Kirklees in West Yorkshire and Hull also score highly.
7. Inner London authorities, by comparison, score consistently below the national average, suggesting that the alienation associated with life in a big city could be setting in early. London teenagers, however, benefit from having the best access to play areas, parks and other activities.
8. Inner-London teenagers are the least likely in the country to take drugs and drink alcohol, according to Ofsted. The score, derived from children's responses to questions on how often they had used drugs or drunk alcohol, showed inner London scored an average of 6.1, compared with 10.9 nationally.
9. Children in leafy London suburbs are more likely to take drugs and drink than those in inner city boroughs, it found.
10. Reported levels of bullying are highest in the south-east and south-west. The Isle of Wight has the highest score for bullying, while Knowsley and Liverpool score lowest.
11. Anne Longfield, chief executive of the children's charity 4Children, said: "You have some more affluent areas where drug problems are an issue because young people don't have material disadvantage but don't see their parents much and have a disposable income. Drugs are likely to be much more a problem for them. Parents who move their children from urban environments, where there is bad news in the headlines, to what are seen to be safer areas, often find their children confronted with other problems. Bullying continues wherever children are. It's not limited to urban areas, and drug abuse also happens in areas with more affluence and fewer things to do."
12. In Haringey, north London, where there has been intense scrutiny of children's services since the death of Baby P at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend, despite having been seen many times by social and health workers, children's happiness was rated among the lowest in the country. But the borough was found to be well below the national average for bullying and children were more likely to take part in "positive" activities such as volunteering or sports.
13. The scores were published yesterday along with suggested new targets for local authorities to reach over the next year to improve services for children. Local authorities that score badly on bullying, for example, are expected to launch new programmes in schools to tackle it.
14. The scheme is part of a government shift away from measuring the effectiveness of policies for children only in terms of their educational results to take into account new measures of happiness.
15. The government is consulting on plans to rate every school on a range of happiness indicators, including measures such as teenage pregnancies. The plan has proved controversial with teachers, who say they cannot be held responsible for the whole of a child's life.
16. A spokesperson for the Local Government Association said the survey was helpful but, because it involved children completing the survey themselves, some children outside formal education were excluded: "There is an awareness that some of the children most in need are not picked up by it."

"London is the world’s greatest city; we cannot sit back and do nothing about the rough sleeping crisis."

 2015 photo from theguardian

The text below was adapted from an article published in theguardian, dated Sunday 17 July 2016 (click HERE), written by Sadiq Khan.

Close partnership and innovative approaches are needed to curb the rising numbers of homeless people inherited from the Conservative administration of London. I am committed to tackling London’s housing crisis in whatever form it takes – and the rise in rough sleeping over recent years is a growing source of shame that we have a moral imperative to stop.

People end up on the street for many different reasons – leaving care or hospital, problems with debt, unemployment, mental health, family breakup – and so the help they need is varied too. We can support some rough sleepers, particularly when they have become homeless recently, through programmes such asNo Second Night Out.

In more entrenched (i.e. long-term) cases regarding homeless people, a more intensive intervention may be needed, as a one-size-fits-all (i.e. one solution to all problems) approach does not always work. We can promote innovative approaches by making our funding of agencies that help homeless people conditional on these agencies achieving results – an approach that has proved successful in helping people access and remain in stable accommodation.

But, crucially, we need not only to help rough sleepers on the street, but also to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place – and that’s why I’ll be launching a No Nights Sleeping Roughtaskforce with prevention central to its approach. This taskforce will bring together all the agencies to tackle rough sleeping as we will only make a difference through close partnership. The taskforce will set the strategic priorities for services the mayor provides, come up with proposals for new initiatives and projects, and lobby government for the changes we need.

A Labour mayor and government dramatically reduced rough sleeping at the start of this century and I’m determined we’ll do it again. Making a difference won’t be easy, but I will lead the way.

