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.

seeker There you have it though. 30% of parents in Richmond do go private!! Reason, we have great primaries and secondarys, and three rapidly improving ones (that should never have been allowed to be shit, they served the same demographic) but as a result of years of mismanagement and bad planning the Council only provide school places for 70% of the borough's children. If the number going private was equivalent to other affluent London borough's eg Kensington, probably more affluent, they would need to open two new 5 form entry schools. Instead they open an quasi private exclusive Catholic school. Granted we shouldn't sit back and accept it, and I have got involved in holding the Council to account but at the age of 4 all that was ever on offer to my DC in terms of state education was a portacabin on the playground of a failing school miles away, the only option for 200+ children for whom there were no places in local schools. The Council minutes even explicitly said they could rely on a fair proportion of these surplus children to be deterred into the private sector!! We took the hint.

The issue is the patchiness of good state education provision even in affluent areas. I think OP does need to focus on what she can do as opposed to dwelling on the frustration but there are some outstanding schools serving some of the most deprived areas of London, there is no excuse for them not all to be.

Indeed, sanityclause, that is equally true.

BUT if we had a true state education system, it is more likely that ALL schools would be better and Child A wouldn't need tutoring etc and Child B wouldn't be disadvantaged by the lack.

I am a bit confused by the assumption that home learning is only for the privileged few.

Go on Kahn Academy and brush up on your algebra and geometry. Get a textbook and learn basic Latin with your kid. Get on Amazon and buy Lord of the Rings secondhand, then read it with your kid. Discuss. This rivals a private school education.

This costs nothing, or pretty close to it.

All parents who love their children read them bedtime stories.

*^ Somehow I doubt there are any children at Eton whose parents didn't read them bedtime stories.

Do rich parents love their children more then? Sorry if you don't mean that, but it's an incredibly dodgy thing to say.*

I don't think it's dodgy to suggest that reading to your kids sets them on a path to success. Where does love come into this? There are a lot of parents who don't read to their kids at night.

Amen to that, Saski.
But.... to some it seems like too much of hard work. Sadly.

Agree Seeker - it does sometimes amaze me that there is this view that sooooooooooooooo many children go to private schools - when in fact the majority of UK children are educated at state schools.

Schools provide education for those who are prepared or want to learn. The more support parents can give the better. I think most teachers would say that they would be thrilled to bits to have students who were keen to learn. The fault does not lie just with the schools when kids fail but also with the pupils and parents too.

rolls eyes at assumption that it is impossible to get a good batch of exam passes in a 'crap' state school

I teach in a 'crap' state school and yet we have had cohorts of pupils who I have taught in exactly the same way as previous years and yet they have swept the board with A's and waltzed off to medical school in large numbers.

I always tell my Higher classes that my course works if they do.Only a small number really get that, or get it in time to make a difference to their final grade.

It is not the schools therefore that are 'low achieving', it's the pupils. And obviously there a myriad of reasons for that, and quite frankly I'm amazed some of my pupils make it in to class at all, given what's going on in their home life.It's not as if only private schools are staffed with qualified teachers, and in fact in Scotland you HAVE to be qualified to teach in the state sector, not so in the independent.

Ultimately, any uni department is going to be far more impressed by 5 A's from a state school than an independent because it's a more reliable indicator of student motivation and ability.

Might be hard to start, I suppose - but it's fun! It's quite hard with little ones (teaching them is truly an art form) but for older kids, you can re-learn and remember geometry or start something new entirely, and when you see the penny drop for your child - that's an amazing thing.

Of course it's not fair. In case you hadn't noticed, life isn't fair.

It isn't fair that I can't shop exclusively at Chanel. It isn't fair that I'm not spending this week in Chamonix. It isn't fair that I drive a Ford and not a Jag. It isn't fair that I don't have long, dark, glossy hair.

Suck it up.

I was the first one I think to mention reading to children at bed time as another "unfairness" and yes most of the best parents do do that and I recommend that those who don't start to do so. However I never said you cannot love a child and not read to them. I just used it as another example of unfairness. Plenty of children who love their children cannot read.

HullyGully.

When Baby B came home from his/her '30 in a class, not enough one-to-one attention, reading etc' class, his/her parents talked to him/her about the day, read the school books together, did the maths, etc, borrowed books from library to supplement the topics taught at school.

