to hate it when people talk about "indie" schools

[gobehindabushfgs]

in an attempt to make it sound cool, edgy and alternative? it isn't. it's private education. it's a right-wing, ultimately selfish decision.

"indie"

The main reason I chose my children's school is becasue of their ethos towards arts based subjects. At local state schools they are so geared up towards SATS and exam results that kids are encouraged to give up extra curricular activities they enjoy and are good at in favour of extra revision/booster classes.

Not acceptable in my view.

Would you like some ketchup for that, OP?

Plank.

Ah, okay. Thanks. How about leaving it at 'each to their own', then, and worrying about something that matters, rather than about 'indie' as an internet shorthand for 'independent'?

knittedbreast - "any school that demands payment is right wing as true socialism dousnt agree with fee paying schools."

So the government of China has never been socialist then? State schools in China charge fees.

um

no, Hildegard, that's crap. It does matter.

If my child had gone to the local state primary school, she wouldn't have met any 'sink estate' kids. Nor would she have met a single non-white kid - village faith school. Entrance price, 2 years church attendance.

I - selfishly maybe - bought our way out of a system I couldn't stomach. Paying cash is at least honest.

Fortunately didn't have to make that decision for secondary.

Anyhow, I think the OP started the thread knowing exactly where it would go, surefire winder-upper, so I think I'll go away now.

I think I know where the OP's coming from. Describing private schools as "Indie" does sound as if the poster is trying to take the edge off of something.

I'd consider sending ds to a private school if I could easily afford it and I felt it would benefit him. I don't like the unfairness of it all and I oppose them in principle, but if the local state provision was shite and the local private provision wasn't shite, I'd betray my principles in a heartbeat I'm afraid.

As it stands, state schools locally are at least as good as the private ones, so paying would be madness.

Yes quite, Grimma! There are many parents like you who think it less honest to send their child to the church school on offer than to pay.
In many less suburban areas, the one and only catchment school is a church school. Should those parents pretend? accept the religious teachings of a faith they do not believe in?

You see there are so many reasons why people go down the independent route and for a large majority of them it has nothing to do with avoiding 'normal' children.

im talking about in the uk. you cant start comparing schools abroad with those here when the differences in almost every aspect of scoail/education/empoloyent etc...

if we are looking at a british issue then we look within the british education system. we cant just pick and choose bits of every thing from all over and start pulling bits we like.

So you wouldn't move to get into a good school, and you wouldn't pay for a good school?

Glad I'm not your child... children spend 14 years in school... to not care about the school they attend shows me just how much you value them.

Faith schools are an enormous problem I agree

disgraceful that any parent should be put in such a position

but buying out into the private sector is jumping from frying pan to fire in terms of principles

and I think many people use it as an excuse, as they do many other issues, because they want to pay for private education for all the usual reasons but don't want others to think badly of them.

People who object to private education would usually have a political ideology that was quite removed from 'each to their own' though wouldn't they? I'm not convinced by it as a rule to live by myself.

elpha it's the exact opposite where I live. The private schools are (in the main - there are a lot of them) sausage machines churning out dcs with silly numbers of certificates (and booting out those that are going to mess up their stats). Worse still, some of the parents I know who send their DCs to them do so so as to keep them away from "chavs" (their term - if the local comprehensives were riddled with gang culture I'd get where they're coming from, but they're not). Yuck.

We're lucky I guess, but most of the comprehensives are very, very good.

I think bright, motivated children will do fine in an average school

I have several friends with PhDs who went to their local comps

I have faith in my children

sometimes I think this fear of children not doing well unless you shell out for private education is a reflection of people's insecurities about whether their own children are "good enough" - and I feel sorry for those children, not mine

most private schools are more than aware that they are operating as remedical cramming centres for affluent but dim children - they trade on it.

remedial, not remedical

"but buying out into the private sector is jumping from frying pan to fire in terms of principles"

But, only in the order that you list your pribciples.
For many parents, the absolute worse possible thing would be to send their child to a faith school.

