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.

Jasjas your family gatherings must be tense occasions since you disapprove of private education and boarding and your brother’s children do both

Why would i let my political opinions get in the way of a loving family environment? i'm more peed off he avoids paying much tax.....

Do you read what is written or just make stuff up in your own mind? i said there are no guarantees NOT that drug addicts only come from the private educated sector.

well yes I'll admit that was a bit facile. I can't find any figures on where MPs' kids are educated. I did find stats that Tory MPs were disproportionately privately educated (45%), 29% of MPs overall, and that one in ten MPs were at Eton. I would imagine that their children are disproportionately privately educated, but I can't find any data to back that up, which is probably as it should be in terms of data protection.

"So every single politician who has children educates them privately?"

No, but the majority of conservative politicians do.

Interesting that the point about teachers not caring what parents think was do summarily dismissed. I’ll repeat the point - I had to drag my LEA literally to the door of the SENDIST, with counsel instructed and ready to pulverise them, before I could get the fuckers to listen to me. You’re asking me to accept my magical presence as a parent would make the state system better? Try living what I’ve lived through - or, you know, use your imagination. Jesus wept.

Politicians - from all parties - who don’t pay for private school can, like other wealthy families, use their resources to access popular state schools.

Where we are you actually need to be spending more on rent than fees to get close to the best state schools. For us to rent a 2 bed in the catchment of the local outstanding primary would be at least £2k a month, which is much more than we spend on fees. The system is never going to be 'fair'.

I would be interested to hear of any campaigns Mumsnetters had run to significantly improve their state education. Highly educated wealthy 'private school type'' parents I know have struggled to get local over-subscribed state schools to accommodate children's life threatening allergies (meaning child wasn't in school full-time) or stop bullying. Parents felt homework was them basically teaching the curriculum in the evenings as classes were too disruptive during the day.

Loopytiles - couldn't agree more. I find the fact that there are some extremely good state schools (that politicians and the well connected seem to use) and many failing state schools far more scandalous than private schools.

Loopytiles - couldn't agree more. I find the fact that there are some extremely good state schools (that politicians and the well connected seem to use) and many failing state schools far more scandalous than private schools.

Sure. Like Blair and the Oratory.

The system is never going to be 'fair'.

Again, you're assuming that the current catchment system is immutable. It isn't.

...and Nick Clegg and the London Oratory. And all those MP daughters at Greycoats...

As for actually banning private education with adequate notice, this is just bonkers.

This is really London-centric so my apologies Jaques et al, but do you honestly think that you're going to force the super-rich of Zone 1 into state schools?

They can simply start their own school and call it a home-schooling consortium.

It's a completely bonkers idea, and the only government that could actually pull it off would be a fascist one. They'd have to send agents around with clipboards, pulling children out of their own homes and depositing them in state institutions.

There's a middle ground of people who might be swayed, but hard-nosed educationalists and/or the super wealthy would not yield.

one in ten MPs were at Eton
Blames - I don’t disbelieve you but I’d be very interested to know where that figure comes from.

They can simply start their own school and call it a home-schooling consortium.
And that is what will happen across the country. All these private school parents, who according to mumsnet, If their children had to go to state school would work miracles and turn failing schools into high achieving institutions, will do just that in their own homes.
Alaskan - many congrats to your ds - he’ll have a marvellous time.

NRFT so apologies if this has been covered but the 7% figure is erroneous.

The % of the current school pupils who attend private schools is a lot smaller than the number of the whole population who have ever been to one, and this is skewed even more when you take just post 16 education.

It's a completely bonkers idea, and the only government that could actually pull it off would be a fascist one

Homeschooling is currently illegal in Germany and Greece, neither of which are fascist states.

The one in ten MPs from Eton statistic is from the Independent: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-2017-mps-more-than-half-comprehensive-schools-state-education-labour-tory-study-a7783571.html

Being an MP is pretty low paid - I couldn't afford to live on it actually so I am not sure becoming an MP is some kind of huge measure of success! It would not pay your child's fees at Eton or St Paul's for example. I think 29% of MPs went to private schools including Jeremy Corbyn (and John McDonnel - Labour to a fee paying boarding school no less as did Tony Blair). 1 in 5 current MPs went to a state grammar school.

Blames, my apologies. I read your post as 1 in 10 mps’ children went to to Eton, not 1 in 10 mps.
I thought the Independent having information as to where every MPs child was educated was positively East German - fortunately I was wrong.

I think it is profoundly incompatible with a free society to pass laws which say all children must be educated in state run institutions. That surely is not controversial.

When state secondary schools are able to offer small classes, multiple sports options, a huge variety of co-curricular activites and highly specialised teaching in all academic subjects, then it might be time to abolish private schools. I can't see it happening any time soon.

I don't see why, as long as there is a range of state run institutions on offer to take account of differing needs.

Do you genuinely see no problem with the state saying only we can educate children?
Parents, charities, other groups cannot come together to provide education?
How is that ok in a liberal society?
Have you heard of the treehouse school, founded in a borrowed room by parents despairing of the states inability to provide a decent education for their kids?
Away off and read about it and see if you still don’t see a problem with state monopoly of education

I think it is profoundly incompatible with a free society to pass laws which say all children must be educated in state run institutions. That surely is not controversial.

Agreed. Some of this thread is sounding a little totalitarian to me...

Yes but they just can’t see it. Genuinely staggered by this. Arguments about VAT and charitable status are one thing. But to not see anything wrong with legislating so only the state can educate - incredible.

Its.Not.Policy.

There have only been private universities in the UK since the 1970s, and they're a tiny minority now. Was university education totalitarian before then?