Sam Freedman wouldn't send his kids private

True dat HP.

And we usually applaud parents for doing whatever they can to help their DC educationally: except pay school fees.

It seems like some people want 'school' to be the same everyone in terms of resources, provided they can top up on the side.

Good for him. Neither would I.

Michaela Academy was rated outstanding no?

Yet I've seen posters here tearing it to shreds (including work posted online by children).

There is no way you will ever stop parents trying to add that little bit more or even doing it unconsciously. My daughter's comp is excellent but doesn't stop me trying to understand her science text book in order to help her a little more effectively before a test. Her father is the most unpushy parent alive but I once heard them having a lively discussion/debate about what is a sport and what is a game. When her teachers tell me how good she is at arguing a case am I supposed to think that's unconnected?

And on the last page of this document from the Royal Latin School (state grammar in Bucks) there's a reference to children who may need extra help at school "and at home." Whatever the school (presumably except for boarding) if you're in a position to give that extra help every night you will do it.

Incidentally only 69% of the nearly 1000 private schools that come under Ofsted (not ISC) are good or outstanding

Noble - then the remaining 31% must have something going for them or they'd close.

I'm guilty of believing most comprehensive schools are crap. It's not surprising given my own experiences over the years.

I went to a school that managed a 7% gcse grade a-c pass rate with 0 students gaining a place at university the year I left. Its never been above 30% and is now closed. Thats a crap school.

Roll on several years and I live in the catchment of 5 high schools. 4 have been 'Requires Improvement' for the entire time my dc have been of high school age. 1 has been rated 'good' for around 6 or 7 years after being 'satisfactory' before. They do get students into university but its rare for those universities to be Russell Group and they rarely get Oxbridge entrants. I believe its around 3 over the last 10 years but none in the last 6 or 7 years. Thats also crap.

1 other high school was closed and demolished after years of attempts at turning it around. For the last 3 years of its life not 1 student gained a place at a single university. Thats crap too.

My experience is overwhelmingly comprehensive schools are crap.

I really love that so many people think that most state comprehensive schools are good. I would love to believe that too but my experience suggests its a fairy tale.

If you only have the options I have then its going to taint my view I suppose. I dont know anyone who's child attends an outstanding high school or anyone who has the choice of more good rated schools over those that require improvement.

So yes I believe that most state comprehensive schools are crap.

Given the power the yes I would ban private schools- but I'm not daft enough to think that's an option!

I honestly don't want to get into the health debate (it won't surprise you to know that I am opposed to private health care too!) but I don' think it's comparable to education. Having private health care does not confer privilege in other areas of your life. Private education does.

Bertrand I am really interested in your point that we can't control for individuals being privileged - presumably because otherwise you pretty quickly end up saying the state should bring up children to ensure nobody gets "better" parents than another - but we should tackle institutional privilege.

Would you ban private schools? i.e. make it illegal to pay for private educational provision? (And if so would tutors etc also fall under that prohibition?)

And then I guess the same question applies to healthcare (and again, you get into the issue of paying for private physio/speech therapy etc).

I - like most people I assume - am really troubled by the lack of social mobility and the stark differences in life chances for children. But I am equally nervous that the policies for addressing those inequalities get pretty authoritarian pretty quickly.

Would be very interested in your views!

Bertrand I am not denying that.

Some posters were being ridiculously sentimental about us poor fat, potentially brain-damaged proles. Thought I'd put an alternative view.

Good health is a huge advantage in life.

No one would criticise a parent for using every resource at their disposal to promote their DC's health, would they?

The "poor people are bad parents" narrative is a very powerful one in this country. The "why don't the poor make nourishing soup" brigade.

Poverty is a pretty powerful driver of poor health.

Emotive talk about health and height there.

My kids are slim and healthy. They walk everywhere and are given a relatively non junk food ( boring to them!) diet. This is cheaper than me driving a car and buying them what they'd like to eat. Ime lots of their friends' parents feel they would be cruel denying "nice" food to their children or forcing them to walk places. In the vast majority of cases it's not poverty causing health problems in our comp, but misplaced nurturing.

Outtopasture: I knew plenty of tiny old people growing up. Often born to worn out mothers of many, they had grown up half starved in Edwardian slums. Their children didn't have healthy, middle-class diets but with enough calories they did grow to normal heights.

