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.

There's 2 problems here.
Firstly, lots of those who are anti private schools have in their head not your average independent day school but somewhere more akin to Eton. They assume elitism, spoon feeding and very wealthy parents patting themselves in the back and welcoming each other to this special networking club. Your average indie simply isn't like this. Kids arrive at 8.45 and go home at 3.40 either by lift or bus. There is no tails or high teas, just a standard canteen. What many parents are paying for are the superb sports and music facilities. A broader choice of subjects being offered and in some areas, a 6th form.
The second issue is this default idea that by using the private sector we are somehow taking something away from the state sector. Our state sector both here and where we previously lived and went to Sch in Cheshire is thriving. All high achieving schools packed with well supported and motivated kids and backed by interested often well educated parents. I was/am taking nothing from those schools by making a different choice.

There's 2 problems here.
Firstly, lots of those who are anti private schools have in their head not your average independent day school but somewhere more akin to Eton. They assume elitism, spoon feeding and very wealthy parents patting themselves in the back and welcoming each other to this special networking club. Your average indie simply isn't like this. Kids arrive at 8.45 and go home at 3.40 either by lift or bus. There is no tails or high teas, just a standard canteen. What many parents are paying for are the superb sports and music facilities. A broader choice of subjects being offered and in some areas, a 6th form.
The second issue is this default idea that by using the private sector we are somehow taking something away from the state sector. Our state sector both here and where we previously lived and went to Sch in Cheshire is thriving. All high achieving schools packed with well supported and motivated kids and backed by interested often well educated parents. I was/am taking nothing from those schools by making a different choice.

Minifingers, inequality of education provision happens within the state sector too, and it's not usually because of the education being offered, it's because different schools have different challenges according to their intake, and therefore have differing priorities.

But as education doesn't begin and end at the school gates, there will always be equality of education. I take the point that what the state provides should be the same for everyone, but the fact is that it's not, and until that's addressed it's pointless attacking private schools for the reason that they give something different.

I believe that schools are communities too, but I don't believe that taking the most educated and the most privileged away does anything to the others. Either way, the children from those families aren't there to serve the children from the families that aren't educated and aren't privileged. They go to school to learn, not as a favour to other people.

But if you do believe that the most privileged, educated etc being taken away from one school is harmful then you need to state what the benefit would be for those children you want to bring back. Where's the benefit to them? They have to have something to gain when they are being denied the thing they already had, because unless it works both ways, then you are simply saying you want to penalise people for doing well in life, and that's just wrong.

The majority of the country's population does not exist for the sole purpose of making the lives of the disadvantaged and disengaged better. They have their own lives to live.

Harmful it is in the way that privately educated children take up university places and jobs provided by the state.

Not all jobs are provided by the state. Do you have the same objection to state school pupils taking private jobs? No, thought not, because that would be ridiculous.

Privately educated children are as entitled to university places as state educated children. They will pay the same amount in tuition fees, they will be taxpayers, and they are still citizens who are part of society.

I honestly can't have any sympathy with an argument that wants equality, but then complains that everyone being entitled to the same thing is wrong.

yes, you ABVU.....

people who have money can afford better "stuff", including education. that's life. trying to change this is just unrealistic. life is unfair. deal with it.

the more children in private school means more £ pp for children in state schools.

would you ban private health care as well?

yes, there's people whoa re better off that you, but there are also others who are a LOT worse off than you. count your blessings and stop moaning.

I personally feel that as a parent it is my right to opt out of state education if I do not agree with the system in any way.

As long as the law states a child must receive an education rather than stating that a child must be educated by the government in a state school I will exercise my right in whatever way I see fit , whether that be home ed, hiring a tutor or sending them to an independent school.

I agree with NancyJones that "the local prep" has been conflated with Eton etc.

Read up on communism vs capitalism.

I'm glad we don't live in communism. Sounds bloody awful.

Ps. If you can't use your money to buy better things then where is the incentive to achieve anything at all?

I agree too Truffle.

I know for a fact that my children are recieving a better education, and better pastoral care, than I ever recieved at my private school. And they have more extra curricular clubs to choose from than I did.

Many private schools are nothing special, they don't all have some kind of old boys/girls network going on preventing state school kids from ever getting a chance at job opportunities.

Sorry? Privately educated people shouldn't have jobs now? Christ on a bike these are some big chips on shoulders.

I pay for private primary school and I don't pay for superb facilities. I pay for tiny class sizes, great teachers and a real feeling of a little family. The local state school is nothing like this. I will be paying for private secondary too because the local secondary school is awful and I want better for my children without having to move house.

It's about whether you see just your children as important or whether you see all children as important.
Benefiting everyone is important to me and my kids will be part of that. I don't want me to do better at the expense of thousands of others.

I see all children as important. However I want different things than some parents.

