We can't decide!!

I'm sure you have made the right decision. How exciting. Good luck!

Academic results aside, I would look at the children from both schools and ask yourself if you would be happy if your child turned out like them.

If you can afford it go privately, the GCSE results you quoted for the state schools don't sound too great to be honest, doesn't sound like the teaching is that good. The private school on the other hand has excellent results. You said your daughter is fairly quiet, enthusiastic, so she probably would do well at the comprehensive too, but by looking at the results it does not sound as if the school pupils strive to succeed. I think your daughter may develop a drive and love of learning at a private school, where everyone is trying to achieve their potential and the school will make sure of this. I went to a private secondary and the choice was between a comp and the private school i went too, i feel so grateful for my parents for making the choice to send me privately, i was in small classes and i got lots of attention and help with extra exam practice and one to one tuition, support you just don't get in a comprehensive.

Im always surprised how tolerant independent schools. London day schools may be oversubscribed but many rural schools with mediocre results are not and therefore do take children others wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

Colleger - the lack of behaviour that you witnessed happened outside of school - not in school. I dare say that, in school, that little 'brat' is probably well behaved and polite - indie schools do not necessarily "create" better or sterling characters, just better learning environment! My point is that children are sent to school to learn and to be empowered through education and to learn to aspire to great things in their futures; this learning should not be hindered by the laxity in behavioural standards that seems to be prevalent in the state sector. All children will soon learn that the world is not sugar-coated and that there are all sorts of people in the word; however, exposing young children to a plethora of positive role-models and a sense of ambition and aspiration, rather than having them witness delinquent behaviour, is inevitably a better option, if given the choice.

Au contraire, most of the good London Day Schools I know of are so oversubscribed that they could fill any place ten-fold, if they had to expel a pupil...

Mummle unfortunately that rich bully or thug comes with £33 000 payoff and many schools particularly those who struggle to fill their vacancies find that irresistible.

Some of the naughtiest kids I have seen have been at private school. They behave at school but some are utterly rude when they come to one's home. I even had one boy talk to me as if he was a member of staff (well, servant in his country) in his household and he demanded I make him spaghetti bologna isle at 9:30pm at night. I gave him toast!

Currently, there are some kids at my son's music school and it worries me greatly!

[yawn]

Tolerance of thuggery is not related to educational sector.

Guys - it is not that paying fees buys courtesy and confidence! It is that the independent schools will not tolerate thuggery - the pupil would not be placated, indulged, or kept in school to keep him from bad influences (which is social services' job - not the school's). Why should other children's learning be hindered because of, as you say "TalkingPeace2" that their parent are idiots. If a rich kid in an indie school is a bully or thug or whatever, he is no better than anyone else because he is rich or because he is in an independent school - he should be chucked out, as well! Nobody is calling anybody the "great unwashed" - many pupils attending independent schools do so on scholarships, or a combination of bursary and scholarship - they treasure their places and work hard to maintain decent standards. This is not a class issue - but an issue of tolerating and indulging thuggery in our schools or not!

i've obviously got out of the left side of the bed today. I'll balance it out tomorrow by getting out the right or perhaps the middle!

happy... and talk... we can say this til the cows come home, and will never stop the blind belief that paying fees buys courtesy and confidence [because, of course, that has nothing to do with the home influence] and other people's values and behaviour are like transmitted germs. hey ho

It comes down to how good a school is and that's a complex cocktail of leadership and humanity and canny humour and basic luck of peer group too. Not whether you pay fees or any other performance indicator.

Do you know I have discovered if we treat people like savages they behave like savages regardless of the their age or for that matter background. But if you exclude the truly deranged (who really frighten me) the pissed and those who are drugged up to the eye balls most people if when the label "trouble maker" is removed and are treated with courtesy, understanding and are properly listened too respond in the same way. You may think this is a naive view but I have worked with all these people now for nearly 30 years (God is it that long no wonder I look tired) and only the truly deranged/and drunks have ever seriously waved knives and/or throw chairs at me!

happy
there were two paragraphs in my post
they covered two groups of people
I am more than aware that wealth and opportunity do not lead to good behaviour.
But there are many people who assume that paid for schools will save their little darlings from encountering dysfunctional families and children and disruptive behaviour.
If only!

Oh and by the way my DS2 at his frightfully posh and exceedingly expensive boarding school does "socialise" in his holidays with a child viewed by many as exceedingly "disruptive" but he definitely isn't from the "great unwashed" nor does it my DS any harm because its not infectious!

Ok just going to have a bit of a rant!
As someone who in my working day interacts on a regular basis with "the great unwashed" (what a patronising term) and their children, the upper middle classes/aristocracy and their children and Mr and Mrs Average and their children I think you're all being a little smug and judgemental to assume that it is the "great unwashed" whose children misbehave. As in all walks of life their are good and bad in all sections of society with the good being in the majority. Years ago DS2 was at a tiny village primary the two worst behaved children in the school was the son of the local traveller family and the local hereditary peer with his massive pile and land as far as the eye can see.
Most parents from what ever their back ground want the best for their children; they don't always parent in the way that I do (which may not be right) but their motivation is the same.

Rant over!

indigobell Thanks for the offer. Seen the figures - I was just being a bit thick ;)

Colleger
My views are somewhat tainted by the area and the fact the new Academy did expel a load - and ended up getting more windows smashed than the rest of us.

I went to selective private gels schools and then to an RG
I had NO comprehension about the way the world really worked before I was 21
and sadly we are being governed by people who genuinely do not understand the great unwashed because they have never interacted with them.

My DCs do not socialise with the disruptive kids - and luckily good use of setting means they get to work in peace - but they know they exist and know that they are not in a moral vacuum that can be magicked away with initiatives and consultants.
Especially as a lot of the management consultants are from the same background as I was.

Punchy comments TalkinPeace!

Mummle
at my DCs school, the badly behaved kids almost without exception have disorganised / criminal / absent / deeply stupid parents
makes it hard to manage the children other than by keeping them in school away from bad influences

there is one particular exception and her own (lovely) parents and siblings have given up on her - she's already been expelled from one state school.

NB if the state schools did just expel the trouble makers, they would pass the time by breaking into the houses of those who could afford to buy things
as my next door neighbour had last week

I agree with BrigitBigKnickers about there being less disruptive pupils at the indie schools - most parents and pupils had to jump through hoops to get into their independent schools and then struggle to keep up payments...neither the parents nor the school would tolerate persistent misbehaviour. In the state school system, there seems to be a very "all inclusive" ethos where the system attempts to reform badly behaved pupils to no avail, before exclusion ever takes place. I know it is somewhat unsympathetic of me to want badly behaved pupils dealt with more strictly, but when it comes to my child's safety, I have no empathy for others.

No, not all state school systems are full of thugs and the like - there are real gems amongst the state school system, however, generally speaking, the state school system, by law, has to be seen to be trying to reeducate and reform bad behaviour - it is an idealistic ethos that even I, from a distance, can applaud...but, when my child is involved, i prefer not to be so virtuous.

By the way I can't stand that Gove chap. I couldn't stand him when he was on the Moral Maize on Radio 4 and I cant stand him now he's in government. He is smugness and self satisfaction personified. Every time I hear him on the radio I (no TV) I rush for the off button.

Ah I learn something new every day.

DCSF - Department for Children Schools and Families - you know, Michael Gove's lot