WARNING this is a state v private education thread

[icarriedawatermelon2]

AIBU to feel that this is so unfair and that my DS should have the chance to experience all this? AIBU to feel really quite crap and that I have failed him?

To cut a long story short he is at nursery in an amazing prep school. He is there because it is on our door step and the nursery package was the best around in terms of flexible hours, extras etc. Anyway thats not the issue.

The issue is I have seen just how much is available to the children there but more importantly the amazing care of all the students, small classes, amazing setting, child centered learning, freedom to climb trees, etc.

We would be killing ourselves to send our children there :(
Our local state school has a lovely head, but is full to bursting, no space outside etc etc lots of heart there but you just can't compare the two schools.

My DC are every bit worth the best IMO! It makes me MAD that we can't afford it :(

Ok rant over....feel better for getting it out.

Shagmund. That sounds awful, really awful. And it is unfair and must seem like everybody else has a better time of it than you. I'm sure that if you met my dc you'd think they had a perfect life but in reality they have a severely disabled dad which limits every part of our family life. That's why I feel so strongly about getting on with things and 'muddling though.' You have to otherwise you will get dragged down x

@flatpackhamster. But I saw when I was there that the Oxbridge system wasn't picking the best. Their selection procedure struck me as pretty hit and miss actually - yes, those who were on track for firsts often were something special, academically, but they only made up about 20% of the intake. For the other 80% I firmly believe that flipping a coin to decide which of the rest of the applicants to take would have been just as good - and possibly better - a selection method. The interview skewed things towards a section of the student body who had been trained to pretend they had what it took (but didn't really).

When you say "Oxbridge are looking for something more". They should be but atr least when I was there I don't think they were pcking it.

I just realised my last post could be misinterpreted. What I mean is not that all the students at Oxbridge aren't very bright - they are - but that, apart from a small minority of future-hot-academics, I think the difference between applicants who get in and those who don't is luck, not ability, and part of the luck is private school.

Interviewing is a life skill. Oxbridge interviews are not.

Amic - make private education available to hard working, well behaved and bright kids that is.

Haven't yet seen any offers to take the difficult children off the hands of the state and lesson the burden on teachers and children in comprehensive schools.

Shagmundfreud

why didnt you hive off your DD to church, independant, grammer school?

Private education is now so cripplingly expensive that effectively you could pay for ALL the kids in the state school to have say, Letterland books or a trip to a safari park or extra French classes, and it would still be cheaper than even one term at private school.

We figured that we'd keep our in the state system and top up as necessary... Unfortunately it occasionally involves having to just hand large cheques over at various fundraisers as the head won't accept a cheque just for whatever they need, she has to get about 50 other parents involved which is deeply tedious...

Weirdly as adults the friends we have who were state school educated are doing much better than their privately educated peers. Couldn't say why but just done a mental tally and it is definitely so.

Much dark muttering amongst my parents friends by those who have forked out thousands over the years whose DC have not really achieved and are barely self supporting. Obviously this is all anecdotal but private school not a panacea or a guarantee of success over a working lifetime.

This thread has been really interesting to read. We struggled with deciding whether to go private as my parents were both very anti-private sector and I was too. But the nearby state primaries are terrible. They all have an extremely high proportion of pupils with poor English. Most lesson time was spent teaching basic English, which was extraordinarily helpful to the non-English students (who were lovely children and very well-behaved on the whole) but didn't help the English-speaking pupils at all. We wrestled between sending dd to a Church primary or to a private primary. We have moral issues with both.

In my experience, private primary schools seem to teach their pupils how to pass SATS and private secondary entrance exams rather than educating them with useful information and enthusiasm for knowledge. Obviously a bad state primary won't do this either. Only a minority of schools (either private or state) do this, which is a real shame.

My closest school is an amazing prep for girls - private and they have an extraordinary strong focus on kindness, listing acts of kindness in the newsletter and also other non core subject achievments. The pupils are amazingly polite and well behaved.

Most children from a calm and encouraging background dont need to be given a thirst for knowledge its there or it isnt.

