to think the state should pay part of our private school fees?

[wolvesarejustoldendaydogs]

Don't jump down my throat! It's just a thought.

State schools are overcrowded and there aren't enough good ones. Private schools are expensive.

What if every child had a right to have their state school 'payment' (whatever it costs per child per year') paid to a private school? Obviously parents would have to top-up (probably a considerable amount).

That would create a bit of a market, with more choice, making private schools more affordable and state ones less overcrowded.

Or is it a stupid idea for a reason I will think of soon after pressing 'POST'?

I agree, Wolves, life isn't fair. Some children get to live in big houses, drive about in fancy cars, go on foreign holidays. But those things don't restrict their opportunities for the future. Unequal access to schools perpetuates social division. I think it is fair enough as a society to try and address that unequal access to opportunities. Other people don't (usually the people who most benefit from the unequal state of affairs). I don't think the fact that life in unequal in other areas is a good enough reason to throw up hands and not do something about access to opportunities in education.

Fayrazzled - do you know about the very significant problem in France of the failure of able children in comprehensive schooling? That able children not only fail to fulfil their potential, but end up with no qualifications?

Fayrazzled - of course, you're right that other inequalities shouldn't stop us changing a particular one. I suppose I think it's unrealistic to think that the unequal access to schools is the major issue in inequality. If they had to move to state schools, no doubt the parents who pay for private education would pay for private tutoring, extra music/sports lessons, etc. etc. Is that also wrong?

wolves lots of parents can afford music lessons or extra sports or a tutor, not just those that have enough money for private schooling. There are also funds for the poorest (currently those on free school meals) to get access to extra activities. There was also a fund for one to one tutoring for state students underachieving in maths and English. Those gaps are easier to bridge than a whole different school.

But Bonsoir, the French schools aren't fully comprehensive if private schools exist. I don't know the specifics of the French school system, no, but comprehensives can work for all children and provide a great education. There are some excellent comprehensives in the UK today doing just that. But not enough. And the reason not enough of them can is because the most able students are creamed off to the private and grammar sector.

wolves- I don't really mind some parents paying for music lessons or whatever if all children have fair access to a good school not dependent on their parent's wealth. Like you say, we can never make life totally equal for all children. Genetic inheritance makes life unfair for some children. But equal access to good schools would go along way towards making life fairer.

You don't know a thing about a fully comprehensive system, Fayrazzled. It doesn't work because DCs are just too different from one another to all need the same thing delivered in the same way.

I've never really understood what's so bad about comprehensives. In Wales, all secondary schools are/were comprehensives. What's the difference really between them and so called technical/sports/music/language colleges, which is what secondaries all seem to be now if they're not academies etc? DP even did supply teaching the other day in "xxxxxxxxx Learning Academy". It was Reception FFS!

Wales is not a high-performing country on international tests of pupil achievement...

I went to exceptional comprehensive in Wales. Their GCSE pass rate and A level rate were better than than any state school I've seen in England. Still is.

Sorry, I should add, than any state school I have seen myself here in England.

The majority of pupils got 9/10 GCSEs grades A-C, huge numbers got 10/11 As and three or four As at A Level.

Bonsoir, why would a comprehensive system mean that all DCs are delivered the same stuff in the same way?

At the comp I teach at we have high fliers preparing for Oxbridge and students who leave at 16 having done a handful of GCSEs, some BTECs and a motor maintenance course. The education that has been delivered to them is very different.

"You don't know a thing about a fully comprehensive system, Fayrazzled. It doesn't work because DCs are just too different from one another to all need the same thing delivered in the same way."

But that's not what a comprehensive school does.

Bonsoir, how you could possibly know I have no idea about a fully comprehensive system. You know nothing about me!

But it's clear you have no idea since comprehensive schools aren't at all about delivering the same thing in the same way! Why would a comprehensive intake of students mean that there was no differentiation within the school?

noble - but perhaps this idea (of just paying the 'top up' fees over and above the state contribution) would bring private education within the reach of many more parents - and mean that there were enough places at the good/outstanding state schools for all the others?

fayrazzled - but if private schools were abolished in the UK, then 'equal access' would only be true within our national borders - children in other countries would still have access to private schools in other countries? Does 'fairness' only count within national borders?

wolves- the world is divided into countries. Of course I don't like that we have a third world, for example, and that billions of children live in poverty. But in terms of the education system, I can only have an influence over this country's education system. And even then my influence is limited pretty much to my vote and my ability to inform those in power of my opinion.

