To think if the gov are serious about social mobility they should be banning privately educated kids from taking state grammar school places?

[MilaMae]

Spending ££££ on tutoring to get your kids into a grammar school is one thing but sending your kids to a private school which is free from the national curriculum and able to spend every day teaching to the 11+ is wrong and buys kids school places which should be reserved for the state educated.

Alongside freedom to teach to the 11+ private schools have tiny classes so it's pupils have even more of an advantage. Many of these children won't even be naturally bright and shouldn't even be at said grammar schools.

In our local area apparently far fewer state educated kids got into grammar school this year. Obviously this is due to more privately educated kids applying for places due to parents struggling to pay fees in the current economic climate.

This is wrong. Grammar school should be reserved for state kids only. For many kids rightly or wrongly it's their one big shot at getting a leg up in life. The rich shouldn't be able to hoover these places up because they're feeling the pinch.

You can't put a stop to tutoring but the gov could put a stop to this very unfair practice(if they truely believe in social mobility).It would be very easy to control.

This isn't sour grapes on my part(my dc are tiny) just an observation.

no all children should be entitled to a free school place and there should not be an option for the parents that can pay more to advantage their children over anothers by sending them to private schools.

so if you live in a poor town where there is no work so you can get a job and pay tax your child cant go to school? no.

all children should start out completly evenly when it comes to education, no private schools, no grammars and no tutoring.

And of course if you lose your job for any reason, your children should be taken out of school immediately until you find another?

JoanofArgos, I was just trying to make an equally silly point. And why to stop at schools? There should not be private housing, everybody should use public transport, stop reading to kids at bed time or cook food from scratch, because it gives their kids some kind of advantage.

This is always the nub, isn't it? For me, segregated schooling is more important than all of those other, equally unfair, things. I know that for many it's just part of a continuum, though.

MrsWitcher - The tax rebate would be much less than you expect. Say you are a very high earner and pay £1 million in tax a year. About 12% of that goes on education so that's £120,000. But that's across 9.5 million school children. So the rebate for each child you educated privatly would be about 1p.

If you pay £100,000 in tax you would have to educate 10 children privatly to get a penny back.

ffs - are we now saying that people should earn the same amount of money so that we all have the same lifestyle?

what utter rubbish!

Olipolly - no, we're not. HTH.

It's really a question of what Grammer Schools are FOR.

If it's to give an excellent education to a few randomly selected bright kids then they are succeeding.

If it's to preserve middle class privledge they are succeeding.

If it's to promote social mobility they are failing.

If it's to ensure that all bright children get the best education properly they are failing.

If it's to ensure that all children get the best education possible they are failing.

If it's to ensure that we get as well educated a workforce as possible they are failing.

To be honest, I agree with Bonsouir, parents should take more responsibility and not whine about state schools while not doing anything about their kids' education at home. There are free libraries, museums, galleries and parks. You dont have to be rich or middle class to use them.

so whats the problem?

All this bashing of private schools is absolutely ridiculous!

Your energy should be spent on getting the gvt to improve state education.

People wanted the grammars to be abolished

Whose fault is it that the alternatives can be bad?

Pass the 11+ = get the place, State schools are for everyone

Oh I know that. What I was saying is that part of what we pay in tax does go towards schooling therefore you couldn't possibly stop someone accessing that schooling simply because they chose to opt out at primary level for whatever reason.

I happily paid tax before having children and will continue to do so after they've left school without expecting the burden to be lessened simply because I am no longer using the service.

The reality is that children don't start off on an equal footing. Even if all child went to state school that wouldn't be the case. How can the state school in the deprived area (where I teach) compete with the state school closest to where I live that easily raises 15k at Christmas fetes and stuff? How is that equal?

im not sure you can compare equal schooling to banning food cooked from scratch. of course all people will have different lifestyles based on their incomes. but when it comes to schools all children should be on an even plateau

So you have a pta who raises a couple of hundred quid a year and uses it to provide a book for each child at Christmas compared to a pta who hand over 40k for playground equipment.

'parents should take more responsibility and not whine about state schools while not doing anything about their kids' education at home. There are free libraries, museums, galleries and parks. You dont have to be rich or middle class to use them.'

And what happens to the children whose parents can't or won't do this? What happens to them?

and different incomes mean that I can afford private school and some cannot!

so why should I not be allowed to have what everyone has access to? Because I went to school and did well which led me to a good job that pays well?

Your arguement doesn't cut it. Private schools are not the cause of any of these problems.

But OliP, that is more the assumption I take issue with - that state schools are bad!

My personal preference would be for a lottery system within whatever radius makes sense for a town, city or area, with no faith schools, grammar schools or private schools. The you would not have the 'leafy comp/'bad' comp/middle-class comp issue, or the moving for catchment.

Knittedbreast, do you really think all kids are having an equal experience at all state schools? Do you really think money is playing no part there? Surely my previous two posts show what a vast difference there is in what some state schools are able to provide.

Well, then these kids should be removed from undeserving parents.

Just kidding.

seeker - why can't these parents do it?

MrsWitcher - Oh OK - it's a common but erroneous point made by Private Educators though, so it's an almost refelexive reaction on my part (not that I'm that bothered about Private Education, I'm far more concerned about distortions to the state system). My trigger may be a bit light.

Allison Pearson has some predicatbly right-wing w*nk to spout on the subject in today's Torygraph, btw.

Becasue they have no education themselves.
Because they are too depressed/drunk/drugged/ill
Because they don't want to/can't see the value
Because they want to but don;t know how
Becaue they are feckless wastrels
Because they are too poor
Because they are too busy working to keep a roof over the family's head
Because they don;t have the confidence
Because they are too exhausted and ground down by poverty.

For starters.

Thats not true.

I have never experienced UK state education system because I am an immigrant. My kids have not been in any state education system but I don't go about saying state schools are bad - simply because I have no experience of them.

Many arguements on here are based on assumptions and generalisations which is really very bad.

If the 7% are causing so much chaos, what is wrong with the 93% - if there is anything wrong at all

People here are very lucky indeed. Education is free! Its not a luxury I had growing up.

no i do not think all state educated kids get the same experience, but i do think that at least having all children educated in the same way at the same type of school is fairer than having 3 different types of schooling based on the parents ability to pay for it. theres plenty of opportunity for unfairness throughout life, let their initial education be the same.

Hear hear, knitted!