Borrowed exiting adventure/travel/story books to read at weekends. Did writing and craft projects.

Went to the park to run races, play ball and climb trees and climbing frames.

Babay Bs parents took him/her to the local pool and taught him/her to swim.

They visited museums etc and talked about what they have seen. They did things together and were there for Baby B.

And so on and so forth.

Well, my DS recently left Eton. I know he was privileged and think that he sees that now as well. At the time (though he was happy there) he just thought it was very hard work.

Some posts on here seem to imply that schools like Eton just print out the GCSE and A Level certificates in advance (with a default setting of A*). The boys there are worked very hard and have to organise their own lives/work (there is no set time for prep etc) without any parental support.

With the benefit of hindsight I now think he would have done as well academically at our local Outstanding comp. I'm pretty sure that he would have done much less well at our local less-than-Outstanding comp. The school fees were an insurance policy.

I stand corrected. Reading is just so very important to children and I am such an advocate for it, that sometimes i forget that there really are loving parents, who simply can not read.
What tragedy for them and their children. However, there is help out there and plenty of adult learning centrs I'm sure.

Schools provide education for those who are prepared or want to learn

This is so true. It is up to parents to encourage and demand the children perform to the best of their ability.

I don't understand how parents can feel that just doing work at school is sufficient. Ime, without regular home learning, especially in math and science, there is no way you can excel in those subjects.

It doesn't matter if the class size is 10 or 50 - if two students with equal capability were in put in different classes, one with 10 students and the other with 50. And the one in the large class, revised math and science for an hour or two everyday at home, they would outperform the student who didn't. No question about that.

Any parent can create an environment of learning at home. It has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with motivation.

This is an argument that could rumble on for years! For what it's worth, we moved 100 miles away from family, bought a cheaper house than we could afford, only had one child & I got a full time job all so that DD could get the best education. We realised soon after she was born that she had much potential & little concentration span, so decided to change our whole lives to give her the best possible education. Anyone can do private school if they are determined.
I agree that not everyone would want to make the sacrifices we've made, but unless you are unemployed there are always options!

The OP also brings out the old chestnut of the prep school school children with their "unfair advantage".

DD1 is at a superselective grammar (top 5%). Her junior school, while private, does not prepare for grammar tests, as it is expected that all girls will go automatically to the senior school. Any preparation for the grammar was therefore down to us.

She was never formally tutored, but she did do quite a lot of practise tests, at home.

Any parent can do what we did. Particularly parents who are well educated, themselves (and with an MA and PhD, the OP and her DH beat my and DH's BScs hands down, in that regard).

A friend has 3 DDs at the same grammar. In the year her DD3 started, there were 11 girls from her state primary who got in (opposed to 7 from my DD's private school in her year).

The unfairness is not in the wealth of the parents, but in the fact that some parents don't care enough to do what it takes. And I'm not sure that is something the government can do all that much about. Even in a communist country, some are more equal than others.

^ I don't understand how parents can feel that just doing work at school is sufficient.

I never actually said that. I was challenging the notion that the Education Act requires parents to do that extra work if their child is at a state school because state schools are so 'basic, dahhhhhhhhhhhling'.

rollmopses - I really want to be ChildB, I feel a strong yearning for ChildB's life

I still find it ....not sure how to put it.....mind-exploding...that there are people who think it would be better not to be born than to be state educated.

And wot Beveridge said

I still find it ....not sure how to put it.....mind-exploding...that there are people who think it would be better not to be born than to be state educated.

That's a bit of a simplification, I think - what I've heard is that people have decided to have fewer children so that they can privately educate them. Why be so emotive about it? Following on your logic, there's probably a lot of people who feel that it would be better to not be born than not have your own bedroom.

Taking these sort of economic realities into consideration when planning out your family doesn't make you a dragon.

So who said that, seeker?

If you mean people choose the size of their family depending on their means, then that could be extended to say, I can't believe people think it's better not to be born, than to, say, share a room with a couple of siblings.

Or, I can't believe people would think it's better not to be born than to, say, have a SAHM.

Xpost with Saski

People have said it in this thread. I won't highlight them- that would not be fair.