Yesterday we went to Open Day at a top private secondary school (best GCSE results in the county)
It was cozy (too sheltered for my liking, really) with nice quality but still quite small/limited sports facilities. I could see that DD would thrive on the intellectual stimulation, that the school churns out calm wonderfully confident (& glam) girls, but DD's both quite brainy & quite sporty & their sport facilities weren't brilliant for her.
What put me off most was the long day (8 lessons over 7.5 hours), plus she'd be commuting about 2 hours /day. I imagine few secondary pupils wouldn't have at least 1 hour total commute/day. Plus almost an hour/day of homework in year 7. It just seemed like a school experience very focused on high achievement in pure academics, in the Oxbridge mode, I imagine. To the exclusion of anything they didn't focus on.
They mentioned specifically that the girls have "leisure reading" targets: basically they are made to read because otherwise with the heavy study load they won't make time to read.
I know other people local to us who have mentioned how their children had to drop (?all) afterschool & evening activities after starting at this & similar schools. When I voice consternation, saying how much DD would hate that, the other parents look at me like I'm mad (obviously in their minds top quality academics trumps scouts, gymnastics & any other interests).
I was thinking what else do DC do with their time, and some of it is pure drivel (eg, 5 hours of minecraft/week). But it brings pleasure to their lives, it's social (DS has own server), teaches them programming, has its own value, seems balanced to have that in one's life.
It just seemed to me that the public school model was that the school provided ALL education. All other experiences were inferior & to be discouraged if they might interfere.
Is that normal, part of the accepted package at public schools?
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Secondary education
Do kids at Public schools get to have a life?
39 replies
lljkk · 30/09/2012 09:58
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