Private School Worth It?

TalkinPeece

The last distance offered for Thornden School in 2017 was only 0.93 miles - there are plenty of houses for sale on Rightmove (Chandler's Ford/Eastleigh) in the £400,000 - £700,000 price bracket that mention Thornden catchment area as a main selling point. Saying that, I would never swap my dcs' private schools (or indeed many of the private schools in Surrey/South West London) for Thornden - it doesn't compare at all in my mind.

The study you refer to was only of science, maths and "the English" GCSE (whatever they meant by that). Those are the subjects that are most likely to be set in state schools. Subjects like history and MFL, which were not included in this study, are less likely to be set due to fewer children studying them. There are also issues with many state schools not setting in Key Stage 3, usually for ideological reasons. Children in unset subjects are likely to be disadvantaged in comparison to children in classes with a narrower ability range. This study provides no measure of that.

In addition, you say yourself that GCSEs are "easy" - thus they are likely to be subject to ceiing effects (meaning they aren't measuring learning over and above a certain relatively low ceiling). This is important because children who lack that wider, more extensive learning beyond the ceiling are less likely to do really well at A level and at university, particularly in humanities subjects. Thus, a measure only of selected GCSE results really cannot tell us much about the "value added" by different schools.

I would be interested to know what other studies you were referring to in your post?

stateschool, I don't think most parents pick private schools to get higher exam results as their only factor actually. There are lots of reasons and they will differ between parents. Some want small classes yet in my view if they are too small there can be no one to bounce ideas off or not enough contributing in class. Others want something else - i do a lot choral singing and have liked being in parents' choirs at the chldren's schools (and I am not saying you can't get that in comprehensives nor that you cannot find it outside school such as in church choirs of course).

Schools with no entry criteria other than date of birth with no poor children in them presumably in the state sector? Are there village primary schools in Devon or Northumberland where every single house costs a huge lot of money so every child must be from a better off home? The kind of schools with just a handful of pupils miles from anywhere? If there are then you might find a few like that. But I don't think anyone is saying state schools and private schools have the same make up of pupils anyway.

Dame Alice Owen - as per its own website damealiceowens.herts.sch.uk/admissions/ is partially selective
so not a Comp school

That Sutton Trust report includes a lot of schools that are NOT comprehensive
Single sex for a start
many are faith schools

Please name me the school that has no entry criteria other than date of birth that has no poor kids

I should have added that as you probably know a recent study showed that "the 7% difference in performance on GCSE results between selective schools (private and grammar) and comprehensives was almost entirely explained by differences in the ability and family income of the pupils. Once these factors were accounted for, the value added by selective schools dropped to less than 1%."

While you may not agree with the particular study there have in fact been numerous other studies in the past that show eg that the academic performance of middle class children in state schools -including inner city comps- is virtually identical to that of middle class children in private schools. I personally think the reason for this is partly because parents overestimate how difficult GCSE/A levels etc actually are. Even if their school teacher is not up to scratch, your DC can get top marks by reading a text book and/or getting a private tutor at a fraction of the cost of private school fees. (My DCs excellent online MFL teacher charges £25 per hour .) Of course there may be good reasons for many parents to go private, but I don't think concerns about your DCs academic performance should be one of them.

User149 it is difficult to compare the Oxbridge admission rates of private schools -especially selective private schools- with state schools. Firstly Oxbridge admission rates very much depend on the subject you apply for. In some subjects like Classics and MFL I think the admission rate at Oxford is around 40% of applicants! These invariably tend to be subjects studied mainly at private schools as not many state schools pupils do eg two MFL GCSEs and even fewer do Classical Greek etc.
Secondly the pupil body at state schools is of course vastly different and to make a better comparison you would need to compare the performance of children of parents with similar backgrounds/ earnings (say eg children of doctors). Furthermore the steps taken by the universities in terms of contextual offers is definitely starting to be felt. This year for the first time over 10% of sixth form pupils at our local comp have had Oxbridge offers (and all for hard subjects to get into). As my DC are in the top 10% of pupils in their year, they are IMO undoubtedly more likely to get into Oxbridge from there than from most leading private schools where they would be unlikely to stand out.

mini, I agree - private schools do not offer free places to low achieving children (in fact most of them cannot afford totally free places to many at all). I don't think see that as a problem. I think it helps ensure the UK private schools are some of th best in the world and that the products of those schools go on to do so much good in the Uk and abroad in the world of work and life. People from benefit from the sacrifices parents make to pay school fees.