To do:

1) Listen to the teacher read and comment the article, noting pronunciation, vocabulary and expressions, and summarising the main points of the article.

2) Read the following information on theguardian:

theguardian is a British national daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821. It is edited by Katharine Viner. It is part of an international media group which includes The Observer (a British Sunday paper) and The Guardian Weekly (an international roundup of articles from various papers). In 2013, The Guardian's print edition had an average daily circulation of 189,000 copies, behind The Daily Telegraph and The Times, and ahead of The Independent. The newspaper's online edition was the fifth most widely read in the world as of October 2014, with over 42.6 million readers.  In the UK, its combined print and online editions reach 9 million readers. The Guardian was named newspaper of the year at the 2014 British Press Awards for its reporting on government surveillance.

3) Answer the following question:

What type of people read The Guardian do you think?

4) Translate the title:

"London is the world’s greatest city; we cannot sit back and do nothing about the rough sleeping crisis."

5) Read the following information about Sadiq Khan:

Sadiq Aman Khan (born 1970) has been Mayor of London since May 2016, succeeding Conservative Party Mayor Boris Johnson. Khan was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 to 2016. He is a member of the Labour Party. His election as Mayor of London made him the city's first ethnic minority mayor, and the first Muslim to become mayor of a major Western capital. As mayor he has limited charges on London's public transport and focused on uniting the city's varied communities. He was an active supporter of the unsuccessful Britain Stronger in Europe campaign to retain the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.

6) Answer the question:

Why does Khan describe London as “the world’s greatest city”?

7) Read the following information about the Labour Party:

The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Growing out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the nineteenth century, the Labour Party encompasses a diversity of ideological trends from strongly socialist to moderately social democratic (social democracy includes the belief in collective responsibility for social welfare). Founded in 1900, the Labour Party overtook the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and from 1929 to 1931. Labour later served in the wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after which it formed a majority government under Clement Attlee. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan. The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Having won 232 seats (out of 650) in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party.

8) Question:

Why does Khan want to solve the problem of rough sleeping?

9) Read the following information about sleeping rough in London:

According to the CHAIN (Combined Homelessness and Information Network) database, 8,096 people slept rough at some point in London during 2015/16, an increase of 7 per cent compared to 2014/15 (though these figures are probably an underestimate). 57 per cent are aged between 26 and 45 years with 1 in 10 under 25 and 11 per cent over 55. 43% have problems due to alcohol, 31% have problems due to drugs, and 46% have mental health problems. 32% had served time in prison. 41% are UK nationals, 37% are from Central and Eastern European countries, 2% are refugees from Eritrea and Somalia. About 15% of rough sleepers in London are women (many have been physically attacked, verbally abused and sexually assaulted). Reasons men end up on the streets include: relationship breakdown, substance misuse, and leaving an institution (prison, care, hospital, etc.). Reasons women end up on the streets include physical or mental health problems and escaping a violent relationship. Social causes include: high levels of poverty, unemployment, the inadequate benefits system, lack of affordable housing and poor management of social (council) housing. Emergency accommodation includes: cold weather or winter shelters, night shelters, emergency hostels, nightstop schemes for young homeless people aged 16 to 25, women's refuges for women fleeing domestic violence.

10) Questions:

> What do you think the consequences of sleeping rough are on individuals?

> What do you think the consequences for London are of having people sleeping rough?

> Is there a problem of people living on the streets in the area you live?

> What solutions to solving the problem of homelessness can you come up with?

Further research:

> Crisis (homelessness charity) website

> Article from The Mirror: There are 10 empty homes for every homeless family in England
> How do I... help rough sleepers.

‘Bullying is soul-destroying’

Tamanna Miah

Tamanna Miah is 22 and in her third year at university, but still carries the emotional and physical scars from the racial bullying she suffered throughout primary and secondary school.

Her family are from Bangladesh and she grew up in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was the only non-white child in her primary school. The bullying started almost as soon as she began school, she says, around the age of four.

