Please can we have a non-fighty thread about the advantages/disadvantages of independent schools....

harry
I went to a Comp in Wales in the 80's and there was very little expectation that people went to university. Very few of my classmates parents (including my own) had been to university. I swapped to a different school for 6th form that was in a more middle class area and the expectations and quality of the teaching was higher. You really can't generalise.

That is why a number of us are saying that the OP has to look at the specific options available to her. Some state schools are fantastic and some private schools are not.

To drill down a bit further. If you have a bright confident able child then class size isn't such an issue. If you have 2 DC like mine bright but with mild dyslexia / dysgraphia then small class sizes make a real difference. (As far as I remember that is what the class size research from the US shows especially for the earlier years).

Oh, that offensive little argument now, is it? That it is so much more beneficial to help build a school hut in Africa over the summer than to spend thirty years volunteering with young people in your local community. They are two different things, they have no need whatsoever to be mutually exclusive and there is no need to denigrate one to justify the other!

bertrand doing an internship ie working for free, for a charity, cultural organisation, NGO etc does benefit others.

Possibly more people and those more in need than say a scout master?

Generally the problem with private schools is not for the local community or the parents its for the number of (a) intelligent, (b) children from aspirational families for other children in a comprehensive to be around. So social networks and aspirations of other children in a comprehensive can suffer.

Obviously some bright and aspirational children remain at the comprehensive because given humans have sexual reproduction some low IQ parents will have high IQ children, some high IQ families will have divorce, illness and unable to afford private, some high IQ families will choose jobs/lifestyles that don't pay particularly well, some high IQ families will be ideologically opposed to private education.

Private schools (and grammar schools) are dividing the country, reducing opportunities, wasting talent and reducing quality of life in general. If you pay for private schooling your are actively reducing life chances for other children. Much better is to use your extra cash to give donations to labour, liberal democrats or greens and then we get a government that supports state education and aspirations for everybody.

"bertrand you are very wrong about internships."

Oh, internships! I thought Greenleave meant volunteering for the benefit of others.

I meant Comp not company of course!

Eric, it wasn't an unusual school. It was a standard company in Wales. We weren't expected to go but it was assumed we would go at least to uni or college and we were supported to do this. Of course not everyone actually went. But hell of a lot of us did.

It just wanted to challenge this idea that at secondary school there's no ambition or culture of going to university.

I always start contributing to these threads thinking 'yeah, I've got a view'

Then realise by about post 100 that I really really don't care that much

Which is probably why I opt for the cheap and easy option of state

harry very few DC went to university in the 80s. You must have attended a very unusual school if all the pupils were expected to go!

Today, more DC do go but I think some schools definitely have an issue with low expectation (not all universities are created equally).
And it's very tough to row against that tide.

That's one if the reasons that offers can be contextualised by university; to recognise the problems some highly able students face in state schools.

'Is rents' ?? *parents obviously.

I also wanted to add that my is rents would have had no idea if I went to a 'good' state school or a 'bad' one. These were the days before league tables etc and everyone just went to their nearest school (mainly). I think this is a lost age, but I do think it helped the school I went to, as there were such a wide range of abilities.

I've just chosen a secondary school for my dd. We chose a state school. I'm yet to hear whether we have a place yet.

Re- I keep reading a pro of private education is that's it's 'cool to be clever'. I went a state school in the 80's (yes, before even OFSTED was invented!) and it was always 'cool' to be clever. Also, it was virtually expected that we would all go onto University (or college at least). I had a great school career. Full of fun, inspiring teachers and a few awful ones! I mixed with all kinds of children and families. Some went onto to be well known Celebrities, sportsmen and regarded academics and others went to prison!

I guess, what I'm saying is I'm not scared of state secondary school. I'm anxious about my dd started somewhere new and I'm hoping I'll not have many problems.

I just wanted to address this constant idea that all state schools have a culture where it's not the done thing to work hard.

Of course, but then I was only making a suggestion for consideration and agreeing with all the pps who said it depends on individual circumstances.

tick I guess it depends on the family's values and priorities?

TBH the majority of The families at DC's schools had enough cash for fees plus enriching activities plus holidays yadda yadda.

But the families I know of who really push the bots out for fees ( usually immigrant families) are admirable I feel. Their commitment to education is astonishing ( though I don't know if I could be that parent ).

If you have enough spare income to be able to consider private education (especially if it is going to be very tight) then it is also worth considering how you could spend that extra money to the benefit of your children within the state system. Maybe state + extras + less financial pressure could make for as happy and fulfilling life for the whole family as private?
But it really does depend on which schools and what child.

A local private school is part of a local community, it may be the 'wrong' sort of community for some but it still constitutes a portion of the mix.

A private boarding school or distant day school is probably more akin to an expat community for the DC. That means less local connections for the family but perhaps (depending on private school) a more exciting, international as well as stimulating (intellectually or access to activities) community for the DCs, especially if their local community is not a metropolis. Many teenagers yearn for something different to the confines of their local community even if it gives them that cosy stable feeling.

If you go to a day school that is local, you are in your community.

Not all children go to the same schools, particularly in cities, but still manage to hang out together outside school as local friends.

Whether the parents pay for schooling through their taxes, or through their taxes plus the fees to use a non-state school, may well be a lesser factor depending on your local geography. Especially before the secondary years, when it wouldn't occur to children to discriminate by which school (unless someone had told them to).

Bert: "even private school kids": hahaha, when you get out of uk then who cares which secondary school did you go to? As long as you can pay for the trip, fit for the job and have ethics for it. Even planning to send my kids to private I havent and will never consider " even private school kids" are better than anyone

WRT community, my DC are part of it, in as much as they live there and have over the years attended various clubs and played for local teams etc.

But actually I've fostered an outward looking ethos in them. Both in terms of work, civic responsibility and belonging.

Going to a school with people who are not the same ones you see in your road, or at scouts or whatever has been an integral part of that.

We see that as a positive. Others a negative.

bertrand you are very wrong about internships.

Yes, but you encounter the same argument there, BertrandRussell - are kids not part of their local community if they buy their sweets in the local shop and talk to people when they walk the dog in their school holidays? Do they have to have local friends to be part of the community? Or just local acquaintances? Are you not in fact part of the local community if you are known as the local recluse who never cuts his grass and won't give back your football if you accidentally kick it into his garden? Community means different things to different people and in different contexts. The more a community means to you, emotionally, the more you are likely to be involved in what goes on in it, whether that is the school community as a separate thing from home, or your all-encompassing community. But you are still part of a community and contribute to its general atmosphere even if you don't participate much.

I doubt most people would pay for a school whose ethos was not to bother to join in too much with anything, though, so most people clearly do understand the positive aspects of community spirit and a sense of belonging, even if they don't want to put it into practice in their own backyard in any way other than being polite and not bothering anyone.

And I hate to break it to you, but generally international organizations really don't want 18 year old kids from any sort of school volunteering for them- even private school kids.

I'm not sure it makes a big difference community wise. Children like mine who aren't from wealthy areas aren't going to suddenly become hermits. And whether they go to a good state in their nice area or a private, kids from wealthy areas will still mix with the same circle at home.

? I wasn't aware being middle class meant only needing one income to afford a private school, or not having to work hard to afford your standard of living. Those are new definitions to me! I thought it was more to do with having a steady profession...

I don't think we're talking about schools contributing to the community particularly, are we? Aren't we talking about kids being part of their community?