to wonder why people send their children to private schools?

[TheStripyGruffalo]

People I know have done it for various reasons a) because they want their children to get all A* grade b) because they don't want their children mixing with the people at the local comprehensive and c) because they think it looks good to have children at a private school.

If you send your children private do you mind saying why? I'm genuinely interested (and I'm not a journalist). We didn't choose private schools because we thought our DC would not be comfortable being amongst the poorest families there.

The way state schools are judged means that they have to care about % A* to C grades above all else. The private school I went to opted out of the local exam board for one subject because they didn't think it was academically rigorous enough. They also chose to swap to boards where coursework made up a lower % of the final mark. State schools simply couldn't make those choices.

I think the lack of disruptive children pissing around is a factor as well. State schools have lost most of their sanctions against disruptive pupils. Private schools boot you out if you persistently disrupt the classes.
That was the main thing my son noticed when he started at the private school. The smaller classes and the fact that everyone sat and got on with the lesson so he felt he learnt more because the teacher was allowed to spend more time teaching.
I doubt that the teachers are any better, they just spend a higher percentage of the time actually teaching.

Less risk averse, mine had large grounds to play with and tree climbing was encouraged

You need to think on .state schools normally don't encourage tree climbing at school for insurance reasons.Why would insurance companies impose different conditions for maintained schools academies and independent schools? They wouldn't.

M4Blues- in terms of race, certainly.

And yes, it is perfectly possible to live in a middle class bubble outside school- my own children largely do. That is why I don't want their school to be the same.

Come on M4 diverse is not just about race though we all know it. If you are say white English middle class lawyers you will feel you have more "in common" with a family of nice Indian middle class doctors than you would with the the family of the lady that cleans your house. I don't buy that private school is diverse schtick for a moment.

I am 59, my lovely village school continued for some years after my cousins had left.

Brioche - I don't know why, but tree climbing was encouraged, probably less dangerous than playing rugby. The youngest left 10 years ago, so H&S may well have clamped down on all the fun by now.

Parents of any class background can have high expectations of their children if they choose to.

Yes, they can, and many of them do, but they can't all afford private schools

I don't think it is low expectations of parents who can't afford private school, I don't think that is what was meant, it is the low expectations of the state system and the schools themselves.

My DS was kept on the same reading level and not given any extension work at all for 18 months as he was at the required level and apparently there were limitations to KS1. IMO this is not good enough, at the point of DS starting school we did not have enough money to pay for private schooling but this did not mean our expectations were low.

maybebabybee - and that is not the fault of any of the parents though, many schools are not meeting the needs of the children attending there so what happens to those who do have high expectations but cannot afford private?

"My DS was kept on the same reading level and not given any extension work at all for 18 months as he was at the required level and apparently there were limitations to KS1"

That wasn't because it was a state school, that's because it was a school not doing it's job properly.

It's interesting how one bad experience with a state school and they whole sector is condemned- one bad experience of private and it just wasn't the right school.

I categorically do not agree that 'all state schools have low standards'. They don't.

I don't really want to go into it on this thread as I have had this same discussion on mumsnet a million times and it always ends the same way - but for me it comes down to a few things

1. my own, personal experience of state school was not that it had 'low expectations'. I went to an inner-city, mixed sex comprehensive composed of 75% boys and a very high number of children with EAL. Yet I managed to come out with good GCSEs, AAAA at A-level, and graduated with a first from a RG uni. This came down to the fact that the vast majority of my teachers were very good, and also that my parents encouraged learning and wanted me to do well. This always gets hotly contested on here but I honestly do believe that parents have more to do with how well their child does than the school. If you have parents who don't think education is important you're at a disadvantage whether you're at a "sink estate" comp or City of London School for Girls.

2. I genuinely believe that the fact that private schools exist is a major contributing factor behind social inequality. I don't send my DC to private school because I don't want to contribute to that. Maybe some parents would see that as not putting their education first, but honestly everyone has something they feel incredibly strongly about, and this is mine. I really, strongly disagree with private schools (and grammar schools) on ethical grounds, and therefore I could not send my DC to one for much the same reason that an atheist might not be comfortable sending their DC to a catholic school.

3. I went to a university with a high proportion of privately educated children and they all seemed to fall into one of three categories. One, they put themselves under the most enormous pressure, frequently in tears etc if they got anything less than a first, insanely neurotic over studying etc etc etc. Two - they were quite confident and laid back about studying but they were massive snobs and thought that they were better than everyone else - I'm sorry if that makes me sound like an inverted snob, and I'm sure there are some privately educated people who don't think like that, but that was honestly my experience and I have to say it still is today. Three - they'd never enjoyed the private school experience because they felt they were only there to get good results for the school and if they were less academic then they weren't worth anything. One of my best friends attended a very prestigious, well known central London private school for her A-levels. She was put under so much pressure there that she got a stomach ulcer (at 17!) and ended up dropping out and taking her A-levels at the same state school I was doing mine at. She's a doctor now.

Sorry for essay. I guess for me it just comes down to this - what's more important to me, that my child gets 12 As or that they are socially responsible and that they mix with children of different backgrounds but get maybe one or two less As? For me it's the latter option every time.

I have not once condemned all state schools or suggested they ALL have low expectations, surely the whole point is that I am commenting on my own experiences and also what is available to me school-wise to me. There are no spaces in the good state primaries in our LA unless you are in catchment so that was all that was on offer to me unfortunately, there are some fabulous state schools out of catchment which offer the same opportunities as my DCs private school but I would be paying to move house to a more expensive area and still would not be guaranteed a place.

