To think people have the wrong idea about the reason parents use private schools?

Scoll on by then. Such an easy fix!

@ewloan

It is better. I've been teaching 25 years. Teaching in the state sector has to engage all pupils not just the pupils with secure attachment and involved parents. If you tried to hand out textbooks...they'd be flung back at you in some schools I've taught in.

No one is claiming that it wouldn’t be great if all schools were as good as private. And no one is claiming that all children don’t deserve great schooling. All of society benefits from from a well-educated population. Sadly, private school is not providing a well-educated population, it’s only creating the greatest provider of segregation that children and adults will ever experience – and segregation will never benefit all of society.

And no one is equipped to accurately forecast the outcome of the VAT raise until it actually takes place.

It was because her step-brother had rattled on for years about how much better their school was than my 2000 pupil comprehensive. They came out with quite woeful exam results.

The people I've known who've been to private school were all sent there because their parents wanted them to get to know the 'right' sort of person. Exam results were not that important.

Look… I have 3 children, I cannot afford private schools - but if I could I absolutely would send them. Like most people I imagine.

But do I lay awake at night wondering why people send their kids? Obviously not… I imagine it’s obviously, a better life… whether that be down to grades, peers attitudes or just opportunities - its sort of irrelevant. Why care what people think about why you send your dc op?

I don't think anyone does it to avoid mixing with well behaved children from any background. I think they do it to try to avoid their children mixing with disruptive children from any background, and they assume (sometimes wrongly) that children of parents who are able to afford private school may be better behaved. Many private schools interview both the child and parents either separately or together before admitting them to try to gauge if the family fits with their school values.

My parents (working class, grew up in council houses to unemployed/minimum wage parents) sent my brother to private school to get him away from the bully's who beat him up most days. They did not care what background the other children came from, they cared that their child did not come home bruised and bleeding every day, and had tried all 3 state secondaries in our town with a similar outcome. We know now that he is high functioning ND, but at the time he got picked on relentlessly for being 'weird'. At his small low key private school many children were there as they had been targeted for being ND, 'geeks', skin colour, talking differently etc, so he didn't stand out anymore and he thrived.

As someone who teaches in a private school, which is also where both DC went, I have met a lot of parents professionally and socially.

There are many different reasons why people send their children there. For some it's entirely about results and universities. Others couldn't give two hoots. Most are in the middle. I suspect that the balance varies depending on the school.

IT 👏 IS 👏 A 👏 LUXURY 👏 TO 👏 PAY 👏 FOR 👏 IT

Does anyone need to say it louder for you?

Pay your VAT, enjoy your luxury and stop creating threads about it.

The luxury is the parent having the luxury of choice for their child’s education. And if VAT is a tax on luxuries, so be it. But wouldn’t it be nice if state schools were as good as private? Don’t all children deserve great schooling? Because school improvements aren’t going to come from this infinitesimal income from the VAT rise, but from proper tax increases such as income tax, and increasing CGT etc.

It’s buying an education. Of course it’s a luxury.

I can assure you they expected superb exam results. My mother found it hilarious when these results did not occur.

Being able to choose a school where most parents are likely (never guaranteed) to have your values is a privilege and we chose private schools for this.

So we moved our kids from a state school where a large majority of parents petitioned the head against homework. Where daily instrument practice at primary was deemed excessive by some and we were made to feel like we were abusing our kids because we insisted they did 30 minutes of a workbook most days, despite both having busy jobs

Interestingly there are private schools with a similar laissez faire attitude - so I am not convinced it is a sector thing - more cultural.

People don't give a toss OP. The only people who care, are the ones using private schools

I am finding the epic tantrums highly amusing though.

Interesting. You should have met all the privately educated people I met as a student at Cambridge, who patronised me horribly and viciously and found it hilarious to imitate my northern accent.

Perhaps people on this forum are just sick to their eyeballs on private school posts and they want to call it out.

Funny how we’re all different isn’t it? I mean to me, it seems like a total waste of time to start another thread on a topic that has been done to death over the last few months.

But you do you.

I agree with a lot of what people are saying here about 'buying results' but having taught in some of these schools I found there were many parents whose primary motivation was accessing single-sex education.

This is wrong because no matter how good state education is, a fee-paying school can always provide the next level up – at which point does ‘not good enough’ end when private can always provide ‘better’?

The term ‘luxury’ denotes that only the top percentage of earners can use it, while the other circa 90% cannot. ‘Luxury’ also means ‘at great expense’ which is what private school is.

Do not try to manipulate clearly termed English language to attempt to disown the segregated privilege that private schools introduce to society, and certainly do not try to do it to attempt to justify not paying VAT.

That's an interesting generalisation.

I worked with a state school teacher who herself attended private school. She HATED her school life. Was bullied and only finally found happiness once her family moved and she started at a state school.

Not all private school pupils love school.

If I had been going to send mine to private school it would have been for the utter bliss of most of their extra curricular things being at school, so no driving round the county like a blue arsed fly every afternoon. Drop off at 8, pick up at 6. Home to dinner and family time and bed. Bliss.

DS finished school last year and is on a gap year. He is currently having the time of his life working away from home, labouring. He loves being part of a team of tradesmen refurbishing industrial units. He had no problem fitting in because he learnt at private school that respect for others is important and that you have to put in the work. It echos how we brought him up.
He starts Uni in October where I hope he doesn’t come up against some of the attitudes I see on MN by parents of state school children. I was state educated and I find it quite embarrassing how bigoted some posters are. Surely we are all working towards producing adults who are tolerant and able to judge people on merit and not pedigree.
I don’t remember any of my privately schooled friends judging me based on my education. But I have seen a lot of judgement of privately educated students by those from state schools.