Are state schools beyond help?

[user1480880826]

I see so many threads on AIBU about state schools. There seem to be issues with teachers (specifically the lack of consistent teachers and number of supply teachers), kids behaviour not being dealt with, lack of resources, cost of having to subsidise underfunded schools etc etc.

Is the state school system really as dysfunctional as it appears on mumsnet? Should I be saving up to send my kid to private schools? You don’t see parents coming on here and complaining about their private school.

For those of you with kids in state schools, would you send your kids to private school if money wasn’t a problem?

Of course I know that there are state school parents on here. I was a state school parent myself for more than half my kids' education.

I think my comment was badly expressed. (Admit to hyperbole!). But how many threads really supporting schools and teachers do we see on MN? And how many rants about unfair treatment of DC, "unprofessional" teachers, useless schools, decisions which "should" be challenged, stray words or phrases used by teachers which have to analysed and then the teacher "called out on it"?

Primary was great - years ago - but it got worse. The same few people helping with reading, raising the money, supporting the school, others who just didn't care, wouldn't wear the uniform, wouldn't stick to the rules, always challenging the teachers.

If the parents are paying they are more likely to support the school and make sure the kids do. The facilities are often nowhere near as good as the state school facilities. (Not all fee paying schools are Eaton!) They are often small though, have tighter management, teachers with more autonomy and they don't waste money.

I am a huge supporter of state education but having been forced out of it with my SN son I went private - and the difference was huge.

It all the parents on here who send their state schools when they could afford to pay that are causing the dire schools to be so dire. State schools come into contact with the most disadvantaged children out society. They are the ones who need the most funding and the most resources. Unfortunately the majority of Britain treats the school system as a fee for all and there just isn’t enough money left over for the children who the government had in mind when they first started funding schooling.

@Dapplegrey anyone with half a brain will be running to wherever they can gets visa. It’s never ok for the government to be educating 100% of the population. No government should have that power let alone one under someone as amoral as Jeremy Corbyn.

But how many threadsreallysupporting schools and teachers do we see on MN And how many rants about unfair treatment of DC, "unprofessional" teachers, useless schools, decisions which "should" be challenged, stray words or phrases used by teachers which have to analysed and then the teacher "called out on it"?
You mean that schools aren't to blame when a parent buys a £120 pair of trainers instead of school shoes despite 3 letters, an email, the student planner, the school website and the information evening for parents says quite clearly 'no trainers'?

You mean it's not the schools fault when a child is sanctioned for talking over the teacher and disrupting the lesson? I always thought it didn't really matter because the student was obviosuly asking a quiet question about the work and has been sanctioned for asking a perfectly polite and reasonable question at an appropriate moment.

It’s never ok for the government to be educating 100% of the population.

I think there’s a UN law forbidding a government monopoly on education so I’m not sure how Corbyn and co will get round that - if indeed the UN can enforce it.

Lol @BogglesGoggles.
So, you want parents to pay £10,000 per year for their child to have an inferior (in their opinion) education at a private rather than state? Is that what you would do if you could?

For those of you with kids in state schools, would you send your kids to private school if money wasn’t a problem?

I had the choice. In fact I had three choices. Private, Grammar in the neighbouring borough, local non selective comp.

I sent them all to the local comp. All did well academically, were happy and made local friends who have stayed friends through university and moving around into professions. And of course it left all the disposable income to spend on extra music, travel, sporting/cultural activities. Plus when there was a transport strike in the middle of public exams they had no problems with their regular walk to school.

People will write about problems because "fred had a good week at school and is on track for good results" doesn't make news.
I have friends and colleagues with horror stories about the private sector - both have their good and bad patches.

People will write about problems because "fred had a good week at school and is on track for good results" doesn't make news.
This is so very true.

For every frothy, fuming MN thread, there are thousands of other parents and students who are getting on with their day.

When I started teaching a senior leader told me that you could get down focusing on the 1 complaint or unreasonable parent, but you've got to step back and remember that's 1 out of hundreds of pupils/parents, the vast majority of whom are happy with you getting on and teaching their child.

Accountability. That's only main difference.

When you pay for anything you have more input and sway.

