Aibu to think it's impossible to bridge the educational gap now..

[Montana7]

My dc go to a very well know state school, very middle class, kids mainly have professional parents who take their dc's education very seriously... However due to covid I feel it's going to be impossible to bridge the gap between dc's school & the privates nearby who have had so much more along the lines of cultural & sporting outings.. Our school is playing catch up.. Before anyone has a go, I realise there are thousands of children across the UK in awful situations & the gap will be huge impossible to fill, it's absolutely depressing, my dc always donate their books & educational to a local charity who helps disadvantaged children, it's not much but it's always appreciated.
I just feel that the educational system is becoming 3 tiered.. The bottom finding it impossible to reach the middle & now the gap between the middle & top is enormous due to covid..
When our dc started school we chose state as we felt we could support the dc, save thousands & the school is one of the best states in the UK... Now since covid both us & many of my mum friends realise the quality the privates recieved over covid & including isolation periods has been vastly superior... How will this pan out in 20 year time?

I think you are worrying needlessly.
Genuinely.

And the gap between middle and private isn’t ginormous.
Attainment gap is about so much more than who has had online learning and who hasn’t.

The gap is wealth and contacts. You can't hurdle it with points.

What exactly did the private school do over Covid?
I’ve some experience of two private schools (not UK) over Covid and they didn’t do anything to write home about…

I also have experience of private schools and also grammar schools. There really wasn’t much in it- and as someone pointed out above- the gap is not really about educational attainment.

I have a family member who has two children at private school. Both primary age. They (and other family members) constantly go on about how much better private school is. They constantly tell me the teachers are much better, their reasoning being state school teachers must be useless as they are paid so little. Their children apparently are so much more advanced than state school children and all of the work that they do is at a year higher than their age. Imagine their shock when they showed me a maths workbook that their year 5 child had been given to start over the Xmas break, when my now year 6 child piped up and said "oh we did that exact book in year 4" and they absolutely did as I found it when we got home and it's the exact book produced by the same company with the same content. I know when we did it as it was just after the schools closed in the first lockdown in 2020. We went to the school to collect it. So the private school are selling to year 5 parents that it's a book aimed for year 6 and my daughter who is at "crappy" state school covered it in year 4.
The only thing I would say is that they do seem to do a lot of extra curriculum activities. Most are sports and one of their children isn't very sporty and despite having access to these activities finds he isn't picked for any of the teams which is a shame. Their online learning during lockdown was also vastly superior to ours which was very poor I will admit. But I do know a lot of parents from the private school complained about the standard of it at the beginning as they were obviously paying a lot of money in fees.
At the same time I have friends with children at state schools and their online learning was excellent also during lockdown

You're not really talking about academic education, are you?

Cultural and sporting outings are nice; if your children are sporty, I can see it might be really important. I know a couple of children who had serious potential for doing very well in sports pre-covid and it's absolutely true to say they've lost a heartbreaking amount of ground. But we are talking about a girl who was looking towards training for the paralympics, she's at that level, and another girl who was competing at county level. I don't think very many children doing serious competitive sport haven't suffered during covid.

As for cultural stuff, yes, it's hugely beneficial but it's not the be-all and end-all, and they can catch up. Absolutely. I know there's overlap between 'culture' and 'education' but I think it's really important to distinguish between experiences that can stimulate a child's interests and help their learning (like going to see a play) and actually learning how to learn or gaining an understanding of the core of a subject (which is what education is IMO).

@Bonheurdupasse

What exactly did the private school do over Covid? I’ve some experience of two private schools (not UK) over Covid and they didn’t do anything to write home about…

DD (Private) had a full timetable on Teams with her teachers. Friend 1 - sheets sent home weekly, no sanctions for not doing them Friend 2 - 1 hour a day taught then homework set Friend 3 - work accessible on Teams

1-3 were State schools. I’m sure some did better than others but some really didn’t do a lot, mostly due to logistics

My experience is that there was a real mix in provision.

My friend's children at private schools had full curriculum delivery on Teams for the whole school day.

My children had a few worksheets and no teaching whatsoever (state primary).

Their friends at another, far smaller, state primary had a mix of worksheets, pre-prepared online lessons and zoom catch ups with teachers.

I feel very guilty as we were both working more than full time and did little to no home education with our children. I feel they were very disadvantaged by is both being so horribly busy.

Ours also went to the lock down school as we are both key workers and they did no learning whatsoever there. The teachers were not allowed to teach them as it was thought it would be giving them an unfair advantage. It was a disaster all round for my children.

Friend 1 - sheets sent home weekly, no sanctions for not doing them
What sanctions would you suggest a school should arrange for a child who is at home with their parents, not in school?

Yes the gap is huge but I dont think the worry is well supported children in good state schools v well supported children in good private schools

I do think there's a difference, otherwise why would people pay?
My kids went/go to a private school. Of course the quality varies and I'm sure there are many state school offering as good an education, but not where we lived (on an island).
But during the pandemic the difference was huge compared to the state schools around us. Our school was geared up for full day full schedule remote learning BEFORE the first lockdown. It made sure (and could afford to) that all kids had access to equipment. Even the y1 and 2s had online activities (not for the normal 7.5 hours I grant you), but my secondary aged kids did. The classes that suffered a bit were DT, art, drama, gcse PE. But science teachers went in and did the experiments etc. and adjusted some so kids could do them at home.
the school was open for vulnerable and key workers children, and took in those from local schools too.
All the teachers taught either from home or the school. They even did Games lessons!
When lockdown eased they had the kids come in small bubbles. They had the flexibility and space to shorten or lengthen the school day or term.
I heard from many parents who may have had one child at secondary private and one at state primary that they were now applying to get them in to private early as they could see the difference between a few worksheets and fully live remote learning!
these last couple and this year are not typical of course. But it certainly emphasised the difference.

