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"

Nobody thinks bright kids from supportive homes can't possibly succeed at state school.

You don't even need a supportive home if you're a really determined bugger, but fuck me it's hard and so you want it to be easier for your child, that's what it's all about.
My gran had to worry about putting food on the table, she went without for her kids, unfortunately in my case a generation was skipped but I'll do the best for my children that I can and they'd better do the same, with each generation hopefully their lot in life will improve.

North.

I live in a three bed semi in a road which links to a big council estate at one end - which is referred to by many in the city in tones of disdain - on the less salubrious side of a quite nice city. There are cheaper areas, and there are much more expensive ones. Whilst the school my dd goes to is increasingly well-thought of, it's not a school that ever gets mentioned on estate agents details as a selling point, iyswim.

Does that win your argument for you?

But Joan what I'm trying to say is that the biggest gap is between rich and poor not those who pay and those who don't.

Abolishing PSs may indeed even up the balance between lots of kids but htere will still be a great swarth of them languishing at the bottom.

And I can't help but laugh to hear to respond to my last point by saying that life is never going to be fair. That has always been the point. It isn't bringing fairness if you only bring it to half the state educated children. Those who privately educate don't live in those areas so there is nobody avoiding htose schools toattend the local independent school at all.

Which areas don't they live in?

Ok, I would refer you to the city of Hull.
No-one would say the state schools there are top of the range..... and there are a LOT of kids from very very difficult backgrounds. However, there are people with money in Hull, there are lecturer's families and nice big houses - but those people move out when the kids hit 10, or send them private. But the people on Bransholme and Orchard Park don't have that option. So their schools remain pretty much entirely scorned by the middle class.

Betty it seems like where I think because life is never going to be fair, you shouldn't make it worse in this particular way by taking 7 children in every hundred and segregating them at the age of 11 (or 8, or 4) whereas you think because life is never going to be fair, you shouldn't worry about making it less fair.

Joan.
I know you think I'm out to get you. I'm not. I don't think you're wrong wanting the best for every child. I just think you are being very unfair on parents who decide to send their children to private schools. You have called them allsorts of terrible names on here. I guess some of them deserve that, but most of them just want their kids to be happy and do well. That's nothing to be ashamed of.

I asked about where you are because I feel this often has a different bearing on these arguments. Many people's experience of private schools is based on poor impressions of the parents and children who attend their nearest private school. Fwiw, I'm in the North too. The private school near to me seems to churn out half-decent kids who step aside for you when you pass them on the pavement. Of course, the state kids do as well. The point I'm trying to make is that they don't seem to be toffee nose twats who think they are god's gift to the planet. And they get really good results. I don't think considering it as an option makes me the self-centred bitch you would like to think I am.

Brian: so when your two are both in full time school you will be paying out £16,000 pa in fees.

Which is like, I'm guessing, £25,000 ish of untaxed income.

You cannot pretend that average earners or even slightly above average earners or even considerably above average earners with average outgoings can find that amount of money by making small economies and tweaking.

Which, I am sure, is why only 7% or whatever it is of children are privately educated in this country.

Although I am tiring of the private/state debate the one thing that never ceases to amaze me is how many fee paying parents just cannot grasp that the main reason their school gets such good results is that the average and below average pupils who are never going to get good results are just not there on the register in the first place.

I haven't called any names, nor have I called anyone a bitch. Do point me to the terrible names I have used?

I do think it's down to you to teach your own child to step out of the way on a pavement, though! And, again anecdotally, I could tell you of state school kids who do and private school kids who don't.

Of course we all want the best for our kids. I just wish people would see that it isn't quite as simple as that, if you care about anything else.

The pavement point was in response to something somebody said earlier about private kids having the worst manners they'd ever seen. It could even have been you Joan.

I didn't say that, though I might have said that - anecdotally - I have seen a push-push me-first fuck-you attitude amongst some of them.

Joan, what I'm trying to say is that if you abolished private schools it would be the nice leafy MC suburb comprehensives who benefitted, not those situated in areas considered deprived.

So, it all becomes a bit more even up top bau has no affect whatsoever on those kids at the bottom.

Oh and I grew up in such an area and taught in them for many years, giving up weekends, lunchtimes and my time after school to run clubs and take them away. So it's never been a case of out of sight, out of mind.

I just think abolishing private schools would not bring about this Utopian even springboard that is held up as the Holy Grail.

I think that was it Joan. If I thought a school bred tossers like obviously I wouldn't consider it for a second. It's so subjective. That's why this subject is so tricky.

See I think the nice leafy comps are probably fine anyway - I think it would be the schools in places like Hull, and the less well-thought-of areas where I live, that would benefit.

Hi bibbitybobbity -

Yeh, completely agree with that.

Schools do well or badly because of the kids that go there, and the families they come from.

Also, it annoys me when people talk as though lots of kids go to private school, and as though it were a very normal thing to do, and the cost is barely a consideration etc. etc.

Really it's a minority option for the very wealthy (IMO) Stats back me up if it's 7%

Oh, and the "I went to Eton" type thing, endlessly

If you don't weight the dice you aren't fair to your child. I don't see why paying for schooling rather than paying by house price is wrong. I don't see why feeding them well and listening to their reading is absoultely super duper fine but paying fees for a good school is wrong.
I don't see why talking to them in an accent which is mroe likely to get them a good job, at home is better than sending them to a school where the other children might speak in a particular way.

In other words why pick on school fees?

Xenia, I think even the pro-private people generally wish you would shut up to be honest.... you don't do them any favours.

This 7% that is talked about doesn't tell the whole story either. I used to live in Cheshire but right next door to Stockport. Now, officially Stockport has something like 14% of children in private education. So, already double the national average.

However, Stockport is one of those LEAs with areas that are so polarised, it's stunning. Serious deprivation and poverty at one end and Range Rover drivers at the other. There is no way that the majority of residents in Stockport have that financial choice which menas that the bit of Stockport close to where I used to live probably sent about 40% of kids private! My kids, although we lived in Cheshire, went to a school there.

Now abolishing the private schools in that part of Stockport (and indeed my part of Cheshire) would have,
a)Bankrupted the LEAs. Where do you put all those extra kids?
b)Made no social difference to the social or economic demographic of the area or the performance of the local secondaries.

What gets me about this thread is:

(a) Xenia said sahms are a disgrace for not working to pay for their children's education AND DIDN'T GET CHALLENGED;

(b) Freshmint had a go at ME for being anti-private school lol;

(c) Unquietdad also laughs at other people for trotting off the same old points (the bingo point) yet ALWAYS talks about choice in inverted commas ;

(d) I always think I'd really like the anti-private posters in RL and they'd like me cause I'm proper common

PS. Joan. To us proper northerners Hull is not the North

Joni - Xenia has been saying the same on almost every post she makes for many years and is largely now ignored.

Joni I think Freshmint got her vowels a bit confused and thought you were me!

Nobody bothers to challenge Xenia because she's not really real.

How can Hull not be North? Though I do live more Notherly than Hull, technically!

I know, but it never ceases to me

noRtherly!

The question of whether Hull is in the north is a matter of opinion Joan

Well I guess we'll have to diagree on that.
Though I don't thinkl that most fee paying parents tend to live in those areas that could do with boost.

I also think it would be a wee bit rude and arrogant of me to assume that our local state school would benefit from having my children there any more than it does the other well-supported kids.

"If your child is not capable of being in a sports college without forgetting how to speak and write"

Is all you want to achieve for your child leaving secondary school is the ability to speak and write?

I see why you think independent schools are such a waste!