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"

What's Hull then? The Midlands?

At last something we agree on Joan

On a lighter note, Joan. When we lived in Wilmslow, people there hated the term Northerners and lots spoke with a Surrey accent.
Oh Wilmslow was like a parallel universe sometimes.

Oh Clytemnestra, that is a distant dream for me! My daughter was speaking in full sentences in Year 6, but now she goes to a specialist maths college all I ever get from her is frigging equals signs! It is so difficult!

I think you may have failed to spot the sarcasm, dear.

Wilmslow? Isn't that in the deep south?

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.

up to a point. My DH does statistics for fun, so when we were looking at secondary schools for DD, he got all the GCSE and A level results (by subject, not the useless 5A-C), and also the CAT distributions so he could rebase the data.

Yes, the private schools (and, somehow, the faith schools) excluded most of the lower end of the range. But the best private didn't have as selective an intake as the grammars yet achieved almost identical results. He concluded that on average the private schools (in our area) raised exam scores by about half a grade.

Not as big a difference as many on both sides of the debate might imagine.

To us southern softies Birmingham is the NORTH!

joni I meant joan! I'm sure I typed joan! I hate this computer - it changes everything I write. In fact in this post it changed joni to join - I have to proof and change everything back! Which is not my usual style of posting!

bugger

anyway joan - I meant you (I'm sure you knew that)

oh and joan if you think the better results of private schools are entirely the result of selection you are wrong wrong wrong

unless you think that teaching and the classroom environment has nothing to do with anything

there must be some private schools taking thick wealthy kids though

where are they all going

I don't get that argument 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".

So all children of those who can afford to pay are above average intelligence then? That's not correct surely? The private school we use isn't selective on ability only cash, so surely they'll be below average, average and above average there?

It never ceases to amaze me that somethink it is unacceptable to be able to pay for private schooling if they are lucky enough to be able.
When you get to the other end of your life and need a care home if you have money you dont get the same choice and have to pay for your own care.
Do those who want a one state system for all also want the same system for elderly care? Or is it then ok that the more weathy pay.
Maybe what i am asking is does social justice only work one way?

Most - if not all - parents who privately educate their children have a huge interest in the educational outcomes of their kids.

Most - if not all - parents who privately educate their children will ensure they do homework, read, and maintain discipline to enforce achievement.

Many parents in state schools will do this; but crucially many - particularly in sink estates, or those who have had fewer life chances/less life experience won't take the interest, or support their kids.

This means that in some not all state schools you will get disruptive kids who'll make learning harder for the kids and teaching more difficult for the staff.

That also drags down the average.

It also chokes me when parents swank about "Oh, yes, Justin goes to the local comp," when you cannot get a house down their avenue for less than £500k

Joni has a little dig at me for using inverted commas with "choice". Is there any good argument as to why I should not do so? If there is, I've yet to hear it. The word is possibly the most abused in the language in an education context. Although "excellence" runs it close.

UQD - I take your point...I feel the same about the word, "progressive". Remove and replace with, "punitive" and it makes a lot more sense and more accurately reflects the true motivation of the person using the term...

The grade enhancement of which you speak Grimma is not sustainable beyond the cushy private school environment. Those at State Grammars usually end up with a better class of degree from similar Universities than their privately educated counterparts - apparently.

UQD. The point you make about choice is spot on. As I said earlier if I go for state secondary, I will be choosing a specialist sports college with less than great results. The point was more about how the same arguments are ventilated on these threads. It was a mild jibe about how you mock others for making the same old same old points yet do the same yourself.

Well I'd add 'farness' to that list, UQD.

I still believe that the only fairness you'd get by abolishing private schools would be between, for example, your kids and mine.

It would not even up the odds between your children and those living on sink estates attending comprehensives struggling with all sorts of problems above and beyond teaching.

The influx of those currently privately educated would be to the already well performing comprehensives in the good areas. Even those living in 'dodgy' areas to afford fees would up and move.

Abolishing the independent sector wouldn't even touch those kids.

But when I mentioned that last night, Joan just said it was still better to be less unfair. Less unfair to whom?

That should be 'fairness' obviously!

That's a very good point about care in old age cantspel. At what point do we insist that we should all be equal and all rely purely on services provided by the state and paid for by the tax payer, with no two tier system whatsoever? It sometimes seems that people who are left leaning want to have their cake and eat it - they don't want middle class people to benefit from private education or private healthcare, (whilst they continue to pay into the system for state funded services they may rarely or never use) because they don't like the idea of perceived advantage, but they are more than happy to force them to pay for their own private care in old age, because there is no perceived advantage, and it's an opportunity to take yet more stealth tax from them whilst denying them the services they've paid for others to have.

Completely agree with Betty.

Well, it would be "less unfair" because everyone would at least be using the same system.

As arguments go, "the education system isn't ever going to be fair anyway, so let's just enjoy making it even more unfair and say sod it", isn't the strongest.

If they made the education system fair then something else would be stacked against us/you/them instead.
50% get to go to university, great then suddenly the bar is raise to needing a masters and by the way graduate salaries are lower than 15 years ago.