So how does English education really compare with other systems?

I think it's a bit of a generalisation to assume those who've boarded scatter across the world and grand parents don't see their grand children. Neither myself or my DH boarded my in laws live 120 miles away a relatively easy drive as its literally the other end of out local motorway. We haven't seem them since Xmas day! The world has changed we live in a globalised world where more and more people not only don't live in the town they were born in but he country they were born in. I hope my boarding DS if offered work abroad will jump at the opportunity. In fact one of the many reasons we send him to boarding school is so that he will have the confidence to strike out on his own and grasp new opportunities wherever they my be.

happy none at all recently, which is why I dont contribute to that type of thread. I have nothing useful at all to add; I am sure it is all absolutely lovely and that some kids really enjoy it and that some parents have no other realistic choice than boarding. It's just that for me, if what you really want is a homely feel, then I long to just say "keep them with you".

It is emotional rather than logical. I full boarded from the age of 10-18 as did DH. (as we are now 50 it was of course a while ago). My parents had a real 'reason' (father in the forces); his didnt. He hated it; I didnt mind it. What I do think was odd was the fact that I never lived properly at home since I was 10 years old....

The reason I commented on boarding on this thread in particular was because it rang a bell for me in relation to litten's comments above.

boschy I've not been following this thread but I'm interested to know what your direct experience of full boarding schools is? Is your statement based on recent experience by recent I'm talking in the last 10 - 15 years have you children in boarding schools or perhaps you're a teacher or even better a housemistress in a boarding school so can base you statement on real knowledge and facts.

There is another education thread at the moment where people are discussing the homely ethos of potential boarding schools, how important it is that the place should feel like home and the housemaster should keep pets etc.

I just want to say "keep them at home with you"!!! I realise of course this is completely useless for some people who have little choice, or feel they have little choice, but for me it's relevant to littenTrees posts above....

I worked with a top consultant surgeon in Oz many years ago- and his advice to his senior trainees was 'Be aware that the enemy of 'good' can be 'better''...

On a tangent but maybe of a tiny bit of relevance:

I know of a retired professional couple who spent many years in the middle East in the oil business and did very nicely, financially. They sent their 3 DCs back to the UK for a top-rung, 'world's yer oyster' education.

All the DC are now married and with DC of their own. The mother (now gran) told my aunt (owns a holiday home next to my Aunt's only home in a picturesque fishing village) that their retirement dreams of settling in that village were gone as they were selling up to buy 'near Heathrow' and how sorry she was, but she'd had a bit of a row with one of her DDs, a doctor in NY when gran complained about never seeing her own grandchildren. The DD said 'You jetted off leaving us kids to have an 'International Education' which is what we got and now we're all scattered to the winds, living 'internationally'.... this DD is in NY, another is in Singapore, the DB in Vancouver...

So be careful what you wish for!

oh god gunz (great name btw) I am so glad he stopped at the 'rest' bit.... it used to make me want to poke his eyes out with a sharp stick!

And to add my papa's bit to boschy's dad....
"good better best, may i never rest,
Until my good is better
And my better best"

gramercy [.......but still have an admiration for our inherent "Britishness" whatever that is and feel it is of value to get a handle on it.] Have you ever considered that it is just curiosity, genera knowledge, culture awareness....? my ds is 10. He knows everything about the British system, politics, parties, monuments,....when we lived in the US during the elections we followed all of the details and we learnt a lot as a family; geography with all the states, population...., we looked at how it was covered by different channels, speeches,.....my ds was even younger then but he discussed it with our friends, listened to their views and shared his. Sometimes it is just interest no ha ha about it.l

Quite, Cory.

Actually, thinking it over, your explanation doesn't alter what I said in my first posts. A family from an Asian or African country who are looking to bettering their child's situation won't want to send them to a Finnish primary even if you tell them the Finnish primaries are the best in the world, because of the language; it just isn't seen as an asset.

