AIBU to feel that the ‘Labour against Private Schools’ campaign is a scapegoat for a lack of vision for educational reform?

[BusyMum1978]

2500 UK independent schools with 615K children attending which is 7% of the population of children in FT education up to the age of 16. A number of articles published this week have highlighted the campaign supported by Labour MP’s, who are calling for a number of measures impacting Independent Schools including their complete abolishment, and for these schools to become part of the state school system. A real hatred seems to be forming, and it feels to me like an easy smoke screen to put up rather than the Labour Party providing very specific policies to show how state funded education will be reformed.

I completely understand the feeling behind the imminent appointment of our 20th Etonian PM - there is urgent reform required in politics to have equal representation which I wholeheartedly agree with. I also understand the recently published stats showing accelerated social mobility for those attending top independent schools. I am not saying that there aren’t areas for improvement- but is the objective to bring more children up, or to bring the independently educated 7% down to make it ‘fair’?

My children both attend a prep school, and they are the first generation in both mine and my husband’s family to do so. We aren’t rich, neither of us have a degree, we own one property. We have -and continue to- work hard and made a choice to invest in our children’s education. We know we are privileged to be able to do so. To hear that MP’s want to wage a ‘class war’ with a family like mine feels inflammatory and yet more decisiveness in an already fractured country.

My children started their education in a state primary school but quite honestly it wasn’t good enough, and our heads were turned by what the private sector had to offer.

It equally broke my heart and inspired me to read The Times article on The Willow in Broadwater Farm school. Schools like this desperately need funding and further support, as do a range of children’s services which were cut during austerity. However will abolishing independent schools help a school like this? Parents who have money will still gravitate to the best areas / schools, and get tutors etc. There are a large number of selective state secondary schools that require heavy tutoring to access.

We need to nurture brilliant young minds in this country, to plug the UK skills gap, and compete in a global market. The independent sector has a valuable role to play.

Progress and globalisation is happening at such a rate that it’s becoming a bit uncomfortable. Many jobs our children will do haven’t even been invented yet.

The independent schools could work more closely with the state sector, but it concerns me that this campaign is chasing an ideal, and if successful would just shift the problem elsewhere.

HorridHenrysNits, nobody is attracted to this idea. Of course the rich will always be looking for ways to defend their privilege. But it does not mean that the rest of us should just sit on our hands and do nothing like good little serfs.

You are not going to improve the current system. The current system is shit. It needs a total overhaul. We need to work on the erasure of systemic inequalities in our society, not beg those on top for crumbs to invest in the schools they have no connection to. But neither can we just exclude them and do things without their involvement. They are, after all, running the country.

Some people here have mentioned special schools. To be fair, though, I am sure that any sort of action taken against private schools would exempt special schools.

I can however see that there might be some "grey" areas. You know--the sort of slightly alternative "nurturing" private schools that emphasize the fact that they are a caring environment without too much pressure and providing small classes and lots of individual, and which (although they don't actually say so in so many words) are the sort of schools where you send your kid if they have a slight learning challenge (dyslexia, dyscalculia etc.) and you have got enough money to buy them an alternative. These schools are used by parents who have got enough money to spare to pay for them, though most will not be super wealthy. But it could be argued that they fulfill a need and provide a helpful and kind alternative for kids who don't do well in the target-driven mainstream sector. Is it right to take this away from everyone because many people would not be able to afford it?

I'm also musing about the status of private schools which "specialise" in something or other--drama or sports or schools which are bilingual and allow kids to study in another language as well as English. Again, do you take the stance that "why should rich people be able to buy their kids a nice specialty education that other people cannot afford?" or do you take the stance that "the country as a whole may benefit from kids with talent being allowed to specialize in their particular areas because society benefits from having some top sports people and actors and bilingual/biliterate people"? I am genuinely pondering this because I don't know what the answer is.

