Are more of you planning to move your DC from private to state for 6th form now?

Friends Dh who teaches in a public school says every year a few of his pupils crash and burn out of university because they can’t manage without the support network they had at his private school - state you are required to be more independent. This is borne out by a relative who does pastoral at an Oxford college a minority of her private school students have done this and studies have shown this too.

This was the case with the DS of a friend of mine. He stayed at the same school from nursery through to 6th form. He never had the transitions most DC get from starting primary school, then starting at a different secondary school. After her DS struggled at university (I think he ended up redoing a year or two) she admitted that she thought it was a mistake sending him to the school she did.

Obviously, not all young people struggle, but he did cause his parents a lot of worry.

A lot of state schools have high achieving sixth forms. That is because even comprehensives can be selective at sixth form.

This was certainly the case at DD's school. Students needed a minimum of 5 GCSEs including English and maths, with grade Bs in the subjects they wanted to take at A level (this was 2016). They then had to achieve a minimum of 3 Ds at AS level to continue to year 13. This was made very clear when they started.

Some underperforming students were "managed" out. In 2018 when DD took her A levels the school had a 100% pass rate with 45% of them achieveing A or above for all subjects.

'...ease OR difficulty', I meant. Can't seem to edit!

What are you on about? It was in the King's Speech!

@mumsneedwine - not trying to argue with you, but there are probably multiple factors that contribute to issues around behaviour, no? It's not purely the ease of difficulty of removing disruptive pupils that causes disruptive pupils...

Exactly mums. As with anything in life there are pros and cons. You can’t buy your way out of every life’s issues especially not challenging teens of whatever stripe!

That said my year 10’dd2 is thrilled some of her private school friends are considering moving to her school for 6th form!

Having taught in both sectors my take on students is that they are...... kids. Kids are not really that different whatever the school. You get less bad behaviour in private schools because it's much easier to just kick them out. At my state school we get those students and just deal with them.
The parents hard pretty much the same too. Most lovely, some rude and believe every word their child tells them, and some entitled believing they can pay for that 9/A*.

Weirdly the teachers are the same too. Because most of us move around a bit and try different schools for a change/promotion/learn new things. We don't change because we change schools.

Oh and GCSE and iGCSE are different. Some content in one that's not in the other, and vice versa. eg. Isomers in iGCSE but not in GCSE. Ceramic stuff in GCSE. Lots of better examples but it's early.

A lot of state schools have high achieving sixth forms. That is because even comprehensives can be selective at sixth form. Bristol is a university which is trying hard, and has tried for years, to decrease its privately educated percentage among students. So it is looking to take in more state educated - but state educated for GCSE is what counts, not A level only.

I was trying to explain and describe to you the way teachers are treated in private schools. People were saying behaviour is better. No it isn't. Behaviour is different. There are a certain cohort in private schools that treat teachers as lower than servants, and you just don't get that in state schools. And you have to suck it up, because it is a business, and it is your job to kowtow.

And no, you don't get a contextual offer if you go to one of those schools on the list just for sixth form. (and not automatically if you go for GCSEs).

Read the full policy.

One University. Others use contextual data but it's not just by school. Bristol made a v long list but to be honest most students who apply there get the normal offer anyway.

@Mouseykitty and I am responding to those who have repeated this misunderstanding about state school places.

@ClaudineMallory yes, that's why I said 'SOME universities'.

Bristol is an outlier.
To repeat: a state school place will not necessarily mean lower offers for university.

What a shame. You need to increase your household income. Have you thought about taking in ironing?

@CurlewKate - when posters are spouting stuff like 'private school pupils speak like they own your soul' or 'private schools don't suit pupils who are gay or non sporty', or making really silly sweeping statements about quality of teaching in private schools (that somehow get incredible results, but hey, that can't possibly be due to the teaching, can it? 😂) it's hard not to question it.

@ClaudineMallory with the contextual offers though, what may have struck the OP is that for SOME universities (like Bristol) the list of what state schools make a candidate eligible for a contextual offer is really extensive -

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/study/undergraduate/documents/aspiring-state-schools-and-colleges-2024-cycle-Eng-Wales-revised-20240219.pdf

There are some high achieving London schools on here which came as a surprise to me. And yes, if you were applying for Bristol and you did your GCSEs privately, but went to one of these schools listed for A-level, you will get a contexual offer.

Not wanting to go off topic, but given this wasn't mentioned in kings speech.... maybe it's on back burner?

haha! that may be what their children tell them! But there are not state schools that don't give HW in year 7 and 8, although "homework" as a word is out of favour right now, in some area, it exists, but gets called other things. But the parents will be told if their children are not doing any, so it will be being done quietly and minimally, or the parents are ignoring communication from the school

My thoughts -

Only certain state schools / areas get contextual offers it’s unlikely you would allow your child near one of those schools so that’s not really a plus.

Friends Dh who teaches in a public school says every year a few of his pupils crash and burn out of university because they can’t manage without the support network they had at his private school - state you are required to be more independent. This is borne out by a relative who does pastoral at an Oxford college a minority of her private school students have done this and studies have shown this too.

Downside of state is basically the teacher recruitment crisis. Each of the 3 amazing teachers in each of dds 3 a level subjects left. This is also affecting private schools but not as badly I don’t think.

I never said ALL state schools, I said our local state secondary. It is true, I am still I touch with parents from DDs state primary whose kids went to the state secondary and they say zero homework in Yr 7+8.
But yeh, I've made it up! Just because you don't believe me doesn't mean it's not true.

@Mouseykitty "This thread has been slightly derailed by resentment/envy/whatever towards private schools..."

If you're talking about derailment, I have seen more threads about private education derailed by people posting rubbish like this than anything else....

In general, no, they don't.. Students attending some schools (those with a history of not getting many students into higher education or low GCSE results) may attract lower offers to reflect this. Students can also get lower offers for other reasons e.g being a young carer or being in care of living in a lower socio-economic area. It's a combination of factors that is needed though (although I've learnt from this thread Bristol has a list of schools they look at).

Simply going to a state school doesn't give automatically give you a lower offer. If two students from similar family backgrounds live next door to each other and one goes to private school and one goes to state, they will get the same offers.

My DC has been state educated throughout, and goes to a school with lower than average GCSE results and she is disabled. She received standard university offers.

They usually do, with effective support. I generally find them to be very willing, although we find they're not the most independent learners, depending on which school they've come from.

It's not been "derailed by contextual offers". Some of us were clarifying a misunderstanding.

@RampantIvy - thanks for a sensible post!

This thread has been slightly derailed by resentment/envy/whatever towards private schools and discussion around contextual offers, but what @WomensRightsRenegade seemed to be asking was how your child coped with a move at sixth form from a school he or she was previously very happy at.

I’d also love to hear advice and experiences around this as it’s a situation we’re imminently facing, and I’m worried about it. It’s not really to do with whether or not a state sixth form will be as good/better/worse - but how my DS will feel being moved away from the friends and school he adores.

He'll survive I had to leave private (only there 1 y initially to escape bullying then dad made redundant) at the end or yr 9. I ended up with 5 secondary schools. Self taught pretty much everything to get into med school. My state grammar 6th form was about 1000x better education than private anyway

In that case the government should be held accountable for increasing costs within financially strugglong state schools by forcing the more expensive examinations across all state schools and for penalising their state school pupils by forcing harder educational systems on them that set them in a negative position against private schools who can opt to study the cheaper easier igcses.

And then to top it all off the government have also been overpaying their state school teachers, turns out teachers are so desperate for work they are willing to work in private schools for less money.

Cross fingers Bridget Philipson is on mumsnet to scoop up all of these opportunities ....