And then there are the immigration issues: unless you are a proven refugee seeking asylum it can be virtually impossible to gain entry into a country that has no colonial ties with yours. Even assuming the family in question hankered for a Finnish education, they couldn't get the child into the country.

I see asiatic, I didn't realise you were talking about the younger age groups.

Even so, I think it may well be related to some kind of reverence to Britishness, and quite possibly to a sense of the importance of speaking fluent English, rather than an insightful evaluation of the school in question and of whether the British system is in fact better than the German or Dutch.

Or to put it another way, for parents from former British colonies looking for something better than their own country, Britain is probably the only place that springs to mind. That does not necessarily mean that British students won't have to compete globally with other countries which have an equally good or better system.

Noone is saying that Britain is bottom of the pile. But the fact that some parents choose to send their children here doesn't prove that it is top of the pile either.

Tortu, it's heart breaking sometimes, isn't it.

Asiatic, I wonder if we work in the same school? Certainly in a very similar one!

I have lost count of the amount of students whose parents I've called in/ seen only to call in the same parents the following year AND IT'S NOT THE SAME ONES!!!!

Or I've reported a couple of situations this year (yes, two!) in which the 'parents' were very obviously not the parents. In one case the mum was completely the wrong skin colour and in the other was only about five years older than the child.

Often quite sad cases, really. I don't actually think the kids (or the ones I deal with, anyway) are generally sent here just for education but also because their parents think they'll have a better life. And of course, they don't. They are often the ones who misbehave because they've got such rubbish home lives.

"Who do these children stay with?"

with an "auntie", who might or might not be related, and might or might not have half a dozen other "neices", who might or might not be paid, and might or might not honour her side of the bargain.

alone in the council housing allocated to their parents ( I've known 11 year olds do this)

On the floor/ setteee of a relay of friends/ aquaintances

With a "guardian", as a servant

In the woods

In the stairwell

In a hostel for the homeless

Mostly with the "sister" or "cousin" in the family who this happened to last, who might be say 4-8 years older, and absent most days and nights, and so effectively entirely alone.

In a year or two, many of them will be "auntie to someone elses abandoned children

I had a parents evening last week. I had a "hit list" of the 10 most troublesome students, whose parents I really wanted to get hold of. Not one had a parent in this country. I get "My Mum is travelling" "When is she back?" I ask The answer is a shrug, possible the vague mention of a month in the nearish future, June? July?, most likely not true. One boy told me very indignantly that he saw his mother regularly, VERY Regularly -every 5 years without fail! ( he was 16, off the rails, and no one cared)

This children are abandoned here in the expectation that we will educate them well enough for them to earn fmoney or their families.

I love tortu's post above! thank you for that, I find it very reassuring.

What I dont really understand is how driven some people seem to be to drive their children so hard. I know it's always clothed in 'allowing them to develop their talents' but in this little microcosm of the internet surely it's odd that so many people have so many talented children? Mine are pretty average in terms of talents that most other people would recognise as such - academic, music, sport etc - (which is not to say they are not A* amazing in themselves, which clearly they are!)

When I was a child and came 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th or even lower in some school test or other, my father - who I adored and who adored me - would chant this little mantra which his father used to say to him: "Good, better, best, Never let it rest". I never did come 1st much; but I think it is one of the things that has made me really pretty relaxed about education/pushing my kids to achieve. Quite the opposite effect than he intended, obv!!

Who do these children stay with, if their parents 'go back' & they are unsupervised?

*most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something.

One of the main things overseas parents require is education through the medium of English so that their children are properly fluent in the global language of business and academia. This narrows the choice of countries considerably. Britain is well known for its boarding school tradition but many of these children will come from ex colonies of the UK so it might be seen as a natural choice. Many parents will have a second home in London for example. There will be proportionately fewer well known schools in other English speaking nations.*

Pushedtotheedge/cory/rosinante

I'm not talking about private schools, or parents with second homes, (or even first homes) I'm talking about immigrants, many of whom live on benefits, many of whom leave their children here unsupervised and return to their own countries. At least 75% of the children I have taught in my inner cuty comprehensive career have been brought or sent here for the education.