“I was the only Asian kid in my area and in my school. People used to bully me for my looks, my skin colour ... they did everything to make my life hell. They called me names, put sticks and rubbish and chewing gum in my hair. They would chase me and throw things at me. They pushed me off a wall. Even today I’ve still got the marks on my leg from when that happened. Staff often ignored it. They would say I was being silly, that I was making it up.”

Miah was so unhappy at school her parents had to drive her there “kicking and screaming”; she would pretend to be ill and try to hide to avoid going to school. She began to lose confidence in the way she looked and used her mother’s skin products to try to lighten her skin so she would “fit in” with her peers.

Bullying has changed her life, she says. “It’s soul-destroying, it really is. I know how much I suffered and I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through it. I suffered severe depression and anxiety as a result. I was so isolated.

“I had no confidence, I had no self-esteem. I couldn’t talk to my parents and my teachers didn’t understand. I felt suicidal a lot of the time.”

Far from school being a safe haven, Miah believes children feel particularly vulnerable there, and that teachers don’t realise how much of an impact experiences of bullying have on a child’s wellbeing.

“You should be feeling safe – you spend such a lot of your life at school. But you are open to so much there. You’re meeting other young people. You have to be there. You are there on a daily basis.”

Miah believes her grades suffered as a result of the bullying, which was a constant distraction from her studies. Now she campaigns on issues surrounding bullying and has made a film to show what it’s like to be a victim.

“These days schools do have more policies in place but it’s almost like bullying is a normal part of childhood. We need to break out of that. It’s not normal. I don’t think people realise how detrimental it is.”

> TED talk given by Tamanna: click HERE!

> Tamanna's video: click HERE!

> "Agir contre le harcèlement à l'école" (short film in French): click HERE!

> Article on bullying from theguardian: click HERE!

Why team GB has won so many medals...

Video from The Guardian: click HERE!

Transcript of the video:

Rio 2016 has seen GB’s most successful overseas Olympic Games ever. Team GB won 27 gold medals in Brazil. At Atlanta 1996, they won just one event. So what’s behind the gold rush? Well, maybe it’s more money. The team received £274,5m ahead of Rio. That’s around £40m more than Beijing 2008. So each medal won by Team GB this year cost £4m. The aim this time was simple: become the first nation to increase its medal count immediately after its own Games. And it worked!

But it’s not good news for everyone. Sports that fail to hit medals targets usually face budget cuts. While those that perform well get more cash. Critics argue that the money could be better spent elsewhere – such as grassroots sport. Since 2010, local authority grants have shrunk by a fifth. And a quarter of people in the UK now do less than 30 minutes of activity a week. So, with current public health and NHS crises… How much are Olympic medals really worth?

UK Sport, which determines how public funds raised via the national lottery and tax are allocated to elite-level sport, has pledged almost £350m to Olympic and Paralympic sports between 2013 and 2017, up 11% on the run-up to London 2012. Those sports that have fuelled the rise in Britain’s medal-table positions over the past eight years – athletics, boxing and cycling, for example – were rewarded with increased investment. “It’s a brutal regime, but it’s as crude as it is effective,” said Dr Borja Garcia, a senior lecturer in sports management and policy at Loughborough University.

Liz Nicholl, the chief executive of the funding agency UK Sport (quoted in The Guardian) said: “I think we’ve all seen and felt the impact of medal success on ourselves and on the UK. Success in sport can inspire the nation, make everybody proud and unite the nation. There’s no doubt about that. We can all see it and feel it. Why do we invest in medal success? We invest in medal success to create a proud, ambitious, active, healthy nation.”

But the UK Government has come under fire… Why does it give money to successful sports rather than to sports that need money in order to achieve better results? And why does it not give more money to grassroots sports? Some say its priority is to get as many medals as possible to show that the UK is a “successful” country. It also considers that the more medals the UK wins, the more patriotic the country will feel… And does winning lots of medals really inspire the nation to practice more sport as Mrs Nicholl says?

