Private schools - want to shout IT'S NOT FAIR!

[Yermina]

Went to PIL last night and heard all about sil's children's school. One of her boys is already attending a fantastic private school. Just found out his two brothers have also got places at very good private schools.

In the mean time my dc's are in classes of 31 at the local state school. My youngest needs additional support (sn) but isn't statemented (diagnosed but no statement) so doesn't get it. SIL's middle child has got into a mainstream private school that has outstanding support for children with dyslexia, which he's been diagnosed with. And will be in classes of 18.

Our middle ds is musically talented but there is really poor provision for music teaching at his state school and very few children there are learning an instrument. We struggle to pay for music lessons for him outside school.

Is it wrong of me to feel eaten up with jealousy and anger at the unfairness of a school system which privileges the children of well-off people so openly and seemingly without anyone else seeing it as something that's wrong or deeply, deeply unfair?

How would you explain to a group of children: you lot over here will have XXXX spent on your education, and lots of opportunity to develop your talents, and you lot over there will have about half as much spent on you, and will have much less attention from the teacher because there'll be twice as many of you in the class. Oh, and you kids with sn or specific gifts - unless your parents have money, you probably won't get the help you need to thrive educationally.

I know it's the way the world is but at the moment I feel bitter about it. Really really bitter. And jealous

Every time I go to my PIL's and have to hear about all the amazing thing SIL's dcs are doing at their school, their academic achievements, I want to go home and hide under the duvet and cry.

We'll never, ever be able to afford private education. We'll never be able to afford to move to an area with really good state schools. We'll never be able to get our children into church schools as we're not church goers, and our local grammar schools (2) are bursting at the seams with children from the local private prep schools, who bus their students in to take the 11+ en mass.

It's just so fucking unfair. It really is. I just want to get that off my chest.

That is all.

"try doing something proactive rather than just reacting"

I am.

"Supplement it with home learning, tuition and extracurricular activities if you cannot afford private."

And what do you say to the children whose parents can't pay for these things, and can't provide them themselves because they themselves are uneducated? 'Tough luck?' You're happy that the state - roughly - should adopt this stance towards the children of the poor in relation to education? You think it's good for the UK as a whole to take this laissez fair attitude towards education?

Do you really think this is morally acceptable?

I have to admit I am slightly horrified at this idea that just because it is something provided by the state it should be in some way inferior. 94% of people in this country go through the state education system. They are the workforce of the future, and they will make up the majority of that workforce by a long chalk. If this country is going to make it at all, it needs bright, committed, focused people who can cut it in an international market-place, not drones who function at the lowest level because they have never had their potentional teased out and fully realised in the way that a proper education can.

I am also horrified that teachers in the state education system should be aspiring to no more than this, just because they are funded through taxes. Fortunately, most of the teachers that I know both as friends and at my son's (state) school also do not subscribe to this view depressing, limited view of the potential that a good state education can unlock.

Children's centres were GREAT.

They've closed about half of them down in my borough.

Yermina
So basically the children of the poor and uneducated will continue, by and large, to be poor and uneducated, because inequality perpetuates itself.

Unless the state steps in and attempts to redress the balance.

It stikes me that what we actually need therefore, is everyone who can afford it to pay for their children to be educated privately, leaving the hard-pressed state to support only those who can't. When it is not paying for everyone's education the state will have more to spend to educate the poorest. Therefore the 'poor' should perhaps be in favour of private education.

Wallison - did you see my link to that article about state education in Finland.

Could not be more different to the attitudes towards schools you find in the UK.

The UK is fixated on social selection in education.

Our system is riddled with it.

No permanently - what we need is for EVERYONE to feel like they have an investment in making the state system as excellent as possible, so that state schools don't become ghettos for the poor and disadvantaged.

Socially selective education is harmful to our country. It needs to stop.

Yermina.

Many state schools are great, many are poor. My ds1 went to a poor one. They had far more benefits in terms of support, encouragement and standard of teaching than many outstanding ones. FFs he was only there a few months, gained 3 levels in science and was presented with a lap top. This was because all the money dedicated to improving the poor schools in the area was directed to his and another school. My ds2 went to an outstanding Faith school and it was diabolical in terms of the above.

The education act states that it is the responsibility of the parents to provide an education for their children be that school or otherwise. Many parents do not realise this and think it the responsibility of the state.

OP- you say Finland has a comprehensive education system, where people of all backgrounds are educated together alongside one another- you fail to mention also that Finland is the worlds most homogeneous society; this has a huge effect on rates of learning, as teachers are starting with an homogeneous group with common life experiences, values, and expectations.

Life isn't fair- it's all about survival of the fittest. You don't need money to be adaptable, quick-witted and hard-working (though obviously if you were all those and wealthy, you'd likely go far). You can do more to support your children as things stand I'm quite sure, particularly in the music/tutoring area.

The education act states that it is the responsibility of the parents to provide an education for their children be that school or otherwise. Many parents do not realise this and think it the responsibility of the state

This.

Yermina Finland is a very different society, very egalitarian. When students decide at 16 whether to follow the vocational, rather than academic route, there is absolutely no snobbery or difference in value attached to the two streams. They will also have had the same teachers throughout, selected from the top 10% of graduates and entirely empowered to teach their pupils, no national curriculum, no testing and exams. They work shorter hours in the classroom so they have time to prepare for teaching all abilities. DD's friend went back to Finland at 10 from a british system international school and immediately was taught separately from the rest of her peers since she was so far ahead. Now she is at the Stockholm School of Economics. Both British society and it's education system is so far from that as to be on another planet, let alone another country, and it is hard to see whether it is chicken or egg.