There are selective state and selective privaet schools and unselective in both sectors. What is not fair is in my original area NE England grammar schools were abolished about 1970 whereas they are kept in other regions and yet is "state education" -it should be the same wherever you pay your taxes. If we think comkprehensives get the best out of pupils then that is across England not just in Bucks etc. If we think grammar schools are good then similarly it should be univerally provided.

stateschoolparent - only pretty selective private schools have decent admission rates i.e after the top 40 private schools the Oxbridge admission rate tends to fall below 15% of pupils.

Indeed, it is true that the 2011 Sutton Trust report showed that the Oxbridge admission rate of independent schools tended to fall below 10% after about the top 100. However it also showed that the average Oxbridge admission rate of all independent schools was 5.2% vs 4.2% for selective state schools and 0.8% for comprehensives (Table 3 of the report).

By your metric, only a half-dozen state schools - all of them selective - had a "decent" admission rate, and not a single comprehensive would have made it into the top 100.

More generally, the Sutton Trust documents the following:

• The top performing 500 comprehensive schools in England, based on GCSE attainment, continue to be highly socially selective, taking just 9.4% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM), just over half the rate of the average comprehensive (17.2%).

• 85% of schools in the top 500 admit fewer FSM pupils than live in their catchment area, with over a quarter having a gap of five percentage points or more.

• Living in the catchment area of a top comprehensive school is associated with a house price 'premium' of around 20%.

This report looked at the top 500 schools out of approximately 2500. I strongly suspect that if they had looked at only the top 100 schools the numbers would have been even more extreme.

Dame Alice Owen's comes pretty close. Formally not a fully selective school, is supposed to take at least 125 out of 200 (62.5%) on a distance-based criterion and yet has all of 1.7% of pupils on FSM.

xenia
State school selection by house price in a posh comp area is argually morally more deficient than relieving the state of the cost of supporting the 500,000 children at private schools when you can afford it and pay school fees.
Do, please name and shame .....

One of the highest performing true comps (ie no admission criteria beyond date of birth ) is Thornden
but it takes a fair few kid sfrom out of catchment areas because nobody moves house any more ....

so please, name the Comp schools with no poor kids

I'm well aware of all the potential issues, thanks mini.

I currently work in a state college with a significant intake of privately educated students, and guess what? They are not all arrogant, up their own arses, unable to mix,unbalanced little hooray Henry's with a stick up their backsides. In fact, most are very polite, hardworking, respectful young adults.

Just like all state school kids aren't well balanced, down to earth, adjusted teenagers . Likewise, most are respectful, polite and hardworking. But there is an issue that the main feeder (state) school seems to have a very high number of students who come to us with extreme anxiety issues, partly because of the pressure the school puts on them to maintain their 'outstanding' reputation.

Sorry, nope, no way. I fully intend to ensure my son has a very balanced and respectful attitude as it is my belief that at the end of the day that comes from the home.

"I want him to have a balanced, holistic education"

He can't get a balanced education about LIFE if he's being educated in a privileged ghetto.

"Mini, there are lots of private schools for children who are not particularly bright from Millfield down"

Of course - but NONE of these schools offer free or heavily subsidised places to children who are 'low achievers' from the state sector.

OP, this depends on so much else.

In my own particular situation, education comes above everything (pension, habitable house, etc).

I would have prostituted myself (had I been sufficiently desirable, which I am sadly not) to keep my DC in independent schools when they were small. I stick to this now. We live in the kind of circumstances that would make most normal people shiver. But I had a spectacular education, and I will die before my DC don't have the same.

It is entirely subjective whether private school is "worth it."

I tihnk there are lots of reasons why parents choose one or other sector (and I really don't think much cheating goes on in either sector even if there have been some cases in the press - we are a relatively fair system).