But the fact poverty of opportunity exists in other countries is still not an excuse for unfair access to opportunities to be perpetuated in this country.

I wasn't thinking about poverty so much fayrazzled (although perhaps I should have been!). My career for a while was a very international one, so I was competing against people from many different countries - I was thinking, rightly or wrongly, that abolishing private schools could be seen to be unfairly damaging the international competitiveness of children in the UK..

• please note I am not suggesting that only privately-educated people can compete in the international arena, because that would be stupid, and untrue. But I am just saying that if private schooling allows some particular children to develop to their fullest extent when their state option would not, then abolishing those schools would damage their chances in international competition. IYSWIM.

But you see, I don't think abolishing private schools would cause us to become less competitive internationally or would result in some children not reaching their full potential. I think having the children and parents who currently use private schools in the state system would raise standards across the board. We would become more competitive internationally as a result.

Fay, what makes you think that all children don't have access to equal opportunities?

Private schools offer the same GCSEs and A Levels as state schools, they don't provide an opportunity for a different qualification to anyone else. If anything, selective schools provide less options at GCSE and A level, as the only tend to offer traditional subjects.

If a student comes out of a state school with 3 As at A level, and a private school student comes out with 3 As, or 2 As and a B, how exactly is that private school student advantaged? They are not. At least, not by anything that their parents couldn't have paid for in addition to state school had they chose to do so.

As wolves pointed out, there will always be people that have one advantage or another over other people, and those will still have an affect on outcomes and future opportunities. The biggest advantage any child can have is interested and engaged parents, you can't provide children with that by abolishing private schools.

Also, state schools are capable of getting good results. We have a local comp that gets excellent results, a diverse intake, and it's surrounded by private schools and two grammars, although those serve a huge area. Children are not disadvantaged by going to this school. They have every chance of leaving school with a university place if they want it.

Bonsoir - our top performing local comp manages accelarated groups who get A*'d English Bac, pupils following BTec and other more vocational courses, students on special supported plans within a specialist unit...streaming / setting within streams....that's what comprehensive means.

Outraged- if private schools offered no advantages over and above that offered in the state sector, why do they exist? Why do parents pay up to £25k per annum per child to send their children to them?

The playing field is not level and children don't have equal opportunities. If all things were equal 50% of Oxbridge entrants wouldn't come from 7% of schools.

Maybe I am in the same area Outraged as I find the same and the comprehensives have a long history of getting pupils to the best universities, so many parents opt for them as first choice over selective and travel, or private and pay. I did.

exoticfruits- that's great. We need more of those schools.

The advantage is smaller class sizes and in my experience, stronger discipline. The state could provide those things if it wanted to, and parents could discipline their own children instead of expecting the school to do it for them. Smaller class sizes will not provide more access to opportunities, which I thought was what you were basing your argument on.

The 50% of Oxbridge students stat that you keep quoting doesn't have as much relevance as you seem to think it does. Obviously, not all students are Oxbridge, or even university material. All parenst with children at selctive school have highly engaged parents who value education highly. That just isnt True of all parents who have children at comps, so i still maintainthat the biggest advantage or disadvantage a child has is its parents, not its school.

But the point is that the state can meet every students needs without getting rid or selective schools. Plenty of state schools get good results, plenty of others get rubbish results despite having money thrown at them under labour. The difference is parental attitudes, not schools.

Outraged- the Oxbridge statistic merely serves to illustrate that the playing field is grossly unequal. I realise that Oxbridge isn't the desired end result for all children.

And it is well known that engaged parents are the most crucial determinant of a child's future success. But that still doesn't mean that schools don't play an important role. (Because otherwise why would all those highly engaged parents pay so much money to send their children to one). And the reason they do is because on the whole it provides their children with a leg up over and above the children in the state sector. And it's that unfairness- where education becomes a determinant of parental wealth- that I take issue with. Because it promotes social division and provides better opportunities to a minority.