There was a thread on managing sports for primary school age children when both parents are working. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/3621085-How-do-you-take-time-to-take-kids-of-primary-school-age-to-sports-classes?messages=100&pg=1 The general feeling seemed to be that it is hard to managed both parents working FT AND have kids who do sports "seriously" and that private schools which offer sports might be an alternative if both parents have serious careers. I don't actually like sport myself but I know some people do value sport, and then there are other specialist talents areas too like music and so on. I just wonder if it would be a good thing if we created a situation in where supporting a child who was talented at sports or music or whatever would basically require one parent (usually the mother) to scale back on work and put their career on the back burner, because the option of both parents working full time and paying for a "specialist" private school was no longer an option for them.

ALL children deserve quality education. To say otherwise is pure child abuse and criminality

Isn’t it fortunate that nobody has said otherwise.

Lifeandjoy, you forgot to include avocado toast on your list.

Should tutoring also be abolished? Parents with money pay for tutoring. This is equivalent to private education. Those who can afford, or sacrifice to afford will give their kids an edge.

Should labour abolish that too?

The only solution is communism. Stop people from being able to pay for tutoring and private schools. Stop people from purchasing property in good areas with good schools. Total clampdown on any avenue for people to use their money to pursue better opportunities.

JacquesHammer, the majority of the people on this thread are saying otherwise. All they can talk about is choices. Or how they could not cope without the wonderful private school system. No thought is given to the nature and ethics of those choices or why the UK state school system is so bad. The majority of people on this thread are completely cool with other people's children not getting a decent education as long as their own children are taken care of. Politics of pure individualism.

Lifeandjoy - I don't care about tutoring at this stage. It's a minor problem compared to the massive problem of structural inequalities inherent in the national school system. I don't give a shit right now about whether people decide to pay for tutors or not. What I care about is every child being able to go to their local school and for that school to be a good one. Let's get this sorted first, and then think about side issues like tutoring if we are bothered.

Tutoring is not a minor issue. Over a quarter of state secondary school pupils have been tutored.

No pissed off, several people are. Its been claimed more than once just on this thread that parents who now use private schools would then go state instead and use their resources, influence etc to improve the system by their involvement. It's not being a good little serf to question this assumption, its being more sensible and realistic than the people who hold it. You can make whatever arguments you like for the benefit and necessity of their involvement in the state system, but they arent going to listen.

I could cope, we've done state school and it's fine. But I can get more than fine by paying for it. I don't feel remotely guilty as I pay taxes to fund state schools whilst not actually using them, so removing a burden on the state while simultaneously paying for it .

... and avocado and toast.

Also, while Labour is at it, they should ensure we all get the same net wages. Otherwise there will always be people who have more money than others and who want to use their money to pursue better opportunities.

And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, before you say anything else about the evils of communism, you may want to read up on the education system in the Soviet Union and remember that it was that communist education system that got the country from the literacy rate of about 25% in the pre-revolution days to putting the first human into space in the space of 44 years, with a major war in between.

For a lot of parents they have turned to the private sector because they have tried the state school and it hasn’t worked out.

Ds did online schooling.

He was in the state system and didn’t read at all till I took him out and taught him myself, he was 9. He started at secondary school but he slipped back and we pulled him out again

How is Labour supposed to teach all children when atm if your child doesn’t attain the right levels at the right age then you do feel that their education stops and you are made to feel if you don’t like it then you don’t have to stay.

The HE community has grown hugely in recent years

All these type of policies are very short sighted.

Those that can afford to will send their children abroad, so sending millions of pounds out of the country.

Those that can’t will either HE or end up “taking over” certain schools and those that can’t afford to live in the catchment area will be forced out and we will still have that barrier between the haves and have nots

Not all private schools are the same as normal schools.
Dd went to a specialised private school. They only did academic lessons for 1/2 the week.
There was a queue of people trying to get into the school.

How will these type of schools work in the State sector when admittance is not based on where you live or academics

Utterly ridiculous

HPFA

Yes, I think this debate really hinges on the quality of state schools in your area and your own experiences.