Can't really be bothered to get into this again but have to say the argument that if fee paying parents started using the state sector if would improve dramatically is just utter tosh.
Firstly, 7% would barely make a dent and secondly, those people who pay mostly live in areas where the state schools are also populated by families who care a great deal about their children's education.
As I've said before, it would be outrageously arrogant of me to assume that removing my children from the private sector and sending them to the local school would somehow better that school.

Yes, it would, and it would also be to miss the point rather.

Well the point being made earlier was that the state system could be improved if those who pay chose state instead. I personally don't think that argument holds any weight.

Given that the people who choose to pay contain some of the most powerful people in the country, I think removing that choice from them might be a bit of an incentive for them to improve the state system, no?

Perhaps, but they constitute a tiny % of that already small 7%. Many of that 7% are day pupils whose experience is vastly different.

I pay for small class sizes and day to day experiences. The state system is woefully underfunded; I know because I taught in it for many years. It is failing many children but many more are receiving an excellent education. But it could never afford to provide the excellent all round experience that I believe I am paying for.

"why didnt you hive off your DD to church, independant, grammer school?

Why do you think? Because we're not church goers, and we don't have the money to go independent. The local grammar schools are packed with children from the local private prep schools, and those who've had years of tutoring, whether paid for, or at the hands of committed, skilled and determined parents. DD wouldn't have had a cat in hell's chance of getting in, despite being in top sets for everything at her primary.

If I could do my children's childhood again I probably would do things differently. I'd have changed my whole parenting style to make my children far more compliant and malleable, and have made them do work after school every day, hugely restrict television and computer games and spend every spare penny and hour tutoring them to make up for the deficiencies of their primary school.

But hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I didn't really consider I'd have to parent and raise my children in a way which is completely unnatural to me and DH in order to ensure they had an equal chance at education. Reading and talking to them, taking them to museums, loving them and playing with them - not enough these days. You have to be focused on passing some fucking stupid exam at 11. There's a nuclear arms race going on with tutoring round my way and some of us just haven't got the funds or the will to compete, we just want our clever children to have the same chances as other clever children.

Well the point being made earlier was that the state system could be improved if those who pay chose state instead. I personally don't think that argument holds any weight.

It doesn't because (i) the public schools system is negligible so would make zero effective difference, (ii) it ignores the postcode hypocrisy of many who poo poo private education, which is all that this would revert to, and (iii) I'd bet nothing would bring back grammar schools faster than the removal of public schools.

Great post, Shagmund.

The state system is underfunded but, equally, due to political correctness, it does not make the most of the money it does have. If you ask most parents what they want from a school, 99% will tell you they want a great academic education for their children. They will not talk about ICT, exposing their children to different cultural experiences or how to be inclusive to those who do not speak English properly. They will also want disruptive children to be excluded and won't really care what happens to them post exclusion. They would also want any teacher incapable of teaching their children to be sacked with very little leniency or chance for re-education.

All the above is what happens in private schools plus small class sizes and the country club experience of nice grounds, good sports, exposure to music, theatre etc. All of the last bit is "nice to have" but not essential.

There is a horrible hypocrisy in the political correctness of those who set education policy with a politically correct "inclusive" agenda but either pay or manoeuvre their own children into schools whose sole mantra is a great academic education. The left is particularly hypocritical in this regard.

Yes I agree with that larry.

larrygrylls - what have you got against ICT? Am genuinely puzzled by this - policy-makers of all political stripes now regard learning how to use ICT as an essential part of a good education. What's your objection to it?

Laughing my socks off at the idea of 99% of parents wanting a great academic education for their kids.

Shedloads couldn't give a tupenny fuck.

They want the disruptive excluded. But not theirs.

Hack,

I have nothing against ICT. However, I do think reading and writing come first. ICT is a big budget item in most schools. I am not suggesting killing it but just spending a lot less money and time on it and reallocating the resources to basic teaching and basic teaching resources.

@larry. I'm also a bit confused by the distinction between ICT and a great academic education: I'd consider that an education that doesn't involve the basics of computer science to be woefully lacking.

Obviously, yes, you need to be able to read before attacking ICT, but the same is true of history, or modern languages, or science, or anything else really...