What are STATE schools in London like?

One of the state schools my daughter has applied for is outstripping local private schools academically. Even if she doesn't get into this particular school, the other choices are very good. I cannot afford private, even with a bursary. If I could afford it, the only reason I would consider it is for the extra-curricular activities, and the possible connections she will make.

Now I'm wondering which you think are dire! (and how you are defining London)

Hothouse is entirely subjective. Because a genuinely clever pupil will find even the schools with the most entrenched reputations just great places to learn. Just like not every pupils would do well in a state grammar school because the academic pace was wrong for them.

London private schools are excellent
The missing word there is most
as there are some utterly dire ones and some nasty hothouse ones

• same a state schools in fact

"Or is it that there isn't any angst around them, you put your child's name down at birth / age 5 / age 7 and if you are in the first 100 bingo you have the place?"

There's only one prep I can think of which requires a registration in the first month or so if the infants life. But there are various 'first come first served' preps where you probably need to do this is practice (because they start with nursery, and you need to put down just as early for them).

There aren't any truly non-selective private schools in London, and as long as you register before the deadline, your DC can be assessed. Some guillotine their lists at a certain number of applicants, so you dinMt want to leave it too late, but the school which did that the most (guillotine falling earlier and earlier each year) has now abandoned the system.

CLSG is anomalous, and has been much criticised (it's arguably a bepreach if ISC standards for admission). I think opting for this system reflects the ethos of the school, and should be counterpointed to nearly every other school - because they all face the same constraints and difficulties when making offers, but manage to have year groups with the right number of what they see as desirable pupils. Whether you want to deal with a school that honours its offers is a question of how a family views that ethos.

But I digress....

.... London state schools are generally pretty good, and a handful are very good. The snag is securing entry to them, and there are still large areas if London where you have no real choice (despite having 6 spaces on the pan-London form) and the only school you can be reasonable sure of getting an offer from might well be one you dislike (for whatever reason, and yes some (but not all) people will have shabby motivations).

OTOH, London private schools are excellent. The angst in threads is about people over-thinking very small differences between very good schools. And of course it seem a Big Deal right now as this is the peak of the private school admissions season.

There probably isn't much that doesn't happen in private schools that doesn't happen in state schools at all, but provision may be patchier in state schools. I'm thinking of range of sports on offer, level of facilities, abundance of supplies, better maintenance, amount of participation in competitions and enrichment events, co-curricular provision and university and career advice. Also, lack of (central and local) governmental diktat (which binds different types of maintained school to varying degrees, but which none are totally free of).

Whether you value those aspects of education is up to individuals. And of course has to be set against how you see the respective communities in the schools. Only a few are rich enough to have a bursary policy that really means a broader parental income spread, but not everyone is incredibly rich (especially once they've shelled out for fees). They are probably more diverse than they are sometimes given credit for - especially those which attract the offspring of the international business community.

comeinpax
The percentage of top grades at GCSE merely tells you how selective the school was with its intake.

A comprehensive school will always have lower A level percentages than a selective school - because it takes ALL of the kids, not just a subset.

A huge chunk of MN seems to forget that huge numbers of 16 years olds do not take A levels and massive numbers do not go to University

But if all the wealthiest and most influential families across the country were fighting for the state system......I've no doubt the state system would be stronger.

That is probably true. However, according to marytuda no 'posh' person would ever consider such a thing so maybe the wealthiest and most influential families would get round this thorny problem by having governesses/tutors or sending the children to school abroad.

yes but comeinpax that means that you are not judging how a school does for all its intake, not just the stars at the top of the IQ range. It is as though those children who are not academic 'stars' don't matter. it also seems to assume that everyone on mumsnet is going to have a 'star' child.

Our local school sends a few to Oxbridge every year and that is great, but we hear nothing of the learning journey of anyone else. In fact the OFSTED equivalent (in Wales) is about to put the school in special measures as it lets its average intake down so badly, especially boys.

Yet anyone looking at it would say "oh! marvellous! Six little stars to Oxbridge!" The truth is that it is their own and their parents' efforts that have got them there.

So isn't it time that we had a different way of judging schools besides on how well their superstars do...

Abble - and state school parents aren't throwing their weight behind the schools?

Er, yes, they are. Did I imply otherwise?

But if all the wealthiest and most influential families across the country were fighting for the state system, including politicians and business leaders, (rather than fighting to keep their taxes down, for example, whilst simultaneously claiming to be saving the state some money by educating their own offspring privately) I've no doubt the state system would be stronger.

If you want to gauge how well a state school is doing look at the percentage of As/7s at GCSE. If you have an academic DC you'll be needing at least seven to eight to be set up for the transfer to a decent university.
Then at Sixth Form it's A/B percentage, bearing in mind most RG Unis will want ABB minimum predicted at the offer stage. (There's evidence that many are lowering this significantly at confirmation/clearing stage though). Don't look at stats at face value. Look at the progress the school makes from lower school to sixth form via DoE website. If progress is in negative - avoid. Look at subjects pupils achieve As in. Is it just those that are less rigorous? If you have a budding scientist or engineer it's no good going for a science department that gets just a couple of As per year. The impressive results might be down to students doing less rigorous arts subjects. I've noticed that over the past couple of years that some previously rated comps have stopped including results tables broken down by subject for A levels on their websites. And it makes one wonder why?

