to ask if you use state or private education

[manicinsomniac]

Sorry, I know it's a little rude and personal but I only ask because I think that only 7-8% of the children in the UK are privately educated yet on mumsnet it seems to be massively higher than that which I find interesting.

So, if I'm not being too unreasonable to ask, do/did/will you use private or state education for your child/ren?

SwanRiver- that is an interesting analogy (the location thing).
My elder DC was in a selective indie for Year 6 the younger is now in Year 6 in a nearby outstanding state primary. If we hadn't seen with our own eyes the vastly better quality of teaching and learning experience of DC1 in Y6, we would not know what DC2 is missing out on in Y6,. But as we have a direct equivalence (was not intended as a experiment , the indie just doesn't take em now till Y7) it is very evident.
The parent profile looks pretty much the same - if anything the state has pushier PTA types - the difference is in the quality of the teaching and that they can teach stuff outside the NC as they are not hidebound by the SATS. (We do not expect to 'buy results' by the way and I am perfectly happy if they choose to become hairdressers - this is about the ride, not the destination.)

not yombative just trying to work out what, why, how, because it's so self contradictory from you

why is it wrong

why is it wrong to segregate children according to wealth, do you mean?

Hello again joan - can't believe we are still on this one.

you say gaaah, I know, that's why I think it's wrong to keep children apart on this basis and thus perpetuate it - whilst also perpetuating the prejudices and misapprehensions on both sides

I was reading your comments over the past few pages since last night. You must have some truly awful independent schools near you if you think they all wear designer clothes, laugh at people who don't and only EVER mix with other privately educated children.

I'm sure SOME people are like that, they are everywhere, even in the sink school I work in, but there you are more likely to get bullied if you don't have the newest mobile phone, or if you do well in your lessons.

My DS plays for the local cricket club, hockey club, squash club etc, and has lots of friends from outside his school. I have more friends through my job than via his school.

I don't know many other mums (school, that is) who only every socialise with other "posh" rich" "elitist" people - cos that's NOT what it is like - here at least!

Every school is different and it is impossible to generalise. A good state will knock a poor private into a cocked hat and vice versa.

Incidentally, when I teacher trained those that passed went into state generally , those that failed and couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag went into the private sector as the state wouldn't touch 'em.
We looked around a prep school once where the head's wife was teaching science. DH had a quick shufty at the kid's books and nearly died. The stuff was actually wrong - the woman was a home ec teacher.

Parents were happily paying 12K a year for this. We stuck ours in the local primary, they are on the G&T scheme ( all of 'em - smug) and flying high.

And I get to squander save all those lovely school fees .

joan asks is there a point at which you'd say, Ok, we don't need private schools any more: really everyone should send their children within the state system now?

Yes - if schools could have total control over discipline and punishments and could exclude repeat offenders;

if they were free to teach what the teachers thought would inspire the children (with guidance from a much improved National Curriculum);

if parents stopped threatening to sue staff who try to restain, discipline or even help their children;

if teachers didn't have to spend 45 minutes of an hour lesson dealing with ONE child, instead of teaching the others;

if class sizes were no more than 20 ...

to be honest the list is a long one and I can't imagine any of that ever happening, and it certainly wouldn't happen under the Labour Government you want to bring back.

Diabolo - absolutely.

Although we are happy with the state primary, they are going to private secondary.

For all your reasons and more.

Gandalf - funnily at DS's prep, most of the staff have MEd's on top of their BEd's, degrees and PGCE's.

It's another oft told tale people that people who go private "have sent their child to a school where the staff aren't even qualified".

What a lot of rot - I moved him out of an "outstanding" (to OFSTED at least) state primary, I'm hardly going to move him without doing a lot of thorough research about EXACTLY what I'm getting for the money am I? How come we are so desirable as parents to have at state school PTA's, if you think we are all thick as two proverbial short planks?

gandalf only line 1 of my last post it to you.

yes why is it wrong to self-segregate by social status, wealth, academic achievement

I wouldn't say any one parent who can send his/her child privately is madly desirable at PTA meetings, though I would say that the cumulative effect of all these people opting out is a shame.

Bored now really - no-one, including me, is ever going to budge an inch on this, are we? .

And you're quite right that all the private schools near me are pretty lame: which to be honest is probably why I have little respect for anyone in this particular city who choses to use them.

Oh, and Gooseberry - I guess I thought most people who opt for independent think it's a bit of a shame that they feel they have to, and they wish that they didn't feel they have to, but they do.... but if you actually don't see any basic problem at all in segregating by those things then I'm not sure we have any basis for debate.

Im state, dont believe in Private education for us. My DD seems happy and intelligent enough so I'm happy. All my friends who went to private school all ended up on benefits which I guess swayed me to state.