As for 'usual reasons', what I'm trying to say is that there are no usual reasons. It is a shocking myth that almost everyone who pays does so to be elitist.

I hate "Indie". I think it's an attempt to make them seem all cuddly. It is also a word that people who aren't used to the world of private education use to show how "in" with the "in" crowd they are!

But I hate "comp" more. There is always a sneer in the voice when people say "comp".

Actually I think it is quite helpful to look at how other countries organise their education systems, as some of them seem to do it a lot better than we do here.

I think a major problem in the UK is that the idea of private and/or selective education has got very tangled up with class issues. In other countries, fee-paying schools aren't seen as giving any social advantage, and the most sought-after schools are state ones.

Many countries (France, Germany, Japan) also have highly selective state schools open to all, which produce the country's future elite business leaders, academics, politicians etc. In this country that kind of school is only open to people who can afford the fees (or get a bursary).

I have never seen so many private v's state thread as there have been in the last 6 months, are people shitting themselves worried about the cuts coming to state education which won't affect the children in private schools by any chance ?

I just hate all abbreviated words generally.

Good post exexpat.

mamatomany- maybe people have finally woken up to the fact that only people with an Oxbridge PPE (and usually fee-paying school prior to that) actually have any power in this country?

the good things about private schools imo are:
small class sizes- if we had more state schools we could have smaller classes sizes. or if we employed more teachers we could have larger year groups and more classes with less kids in each year.

there are many more activitys available in private school-so send your kids to state schools and use the cash you would have spent on fees in extra curricular activites

more options on subjects- no way round this really except to change the curriculum and how lessons are taught. If i had my way kids would be taught topics and then maths english science etc through the topic rather than as seperate subjects.

more options on what certs kids come out with- you can choose gcses or IB

Yeah, our class system is such a bane. Agree that state systems in other countries far better.

Here though, I think a lot of it depends on the parents tbh. I've known plenty of upper class public school types who thought that saying you were state educated was like saying you went to borstal - these were the snobs whose parents were class snobs and passed on their prejudices. On the whole these "rahs" were boorish and educated beyond the level of their intelligence.

I've also known plenty of nouveau riche send their kids private because they think they are going to get a step up on the social ladder - often these families aren't that academic and their kids aren't particularly better educated than their peers at state schools but little Lily and Jack get to wear their cute little prep school boaters, so that's OK.

But, it is also true that despite the best efforts of some really good teachers, state education has become more and more results driven over the last 20 years, standards have dropped, kids aren't given a broad education, they are taught how to pass exams.

The better independent schools do give a broad education. I'll be sending my DC independent because I'm academically minded, married to an academic, and we believe that the kind of education we got free, on the state, is no longer available. Well, it's available - at a few schools here and there but nowhere near us. We go without holidays and a car and live frugally. We didn't buy the £££ house in the "decent" school catchment area which is attended purely by well off kids, the lower income families couldn't afford to live there, so they are excluded by lack of money from the good states as well as the independents.

If I can at all afford it, I'm not going to send my kids to a school that is in special measures, or a school that is just below the national average in its effectiveness, and I'm certainly not going to do it just to salve my socialist conscience and not appear selfish.

I hope my kids absorb at home a respect for others and I chose the school I did because it doesn't foster that sense of entitlement and social superiority that some of the more "stripey blazer and boater" preps do.

Oh and btw YABU - "indie"? Don't say it myself but it's just an abbreviation, get over it.

an Oxbridge PPE (and usually fee-paying school prior to that) actually have any power in this country?

Yes, didn't take long fir the penny to drop did it, so do you seriously think you can rage against the machine or would it be more constructive to join them since you won't beat them ?

if we employed more teachers we could have larger year groups and more classes with less kids in each year.

And my god we have the teachers available especially up north, unemployed, working in bars etc, we've trained thousands, now the salaries need to drop and they need to teach smaller class sizes, therefore less stress and sickness, more productive schools.