Mini, there are lots of private schools for children who are not particularly bright from Millfield down. Many areas have a pecking order of dssay 4 or 5 private schools with the hardest to get into at the top and the one at the bottom who will take all comers who could not have a hope of getting into the academic privates at the top.

We are seriously considering independent school for my son. For me my experiences as a teacher in state school have no doubt shaped my decision. It has nothing to do with thinking he will do any better academically, and the teaching is certainly no better, but all about the kind of experience and opportunities he will have.

Whilst I am not naive about the pressures private schools put onto children, the state schools in my area are basically exam factories, with no ability to nurture individuality. He is extremely sporty and loves drama - I don't want this knocked out of him, I want him to have a balanced, holistic education that he looks back on with fond memories. I have done a complete U-turn on this politically, but fuck it, I wish the state school system wasn't like it is, but it is and I dont think it's in the best interests of my child.

We moved areas, like many do, partly to be near what we thought were good schools - using economic capital to do this is, in my view, no more morally superior to sending private.

Posh comps and good comps are not always the same thing.

Out in regional suburbs where all the housing in ‘catchment ‘ is ‘posh’ you may Well get good results, reflecting a well supported cohort, and a school people regard as civilised.

In many areas of inner city, S London near me, you get excellent schools but the area is still considered ‘rough’ and House prices are not as inflated as elsewhere. Social housing residents get great comps here.

"State school selection by house price in a posh comp area is argually morally more deficient than relieving the state of the cost of supporting the 500,000 children at private schools when you can afford it and pay school fees."

Find me any comprehensive anywhere in the country which not only has no poor and low achieving children, but guarantees it will never have any poor and low achieving children.

Because that's what you get with private schools.

In any case, the argument is that privately educated children go on from their ivory towers to a disproportionately high proportion of jobs in the judiciary and politics, where they have undue influence over the lives of others raised in the real world.

Private schools exist to perpetuate privilege, which they do pretty effectively.

There's a bit of nonsense on here about testing for extra time. DD, now in year 10, has just been assessed again, having been borderline dyslexic in year 6/7. The tests were done by a teacher at her (independent) school but following a strict set of tests, not open to individual interpretation. She scored average so is not eligible for extra time. Simple and straightforward

I always think these threads are interesting but the bottom line is for those with a choice just exercise the choice that feels right for you. i am h appy having paid fees and stateschoolparent is happy not having paid fees- so we are both two happy bunnies; no losers, all happy. If some think private schools are a waste of money and private school aprents conversely are happy to pay then that's all good.

Also it is very hard to generalise. I can from a very small non academic private school in the NE of England and I really don't think I had any help into jobs in London. in fact reading my 1981/82 diary last night it was terribly hard to get a job. Nor can I see a way you can easily get past the best law firms' fairly objective graduate recruitment processes - you start off with a computer looking at your UCAS points, marks in year 1 in your university exams etc etc, then you get some HR person making sure all is fair, a genuine desire to recruit the very brightest people, the demands of clients to have a fair spread of different people, annual requirement to publish statistics on number who went to private school within law firms etc etc and the many many very good state schools in the SE from Henrietta Barnett to Hills Road Cambs, from posh comps to all the state religious schools which do so well - compare those against any school private or state in the NE where I am from the issue seems more to be about regions v London than class or school fees.

However they are certainly interesting issues and worth discussing.#

State school selection by house price in a posh comp area is argually morally more deficient than relieving the state of the cost of supporting the 500,000 children at private schools when you can afford it and pay school fees.

Clavinova Indeed. This has been going on in state schools too for years.

stateschoolparent If you think state school teachers aren't under huge pressure to get "grades" for their pupils, you are very wrong. It doesn't matter whether that pressure is to bring an A up to an A* or a D up to a C, the incentive and the pressure is the same. This pressure, and the bullying from SLT that results from it, is one of the reasons why there is a recruitment crisis in teaching, and why so many teachers have breakdowns, quit and swear they will never go back. Teacher blogs and twitter are full of discussions about this. So is the "staffroom" board here.