Value added scores for independent schools

ZeroSomeGameThingy - the problem with using a "brilliant" education to subvert the established order is that the established order use the same education and once you are in it, it just all seems so lovely to be part of it that you lose the will to want to change it.

It might be some comfort to know that there are a couple of newish posters with very similar views and experience to Xenia, for those who are missing that debate.

I confess I miss Xenia and her uncompromising views on education! She was actually quite courageous in many views she held but she was very willing to defend them!

I accept your apology, zero but I still don't quite get why I should use advanced search!

Anyway, it doesn't matter! But I genuinely do feel that the style of education available to hand selected, hyper clever, even 'oddball' DC that suits them down to the ground shouldn't be touted as the blueprint for all other DC's education. There is still quite a lot of choice available to state parents (among which lies 'a scholarship') if the parents are prepared to do the research and even move house and so forth to access it. There was a big debate on here recently about lotteries and fair banding to decide secondary allocation. The somewhat obvious outcome was that those who for whatever reason had failed to secure the school of their choice wanted lotteries; those who'd moved heaven and earth to get their DC into their school of choice wanted to retain that small ability to do so!

Before I'm flamed for 'oddball' I am using the term someone I work closely with did about her WC DC and their mates, only a few days ago!

Back to VA- well, in some ways, I can see that in the same way that Div (i.e. no GCSEs in Eng Lit/History/RE) only works in schools where the Name alone guarantees those DC have already been anointed as being 'above the general morass' thus won't be measured by the same measures that The Rest of Us will be; VA, like BMI, is a useful but limited measure of how a school's bringing its pupils on.

There will absolutely be no doubt quite a few second rate privates that make a show of airily brushing aside vulgar talk such as VA rather than confess either a) they add little to what came before or b) they select clever DC and eject clever DC with a large clutch of high graded GCSEs; which is what many parents want. It's certainly what my DC's state school does, one of many reasons why we chose it (though ours has an oddly high VA to boot I discovered).

Also I believe VA has been messed around with in the same way the Outstanding has been. Once they were maybe a useful measure, where you'd see what was known to be 'a good school' having an Outstanding OFSTED; but now I know of schools with it that frankly no local parent who gives a flying about their DC's education would dream of sending a DC to- the 'measurement tool' is no longer fit-for-purpose.

God I'd rather be like anyone but Xenia if I start spouting her views I need an urgent CT because I've got a personality altering space occupying lesion.

I was just about to post that, HG. One or two, we're all allowed, surely?

And I think 'She's not Xenia' should possibly be in the dictionary as a definition of a backhanded compliment

"Unaccountable blind spots"
Don't we all have them? That's what makes MN so interesting.

Thank you Grovel.
Martorana I do have lots of experience also of Bash Street Academy and Miss Joyful's School for girls many of the children I work with are at both and I've sat in lessons of both and talk to teachers from both.

Tansie Last year I name-changed about twenty times after letting my tongue run away with me, so I'm happy to apologise for my morning sharpness...

Going around "top" independent schools over the past few years I can honestly say that not one of them ever mentioned VA and we had no such concept in our minds. What we wanted was a school that would uphold the "values" we already held. (And my plans are all about using a brilliant education to subvert the established order...)

Jesus- don't equate HG and Xenia! HG has useful and interesting things to say, despite her unaccountable blind spots. Xenia, on the other hand.........

HG is nothing like Xenia.

We need HG as Xenia has gone to ground again I think

No, HG, don't give up. You know a lot and share it. I sometimes don't agree with you but always think you're worth reading.

Having one child at a top public school and one at a high archiving state school does not mean having an understanding of both sectors. Ther is as much difference between Winchester and Miss Joyful's School For Girls with the nice hats and the deportment lessons as there is between Judd and Bash Street Academy.

It's not that I don't "get" those whose brains are closed to new thought, I accept they're out there I just hope that it's not a permanent state of affairs or that we can prevent more of our children joining their ranks.
God know why I think this, 30 years of abuse in the public sector has turned me into a died in the wool cynic so maybe I should give up and accept that many are happy with brains closed to new thought. Best of luck to them I suppose.

Tansie
Happygardening has one son at Winchester and one at a high achieving state school so she DOES know about both systems,
but does not seem to 'get' those whose brains are closed to new thoughts;
those who only attend because they have to

zero- you'll have to explain your post to me of 8.36. Why do we all have to wait for me to find 'advanced search'? I'm sorry, I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.

I said: "happy- with the best will in the world, many schools are trying to stop DC chucking chairs around, as it were.

I do think that by the very nature of being in a paid-for school, you have automatically shut out quite a lot of the sort of DC who certainly wouldn't benefit from 'Div'.

And few LEAs would support the channelling of cash towards such a relatively small group as those who would benefit from 'Div'. Maybe, with all due respect, if all you've known is the private sector, maybe you don't understand what state schools teach and why? And it's frankly absurd to compare WC DSs with the great mass of state school DC."

And your retort was: "OP (While the world waits for Tansie to discover Advanced Search...) it's worth repeating that you're looking for the wrong thing."

Ok sorry if I misunderstood you .

Why would I be taking the piss? You do say interesting things- apart from this idee fixe you have that mumsnetters all think that Bash Street Comprehensive can offer all that Winchester can.....Which is, to be honest, a bit boring. And insulting to our intelligence.

"If you don't want to engage then that p's up to you. But it's a shame. What you say is interesting"
Are you taking the piss or have I missed something here?

but to get back to the point

"Value Added" is really a box ticking exercise for beating state school teachers over the head in the league tables.

It is so dependent on the incoming cohort and open to 'adjustment'
that really the best thing a parent can do is find a school that gives them and their kids a good 'vibe'
and then support their child as much as possible to broaden their mind and deepen their understanding.

If that school happens to be paid out of taxes or after tax income is a factor for so few people as to be only really a discussion point on Mumsnet.

It was a comment on the idea that other parents (private or state) might be swayed by buildings and facilities, but we weren't. That's all.

Of course. I never said otherwise.

martorana you can't possibly say what is or isn't a waste of money. Value is entirely subjective.

"still believe he is getting a better education where he is"

That doesn't mean that private schools are better than state schools. It means that that particular private school is better than the particular state schools you have experience of.