Maybebaby - I feel the same as you regarding your last paragraph. Hence why I chose the school that was right for my DCs and not some flash, posh, selective private school. People seem to have a skewed view of all private schools, they are not all the same, no different to how state schools vary.

b) because they don't want their children mixing with the people at the local comprehensive

^ this was a large part of why I was sent private. My DB and DS were a little older and sent to local comp, they had moved from 200 miles away where the comp was excellent.

Sadly the new one was dire, and they endured tons of bullying and in the end dsis tried to commit suicide db gave up and fell in with the crowd and had some jail time .

They needless to say both came out with no grades. Being good and doing well was a very small minority, so my DP decided not to take the considerable risk with me and end up with a dead child or one in jail.

So they sent me private and I don't blame them at all.

If I chose private now, for my dc if I could afford it, it would simply be for the extra curricular activities, and the small class sizes.

I prefer smaller schools, rather than huge human factories.

Bertrand, Yes but their catchment school would be just as much of a middle class bubble.

KERALA, I didn't say that private school was diverse. In economic terms, of course it isn't. It would be disingenuous of me to suggest otherwise. I said that my children's prep was more diverse than my catchment primary. Both full of affluent professional families but the catchment primary is almost exclusively white which the prep is not. So in our case yes, there is more diversity in the independent school we have chosen even if that diversity is limited to race.

I teach in the state sector and we categorically do not have low expectations. Certainly not of the children. Quite the opposite in fact.

Private schools aren't necessarily small schools. The class sizes in my son's school were small but the school itself was fairly good, which we saw as a good thing because a larger range of subjects could be taught as more money for specialist teachers.

fairly large not fairly good.

If that was the case for all schools and teachers M4 then I would not be commenting on this thread at all.

There are lots of parents like me who would never have considered private, even knowing we could afford it, if our schools had higher expectations of our children. I was told that there was no group they could put DS in so he had to stay on the same level as the others and that their reading scheme didn't go any higher, that is just one example. Many other children exceeded their expectations at the same school so it wasn't all bad, the children actually made good progress from starting below average (according to ofsted) and finishing above average, just not a good fit for DS.

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If you don't know, go on, have a guess. No googling!

" was told that there was no group they could put DS in so he had to stay on the same level as the others and that their reading scheme didn't go any higher, that is just one example."

But that's not state school, that's just rubbish teaching. Noting to do with the sector.

Zany, of course it will vary. Some schools, indeed some teachers are shit. In both sectors. Like in every job.
I'm a fee paying parent but I certainly don't think that teaching is intrinsically better in the private sector. I do think teachers in the private sector can sometimesvretain their motivation and enthusiasm longer. I have seen secondary colleagues who were once inspirational and now suffer from depression and MH issues as the job, and often poor SLT snd LA support, have just slowly eroded their spark.

I was in a real quandary when looking for a secondary school for my DS.
He went to my former primary, however I went to an all-girl secondary school so that obviously was not an option.

DS is bright and likes a challenge. If left to his own devices, he would 'coast'. We live in a black hole as far as schools for boys are concerned. There were two that he would have been fine with, however we only fulfilled over-subscription criterion No.8 and for the past three years both schools didn't admit past No.3.

DS sat the 11+ and he liked both the grammar schools he could have gone to, however he didn't love them. The travelling would also have been tough; 1.5 hours each way (which is longer than my commute to work).

He cried when we visited our catchment school and begged me not to send him there. When we arrived for the open evening, two police cars and an ambulance were outside; a pupil had assaulted a teacher. It has the airport-style scanners checking each pupil for knives on their way in. Only 25% of children got 5 GCSE's at A*-C and it was in special measures. There had been four head teachers in the past three years and the current one had just been suspended for suspected fraud. The place was filthy, smelled of vomit and had graffiti covering most walls (internal and external).

DS's eyes lit up when we visited one particular school - it's 9 miles away from our house but he was very high up the list of admissions criteria (fulfilled No.2). He asked if he could put this school above both the grammars which we did, and he was delighted to get a place.

The catchment school and DS's school (both co-ed, state) are about 8 miles apart.
DS's school is set in acres of well-kept grounds. It has a pool, separate gym and sports hall and a fitness room (weights/rowing machines etc). There are national champions in five sports and national finalists in seven more (sporting aptitude is one of the admissions criteria). They teach four MFL, including Mandarin. Provision for music/drama is also outstanding; the school has its own theatre.
A*-C GCSE pass rate has been between 82%-95% for the past three years.

As a single FT working parent, pastoral provision was high on my list. They have breakfast club (can get on site from 07.30, hot food from 08.00) and there is after-school homework club till 18.00 four nights per week.

The range of extra curricular activities is fabulous...everything from 'grow-your own' and bee keeping to robot building and debating society. There are about 30 different activities to choose from. DS's form has 24 children (co-ed).

If I had no other choice but the catchment school, I absolutely would have sent DS private. As it is, I am thrilled that he's absolutely thriving and enjoying his school as well as being pushed academically to achieve his best.

It's shocking how state schools can be so completely different to each other in such a relatively small area.

I think Eton take about 250 a year. So from 13-18, about 1200?

Zany, that was terrible professional practice. Did you raise a formal complaint at the time? I do hope so.