I'm in the North, and the state secondaries in my area are simply not good enough. There's one extremely expensive private secondary nearby that hardly anyone can afford. And that's it. Parents have got to the point where private tuition for state-schooled pupils is pretty much a given. At that point, you've got to wonder why you are even sending your child to school in the first place.

The next constituency over has an even worse situation. It's a choice between a school with significant gang problems, segregated along ethnic lines, and a school that has poor ofsted results.

We are already seeing groups of parents homeschooling in groups and buying in tutors because they have no other options.

And I'm sorry pissedoffprof, but your comment is naive. Abolishing private schools will not do anything for the schools in my area, unless ethos, culture and behaviour is changed and that change supported all through the system and through government.

Indeed, if there were cheaper private schools, a quarter of the intake to state would probably vanish overnight.

Abra1de - well, we better work on the improvement of the school system so tutoring is not so necessary. And how do we do this?

Make the state schools up their game and private schools go out of business. This has happened with prep schools now that common entrance is dying out. People send their children to state primary schools. We did this for all but the last year because the state primaries are good and we liked the community ethos.

HorridHenrysNits, I think it is entirely reasonable to assume that the majority of parents who now use private schools will send their children to state schools if private schools are abolished. Even among the 7% not many will have the resources to send their darlings to board in Switzerland or whatever the alternative is.

I wonder how many people who’s child is facing a comprehensive in special measures where the head of Y7 tells you not to send their child there if they can help it and who can easily afford a Private school would firmly stick to their Socialist Principles? (my DH didn’t)

With less than 700,000 kids being educated privately ... it is ludicrous to put the blame of poor state schooling on the shoulder of this small population of students and their parents

Very true - but so handy to create hate figures to distract attention from governments' own roles in wrecking education. Worse still because those figures are already paying twice for their child's education, effectively subsidising the state sector rather than taking from it

Of course state education should be improved, but it's not going to be done by the type whose politics are those of sheer envy

Tutoring is a minor thing??? You clearly do not know about the education system here. Tutoring is a bigger problem than private education.

People with money buy better education through tutoring. It would be better if they paid taxes towards state schools and not use it. Those who have money, who take up places at very good state schools because they can afford tutoring and houses in good areas are a bigger problem.

Private schooling is a convenient scapegoat but abolishing them would solve nothing.

Abra1de and how are you going to this this without money? This whole "make state schools up their game" has been going on for decades. Nothing is happening. It's a dead end road designed to maintain the current power structures.

Labour's campaign against private schools will simply reduce the quality of education available to all to the lowest common denominator. It will also abolish this income stream for our country from abroad.

It is strange that a party which advocates equality of opportunity actually abolished the direct grant scheme so that bright youngsters from poorer homes were no longer able to access fee-paying schools at all.

Abolishing fee-paying schools will, of course, not lead to equality of access to good education. Witness all the MC parents buying costly houses in the catchments of good schools, tutoring their children, etc. and the T Blairs of this world getting their children into the topmost state schools.

PissedOffProf

I think the problem is some of the parents of in particular white children in areas of low aspiration. I think you need more youth clubs and more time on sport and more time spent with adults with higher expectations than their own families have for them. More nanny state.

Teachers shouldn’t have to do their work unsupported.

Do you really think boarding in Switzerland would be the only alternative puzzledsndpissedoff? Lots of us have already pointed out the long history of the wealthy educating their children at home using private tutors. But no, someone paying 20k a year per kid because they judge it to be necessary isn't going to explore any other alternatives if the school is shut! No way any parents will band together and pool resources, tutor share etc privately. I certainly dont doubt that some will end up in the state system, though not at any of the schools where their presence would be most beneficial aside from the odd scholarship kid, but most? Nah.

Lifeandjoy, well then, seeing that we cannot abolish tutoring either, what can we do? You seem to suggest that we have not choice but to continue as we are since there is nothing we can do. People who have privileges to defend will always find excuses.