Word: nicolaes
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...school tends to attract parents in the media, the public sector and small businesses. Our local state schools were too rough, too crowded or too religious, and the school where we'd sent our elder daughter, Julia, for a couple of years was too expensive and snooty. So Nicola's joining Julia at a school that will give her a good education, but, if we're not careful, a narrow view of the world. The students are whiter and more English than at the local state schools, which draw many migrant kids, and at Julia's first school - populated...
...courses I attended saw migrant mothers and American corporate types bonding over lavender oil and breast-feeding. At our local northwest London playground, my kids share the swing set with Kosovar refugees and the children of hedge-fund millionaires. Government vouchers for day care broke down class stratifications during Nicola's toddler years. Her classmates were the children of cash-strapped single mothers, middle-class professionals and the rich - a few arriving in chauffeured Bentleys...
...British child who matriculates takes one step nearer to a class ghetto, whether the gated community, the neatly clipped suburb or the council tower block. Nicola's nursery mates are no exception: the Bentley babies have since decamped to schools that charge fees of about $22,000 a year. Those parents pious or savvy enough to attend church have a shot at getting their kids into a state-funded religious school, for decades a refuge of the aspirational classes. Rising private-school fees - up over 40% in the last five years - have triggered a groundswell of faithful behavior...
...Year by year, the embrace of one's class grows tighter. Now six, Julia plays less in the local park, busy as she is with homework, ballet and violin. When Nicola was at nursery, she went to birthday parties in tony private clubs. Uniformed staff served her in a stately ballroom at the Dorchester Hotel. By the time she was three, she had attended probably the most lavish parties she'll ever see, at least while living with...
...Maybe if the markets rebound and my husband and I scrimp, Nicola will head off to a secondary school with people from the Dorchester birthday-party set. We'd defy the odds if she did: a Halifax Financial Services study last year found that the average earner in only 13 professions can afford private school for their kids, down from 23 professions in 2002. Perhaps we'll move to an area where the schools are good, free and nondenominational. Even so, Nicola's schoolmates will probably be middle-class like her: the Bristol University study found that poor children...