I think the education system here in the UK is a very mixed bag. Some excellent, some dire.
Accessing the excellent can be a trick.

However, my view would be that very few schools indeed would prepare a pupil properly for a competitive globalised future. That is the job of the parent.

Sadly this is reliant upon a. the parent recognising that this is important and b. knowing what to do about it.

IMHO string instruments produce a more refined sound than brass. Plus in an orcherstra the violin players are the main act with the other instruments playing a support role. As for soloist intruments, that tends to be the piano or violin.

My theory is that an Asian parent (Generalisation Alert) will choose the child's instrument so he/she will choose one that sounds refined (to him/her) and/or an instrument where the DC is going to shine, either as part of an orchestra or as soloist.

A Western parent on the other hand is probably more prepared to let their DCs choose their instrument.

"where are the Asian trumpeters, classical oboists and session saxophonists?"

Interesting question. Both DCs are members of their respective school orchestras plus an out of school one. Not one Asian woodwind player in sight.

However I don't think it is because it is because of 'an admiration for our inherent "Britishness"'. I mean the Aussies love their rugby. Are you saying that it is because they soooo love the British Rugby playing Public schools? :o

Think you are right, Gramercy, I've seen this too. I read somewhere that it was strange classical piano was so popular with Asian children (forgive the generalisation) when it's notoriously difficult to make a living out of it, followed closely by the violin which is apparently notoriously difficult to master? They said, where are the Asian trumpeters, classical oboists and session saxophonists? They suggested the piano and violin is perhaps a badge of being middle class and educated? Why the sanctity of the piano and violin?

It's a bygone world that perhaps some aspire to, the world of young ladies playing the piano in the drawing room etc. Back to the days when England had an Empire where the sun never set. Our Public schools and education system was undoubtedly the best in the world and we had all the money and the power.

I think all this is going to abruptly change in the next 50 years or so. I believe Asia will become the centre of everything, where the money and the power is. Throughout the history of the world the centre of the world has shifted to where the money and assets are. How this will change things I can't predict but change is coming, unless something unexpected happens, of that I feel certain.

Dd has a friend whose mother is a "Tiger Mother" - Chinese, living in UK as husband is something computery (?!).

Her dd does the requisite 50 hours a week violin, extra maths, blah de blah, but what she is particularly keen to beef up is her dd's "cultural" skills. She asked me to spend a little time explaining the royal family set-up to her dd, with family trees, description of social class etc etc. The dd is also on a reading programme of such classics as The Railway Children, Secret Garden and so on and has previously worked her way through all the Famous Fives and Secret Sevens.

I find this quite interesting - although it is a sample of only one (although there are a few other very ambitious Chinese families at the dd's school) it seems that the Chinese are satisfied with their performance in most of the straight academic stuff but still have an admiration for our inherent "Britishness" whatever that is and feel it is of value to get a handle on it.

"most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something"

There are a lot of second rate and third rate educational establishments in the UK. However, they feed off the reverence that many foreigners have for Oxbridge, LSE, Eton, Harrow & Co.

That is why the UK attract so many foreign students as opposed to a great respect for the whole education system.

Cory, Tortu, great points.

Tortu you are spot on about the Chinese new creativity initiatives. Elsewhere in Asia there is a drive to recruit future leaders and special, creative and exciting entrepreneurship programmes are running for quite young children.

We can't afford to be complacent though and to my mind if you take all that's best in Chinese education (zero tolerance for poor grammar, spelling, etc. Academic rigour. High expectations) and try to keep things interesting and creative you have a near perfect system. Of course, as you so eloquently say, Cory, our system is also 'uneven' - not sure I see how this can ever be adequately resolved?