to think it's a bit cheeky for the wealthy to monopolise places in the top state schools instead of coughing up for private?

[rainbowtoenails]

I've read a lot of the education threads on here and lots of people seem to despair that they can't get into their local state school unless they live within a few feet, where the house prices spike up by several thousands of pounds.
I agree but I'm going to take the arguement one step further by saying that I think its wrong for someone who can easily afford it, to forgo private schools, and take up places at the most oversubscribed state schools, often by using their money to inflate local house prices.
I know that these people have paid their taxes for the state schools but we all pay tax for services we dont use.
If everyone who could afford it went private there would be a lot more spaces in the top state schools for pupils from a wide variety of backgrounds. I firmly beleive that the top state schools should not only serve the rich. This perverse system means that lower income families are paying tax to provide an education they themselves have no access to.

If you knew the score up front, in 10 years time there will be a levy for you to pay to use state v's the option to go private then people can plan their families accordingly, so none of this we have 15 children and only earn £41,000 what would happen to us bolloxs.

northern- see it's that kind of sanctimonious crap that you are spewing that pisses me off! - these middle class people who think they're doing some great social good deed by daring to send their child to a state school, looking down their noses at other parents and congratulating themselves that they are allowing Chardonnay from the local council estate to mix with their little Tristan, how wonderful for her to get the opportunity to have her education enhanced by his mere presence! Pass me the bucket.

I don't know any middle class parents like that at my child's school, I have to say. Just lots of normal people, really.

I never mentioned any such figure chen so your inference re my post was not a good one.

Also, if you read my last post before you posted, you'll have seen the comments I've made about the school my eldest is currently attending.

Anyway, why aren't faith schools also an issue for OP? So it's ok to be religious (and go to what are generally better schools) but not have some wealth and do the same? An 'unfair advantage' is an unfair advantage in any form surely?

Is it fair that those not of that faith should have such difficulty in gaining entrance into these schools?

"Also, if you read my last post before you posted, you'll have seen the comments I've made about the school my eldest is currently attending."

I'm glad you've found an outstanding state school with a catchment area wide enough to that really does encompass families from a wide variety of backgrounds, you should consider yourself very lucky; I'd be interested to see just how widespread that level of equal opportunity is throughout the country.

Where I live you 100% have to pay through the nose to get to the 2 outstanding schools which both have catchment areas the size of a beach towel.

ah ok, ishani so wealthy people will have to 'plan accordingly' and only have the children they can afford to educate. but it will be OK for those earning under 40k to have as many children as they want and have the state pay for their education. that makes complete sense

I can't speak for the OP but faith schools make me a little uncomfortable too.

The OP has provided imo an unworkable and divisive alternative but that doesn't mean the current system is anything approaching fair; I'm surprised to see so many people defending it tbh.

and chen, my local 'outstanding' primary has exactly that, it's catchment and attending children come from council flats and £1m houses and everything inbetween (granted that's in london which i appreciate may not be representative of the rest of the country - but it certainly exists and is commonplace round here)

There are some very deprived children in his class. A short drive away there are people living in said 500k houses whose children also attend this school.

What I love the most about it, is kids don't see wealth; they just see their friends. And yes, I'm pretty lucky with school, I'm very unhappy to be moving.

That said, when we move, we are looking for a house of a certain size (I have 3 kids and 1 SD so it's better for us to be bigger than average) near a good school.

I don't see the rationale behind the thinking that it's not allowed for me to buy as large a house as I can afford, in an area with good schools.

rainbow at the bottom of Page 7, you say that "If you live in a half million pound house then yes I do consider that wealthy, either you must have very high salaries to afford a mortgage of that size or you must have 100s of thousands in equity."

A fairly bog standard terraced house in London costs this much, and I can't imagine they are all owned by millionaires with ££££ of equity. More like struggling middle earners who have to work in London and have had to take out huge mortgages whether they can easily afford it or not.

Under your proposals, would these poor people have to educate their DC's privately? After all, as you say above, you "consider that wealthy".

Also, it is a sad, but true fact that most "poor" or "satisfactory" schools are in less wealthy areas, with higher rates of FSM, unemployment etc. The biggest impact on children's lives is their parents, and if they see their parents not working, having few aspirations etc, then lots, (not all by any means) of these children will have the same lower expectations of education and life than the children of "pushier" parents. And before anyone starts with me, I work in one of these schools in a designated disadvantaged area, so am not just spouting Tory bollocks.

