Engineers who did not enjoy school - are they rare?

Andy Millar:  

While I've got a couple of minutes on the train, I want to very strongly support this point. My experience has been that (in a business context) those who have been to private and public schools have, on average, much better social and communication skills than those who have been to state schools.. Which to me goes to show that it can be done - so PLEASE let's get state schools up towards that same level!

Alternatively, a higher proportion of people who have attended private schools have parents who are in a better position to teach social and communication skills for life as an adult than people who attended state schools due to their parents having better social skills and knowledge of etiquette themselves. Children don't stop learning outside of school. They learn things from their own families as well. It's a known fact that there are a higher proportion of children from dysfunctional families at state schools than private schools. In fact, private schools have been known to regularly reject children who apply that come from single parent families, have parents in what they deem less than impressive occupations, or even live in certain postcodes, because they suspect that they are from a lower than desired social set. In contrast state schools are having to pick up the pieces from dysfuctional families and bad parenting for hundreds of thousands of children, as well as having large numbers of children starting who hardly know a word of English.


Inside sources have revealed that independent schools are poorer at teaching life skills and social skills than most state schools are. Children are just expected to meet a minimum standard along with holding a sufficient knowledge about things people in at least socioeconomic group B should know - like types of wine or highbrow arts. If they don't meet the standards socially then no SEN services are available, so it's OUT!

Andy Millar:  

While I've got a couple of minutes on the train, I want to very strongly support this point. My experience has been that (in a business context) those who have been to private and public schools have, on average, much better social and communication skills than those who have been to state schools.. Which to me goes to show that it can be done - so PLEASE let's get state schools up towards that same level!

Alternatively, a higher proportion of people who have attended private schools have parents who are in a better position to teach social and communication skills for life as an adult than people who attended state schools due to their parents having better social skills and knowledge of etiquette themselves. Children don't stop learning outside of school. They learn things from their own families as well. It's a known fact that there are a higher proportion of children from dysfunctional families at state schools than private schools. In fact, private schools have been known to regularly reject children who apply that come from single parent families, have parents in what they deem less than impressive occupations, or even live in certain postcodes, because they suspect that they are from a lower than desired social set. In contrast state schools are having to pick up the pieces from dysfuctional families and bad parenting for hundreds of thousands of children, as well as having large numbers of children starting who hardly know a word of English.


Inside sources have revealed that independent schools are poorer at teaching life skills and social skills than most state schools are. Children are just expected to meet a minimum standard along with holding a sufficient knowledge about things people in at least socioeconomic group B should know - like types of wine or highbrow arts. If they don't meet the standards socially then no SEN services are available, so it's OUT!