“We used to have -the Labour party did away with Grammar schools which provided excellent education (also taught you to spell and punctuation by the way!)”

“Why should they?

The state provides and excellent level of education for free, which many choose, for a miriad of reasons, not to take full advantage of.

This may be down to parents who just do not care about their children, providing no early years encouragement and no additional stimulation and tutalage outside of school (often THIS is continuing cycle which is why many poor and ill educated people stay so generationally and NOTHING to do with poor schools!)

Or perhaps a small propotion of kids who despite their parents best efforts, fail to take advantage.

What therefore, is so wrong about people who have worked hard at school and who's parents worked hard to help them be successful, putting that same effort into their own kids and if they can afford it and if there is a benefit to do so, paying to ensure their kids get the best start in life.

I would always support the 'I'm gonna strive to gets' over the 'its my rights'!

...and LOL plumbduff - given your comments, pehaps the above points may fall on sterile ground?!”

“I agree that parental contribution is important but there also seems to be a culture of mediocracy(?) in some schools (not all) where children who are cleverer (not PC I know to say that some children have more brains than others) or children who need more help are left to sink or swim on their own and teaching is aimed at the centre ground. I think that the 'benefits culture' doesn't help either-as there is an assumption that there will always be someone else to blame, to pay and to generally pick up the pieces. Helping your child to achieve does not always cost money but it does cost time and effort-something, as TheWrangler points out,some parents are not prepared to put in.”

“Don't think much of ....your Standard of Education...your spelling and grammar are atrocious..... so 'pot, kettle' come to mind”

“Teachers can only teach, the student must also learn. There seems to be an expectation that the teacher can force learning. This is never the case. Students also need encouragement to learn, this is more easily given by teachers with fewer students in the class, this is more usual in private education.

Given the ease of checking spelling and grammar on all word processors, I am amazed how dreadfully badly written are some of the posts on this site. I think that the advent of mobile phones, smartphones and tablets with auto correction has made things much worse. People are too lazy to check. I am guilty of this!”

“WE the UK pay the EU £6.4 billion per month net ,and they want more.What do we get out of that - antiquated Human Rights Law that stops us from Deporting Terrorists.Corporations in the UK allowed to pay their Taxes to any member state Switzerland ,Ireland or Luxembourg because their tax rates are lower.Vote to get out and save our Welfare State.
http://tinyurl.com/axmodqe
http://tinyurl.com/9ssygmt”

“This post must be a joke? Right?”

“Has to be a joke malcolm. Obviously burningwords is out to wind people up and blames society for their present position in life. No wonder the world is knackered”