To wonder if you are against private schools…

Just because we can't level the playing field completely doesn't mean we shouldn't try and level it at all. Come on.

I'm politically and philosophically against private education.

Because we could (just about) afford to live in an area with great state schools our children did well at school. How is that any different from sending your children to private school? We then moved our children to the private sector for 6th form as their A level choice combinations were not doable at their state school. What really struck me about the move was that our children did not have to put up with other pupils messing about in the class. This never happened because the teachers had sanctions they could use and the pupils knew this.
As someone who started secondary school in a secondary modern but was later transferred to a grammar, I think great unfairness lies here too. I also know someone and he and his wife went to church every Sunday for years and years. As soon as their children left school they stopped. This had been to get their children into the church school. No system is fair and I don’t blame any parent who tries to do the best for their child.
I think the best thing this government could do for education is to have sanctions for bad behaviour in school. Just one person misbehaving in a class can ruin a lesson for the other pupils in that class.

Im not anti private school. If I had enough money i would send my kids.

What i do have issues with a few select people complaining about the costs or rises in costs saying they work hard to afford the tuition. While that might be true it’s having the self awareness that for most of the population even if they work hard and saved lots of money it would be £1-2k not the 20k needed per year. It’s like a well off person complaining they had to turn their heating off for their indoor pool due to the COL crisis to someone who is using a food bank.

This.

I'm am also against grammar schools (despite attending one) and faith schools in principle, but accept that if you live in an area where there are lots of these (for example Bucks, Kent, Lincs) then you just need to deal with your principles and put up with the fact that this is what is on offer in your area.
I feel that more money means you are absolutely entitled to buy an expensive car, pay for a cleaner, buy designer clothes, have nice holidays or whatever else floats your boat. But I don't think it should entitle you to pay for your kids to have a "better" education than another child whose parents don't have so much.

I don't believe in banning private schools, as I think the right to opt out of the state system is a civil liberty that outweighs the disadvantages.

However, it's obvious that they entrench inequality and that is why people don't like them. At the top (Eton, Harrow etc.) they have bred a self-reproducing elite who colonise a lot of the top jobs in any sector and haven't necessarily made a very good job of running things.

I did think the wailing over VAT was quite telling- people complaining they couldn't afford private school any more, completely ignoring that they weren't at all bothered by the fact that this was true of most people before the change was announced.

I am against private education because it does not foster equality of opportunity – in fact it makes an absolute joke of the notion of equality for opportunity. In my opinion, education of children is the biggest segregator of outcomes in this country – not just for young people but well into adulthood and generational.

In my case it's not jealously, as my income can comfortable accommodate private school fees for both my children. I simply do not believe that standards of education should be based on level income or the opportunity to sacrifice income.

Do you really think so? I don’t. Some of my friends who went to the same private school as I did, sent their children to local comprehensives. Some of those schools were dire.

This wasn’t because my friends didn’t speak up or promote education or push for changes. A big problem was the presence of children who were totally disengaged from education and horribly disruptive. The schools gave every impression of giving up on them and let them ruin everyone else’s education. There were also blind prejudices against certain subjects/authors/languages from both teachers and parents. Kind of a reverse snobbery. Everything was dumbed down and bright children, however rich or poor, were left without any extension to the work.

The issue isn’t private schools - it’s state schools. They should look at ways to improve and change. Another issue is the teacher shortage. The government should raise the standards to be a teacher; leave teachers to teach and use their professional knowledge; and sort the work/life balance.

I haven't rtft but I have read all of OP's posts.

I'm ideologically opposed to private schools because they entrench privilege.

Buying an expensive house in an area for an excellent state school also buys privilege and I think it's unfair.

I also hate the grammar school system because it really creates a dichotomy and puts a lot of pressure on children at an inapprpriate age.

Education is so fundamental and the children who most need a good school experience (because of difficulties in other areas of their life such as poverty or disability) are least likely to get it due to finances.

Essentially an education system where advantage can be bought compounds that advantage through generations.

For adults, I think we accept that to an extent we make choices and live with the outcome, that we have some degree of control over our lives (although the way society is structured means this is much smaller than we'd like). But children don't have that, so the idea that one child gets a five star education and another is learning in an overcrowded portacabin with a substitute teacher doing crowd control, and this has nothing to do with anything they've done - we don't like this. Some people behave like this is ok, and others get angry about it, because we're trying to live with this unfairness - either we've benefitted from it or suffered it, and we have to find a way to live with that.

Ideally we’d all get the same access to education but it doesn’t work like that does it. A lot depends on where you happen to live and what the school application lottery gives you.