In the meantime all we can do is to try to improve what we have got, to be fair at my end of London our borough is trying to do that but it hasn't got the school places available for those who attend their schools let alone the 30% who go private, a large proportion of whom do so because there are not enough school places, and save them from the consequences of their crap management and planning. I speak as yet another mother who went back to work to pay for it.

However, South East London? I know it is not the answer for your ASD child but I was involved with a very sad family whose sons basically found themselves without a functioning parent (worse than that a positively damaging parent), no money, but Dulwich stepped in and went way beyond the bounds of in loco parentis, without them DSs would either have been uprooted to us or gone into care. Instead they emerged the stronger. It had nothing to do with money. I cannot recommend the school enough

The only way to remove socially selective education is to have lottery allocation for all schools (including faith schools).

State education is selective according to house prices. In my LA it is cheaper to send a child to fee-paying schools than it is to move into the catchment of good state schools.

That's a misreading of the act. It states that children need an education. However, that duty is discharged by the act of taking children to school, or by home educating them. You're not supposed to send them to school for six hours a day and then educate them at home as well.

YABU

I went to a cruddy all girls comp in the arse end of wales - I happened to have amazing parents, they taught me table manners, t say please and thank you, to respect my elders, to be open minded, to be kind, to have respect for others and that my best was good enough.

I survived my school, I now have an amazing career, not due to my schooling which was shocking, but due to the confidence my parents gave me.

I have 2 DS and would like to send them private, so they don't have to do the state school fight like I had to, but it's looking like we can't afford it - that's life I will teach my boys the same values and cross my fingers.

Your SILs has spent a lot of money on a school, obviously she has an interest in saying how wonderful she think it is, she are not going to turn round and admit it's not that great (I checked out the cost of our local private school and if I had £36K pa to spare to pay for my children's education I'd be raving about how good it was too, even though it's in a corner of the playing fields of my kids' excellent state school).

Life is not fair and education isn't the half of it. One of my work colleagues lost his wife when their youngest was just a few months old. That's unfair. Fight for improvements to your school and don't worry about comparisons with your nieces and nephews, you won't know who has had the best education until they are all a lot older and you can see who has been the most successful in life. It won't necessarily be the ones who have had privilege handed to them on a plate.

In an utopian world where everyone had a uniformly excellent education and level of parental support there would still be huge unfairness in society at the end of each child's education. Whilst the child may have made the most of their individual potential, people will still have wildly differing attributes. Some people are just born with abilities or characteristics that others do not have to the same extent. These would put them in a more advantageous position in later life and in any work place - memory, creativity, beauty, physical strength or health, ingenuity, craftsmanship, analytical ability etc...These are things which can often be enhanced by education and parental support/lifestyle but are naturally present far more strongly in some rather than others.

A uniformly excellent education system in which everybody participated would level the playing field. It would improve social mobility and make for more fulfilled young people but what happens on the last day of school - you realise then, if not before, life is still unfair.

Sure, but at least those advantages would be something to do with a person's own characteristics or determination, rather than simply how much money their parents had.

What I'm saying is, you can at least make the playing field as equal as possible, rather than saying "Oh well, life is unfair anyway, so it doesn't really matter if there is structural unfairness built into the the system". Surely that is the right way to approach things.

*"Supplement it with home learning, tuition and extracurricular activities if you cannot afford private."

And what do you say to the children whose parents can't pay for these things, and can't provide them themselves because they themselves are uneducated? 'Tough luck?' You're happy that the state - roughly - should adopt this stance towards the children of the poor in relation to education? You think it's good for the UK as a whole to take this laissez fair attitude towards education?*

Yermina, you do realise that home learning, tuition and extracurricular activities don't cost that much money if you can sit down & do it yourself? Even if you're not educated yourself, you can learn together? There are now loads of support groups you can turn to in that case if you need help. My mother tutored me for my 11+ (got a scholarship) and my father or uncles took me running & swimming every weekend to the local park or leisure centre. Didn't cost anything, and I loved every minute of spending time with them.

And yes, my DC is going private - but I have been saving for fecking years to afford it. If you think that is wrong then tough.

Not really wallison, because the advantages conferred upon a person by wealth are present even before birth, probably form conception really.

Even if everyone in the country received a stellar education there would still be many children going home each night to no supper, cramped living conditions, mouldy bedrooms, caring duties for a disabled/elderly relative etc etc etc. All those things impact on how they grow, develop, and how much of the excellent educational knowledge imparted to them they retain, and can apply.

Many, many children would still be failed by the system, because it allows their (non-educational) needs not to be met.

Yes, there will always be poverty. Doesn't mean that there should be though. And it certainly doesn't mean that the disadvantages brought about by such poverty should be exacerbated by a two-tier education system.

Just because people are unequal, does not mean that it is therefore ok to deliberately build structural inequalities in education as well.

Genuine equality of educational opportunity would obviously give us a far more meritocratic society but it still wouldn't be a fair one. The issue is whether the OP is bitter only about the opportunity or the potential outcome for her children in contrast to her SIL's children. I think whatever most parents profess they are just as interested in the outcome.

It actually annoys me more that we pay the taxes we do and the education system is anything but first rate.
The head of the school my children went to in the uk once confided they actually spend less per pupil than the state schools but they are able to employ there own handy man which keeps costs down, stop children stealing text books, impose accountability for children vandalizing things and all this ensures better value for money for the school which is run like a business and keeps the teachers teaching because there's enough administrators.
State schools are getting there but there's so much waste.

Private schools can eject their vandals/thieves, Mosman, as can academies, but other state schools can have financial impositions put on them for booting such types out. So they swop them about with other state schools, or just keep them in the school anyway. This is not the school, it's the government who impose exclusion/suspension target. So easy to meet them; stop excluding the little shites.

Of course it is unfair, pretty much everything is unfair.

It sucks, but it isn't going to change.

I learned pretty early on that if you can't beat them, join them.