I state educated mine. I did not even consider private as I could only have afforded it for one child and I have two. And I would never ever educate one privately and one not.

Mine did very well at bog standard comprehensives and went on to Russel Group Univerisites , but then they are naturally bright motivated kids.

joan - I appreciate your sentiments about not segregating, you are clearly lucky to be able to send your child to a school where you are confident they will achieve their best. Your comments come across as quite "communist" - which I've always thought was a super idea in theory but will NEVER work in real life, as a doctor will always feel he deserves to be paid more than a road-sweeper.

I'm a Tory, but I certainly don't swan around thinking and telling everyone I'm better than they are simply 'cos my DS goes private and I would bloody string him up by ankles if I EVER heard him express that opinion.

I'm not sure you can compare a school where the head's wife is teaching economics to most independents. Certainly all of the teachers I spoke to in my school had worked at state schools and most were at great pains to tell us how fortunate we were, if the question arose (as I explained I was not the norm for the year and would deliberately ask challenging questions as to why they were there etc). Nearly all of them told me that they felt bad for leaving the "system" but that we were all willing to learn, would focus and may actually be able to change something one day, if that was what we believed. They seemed to feel that their efforts were wasted in state schools where disruptive students ruled and no discipline was allowed. My History teacher was at the first school in London to have specialist teachers come in to pull them out of the worst grades in the country. She was there for 7 years before she finally gave up and switched. You can't say she didn't try and didn't have the ideology you seem to desire joan

TBH I do feel sad about the segregation, but not enough to make the change to state.

The list of things I require in a school has grown and grown sinc emy DC were four. I just get more and more demanding.
It would be ludicrous to think thw state could or even should provide those things. And anyways, half the stuff I want, others would be horrified about...so where do you go then. Either they impose their views on me, or I go elsewhere and find enough like minded parnets to fill a school.

well said wordfactory.

I know I'm lucky to be able to afford school fees. I know some people are also able to afford school fees, but choose not to. (not because of their social conscience in most cases either). These mums that I know are the ones who drive around in brand new, expensive cars, tutor their children outside of school etc.

I don't think I am being a "straw man" when I say to Joan - why don't you propose banning other things that some people can't afford? Nice holidays, after-school clubs, flashy cars? They segregate children on the basis of parental income and attitude too.

So i assume arguos is against special schools they exludle on the basis of ability

Maypole it seems any kind of selection is not on the agenda for Argos. We should all have the flat Morrisons brand approach and not desire Sainsbury's or Waitrose.

If you follow that on, maybe we should scrap exams as a selective and unfair process?

segregation????? Is your child's school their only social group?? Feel very sorry for them. My Dc mix with numerous groups - sports, youth club, scouts, local roller disco etc and know children from lots of schools - hardly 'segregation'...

If their were more than a handful of outstanding state schools then all the fee paying parents would be fools but theres not

Fab123 And why does it always have to be 'middle class' parents pulling state schools up? I fear any 'lower class' parents reading these posts about how state schools only have a chance if 'middle class' parents deign to send their kids there, might be somewhat offended? Are they completely incapable of having the same parenting skills knitted?

I?m working class, risen from lower and not offended. It's not our parenting skills that's the issue. It's something you only hear talked about in what gets called sink schools on here.
It has to be middle class parents, because the codes LEA?s give to minimum acceptable educational results for children of middle class parents are way higher than for the rest of us, so when Darren gets 5 D to F?s it?s ?to be expected? and no one listens to Darren?s parents going on about school failure because he?s within his codes for his background and the LEA and society has the cheek to automatically call it a success for the likes of Darren, but when it happens to Alexander, his parents do get listened to, because his minimum acceptable educational result code gave him 5 A/B?s and he failed to meet them, and when his parents want to know why, people see it as a failure for the likes of Alexander and take notice of his parents.

Earlier in the thread I was pointing out the miserable A-C rates of my kids schools, and asked: Do people really believe most of us in the areas these schools serve, are honestly just too thick to do better? The silence answered it.
But this post (which wasn?t direct) answered it further:
if you take the children if two Doctors and they come put with anything less than 11 A's something has gone wring you have the raw material so IRS up to the school to fcuk it up rather than 2 shop assistants children where they never stood a chance and to get 5 C's out of them takes hard work and talented teachers I guess.

Now that?s offensive, but it?s a common view and the real battle many of us are up against.

to be honest, I don't

that's life

I see much more of a problem with restricting freedom, forcing people to do things they don't want to do when it does no harm, reducing the number of well educated children in Britain and trying to make everyone the same

as long as you don't have a problem with those things, no, we have no basis for a conversaton