Teacher very unlikely to talk down to parent who is directly paying their wage. Or fob them off etc.

kazzyhoward I agree with you totally on your statement : Money is, of course, PART of the issue, but lots of different aspects need attention too. Far too often, the money is spent on shiny new buildings which look good but are pretty pointless unless other underlying issues aren't addressed.
Many of the persistent problems in state schools could easily be addressed by nil-cost changes such as vastly slimmed-down 'Senior" Leadership Team, with smaller class sizes because more teachers are ... teaching. It's really simple, but it's the elephant in the room.

I would only pay for private school for the GCSE years , 10/11.

“Many of the persistent problems in state schools could easily be addressed by nil-cost changes such as vastly slimmed-down 'Senior" Leadership Team“

Bollocks.

We're in catchment for two brilliant state secondary schools (one comp, one grammar), they both beat the private schools hands down including exam results and have done for years. I really don't understand why anyone would spend their money on going private.

“I really don't understand why anyone would spend their money on going private.“
I do. It’s quite hard work giving your children the cultural capital they would get automatically as part of the fees at a good private school.

I'm very happy with my DCs' primary school. They are struggling with the loss of TAs which will impact DS1 as he has high functioning SNs. We are fortunate that we can buy resources to suppport him such as coloured exercise books and special scissors. For secondary, I don't have an obvious choice of where he will get in and which will suit his needs/ personality best. I've been a supply teacher so know a lot of the local schools but they are also changing rapidly.

We do have a general issue of respect for the value of education. That's from the government that uses it as a political football, and families that don't grasp its value for social mobility and opportunities.

I loathe the teaching by data culture that we currently have and that is a major reason for me to have left the profession for now. Pupils are young people with their own lives, and all too often complex lives. They don't behave according to statistical averages. Sadly the same schools tend to keep "failing" because of the difficulties that their communities face. They need a different approach of support that is appropriately funded. Schools can not solve all of society's ills on limited and dwindling budgets and an increasingly restricted curriculum with poor resourcing.

Stability is so important. Cutting the extraneous administrative crap and back covering that dominates a teacher's workload so teachers can focus on delivering quality lessons without burn out and staffing will stabilise. Stable schools tend to be the happier, more successful schools.

If money was no object, I’d have done state primary, private secondary, state 6th form.

Our town, probably much like many other towns, has 2 excellent secondaries, one of which is a faith school, 1 good and many struggling ones. The house prices are astronomical in the catchment for the excellent school and there’s minimal social housing in that area as well. The demographic of their intake is skewed by who can afford the houses nearest the school. It’s private/selective school by stealth.

Our local state school has had the worst results in the county for over 20 years. Houses are 40% cheaper, there’s lots of social housing, and 50% of pupils receive free school meals. it’s not a bog standard secondary at all, it’s a sink school. In one year my friend’s dd had 10 maths teachers, none of them a specialist. My children went out of catchment, but I know that my friend’s children of similar ability achieved 2-3 grades lower than ours did at a ‘bog standard’ comprehensive with a wide demographic. Even at the children’s secondary, English, maths and sciences in KS3 were not taught by specialists. They saved them for GCSE classes. There was no drama teacher, no money for school productions, and no staff willing to put them on as they were all doubling up subjects, etc. In my view it got by by the skin of its teeth.

Good school attract and retain good teachers, it’s self perpetuating.

We could afford private schools but don't as our DC are in brilliant state schools. So we'd rather not spend the money and save it for flat deposits etc in future.

Maybe we've been lucky, but we live in an ordinary house in an ordinary town. Our income is average and we work in unglamorous jobs in the public sector. My dc went to the local state schools and are now at top RG universities. Never had any tutoring. Their friends are mainly like them. MN would have you believe this is an impossible dream.

Gosh, the idea that sending your child to a private school actually helps the “poor” ones getting an education tastes so colonial.

Problems in schools
Staffing. What happens in Scotland is teachers slowly drift to the 'better' schools in the area and the 'poorer' schools have more and more recruitment issues, so a revolving door of supply, which means poor behaviour, which means more teachers want to leave.

What happens in England is teachers slowly drift to 'better' schools and in 'poorer' schools you either get a revolving door of supply or you get unqualified 'Cover Supervisors' since in England there is no rule that it has to be a registered teacher.

Resources :
Schools have fewer resources. In poorer areas there is Pupil Premium or Pupil Equity Fund but it has fairly specific things it can be spent on. Better off areas have parents that go to the school fair and fund raise through PTA and generally help support the school.

