'So if I get a number 1 bus to Surrey Quays, is that near Trafalgar Square?'
One of the new tranche of sixth-form students on the Generating Genius programme is making a last-minute phone call to our course co-ordinator to check directions to one of our events in central London.
So why doesn't this ambitious, motivated straight-As sixth-form student from one of London's inner suburbs know how to get into town, a distance of around five miles? Perhaps they're taking their lead from Jessie J who confessed that she can't locate London on a map, despite being born in Redbridge and educated in Croydon.
But my student's plight is not a cause for blame - or amusement. This is a troubling phenomenon, and one that should embarrass not the student, but the millions of us who feel no hesitation in claiming London as 'our own' and making use of the vast and varied cultural riches it has to offer - and have the time and resources to encourage our children to do the same.
Some of our students have been on school visits offered by one of the excellent outreach schemes run by London's cultural institutions. These are, of course, to be welcomed, but they're not enough to imbue young people with a sense of entitlement, a certainty that the capital is 'theirs' by right, somewhere they would choose to hang out with their friends.
Many of the hundreds of disadvantaged young people Generating Genius works with prefer to stay in the rundown suburbs where they have grown up, places where they feel socially - and racially - at ease. While middle class parents think nothing of taking their kids on a trip to a West End theatre and a walk around the capital's sights, this is an opportunity that has rarely been afforded to our students.
My student's phone call - and the many like it - was at the front of my mind as I chaired the London Mayor's Education Inquiry, which has just published its final report. One of our key recommendations - enthusiastically endorsed by Boris Johnson- is to support schools in developing a London Curriculum to enrich and 'Londonise' the National Curriculum. As we gathered evidence, we hard a lot about the barriers, real and perceived, to taking children and young people out of the classroom. Practical issues such as cost, transport, timetabling and health and safety were often cited. We are particularly keen to ensure that the London Curriculum is a transformative opportunity for the children and young people currently least able, or likely to, access London's opportunities.
But the 'London isn't for me' mentality doesn't matter only because it's denying young people the endlessly enriching and stimulating array of activities that London has to offer; it's also symptomatic of a narrowness of outlook and ambition that prevents so many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds 'reaching for the stars', as education minister David Laws put it in a recent speech. They may well want to go to university - excellent - but, typically, their first thought is to apply to a local institution rather than aim for one of the elite institutions that lie further afield, outside their comfort zone in Dagenham, Brent or Beckenham.
This inhibition and lack of confidence that stops so many young people 'claiming' London for themselves is part of a wider problem that discourages students from disadvantaged children aiming for top universities. While they shine at their chosen academic subjects - Generating Genius focuses on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) - when they first join our programmes, many lack general knowledge and have little grasp of current affairs. They have none of the worldliness that their more privileged peers possess in bucket fulls. They tell us they have nothing to write about on their Ucas personal statements and are reluctant to submit themselves to the rigour of interview at a top university. And who can blame them?
But by the time our students have done three days of industrial chemistry at a chemicals plant and in university labs, completed a residential engineering course with the RAF and learnt computer coding at Google, they tell us that, quite apart from the value of the learning itself, they suddenly have something to shout about. Their Ucas statements are, as one of them put it, 'chockablock' with achievements they can talk about at university interviews.
Then when we take them on a campus visit to one of our partner universities and they discover that the journey takes only a couple of hours from home and they meet undergraduates of similar social background - and ethnic origin - a light bulb moment takes place. Suddenly, a wider world of possibilities opens up and their ambitions soar. And that's when lives are changed.
Dr Tony Sewell is founder and chief executive of Generating Genius, which works with disadvantaged children and young people from 11 to 18 to help them access elite universities. http://www.generatinggenius.org.uk/. @GeneratingG.