Speaking of the typical chicken baby, everyone can always think of the Chinese tiger mother, rather than the British who focus on "happy education".
But recently, a British CEO mother has broken the inherent filter of "foreigners are not chicken babies" in many people's impressions with actions.
According to British media reports on February 10, Jo Whitfield, CEO of the British supermarket chain Co-op, decided to take a 4-month unpaid leave from May this year, just to focus on tutoring his two sons to prepare for this year's high school entrance examination.
Today, we will talk about the Jo Whitfield thing and pay attention to the phenomenon of British parents' chicken babies.
The BRITISH CEO's sabbatical reading: it's the prerogative of the rich
Before that, let's take a look at Jo Whitfield's personal history of struggle.
Whitfield was born in 1968 to a working-class family in Lancashire, northern England.
In high school, Whitfield majored in English literature and politics at an ordinary public high school and successfully passed the British college entrance examination (A-levels) to enter Aston University, becoming the first university student in his family.
Without a background in cattle school, Whitfield gave up his studies in the humanities and social sciences at the university level and devoted himself to management with better job prospects.
After graduation, Whitfield worked as an accountant for the big four accounting firms Ernst & Young and then for the British food company Northern Foods, and worked his way to become financial director.
Gradually, she realized that she was yearning for retail, so she jumped ship to the British fashion and home furnishing retailer Matalan, opening a new life track.
In April 2016, Jo Whitfield, who had become vice president, left his old club Asda to begin working as Co-op's retail finance director, becoming CO-op's CEO about a year later.
Jo Whitfield was awarded the Order of the British Empire on New Year's Day 2021 for his contributions to the retail and food supply chains during the pandemic.
Previously, the British Ministry of Education officially announced that the 2022 GCSEs and college entrance examination A-levels officially resumed students' on-site answering, rather than being scored by teachers during the two-year epidemic.
This means that this year's British high school entrance examination score standards have become stricter, requiring candidates to prepare for the exam more seriously.
As a working-class woman, Whitfield has stepped to the peak of her life through education, and she knows better how education changes her destiny.
Therefore, as a corporate executive, she resolutely decided to apply for unpaid leave for 4 months and personally tutored her two children to achieve good results.
However, her decision sparked mixed reactions in the British media scene, with some praising her for putting her children and family first, while others pointing out that only the rich have such a luxurious choice.
According to Co-op's annual report, Ms Jo Whitfield, 54, earns £1.4 million in 2020.
One netizen on Twitter said: "Oh my God, imagine if other parents — police, medical staff — did the same." It's definitely a privilege... Hopefully, her two sons will get good grades (wink wink). ”
Uk parents also chicken babies? There is no ambiguity in spending a lot of money on training children
In fact, there are not a few British parents like Jo Whitfield who value their children's achievements.
For example, they are not ambiguous about giving their children cram schools.
According to a report released by the British after-school tutoring agency EdPlace, British families spend up to 6 billion pounds on after-school tuition every year, and the average annual cost of after-school training per child is about 2758 pounds, about 24,000 yuan.
Some well-equipped families even pay up to £1500 a week to tailor a full range of tutoring services for their children.
Here I also give a typical case excerpted from the British media:
Olivia Turnbull, who is preparing for the A-level, has been educated in a private school since she was a child: first at an excellent full-time school in Northumberland and now at a boarding school in York.
At this boarding school in York, there are only 12 students per class, and the tuition fee is as high as 33,690 pounds /year (about 310,000 yuan / year).
Her sister Rebecca has also recently transferred to a private boarding high school in Surrey, where tuition is as high as £46,000 per year.
If you think that's the end of it, you're dead wrong.
Over the past decade, the sisters' parents, Jane and John, have spent £14,500 on their sisters' after-school tutoring, and Olivia spends an additional 2 to 3 hours a week attending cram school.
"Even though we've spent a lot of money to get the best private education possible, we still have to hire teachers to help them with tuition." Jane said.
Jane explains, "At Olivia's school, everyone is doing well, and if you want to stand out, you need to find extra tutoring. Moreover, this kind of personal trainer creates a more relaxed environment, the pace is also relatively slow, and it is better to have someone point out than to face a bunch of board books on the blackboard. ”
British media pointed out that anxious British parents like Jane and John are definitely not alone, and middle-class families are accustomed to seeking extracurricular tutoring for their children.
Alex Dyer, founder of tutorhouse.co.uk, said that while parents are worried that their children will be overloaded with learning, their need for tutoring has not diminished in the slightest.
"Our clients have both public and private schools, and the proportion of people is very even. Many families will even save money specifically for tuition fees. ”
"It's not uncommon for them to spend around £5,000 a year on after-school tutoring. Although there are still voices in society that only poor learning will need tuition, in fact, extracurricular tutoring does have its necessity. ”
A poll shows that 27 per cent of the more than 2,800 11-16 year olds in England and Wales are involved in after-school tutoring, with the vast majority of students coming from wealthy families.
In addition, nearly a quarter of secondary school teachers said they had taught after-school tutoring classes in the past two years, most of them were commissioned by the parents of their students.
According to estimates by The Tutors' Association, there are up to 100,000 full-time tutors in the UK.
Jane also insists that hiring a make-up teacher for her child is the right decision.
Olivia's make-up teacher, a medical undergraduate named Ned, paid him £45 a week for 3 hours and it turned out to be worth the money: her daughter's confidence and grades both improved by one notch.
Although Olivia was a good student in her class, she only scored B and C in most of the subjects in her GCSE mock exam. With Ned's help, her GCSE grades reached A and B. ”
Princess Kate: A successful example of chicken baby make-up lessons
When it comes to the king of the chicken baby make-up class in Britain, it is none other than Princess Kate's mother.
As we all know, Princess Kate of the United Kingdom comes from a middle-class family, and one of the important reasons why she can enter the British royal family is that Kate's mother invested in her various education.
Princess Kate's mother, well aware of the impact of education on her children's future, will not hesitate to send Kate to private school Marlborough College, and at the same time send Kate to various interest classes to develop her various abilities.
Private schools attach great importance to students' athletic skills. Tennis, volleyball, trail running, swimming, hockey, skiing, rowing, archery, Princess Kate is good at almost everything.
Kate loves hockey the most, having captained the school hockey team, the first doubles in tennis, and breaking school swimming records several times.
Princess Kate also worked as the lead singer of the school choir when she was in school, joined the school orchestra, and it was because she had been studying orchestral music that Kate was able to successfully enter the art history major at the University of St. Andrews and met Prince William.
Kate, who successfully counterattacked, has thus become an example for countless middle-class British families to follow.
British investors write at the end
The story of British female executive Jo Whitfield's leave of absence to accompany us tells us that looking forward to Jackie Chan and hoping for a daughter to become a phoenix is the common wish of all parents around the world.
Moreover, such middle-class parents are not uncommon in the UK, and they do not hesitate to spend a lot of money to give their children after-school cram schools, help them enter the threshold of good schools, and even achieve class leaps like Princess Kate.
However, although the atmosphere of make-up classes in the United Kingdom has been strengthened, it is far from the level of a national chicken baby. The reason for this is mainly related to the fact that the British admissions assessment is more diverse, the society has been stratified in advance, and vocational education has been paid more attention.