If you divide the £274,5m subsidy from UK Sport by the total number of medals won, the medals cost the UK £4m each (the medals are worth £4m each) in terms of how much was spent (i.e. the cost of) training the athletes. The medals are worth a lot too (i.e. the value given to them) in terms of how much prestige they bring the UK. But the cost to (the price for/the effect on) those who lose out from the Government’s meritocratic system is also very high, namely: the sports that have not won medals (and are therefore no longer subsidised), and grassroots sports (which are essential to improving the health of the nation and would reduce the cost of health care).

Who plays sport in England? Click HERE!

Are Olympic champions born or made?

Mo Farah writes…

I always loved football at school and playing for Arsenal was my dream. But my PE teacher saw something in me when I was running down the wing. He pulled me aside and said to focus on athletics – it all started there.

I began racing seriously at 13 but it was after winning the European Junior 5,000m title in 2001 I started to really believe this could be my full time job. I dedicated myself to it 24/7 but I couldn’t have imagined I would become a double Olympic champion, especially not in my own back yard.

London 2012 and the Rio games have both been a dream come true for me. But what does it take to win an Olympic gold medal?

It is seriously tough to become an Olympic champion. The most important thing is commitment; it’s all about getting on top of that podium. I don’t dream of winning – I train for it. In the run up to Rio I was running about 120 miles a week. I become a bit of a robot – eat, sleep, train, repeat! Sometimes you have to make big sacrifices, like running until your body is crying out for you to stop, or missing your child's birthday because you are at a training camp.

When preparing for a long race, like the 5k or 10k, I practice running that distance the weekend before. Then in the week leading up to it I ease down. Just before the race I like a seriously strong espresso too – then I’m ready to go. The mental side is really important too. I always like to plan my race tactics in my head – visualizing how I’m going to beat my competitors.

Preparation is vital. Combine those hard yards in training with mental toughness and you give yourself the best chance of winning. If you’re anxious and worrying about your rivals then you can throw it all away. You can have all the natural talent in the world, but there is no substitute for hard work.

Educating the elite in the UK

Eton’s confidence trick is a lesson for life

Article from THE TIMES by Janice Turner

September 3 2016

 Boys who blagged their way into meeting Putin show why Britain is still a divided nation, with state schools left behind

We will see that photograph again, the snap of ten Eton sixth-formers after their hour-long meeting with Vladimir Putin. And the boys knew it. A few were pulling gangsta moves and goofy faces, lolling on the Kremlin carpet, thinking of the Facebook “likes”. Others, conscious that the internet never forgets, recalling maybe the Bullingdon picture Boris and Dave fought to repress, were composed, aloof, putting destiny before “bantz”.

How did they pull off this summit? Well, invite Putin’s personal priest (who knew he had one?) to speak at your school, then cheekily ask him to arrange a visit. Call in Russian contacts to ease your path, send 1,000 emails, blag, never be deterred by “No” . . . until you stand immaculately suited, looking wholly entitled at 18 not just to shake the Russian president’s hand but later to opine on his record: that Putin is misunderstood over Ukraine and right to bomb Syria. “Chutzpah” doesn’t even come close.

The more I interview famous people, the more I’m convinced success is a confidence trick. Not entirely, of course. Putting aside luck, the recipe seems roughly three parts talent, one part drive and one part audacity. In those from humble backgrounds, audacity means “going for it” when you’ve little to lose. In the privileged, it is an acquired confidence which drowns out that querulous inner voice forever whispering: “Who am I to apply to Cambridge or Rada, to work at Goldman Sachs, to write for The Times?”

When I interviewed Tony Little, the departing head of Eton last year, he remarked that in the very fabric of the ancient building, carved with initials of poets, princes and politicians, was the question: “Why not you?” Old Etonian David Cameron, when asked why he wanted to be PM, answered: “Because I think I’d be good at it.” Why not me? And his tenure — which seems so long ago now — was kingly and gracious. Whatever you thought of his policies, you could never fault his choreography or demeanour. Did he ever doubt his right to be there, even after he almost broke the Union, after he staked his legacy (and Britain’s future) on the referendum, and lost? I doubt it. You aren’t destroyed by defeats if you feel you own the game.