I don’t think it’s wrong for better off parents to choose to educate kids elsewhere, at their own expense. Those parents are still being taxed (some of them by a huge amount) so they’re paying twice and taking a small chunk of demand out of the state system. Yes those kids might get a lot of advantages in life but lots of universities and employers favour those that did well in the state sector these days.

FWIW we considered private school for ours but decided against. Biggest reason was that we wanted our kids to learn to muck along with people from all walks of life, not just the more privileged ones.

I find your comments about state schools quite offensive. Independent schools have the luxury of being able to kick out badly behaved children. Except in extreme cases, state schools cannot do so. Instead, they cope with badly behaved children as best they can. As context, my DD went to both state and independent schools.

I'm against them because why should one child have a better education and opportunities than another based solely on their parents wealth? It just breeds inequality.

Not to say I "hate" people who send their children private, you do what's best for your children. I moved house specifically so I could be close to good state schools, so even though I am idealogically against private (I had a Northern working class upbringing) I'm also not faced with the option of a neglected and struggling local state school so it's easy for me to say.

However education should be a leveler, there should be no NEED for private schools. And specialist schools should be based on merit and the needs of the child, not a parent's bank balance.

TLDR: I am happy for specialist schools to exist, but there should be no fees and purely merit and needs based. Also state schools need to be funded better with more staff and more schools to meet demand. Class sizes are far too large imo.

I think education should be open to all.

It is in the UK. And it’s parental support/involvement that has the biggest influence on the outcome for lots of kids. Banning private schools would do nothing to help those poor kids whose parents don’t give a toss.

Absolutely, sadly, not the case. I believe people should be allowed to
spend their own money as they see fit.

Walk a mile in a state secondary teacher's shoes and come back to me. I loved many of those kids but guaranteed about 15-20% will do time.

Not bothered either way.
I think all children should receive the best education possible. As a teacher I worked the hardest I could, gave the best I could to all the kids. Even the ones who spat at me and threw the furniture.

education is so important to everyone that there should be no way of buying out of our national system. For as long as that happens, there will not be enough pressure to change things. It’s just not possible to get the kind of education people people for privately for the money the state puts in; what is needed is national agreement that more money should go in, and that ‘education’ should include all the things private schools provide.

btw I am not against there being non-state schools - it’s good to have a diversity of school and education types. But they should not be able to charge more than the state schools get per child.

I agree wholeheartedly and this by far worse within the state sector rather than between private and state.
It’s out of the each of many to buy a house in the catchment of an excellent state secondary or primary school. Either way, those with money often supplement with extracurricular activities (music and sport) and can afford the books/tuition to plug the gaps where the school may not be meeting their child’s needs.

This!

Private schools are practically unheard of in Germany and many other countries with a good state education system.

Do you live in a city? The background of children in the best state schools in the city I live in will be as uniformly middle class as the children at the private schools.

I am very heartened to see people agreeing that having a value system and living by it is a good thing.

My DC attend and have always attended state school although we could afford private
We did not move house into a catchment we just sent them to the one we live near
There are no grammar schools here
We did not employ any tutors

The secondary school was RI the whole time my DD was there. It's just been regraded to good the year she left.
FSM 40%
5 GCSEs at more than a 5 = 50%
Can't find anything on exclusions but there is a level of bad behaviour for sure. She doesn't feel it affects her.

DD got 7-9s in her GCSEs and is predicted As and A*s in her A levels.
Her state education did not appear to do her any harm.
In my view she already had all the advantage she needs with middle class, well educated, well off parents.
(Amusingly she now qualifies for contextual uni offers at many places which she also doesn't need)

I have tried to give back to the school eg by being a governor there for many years.

I am live and let live about the existence of private schools. I don't want them abolished but I do think that VAT is fair and long overdue and am sick of whingeing threads about it on here.

Yes, I’m opposed to them on ideological grounds. They perpetuate privilege. I believe that if all parents had to send their children to state schools, we would soon see a rise in the standards of the latter, amount of money spent on schools etc. because of parental pressure from rich, articulate parents.

That’s just as bad as saying {disparaging things} about state school children! (I’m not writing them - hence the brackets - but I’m sure you can use your imagination)

Most private schools are small. They’re not mini Etons.They contain children from a variety of families NOT all rich and posh. As I said, I came from a very poor family myself, and other children in my class were the children of nurses, teachers, care workers, etc. Just normal children, speaking in various accents.

It also makes me laugh when people talk about private kids being rude! Many people in my family and friends circle are teachers. My sister was pushed by a student when she was pregnant and school brushed it under the carpet. She would get told to “F**k Off” on a daily basis and the girls would mock her