Is is so wrong to want to want your DC to go to a good school? It didn't used to be a crime to want the best.

80% of GCSE results can be directly predicted from parental income.
Thick rich kids get better teaching
(Harry Windsor being one of the most extreme examples - he needed help with his Art!!)
Poor bright kids start with low aspirations.
Grammar school systems destroy what little they have.
At least in a comp they get to mix with richer kids and raise their aspirations.
I'm DELIGHTED to see the Chelsea Tractors outside DDs comp of a morning.

TalkingPeace - although the Fischer Family Trust often generalise and end up assuming that every child of a single parent / black person / travelling family will be a low achiever.

My DSis's boys are both at Uni, wanting to be teachers - no sign of their Dad for years, both exceeded their FFT predictions amazingly well - again, all down the parent involved.

I think michglas makes an excellent point about the wealthy paying more tax so they are just as entitled to anyone else to free education. It is difficult to know what the right answer is as a lot of things in life are not fair but I don't think you can say what you are saying and expect it to sound right.

At the moment we use state schools because our local one is great.

Can we afford private for our three? yes.

Should I have to pay for education those who earn less ( and thus pay less less tax) get for free? Should I fuck.

A couple of points;
1)Not all 'outstanding' state schools are in affluent areas. I taught for a term in one in a very deprived area of Luton.

2)Where we used to live we paid to avoid the dull, uninspiring 'outstanding' state school on our doorstep which was nothing short of an exam factory. When we moved, we were more than impressed by the local state primary and found the nearby prep to be staid and frankly, a bit rubbish. Are you saying that we should have paid to send our kids to the dull, straw-hatted twee institution over the exciting, well-run state school in our village? Are you mad? Why would you pay to get the inferior service?

3)Ishani, almost all reasonable educated people could teach their own child at infant level, without a doubt. They may not enjoy it but that is not the same thing.

Le queen, nicely hit the nail squarely, there.

Our school is so good because most parents are educated, well off and motivated .
So, they value education, they contribute financially which helps ALL children and they want decent standards from their children.

So if so many of you believe in this wealthy parents are smart - therefore their children are - they push up standards and demand better and then make state schools good -

Why dont we abolish private education now? Get rid of it now, all that wealth and superior knowledge will be distributed amongst state schools pushing up standards and giving a better, fairer education for all?

Because people have the right to spend their money as they want.

well, it appears that everyone on the latter part of this thread has amazing outstanding state schools near them with large catchment areas that encompass council estates and million pound houses and are populated by a nice mix of kids from upper middle class and deprived backgrounds. The system seems to be working perfectly and is in no need of an overhaul, some people must enjoy whinging.......

I'm guessing I must be in a tiny minority in that I had to pay an insane amount of money in order to live in the catchment of the (admittedly very good) local school.

But why should some people be allowed to buy advantage?

And why, if you are so motivated and your children so exceptionally bright, should you need to?

After all, you and your children are the saving grace of state education so why pay for something you can get for free? Please explain.

If there were grammar schools in my area, I would use them without a moments thought, (and yes, my DS would be one of those lucky 23% some grammar objectors harp on about as he is year 6 at his Prep school and Level 6 in everything thank you).

I will also add that Prep schools do not have better teachers and often don't have better facilities than some state schools, but they really do not have to deal with constant low level disruption from a minority of students. I truly think that the reason DS does well at school is that he is able to learn during the whole of his lessons, not just for 70% of the time, while the teacher has to deal with trouble and disruption for the other 30%. (Again - worked in one for 7 years and I know what it's like in an under-performing school)

I assume that at a grammar school, the same sort of ethos would apply, i.e. all the children there actually want and enjoy their education. I also think that coaching to pass the 11+ is wrong. Children wishing to enter a Grammar should sit some form of IQ test (like MENSA) which you cannot train for - that would soon decide those who had potential and would be fair to everyone, of every financial background. You can't fake IQ can you?

Chen23, the outstanding state school close to our last house had a very small catchment with houses 400k+ and many close to 1m. IMO, it made it very insular and not at all exciting or progressive. It hardly needed to be when 90%+ kids could read on entry to Reception.

KilledBill, same point answers your question really. I didnt want my kids in such a hot-house environment where SATs ruled etc. Where every child was white and most cars cost twice the average annual salary. Believe it or not, the independent school was a much more mixed bag. Many parents paying for school could still not have afforded the 750k price tag for the only house for sale in the catchment.