My sil for example likes SATS & she thinks children should have lots of homework. She likes the format of the national curriculum & numerous other things which means she is happy with state education

I decided we wanted to opt out of those things. We chose a school
That fitted our expectations, I doubt shed be happy with it. Likewise I have friends with children in highly academic private schools but impersonally wouldn't be happy with certain things they do in the way they do it.

But what if the school is set up for the good of the majority and your child would benefit from something different? My child learning a wider range of subjects wouldn't be at the expense of others.

But the local school can't spend the money on more language provision or even offering more than 6 subjects at 15-16 age range, as only a minority would benefit. It was said that as the average Scottish student got 6 exam awards at 16 that is all local council feel they have to offer. It's just a pity if you have a child who could do more.

Its a ridiculous question because there are so many different types of private schools.
Many that have been described are so far away from some that it is a stupid assumption to assess them as one particular type.
After 2 of my dc attending the local sink and not much better secondary schools, I never thought in a million years we'd be looking at a very selective, specialist private boarding school for dd.
You do what is best for your child with the resources you have, surely.
Those who say they wouldn't go private as a matter of principle then you are putting principles before your children's best interests if you would turn down the right school for them just because its fee paying.

ItsBetter

If your only option was the most awful school in the county, with permanent police presence, knives, guns, drugs, would you send your dc there. A school that gets the local headline news for suicide, attacks and teachers few and far between because no good teacher would go there.
This is the school my ds1 attended, luckily he kept his head down, didn't wind anybody up and behaved himself. It was a daily battle for him and he deserved better, it was a typical borstal. The school my ds2 attended was much better than this a nice CofE school but unfortunately not a good school in terms of teaching.
We have the opportunity to send dd to the best school in the world, (for her), I don't care who else can't go here, I'm sorry but neither would you.

itsbetterthanabox My children's private education is not at the expense of anybody else's. They haven't taken anyone's place and they aren't taking anyone else's funding.

I love the idea that if Eton was forcibly closed and the boys were sent to state schools in Slough then miraculously those schools would improve.

Etonians are adolescent boys. They'd look at the prevailing culture of the school and conform. It's what teenagers tend to do.

Private schools should be banned.... from raising their fees every year by more than 2%!
That is the only thing that really annoys me about DS'S brilliant prep school. I love it, it is fantastic, but yet again fees are going up by 4%.

Have you never looked at your own children and felt the most overwhelming sense of love and responsibility and adoration?

nah, that's why I can't be arsed doing anything other than throwing them into the local comprehensive, obv.

itsbetterthanabox if you have the same starting point eg only one type of school then how would it lead to everyone having the same education when you factor in different variables eg better at some subjects than others, better teachers ect.

grovel

I totally agree, it works in the opposite way too, when my ds1 went to the school I mentioned, it would have been so easy to have conformed to be bad, that was the culture that prevailed. I am so proud he fought against it and I know if ds2 different personality completely had gone to this school he would be dead now, or at best in prison.

Private education isn't anybody's expense. However, preferential treatment of private pupils is everybody's expense.
Like grammar schools -- they're supposed to be for children who are bright, but places are filled with those who get privately tutored.

But I am actually concerned with making sure all children receive a decent standard of education. I'm a state Sch teacher myself (although not working at the moment) and I happen to consider myself good at my job. I will return to the state sector when my youngest goes to school.

DH pays very hefty tax. We do not try and avoid this or complain that he pays more in tax than I would earn. We both believe it's right he pays more because we are fortunate that he earns more. We both think it is right that much of that money pays for things we do not use or need such as the benefits system and state schooling. This is part of living in a fair society. It is also because DH grew up on one if the most deprived council estates in Europe yet made it to Oxford. If he hadn't had free school meals and a decent education goodness knows where he would have been.

And I'm not in the business of being patronising and looking at state education and deciding ' oh that's the bare minimum, that's sufficient.' I think all children deserve good facilities, inspiring teachers and an education that opens the doors they deserve.

What I chose to pay for is over and above this in terms of spotting and music facilities. Visitors, workshops etc. lots of things that many of my state using friends chose to also pay for, just doing it outside of school. One friend has two boys (10&12) at local state schools. They are taking the boys to India for 4wks in summer. Last summer they toured Aus&NZ. Her boys do rugby at the weekend and are members of the same climbing club as my boys. My boys have no more advantages in life than hers do. I use my money for an almost inclusive experience, she choses to spend hers a different way. Her eldest is also at the all boys church secondary which I would pay to actively avoid. Not because it's a bad school at all, far from it but I do not wang either religion or single sex education to be part of my boys' education.

Nataleejah Children at private schools don't get preferential treatment over state school children. Nobody has chosen my children over somebody's else's and nothing's taken away from state educated kids by me paying to educate mine. It's just that the state doesn't feel the same way about education as we (all, not just fee paying parents) do. When the state start sorting out the vast differences in state schools then I'll think, and probably do, differently. It's not going to happen during my children's academic careers so I'll take whatever action I need to to make sure they get what I consider to be the best for them.