For me it is the extracurricular on offer, facilities, more sports, better art, music, less disruption, more space in classrooms (smaller classes), happier teachers because in state schools teachers have to put up with a lot of reporting and controls on top of teaching.

In my opinion a better learning experience and if you are at school the majority of the day that is very important. I don't believe children are going to achieve better because they go to an independent school as it depends on the child ambitious and family support at the end of the day. If you have the spare cash why not doing it, you a releasing the space in a state school for someone who really needs it.

I find people who said they are against private education but send their children to top grammar schools hypocrites. I know they are not paying but they are selecting better teaching, better results and children on a similar level who want to learn, in general less disruption.

Teen
My views on the reality of London State schools because I like you went to private school are based on DH's work.
He goes to State schools in London many, many times a year. Ranging from the superselective up their own backsides to the utter sink cannabis growing outside the door, check the wheels are still on the car and pretty much every permutation in between.
It is frankly impossible to treat the whole of London with one sweep because the areas are so varied.

TBH he also goes to a lot of private schools in London and they range from the ultra academic to the TimNiceButDim
and everything in between.

Its a big city with free bus transport for kids
so the sharp elbowed push out many others
but the immigrants are ultra ambitious
and many others get picked up by the wave

the very worst schools academically are in declining ex industrial areas where there is NO chance of escape locally.
None of London is like that (which is why London scores comparatively low in the deprivation indices - it is too well provided to be deprived)

BUT
I'm very glad my kids are nearly done with school as the damage wrought by and since Gove and austerity will take a decade to clear up.

and those parents threw their weight (and finances) behind the state system instead, I think everyone would be a lot better off.

Abble - and state school parents aren't throwing their weight behind the schools?
Also, if you've lost weak teachers to the private sector and kept the strong ones then your school seems to have the advantage.

My apologies Dull, it was Quicker that said it.

anyway I do believe that Eton is quite intellectually demanding. You have to pass a test to go there, don't you? I daresay the test might be waived if you are in the royal family, but it is much more egalitarian and brainy than you might assume.

nope I never mentioned Eton , must have been somebody else.

Quicker Did you mean rich but thick kids (very unpleasant term by the way OP, especially for one not wanting a bun fight ), go to Eton ? I sincerely hope that is not what you meant.

What a shame that lovely playing fields, music lessons, a range of subjects, well behaved peers, and so on are only supposed to be available to those who are good at IQ tests...

Dull I thought you said all Etonians (Eton is a selective school) are thick.

I'm currently living abroad but used to live in London. I walked past our local comp every day.... and the marauding hordes of pupils that attended it. It has a memorial garden for its stab victims and on several occasions a police presence (including van full of reinforcements) outside.

I went to 'the local comp' equivalent in my Northern town. Like my kids I was bright, obedient and interested in learning. I had an utterly utterly miserable time there for 5 long years (no 6th form as not enough ids would attend, I had to travel to 6th form college) in a culture of laziness, insolence, disobedience and bullying. Being bright was uncool and I was made to feel it - often. You could choose to describe my schooling as being 'socially diverse' (oh it was - I learnt how to hot wire a car, derail a train and make a cannabis pipe out of a coke can in my extra-curricular time) and that I thrived (achieved straight As and went on to become a City lawyer but by God the day to day experience scarred me. And I can tell - those comp kids pushing past me in London are just like the 'rufty tufty' (to use another poster's expression) kids that went to my old school.

Given the two personal experiences above I'd beg, borrow and steal almost anything to avoid my kids having to experience that. Anything. I'm a left wing voter but I wouldn't punish my kids for my principles like my parents did. It was awful.

I'm a governor of a London state secondary, so I see it from a "warts and all" perspective - not just the proverbial swan gliding over the surface, but the legs working like crazy against all the odds underneath - and so long as I can see the right Senior Leaders staying in place, I wouldn't send my own DCs anywhere else. I could never send them somewhere where I didn't have absolute confidence in the Head, SLT or Governors because everything stems from that.

As for private schools, if they were all abolished, and those parents threw their weight (and finances) behind the state system instead, I think everyone would be a lot better off. It's not going to happen though.

It's worth mentioning that we've lost some teachers to the private sector in recent years, but they have never been our strongest teachers, and in some cases they have been our weakest (though they have all had excellent credentials on paper - the sort of credentials that impress parents when listed on a website, postgraduate degrees etc).

anyway there is a lot to be said for non selective private education.
My dd was starved of oxygen at birth and would never have passed a test to get into a school.

However she was also a likable and interested student.

What a shame that lovely playing fields, music lessons, a range of subjects, well behaved peers, and so on are only supposed to be available to those who are good at IQ tests...

If London secondaries are considered the best in the country, just imagine what they could achieve with the same money or some of the money given to private schools.

Quicker - Plenty of well off to very rich send their children to state schools. Are they asked for donations? Do state schools ask successful former alumni for money?

I did get religion! The right one for primary but the wrong one for secondary! This is why people go private - because they already have a full time job and having a second full time job of attending all the right churches and being on the Parish Council and whatnot is just too much