Doesn't this depend on the school, or did state secondary schools in the UK really not teach online during lockdown?

Our primary school (in Germany) was a bit crap in that parents were expected to actively teach new material - packs were sent out and work was online, there were very high expectations of parents to go into school at non negotiable times to pick up and drop off work as well as to have a laptop for the child to work online and the ability to print and scan. The primary school only had one lesson per day online for various reasons and very clear expectations that parents would explain new grammar, new maths etc to children and that all work would be completed - at least as much as they would have done in person (I know because my older children went through the same primary).

That created a gap of course, based entirely on whether parents could provide the astonishing level of support needed.

Our state secondary taught all lessons online, marked work submitted digitally, did tests online, did grades, and the final year pupils sat their exams every year in school, although they were the only pupils in school.

There's still a gap based on whether parents could support their children to get online and had the authority/ compliance/ relationship to make/ encourage/ support their offspring to attend online and complete work, but that is nothing to do with private/ state.

Your kids will be fine OP.

@Drunkpanda

Friend 1 - sheets sent home weekly, no sanctions for not doing them What sanctions would you suggest a school should arrange for a child who is at home with their parents, not in school?

I don’t suggest or advocate any sanctions. I was merely pointing out that if the child chose not to or couldn’t do the work there was no follow up so I’m sure quite a few Didnt

This sounds like our state school! Maybe 1 hour zoom here & there but sheets sent home, local privates like yours, full schedule & full attendance expected. We bought extra workbooks, the dc watched lots of documentaries etc but so did the private school kids... My friend whose dc was in one of the private said lots of parents were spending extra on textbooks/workbooks as they were so worried...

My kids have been to a mixture of state grammar, selective independent, state primary and independent primary (latter due to a house move).

You really cannot generalise independent vs state, it is often more about how a school is run. The government forbade live teaching in the first lockdown so state schools had to follow the guidance. However, some state schools including my own children’s, provided very high quality online work and feedback. Live teaching is not always that good if taught in e,g groups of 60 at primary level.
That is what happened to my nephew and his parents paid 7000 a term for the privilege. They were most annoyed compared to what my kids got in state primary. We compared the actual quality of work. I have been helping my nephew with 11 plus because I did it with my older 2 children.

Usually the value of an independent, especially at primary and lower secondary, comes from the extra curricular offering. None of that was properly provided in the pandemic (nor even in the aftermath in many cases, due to the issues with fixtures, singing, concerts, drama performances etc). So I am sure you could find plenty of annoyed private school parents who absolutely did not get value for money.

The most annoying thing for my nephew was that he was out of school for 6 whole months and his expensive private school could have let him come in for a few days in the summer term of 2020, but chose not to. Whereas our state primary with longer terms did manage to do that for all the kids.
However, where I can see an advantage for private schools is in how certain places ran mocks and assessments. Our local grammars ran them realistically like GCSE one shot kind of thing whereas some of the independents locally to me (not where my child goes) did continuous assessments (having various gos at the same thing).
So I am a bit sceptical whether the playing field was fair for school assessed grades.

I went to private school (albeit not over covid). Some girls have been successful. Lots haven’t. My friend who achieved most academically hasn’t followed up that success in life. My husband who had an extremely disadvantaged education has done incredibly well career-wise. Much better than me.

There is a whole lot more to how kids turn out than school. Most of it due to luck.

The government forbade live teaching in the first lockdown so state schools had to follow the guidance. However, some state schools including my own children’s, provided very high quality online work and feedback. Live teaching is not always that good if taught in e,g groups of 60 at primary level.

That can't be true. Our state school went to full online learning from about day 3. Full curriculum including tests and phonecalls to parents where children were either absent or not engaging. Have no concerns about the curriculum being covered. They did a brilliant job.

Youngest now in year 7 in the school and they've hit the ground running, there's no way he will have gaps in his learning from covid.

Youngest at the time was in prep. Although there was full online learning it was hard going for primary children and my biggest challenge was keeping him engaged for hour upon hour whilst staring at a screen. He did learn and learnt well but no comparison at primary to being in school

I just feel this generation are going to have it so tough when it comes to careers & home ownership in the future...

It’s more than a private state divide. My DC are in private and had full online teaching but so did some state schools.
However, in my view the divide is more practical and economic than school type
Do the DC have
Laptops
Reliable broadband
Somewhere to work in peace
Access to materials
Someone who can help if they are stuck
Caring responsibilities
Enough to eat
Access to resources
etc.

MC children in leafy comps probably coped as well as children in private.

But a child living in a crowded property with younger siblings and poor internet would have been disadvantaged.

It's very depressing isn't it.. I feel the dcs generation will also be the ones paying for the financial cost of the pandemic...

The value of private education has been completely discredited by the actions of politicians leading this country, who by and large all attended private and exclusive education establishments. Their lack of foresight, morals, ability to behave with dignity, or even make a decent speech without ridiculous posturing beggars belief.

Incognito22333 I agree with your last paragraphs - anecdotally some private schools were very guilty of over generosity/ extreme benefit of the doubt and states quite strict/ realistic.

Also Finland's education system which is ranked number 1 in the world starts formal primary education at 7 years old....there NO private schools in the way they exist here...