Behaviour:
More and more parents will not support the school with any sanctions. Local Authorities do not want pupils excluded. That child that threw a chair at you yesterday and told you they'd be waiting after school to stab you? They will be back in your class tomorrow after a 'restorative conversation'. The parent(s) will often blame the teacher for the poor behaviour while informing the school that they do not allow any detentions. SLT will inform you that they were perfectly pleasant 1 to 1 in their office for the chat so they think it must be the lesson being too boring.

Solutions : Make teaching a profession worth going into, and make it bearable to stay in beyond the first 5 years. Right now a degree in virtually any STEM subject will get much better pay and conditions in industry than in school. In Scotland you need a Degree (preferably 2:1 Honors, though they do accept less now staffing is so dire) and a Post Graduate Diploma and to pass a years Probation to be able to teach and for that you start at 26k with recent pay rise. Couple that with long hours, little support, 'clients' that can verbally and physically abuse you and little is done about it, an ever shifting curriculum and goal posts and its not top of many people's job list. Those 13 weeks holiday? Yeah funnily enough it doesn't tempt many people into the profession.

Stop cutting the education budget. Yes its an easy one as the general public see '200k budget for one school' and think its more than enough, when that has to pay for everything from broken boilers to light bulbs to photocopying. Department budgets tend to be so small they don't even cover the photocopying - essential with the ever changing curriculum. You can forget about up to date text books. Plus teachers generally will not want their pupils to suffer so spend their own money on paper and pencils and jotters and so on.

Seeing your local library close is a concrete thing - hearing the school got 50K less this year is pretty abstract. The school will still open, the children will still be in classes and you will probably never know that the teacher spent £100 of their own money to make sure every child had a pencil and a jotter and folder and that there are buckets in the top floor classrooms to catch the drips from the leaking roof that they can't afford to fix.

Allow actual proper sanctions in schools again. Its not a badge of honor that the LA had no expulsions this year, behaviour hasn't magically got better. All it means is that the little fuckers are still in the same school abusing the same teachers, but now they know they can get away with it.

Some state schools are excellent, some are dire. But the main issue is that fewer and fewer people are training to be teachers and more are leaving the profession after a few years so there are staff shortages across the country.

There is always the 'but nurses' 'but policemen' comments, but I think that teaching is the only profession out there where we can't actually refuse to teach a pupil who has been verbally or physically abusive.
Police can arrest people who are abusive or violent. Every GP and hospital has signs up that they can refuse to treat abusive patients. Teachers have no formal right to do that, there is a duty of care from employers but how that looks in practice is often a risk assessment and back in class.

The actual 'in front of a class' bit is generally awesome. It can make teaching feel totally worthwhile. The rest of the bullshit around that? That is why teachers are leaving the profession in droves. As I did after 20 years of it.

I have kids 5 and 2 and home ed. I went to private, DH to state. I wouldn’t have a big objection to a good private school (one downside is lack of exposure to Full range of social groups - but you get that at some state schools too in certain areas), BUT fees are now exorbitant. I noticed that even at good private schools you have some teachers that aren’t that great (though you get many fantastic ones who are well supported and resourced), so you may have to supplement even then with tutoring etc.

DH says that at his state school (considered good), there was quite a bit of disruption in class and they didn’t have certain subjects (eg no triple science, classics). Also v strict regulations on term time holidays.

So we’re home edding at the moment, but open to state schools (mainly due to the finance issue). If we were very well off then I wouldn’t object to private (but generally see it as not good value now that fees are so high).

I really don't understand why anyone would spend their money on going private

How immensely short-sighted.

We went private for primary because we didn’t get into the “excellent school” we were in the catchment for. Or any of the other 4 closest schools.

Turned out to be the best “accident” of our lives.

I am politically and philosophically opposed to private education.

Bit of course I can see why people send their children to private schools.

A thread full of MNetters going on about how marvellous their local state school is explains why threads about teacher stress or the teacher recruitment crisis or school funding issues don’t get the expected traction. It’s because they’re alright, Jack.

But even MNetters in the leafiest of suburbs are probably a bit blind to what is going on - teachers at those leafy state schools know that the quality of education is being affected by the current crisis.

Also it’s important to remember that most (not all) mumsnetters are likely to live in the more prosperous areas, where schools are generally by definition “better”. If by “better” you mean more families like us and better on paper results.

Interestingly, this does not seem to apply to mumsnetters who use private schools. They all seem to live clustered round failing, shit and sink schools.