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.

Knittedbreast, but you cannot control how other choose to spend their money. So if say for me my childrens' education is more important than drinking/latest gadgets/nights out, why should not I spend my money on education? Just because somebody does not want a good education for their own children, why should I deny mine?

It may be hard to believe, but even as a parent who uses the independent system, I also get annoyed at the inequality in the state system as I teach in it and see that inequality regularly.

FWIW, I actually think that most state schools are good, not bad. I think that some have a far easier job than others due to their demographic and the support they receive from the pta. Ans as I've said before, where I live, my children are really no more advantaged than our neighbours who use the state school. I just get all the extra stuff bundled up together whereas they are taken after school and at weekends.

But, KB, the kids round here who go state start school already able to read and count and get themselves to the toilet. The can usually swim and after school do rugby and ballet and go and muck out their horse to go riding.

Their whole school experience is so very different form the kids I teach. Lessons move quicker, lots of shiny resources, expensive school trips as parents think nothing of sending in £25 for a day trip, skiing in Y5&Y6 which almost everyone goes on. It is so very different and much closer to the education my kids get than the education the kids I teach get.

knitted

Children in the same class with the same teacher are having the same education arent they? Are their results different? Of course they aren't - its not about the school enviroment, its the home enviroment as well!

You can never have the same results even if everyone is given the same opportunities.

No - we don't think nothing of the £25 - we see beyond the £ sign

Yes, the home environment is fantastically important, and can have a huge influence for the better or worse.

That's why, in my opinion, you should at least make schools fair!

Fed Up a figure of 81% of parents coaching their children to pass the 11+ is not the same as 81% paying hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds to pay for a professional tutor.

That's the average across all 164 schools presumably? Well all I can say is that the BBC never asked me and my oldest seven are all at or have been to the grammar. Come to think of it I haven't heard that anyone in our school has had the BBC contact them to ask the question and word about that sort of thing would tend to get around.

Tbh it's not my problem if you don't believe kids can get in without tutoring, it's quite funny actually.

Oh Oli, you're not saying that the only reason some people don't pay £25 for school trips is because they are materialistic fools who lack the mental capacity and the sense of priority to pay, confident that the benefits will be worth it, are you? You're not saying it's not that some people just plain old can't afford it, are you?

Joan - you know thats not what I mean!

I am against the idea that we brush off the £25 just because we can afford it.

Fedupwithschools, it's misleading to make out that paying for education is a choice available to people who are willing to forego "drinking, latest gadgets and nights out". Average fees are around £11k per child. Not an option for the majority, no matter how frugal.

But they wont be fair Joan, because the child in year 5 that lives in a noisy/abusive household wont be able to study as well as a child in a nicer household. So by the time they reach GCSE/A levels, they'll struggle anyway.

So how would you even up the state system, Joan? I certainly wouldn't advocate a lottery system at primary and 5yr olds having to catch a bus to school.
You must know that abolishing private education will just create more elitist state schools in more expensive catchments.

well maybe they will, and that's a massive shame, obviously! But I still think the more-right, less-wrong answer is not to assume because of that that they shouldn't ever be allowed near any of the bright/rich/advantaged children, and might as well just be binned off! That seems like a really defeatist, fatalistic attitude.

What do you have to earn to be 'rich'?

exactly. because you cannot guarantee whats going on at home is the reason that all children should start out the same when it comes to education received at school.

of course not all children will be educated exactly the same even within a class but its very difficult to argue against the fact that it is much fairer that all children are at least educated in the same way ie its fairer that all children attend the same types of school.

olipoly, its great you can see past the £, but why should your children benefit because of your successes when other lose out through no fault of their own because they were born to poorer parents-you can choose the family you were born into.

Do those of you who dont agree with me also feel like you should have priority access to health care due to your finacnial success too?

Mrswitcher, the state educated kids at your school might still do ballet after school where your kids do it at school, but i assure you that there will be many kids at the state school who do no get to do extra curricular activities cos their parents cant afford the rent let alone anything else. It makes sense that all children should be treated the same when it comes to schooling, as you have already said those can afford will still send their child to ballet anyway. but if all children are taught together, with an even starting point as far as formal education goes it will benefit everyone.

So then you do agree that the changes should start at home, not at school?

Hmmm.
Disclaimer - I'm not saying I am sure this is right, and I'm certainly not saying that I think once any system whose watchword was fairness was implemented, all children would have exactly equal chances and opportunities, because sadly they won't.
What I think I would do is have primary aged children go to the nearest primary (because to be fair, the flight from state gets a lot more intense at 11 anyway, I think). And then I would have a lottery for secondary schools within a sensible radius.

But honestly and truly, you don't get much social mix at the majority of primary schools. Obviously more so at secondary. So kids living on the poverty line very rarely get to sit next to and play beside kids who are off horse riding after school.

MrsWitcher - You let parents send their children to whatever school they like. Then, once the popular comp has got 60 to a class and plumetting results they might think about some of the more local options.

No, Mrs M I know you don't - I'm just allowing for the fact that at 11 they can walk or get a bus without parents driving across town, but that's unrealistic for younger kids.

Like I say - not perfect!

Knittedbreast, the cheapest house in our catchment costs aroung 500k. I very much doubt there are parents at the school struggling to pay rent or mortgage. Of course, there may be one or 2 but you would get one or 2 in that position at indie school too.
These kids are priviledged due to their home life. My kids are no more priviledged because we pay for something than many others locally could also afford to do. Home life really is the biggest factor. I see it every day at work.

i think you will find that in state schools there provisions for very bright children aswell, so they wont just get lost in the sea of other children.

by the way private school isnt for necissarily bright children, its for those with parents who can afford it. grammar schools are not just filled with very very bright children as there a great number (agreeably differnt with different schools) who are coached.

if all kids went to the sames schools levels of education would rise, wealtheir parents would push for it. we might see new and better education models introduced too

"olipoly, its great you can see past the £, but why should your children benefit because of your successes when other lose out through no fault of their own because they were born to poorer parents-you can choose the family you were born into."

KB - My children should benefit because they are no different to any other child. I pay taxes too.