Should I withold fees for Independent School ?

I work in an independent school, and I think it does sound quite bad that you weren't given a heads up about their performance. You have every right to take this up with the teachers. Ours are very honest with parents, and a big part of their job is actually to manage parental expectations, i.e. downgrading first choice of senior school, rather than put the child through an exam they will certainly fail and make them feel like a failure.

However, you cannot tackle this by withholding fees. Our bursar has been through several court cases with parents who haven't paid. The start of the recession saw a steady stream of parents pleading poverty, some who'd just parked the new registration Lexus 4x4 outside! You can imagine his response to that one. So court cases had to be initiated to send a very clear message to others. Now obviously your refusal to pay is not sparked by hardship but dissatisfaction. But I'd still advise strongly against it, and instead talk to the school, lodge a complaint, and perhaps during the course of negotitations you could raise the question of a discount on fees due to a poor service.

If the mocks are based on past papers, you have to realise that they won't have finished the course or have the crucial weeks of exam practice, and serious revision. It is normal to have disappointing results in mocks, and the teachers will take this into account.

You can't withhold fees, and you risk your children being withdrawn from their exams.

If you are unhappy, you need to talk to the school. Do not let your feelings fester.

One of the biggest challenges for teachers in the independent sector is unreasonable parental expectations. You simply can't buy A grades. The student has to do their bit.

When a school says that a student is doing well, they mean versus their innate ability. The school will have done baseline testing in Year 7, and possibly in Year 10, and will have a good idea of predicted grades if the child were working well. For some students, C grades are amazing achievements, and parents and teachers should celebrate that. For others, a B is a 'fail' and there will be tangible reasons for why.

Please, unless you know your children are not working well (you will see their work ethic based on their attitude to homework), let your disappointment show, and don't try to blame anyone else.

Let your children's best be good enough.

I can understand your problem . The school should have informd YOU sooner that your children were not performing to the required level in comparison with their peers or to a level that would meant they would be predicted to do well. Then you would have been informed and been able to deal with the stuation...perhaps by helping them with areas of difficulty - providing more individual attention that the school would not or could not provide.
I have heard this happen a lot ie where the school tel parents cild is doing very well...no real problems etc and then when it cmes to crunchtime...the truth is revealed.
My feeling is that schools don't lke parents making them too accountable and if a parent realises their child not up to scratch the first thing you are likely to do is ask what the SCHOOL is doing to help.They dont like parents breathing down their necks - checking up on progress etc . I do think te school has a certain duty to let you know how your children are doing in detail ...you arethe only other people as paretns that cna do anything about it. In my opinion they have failed u and your kids. Witholding fees though won't fix anything...I would concentrate on giving your children that extra support.

So the children I am talking about are in the lower 25%. Some with SEN, though not all. Some of those lower 25% will, with good teaching and hard work, get an F.

That's a bit pedantic statistically - we're kinda meaning the group between the lowest 25% and the top 25% here, i.e. no SEN, no G&T, broad group in the middle.

But the thing about average IQs (leaving aside my scepticism about IQs) is that not everyone has one. Unless you have a very odd distribution.

Yes, I'm sure there are a few kids from 'all walks of life' in the private sector, but there will be none (unless 1 or 2 as an exception?) coming from a home from living in absolute poverty.

Do you ever find the following in the private sector..?
-Children from homes that really cannot afford uniforms, transport, lunch & books.
-Parents who will not attend one parents evening in 5 years.

• A class where 75% has no Dad at home

I think not.

Please see the independent Black & Acheson reports.

It's only GCSEs we are talking about here, most kids with average IQs should be able to pass five of them with grades A-C without too much grief.

Chick - that would be a fair assumption.

TillyP - you mention that your son has SENs. Does the school have support in place for this?

How do you know that the school did not make the mock exams extremely difficult on purpose, intending for the pupils to get lower grades than expected and therefore ensuring that they will all work/revise harder for the real exams? Go and speak to the Headteacher.

so, assuming you are a Biol teacher then mitochondria?

Of course there is a difference in ability. I have students who are going to coast to an A* without too much effort, and others who are going to work very hard for a C.

Bad mock grades don't necessarily lead to bad exam grades. There is more of an incentive to revise for the real thing.

I don't think teaching is better in private schools either. Or worse, for that matter. IME, there are good and bad teachers in both sectors.

Exactly, Jajas! We have always thought that DS1 with ASD & learning difficulties has worked much harder to achieve than DS2 who is very bright. DS1 can read, write and do basic Maths; DS2 is at Uni. DS1 is unlikely to get or hold down a job, but that is not his fault - he has battled throughout his life to learn new things, it's just that his brain can't cope with so much and cannot retain information.

Exactly to above post - it's all about reaching your target grade/potential.

IME most teachers in the private sector either;

1. Were privately educated themselves so couldn't imagine teaching state..or
2. Couldn't hack the the state sector (where you have to be much more resilient)so jumped ship

You cannot assume the teaching is better in private schools. In fact it is much more old fashioned and teachers have less pressure on them to be 'all singing all dancing' (I mean creative!).

They have the bonus of small class sizes and all kids coming from a background where the parents have high aspirations for them..so damn right they should do better overall! It would be a joke if they didn't.

IMO - If you can't reach your potential in a private school you are not putting enough work in.

FM is right.

GCSEs are there to test and grade that years cohort from A to U. If everyone got A they'd change the marking system and questions anyway.

How much experience do you have of teaching sieglinde?

And what do you mean by "a disablility"?

DS2 went to a state school that most local parents would not have wanted to send their children to. He achieved 7 A and 5 A's at GCSE. There were actually some fantastic teachers and management team at that school by the time he was going through (his brother went through 4 years earlier in quite a traumatic time for the school and he managed 4 As, 7A,s and 2 c's).
DS2 name was in local paper a week after GCSE results day along with several others of his cohort with the headteacher saying that their results were on a par with any school (private or otherwise) in the UK.
I think that your children have got to use the next 2 or 3 months to really get their heads down, go to any easter revision classes that their school may offer and use these mock results as their kick up the arse.
No matter what anyone says about GCSE,s getting easier there is still a lot of planning and revision time needed to get those A*/A results, and at the end of the day they have to do it for themselves, you can't do it for them.
Good luck to them. They will need those Good GCSE results to access the best courses at the best universities.

Here's a different approach, which is legitimate. Go in to speak to the head, express disappointment at the school's handling of your children's education, and then tell them they are on rolling notice with immediate effect if things don't improve. Possible grounds for discontent: teachers not turning up to teach, teachers not preparing lessons properly, too many supply teachers, books not being marked, children repeating work because teachers not communicating from year to year, children studying the wrong topics for public examinations because teachers misread the syllabus, that kind of thing. Keep evidence of any of these occurrences and it will substantiate your complaint. With rolling notice, once a term has passed, you can pull your children out at any point thereafter. If the school hasn't done any of these things wrong, then ultimately it's part of the risk you take when you go private.

FM, it's striking in a way that you feel quite a lot more confident than I would about saying there just are low-ability people. I wonder if that's actually true among people who don't actually suffer from a disability. I just haven't had enough experience to be sure either way.

I teach a number of different sets of varying abilities. I don't teach A* and F in the same group.

And the F graders are not doing any better because that is their ability level. If they didn't work, they would get a U.