To think private schools should be banned?

[BethanyBoobs]

Why should someone have a better education just because their parents have money? Why should someone have a better chance of getting into university because their parents paid for their education? It makes me feel uncomfortable that people can buy their kids an upper hand when it comes to education.

I feel the same way about private health care too.

IMO private schools should be banned. Everyone should have the same chances when it comes to their education.

Trebizon, what you describe is really limited to high fee, public schools where children board and become their own little society. This simply doesn't happen at large independent day schools where kids go home every day and keep in contact mainly with their good friends in the sand day they would at comp. Parents at these schools paying 12kpa rather then 30kpa+ are not really buying their children exposure to a social elite. These schools make up the majority of the private sector.

tebizon I understand what you're saying about contacts.

TBH, I think this is overplayed. I'm not certain 14 year old boys will be friend forever once they leave school and give each other jobs years later.

However, the type of parents with great contacts that they can call upon for their DC, will have them regadless of what sector of school their DC sattend.

Contacts, are after all just people we're in contact with. For most of us that doesn't mean fellow parents. It means work colleagues, people we're politically affiliated to, people we socialise with etc.

Same way they would at comp

More schools can be built to accomodate the influx of new teachers ?? WTF? Obviously new schools would be in place - the old private schools would be made into state schools- this providing more jobs for the teachers who need it ...

Facilities do not make a good school, esp at primary.

In my experience, private education promotes the mediocre; many of the 7% who attend private schools would fail in the state system, and do, when a family crisis means the money runs out to pay the extortionate fees. Selective entry, small classes, SEN properly catered for, selective curriculum, discipline and sanctions applied that are not allowed in state schools, teachers less stressed, and parents who are far more supportive because they are spending their own money; who wouldn't flourish in such an exclusive system. And those who are likely to fail or buck the system are quickly removed, and left for the state schools to cope with, or charged huge fees to cover 'disruption.' We used to have admission by ability for secondary schools, not the lottery; much fairer.

odaat. Maybe you're referring to a very specific school? The majority of independent schools own their own buildings (or lease them privately) and pay their own staff salaries.

And your post seems to suggest that you think you're talking to idiots. You're not.

Where would the state find the money to purchase all these large state school buildings? I'd say the buildings and acreage of my kids last two schools would come to 5m at least. Who would pay for them to be absorbed into the state sector?

Where would these new schools be built? There's certainly no room around here to build more houses let alone schools. The schools around here are full to bursting. More so. Just to put you in the picture there were 600 applications for the 60 places at our local primary. There are 2500 pupils on a site for 1700 at the secondary.

What would happen to my daughter's prep is that the owners would sell off to the highest bidder - as is their absolute right - which would be a developer and change it into houses.

Trebizon - I think the 'socially exclusive peer group' thing might be true of a small handful of highly selective schools (Eton, Westminster, St Pauls etc) but really does not apply to the vast majority of private schools, which take a broad range of children from generally middle-class but not exactly elite/oligarch-level backgrounds.

My DCs go to private schools, and the parents of their friends are doctors, lawyers, accountants, taxi drivers, academics, writers, midwives, estate agents, small business owners etc - not a billionaire or a politician or a royal to be found. The social mix is very similar to the families at the state primary school they both went to, in a solidly middle-class area. But then they go to private day schools (former state grammar/direct grant schools which went private in the 1970s, I think) not boarding, and we are not in London.

I went to private schools from the age of about 9 (one until O-level, one for 6th form) and I can honestly say that no one I met at school has ever been remotely useful to me for career or social-climbing purposes. Which university you go to might be more useful in that respect, but although I went to Cambridge, I have never used any of my contacts from there to get a job or anything like that.

If the government own the buildings the banned private schools are in (hmm) then surely they'll do something much more profitable with them once empty than use them for state schools?

Sorry, that should obviously read as, large private school buildings.

More schools can be built to accomodate the influx of new teachers ?? WTF? Obviously new schools would be in place - the old private schools would be made into state schools- this providing more jobs for the teachers who need it ...

How do you pay for these privately owned buildings? Do you just take them?

And how would the ate keep them?

Lots are old buildings and have large facilities. DC prep school had a bloody army of groundsmen just for the grass and bloody hedges!

If it became a state primary with its pools (indoor and out), it's playing fields, cricket pavillion, gymnasium, squah courts, science labs, music room and pottery kiln, I shoul dthink the parents at the existing state primary would become rightly disappointed with their 30 by 30 concrete playground!

I think some people would be surprised at how preoccupied a lot of "private parents" are with the state system and how much they want it to be as good as it possibly can be.

It's not just fluffy altruism. We want our DCs to become adults in a prospering, internationally competitive economy. For that we need a well-educated society from top to bottom. We also don't want our DCs to feel they have to spend their incomes on school fees for their eventual offspring.

The private schools could be used for state schooling. Where there is a will, there is a way. Defeatist attitudes on the matter will get us nowhere ladies :)

Obviously this is all in theory, sadly I do realise this is unlikely to ever happen in a capitalist state uber concerned with class. (Hence why I intend to leave this sorry country behind in the future ) :)

YY @ Grovel! A good quality high achieving state sector is very important to society as a whole and therefore it's important to me despite the fact we don't personally use it.

"what you describe is really limited to high fee, public schools where children board and become their own little society. This simply doesn't happen at large independent day schools where kids go home every day and keep in contact mainly with their good friends in the sand day they would at comp. Parents at these schools paying 12kpa rather then 30kpa+ are not really buying their children exposure to a social elite. These schools make up the majority of the private sector."

I disagree NancyJones. I had a private education. It was not a nationally famous, high fee public school.

It was a local 12kpa school. Its alumni are not, for the most part, sitting on the front bench of parliament or in the boardrooms of FTSE 100 companies (though some of them are). But the students of that school, and the dozen schools like that in this city, do very much comprise the social and financial elite of this city today. Many generations of people have sent their dcs to the same schools, so there are wide and deep social networks. The students do largely maintain the friendship groups they developed in school, many choose from quite a narrow range of degrees in quite a narrow (though excellent) range of universities, and work in similar fields and often live in similar areas.

This is true of many 'lesser' private schools in 'lesser' towns and cities all over the country. The same effect is simply more obvious when transposed to elite boarding schools and positions of national power.

It's interesting because if you say you would like society to ensure every child has decent shelter, no one assumes you don't care because you live in a detached house.

And they don't insist you sell it and give the monet to the state to house all those DC who are currently in hostels.

Yes, yes. Education is so much better in say, the rest of mainland Europe or America. My experience of Italy is that the school system - both private and state is terrible. Far, far worse than the UK.

But Odaat, who is going to pay to buy these schools? How many LEAs have millions waiting around to purchase large often listed, high maintenance buildings sitting in 40+ acres? Or are you actually advocating some form of communist state take over?

Ah but they should Worral. If I was in power I would :) but thats just the fierce social liberalist in me ;)

The private schools could be used for state schooling. Where there is a will, there is a way. Defeatist attitudes on the matter will get us nowhere ladies

It is nothing to do with class and everything to do with asking where the government would find money to buy these state schools?

Buying Eton would be fun. 70 listed buildings and hundreds of prime acres along the river in Windsor.

I think the university issue is a fair one.

So many DC from private schools (not just public) attend the same small number of institutions.

I suspect you could make some very decent contacts indeed during three years at Bristol .