How does Eton create such men? (Putin is clearly as fascinated as the rest of us.) It treats every boy as a rugged individual. No dorms, but separate rooms and solo chats with tutors. It makes boys organise outside speakers without help from masters, even if they occasionally forget to meet a cabinet minister off his train. (The Russian trip was planned without the school’s knowledge.) And it tells boys, in Little’s words, “not to lead with their chin” but employ charm first. Then, if this isn’t enough, a steely arrogance is unsheathed. I’ve heard the wife of a cabinet minister who didn’t go to Eton complain: “The Camerons treat us like staff”.

Above all, Eton, like other private schools, offers “polish”, which as a report into social mobility this week made clear, can count for as much as grades. The study showed that state-school candidates were turned down for jobs in banking for the faux pas of wearing brown shoes, loud ties or not being the right “fit”. In these “customer-facing” roles, banks believe the rich will only trust you with their money if you can pass as moneyed.

More state school pupils — 59 per cent this year — are now admitted to Oxford. Other top universities from which bankers are mainly recruited are selecting more widely too. But still working-class students are let down by their ignorance of hidden social codes. In Scandinavia and Germany I’m always struck by how hard it is to guess someone’s social standing from their appearance: in Britain I can tell at first glance. Obviously I’m more attuned to our signifiers but in other countries working and middle-class people and their culture are not so far apart.

The solution to improving social mobility in Britain has been to admit a few extraordinary poorer kids into the golden circle. Eton, a canny luxury brand, which constantly evolves with the times, is more generous with its resources than most. (And can afford to be.) A fifth of boys are on some kind of bursary, like the son of Somalian refugees in Brixton who has just won a sixth-form scholarship. Eton also sponsors the London Academy of Excellence, twinning clever East End kids with its tailcoated boys. This academy encourages sharp dressing, punctuality, resourcefulness, manners and boundless aspiration: values which are too lacking in the state sector, especially in provincial towns.

In London, at least, you can see bastions of privilege from the bus. Visiting my old Doncaster comprehensive I was struck by the uniforms: polo shirts and baggy trousers, as if training to mix paint in B&Q (DIY store). Why not insist boys wear suits to sixth form to raise their expectations and show them how to dress for a professional job? And the headmaster, although mentioning media studies A level, didn’t invite me to meet students. Perhaps he thought I’d bore them. But it is easier to imagine becoming a journalist if you’ve met one who comes from your housing estate. By contrast, my sons’ London private school is forever asking media parents to help ease their pupils’ career paths.

Because those Eton boys, with their resourcefulness, fine manners and the coolness to look a Russian tyrant in the eye, will end up running City banks and Westminster and be given platforms to present their views. Confidence is rarely born, it is acquired: every bright pupil should be encouraged in their audacity, to ask the question: “Why not me?”

Seven of the top ten universities in Europe are British... Why?

Times Higher Education university rankings: click HERE!

The Olympic Games: making the world a happier place?

One mo' gold for Great Britain!

Champions celebrated as glorious Olympics end

Text adapted from an article in THE DAY, Monday, 22 August 2016

Early this morning, the curtain fell on the 2016 Rio Olympics. At the closing ceremony in the Maracana stadium, the Olympic flame was extinguished and the official flag of the Games was handed to Tokyo, the host in 2020.

306 gold medals have been won, but thousands of athletes have left empty-handed. Are the Games inspirational because they harshly divide winners from losers?

During Brazil’s Olympic fortnight, 19 new world records and 65 Olympic records were set. Michael Phelps won his 23rd gold medal. Usain Bolt once again won all three men’s sprinting titles. Young competitors Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky won four events each.