These old survivors seemed mentally lively iirc , they had interesting and sometimes harrowing stories. Of course they pushed sweets and goodies at us children..which maybe connects with my point above on nurturing gone awry.

I really wish we had either connections or money to buy into private ed or a better area.

We are well educated but low income sue to a number of factors. Its frustrating to have seen first hand the life privilege brings and be well aware you can't access it!

So we will congregate and move and be with other like minded families. Im not interested in schools where teachers are social workers, growth mindset, yoga etc classified under 'education '. That isn't what I want for my children. I want to see education being taught at the very highest level, where potential is reached and where the world's greatest literacy, arts, science and Maths can be taught and shared and gifted to our children the wonders of humankind. And I would like for kids to access that if they want it and they can be the next Elon Musk if they wanted to. And i dont want dumbee down education for the masses as the UK is suffering from a massive skills shortage beinh filled by international graduates. It's just a shame that to access that kind of education you need money. A lot of it in either private or housing form.

When you talk about your dc's comp, mini, it's as if it were a complete sink school, not one which is oversubscribed, whose architecture wins awards and which sends children to Oxbridge and RG universities every year. And many of whose pupils socialise with the pupils at the local private schools... there are plenty of tall, slim, active, highly achieving children there too, along with children from more difficult backgrounds but the picture you paint of it bears little resemblance to reality

I just want a school with decent behaved kids and a strong work ethic and not have my kids education disrupted by other kids who can't behave or won't behave. Period. Most school gate mums that care in my primary school cite this as their no. 1 concern. It's not the staff, facilities and grounds that make a good school . It's the intake.

"For example bert you point out that you have chosen not to give your child a particular advantage ( private school) but what about all the other advantages you have chosen to give?"

Of course u know tgt children are born with different levels of privilege, and privilege attracts privilege however the privilege is gained. Not even I think you can do anything about that! What I am opposed to is the entrenched, institutionalised privilege that our education system perpetuates.

Bert, its a bit more nuanced than that, at least round our way (inner city London). Parental aspiration will presumably show up in a child's focus, and that aspiration will often be linked to a parents own educational background and achievement, but equally there will be links to the importance a parent's background and culture places on education. Three generational unemployment is apparently the killer, and parental illiteracy does not help.

A good school can help, and these can be schools that are labelled upthread as "crap" because of their poor results. (Or cheap privates, perhaps, if you add in the additional funding they may receive to run all manner of integration and catch up classes and other initiatives.) But schools are only part of this.

Westminster has the highest childhood obesity rate in the country. There is a visible difference between pupils coming out of state and private schools. But equally the bus on the way home will often smell like a chicken shop. Most parents want to do the best for their children. For some this seems to include giving their DC money for after-school takeaways. The problem is more than simply one of privilege.

So where then should a parent draw the line?
When should a parent say no to giving an advantage they can offer reasonably easily for all concerned?

Over in real life, parents seem to do whatever they can for their DC with the resources they have. They consider that just to be what parents do. And they don't judge other parents for doing it or tell them where to draw the line.

For example bert you point out that you have chosen not to give your child a particular advantage ( private school) but what about all the other advantages you have chosen to give?

Why is the former worthy of a mention, but the later perfectly acceptable ( to you)?

As I've said before, I could look round any reception class on day 1 and predict pretty accurately who is going to pass the 11+. Privilege shows early. And is built on throughout childhood.

I kind of know what mini means.

On the first day of reception at my DC's prep school I was taken aback by the level of advantage those little kids had.

Wealth, attentive, educated, articulate parents,tanned healthy bodies from a summer spent outdoors ( obviously there are always exceptions).

But as the years have worn on that group of sixty children have not been immune to all life throws up. One has died, one is profoundly disabled, three have lost a parent, several have parents who have had a divorce ( some hideously messy).

But putting that to one side, as a parent, where do you stop in terms of giving your DC an advantage that you can reasonably easily give them? Do you say no, I won't give them x because others don't have it, or y because others don't?

Don't we each have to decide where our own line might be, rather than tell others where there's should be?

Or if we do decide communally that there should be a line, how do we decide where it is?

As I look back at my ( almost) 18 years of parenting, and the numerous advantages I've given my DC, many of which have been due to the fact that we are wealthy les be honest, I'm not sure which ones I wouldn't give if I had my time again.