According to the website Medals per Capita, the USA - which finished top of the official medal table - was 63rd when medals were weighted and divided by each country’s population size. Great Britain was 19th (France 30th). Grenada (population: 106,825) has the distinction of being the most efficient country at the Rio Games as regards the medal tally (number of medals) when compared to the country's population (one silver in the Men's 400m).

Tim Black, a columnist for Spiked, thinks we should draw wider lessons from these champions. In the Olympics, he says, ‘there can only be one winner, not many or plural winners’. This ethos, he argues, is ‘almost entirely at odds with that writ large in today’s mainstream cultural script, rich as it is in relativism and low aspiration’. Relativism is the idea that nothing is absolutely right or wrong; all moral questions are relative to the circumstances around them. Relativists are more likely to argue that the winner of a competition is not the worthiest of praise. Black criticises this idea, saying the Olympics should simply be seen as ‘universally human’.

A similarly competitive instinct helps to explain Great Britain’s stunning Games. British athletes claimed 27 gold medals and second place in the medal table – behind only the USA. Just 20 years ago, at Atlanta 1996, Britain won only one gold.

Medals by country: click HERE!

The turnaround has largely been credited to UK Sport, which allocates funding and prioritises sports in which Britain has previously been successful. Sports in which athletes had missed their medal targets in 2008 and 2012, such as wrestling, table tennis and volleyball, were stripped of funds. ‘It is a brutal regime, but as crude as it is effective,’ says sports management lecturer Dr Borja Garcia.

Crosby cries victory!

But how meritocratic are the Olympics? Public policy decisions and countries’ relative wealth had a significant impact on the outcome. Whereas 48% of medallists came from Europe, only 5% were from Africa. How fair are the Olympic Games, when most of the athletes who have won medals are those who have benefitted from a decent sporting infrastructure, financial support, and moral support from their families and fans? The losers are often talented people who have received little encouragement or reward. For the Olympics to be more fair, surely all sportspeople should have the same quality of training?

Medallists however were not the only competitors to draw praise. When Abbey D’Agostino collided with Nikki Hamblin during the women’s 5,000m heats, Abbey stopped running to help up and encourage Nikki, her rival. Hamblin ran through the pain for the last 2,000m and then declared: "That girl (Abbey) is the Olympic spirit right there".

Abbey and Nikki

The winners should be our biggest inspiration, say some. They unashamedly pursue excellence and show what we are all capable of. Those who never settle for second best break boundaries and achieve things which improve the human condition. As Black writes, ‘the Olympics world is harsh, discriminating and judgmental’; that is why Rio was so good.

Winning is not everything, respond others. The true beauty of sport is its accessibility - anyone can give it a try. Winners’ medals only have value if they are won against many other people. We can learn more from those who battle against the odds or put sporting values ahead of personal glory than from a procession of successful people.

And, what, in the end, is the point of the Olympic Games? Are they merely entertainment, a celebration of the sporting ethos,  a means to promote a more peaceful and happier world? Or are they rather more the veneration of medal winners, and a way for powerful countries to symbolize their superiority, promoting aggressive competition among not just athletes in a race for the greatest number of medals but between the countries the athletes represent?

Questions:

1. Did you enjoy watching the Rio Olympics?
2. In what ways are the Olympic Games inspirational (and have the Games inspired you to do (more) sport)?
3. Do you agree that nowadays people's aspirations are low?
4. What does Black mean by 'universally human'?
5. Do you approve of the 'brutal' meritocratic regime of UK Sports? 
6. Do you agree the Games are good thanks to the fact that the Olympic world is 'harsh, discriminating and judgmental'?
7. In sport, is winning (in order to gain 'personal glory') more important than participating do you think (cf. "The important thing is not to win, but to take part", dixit Pierre de Coubertin)?
8. Do you think YOU can become the best you can be?
9. Should Olympic athletes no longer represent their countries?
10. Is the Olympic spirit dead?