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.

Yes there should be more money in the state education system, but I am not sure how the state taking on the funding for another 7% of children will help. I think there are better ways to work with the independent sector rather than just abolish it. People with money will always have advantage, whether that’s moving into areas where the state education is outstanding and pricing others out of those areas, or private tutoring etc. We need to find realistic goals to reform education, not knee jerk and inflammatory policies with little thought about how they would work in practice.

Until politicians invest properly in state education, we will continue to get suggestions to abolish the private sector schools.

I also think talking up the state system/pushing down the private system, which is currently going on, will backfire as state school pupils have parents who work in the private sector and can see the gaps between what one system provides and what the other requires.

JacquesHammer - i have some ideas. First an end to austerity and an increase of LA funding for education. Second giving LAs more control over school places. They have no say at incressing capacity at academies and free schools and are often only able to get new schools built as part of section 106 agreements for new developments where these are built. So you end up with expensive free schools where they arent especially needed. Areas with no development get no new schools. I find it odd that the body who is responsible for ensuring school places has little control over how and where they are created.
So thats one area that can easily be improved.
I still dont want to abolish private schools, charge VAT or change charitable status but i think saying 'there are no spaces' is not an excuse for the government to put their head in the sand and not provide them and i think there are easy ways to improve them.

@JacquesHammer yes exactly. I think it would drive the issue elsewhere and potentially disadvantage more than less. It would be so easy to drive up house prices in areas with great state education. Areas like Winchester and Rickmansworth are examples where this already happens.

First an end to austerity and an increase of LA funding for education. Second giving LAs more control over school places. They have no say at incressing capacity at academies and free schools and are often only able to get new schools built as part of section 106 agreements for new developments where these are built

Don’t disagree with any of that.

I’d also close the loopholes surrounding provision of school/medical places for newbuild estates

@Vulpine yes of course- but this wasn’t happening in the case of my children which is why I moved them into private education. I am not sure how leaving them in their last school would have benefited any other child either- which seems to be another anecdotal claim made whereby keeping children in the system who might go to independent schools would benefit others?It was never my intention to move them out of a state education, and came from necessity. I know that my experience doesn’t reflect anyone else’s and is personal to me. I feel extremely lucky to have this choice. I would like to see more children from disadvantaged backgrounds being able to have the opportunity. I came from a disadvantaged background myself so I do want to see a solution that works for all children.

@Iggly - one mechanism for poor people being disadvantaged if private schools close is that people from abroad won’t send their kids here to study at school level. Some of these people pay for guardians for their children, visit their kids a few times a year. The schools employ more local people per pupil than state schools. It isn’t direct, but it is money coming into our economy from abroad and job creation. Maybe you think the effect of this is negligible - which is fair enough.

I suspect that independent schools don’t offer anything massively different from good state schools, the main reason children do so well there is the parenting, and the fact that they are academically selected.

You have a massive concentration of highly motivated, invested, focused and intelligent parents and these traits are inherited by their children.

Put them in a state school and they will still have the same parents who will pay for tutoring, extra curricular sports, music, drama etc and will move near to the best school in the area. Their outcomes will therefore be better than average.

I’m also not convinced by the ‘old boys’ network theory. Sure, it will be the case in a few careers, limited to a few schools, but we’re talking about tiny numbers. Your standard independent school in Yorkshire, for example, is not going to have any old boys’ advantages.

Local authorities used to have control - it was a travesty that it was taken away under the guise of too much interference.

Free schools and academies mean that there’s minimal local accountability which is appalling.

Funding per pupil needs to increase.

Teachers need to be boosted in terms of pay, conditions and morale.

Class sizes need to be reduced

There needs to be more space in the curriculum to provide a wider offer to children.

This all costs money, but it would see a benefit to the wider economy as we have a greater pool of skilled people to choose from.

I’m also not convinced by the ‘old boys’ network theory. Sure, it will be the case in a few careers, limited to a few schools, but we’re talking about tiny numbers. Your standard independent school in Yorkshire, for example, is not going to have any old boys’ advantages

Look at MPs, judges, journalists to name but a few professions. Professions with a huge level of influence on how this country is run.

and the fact that they are academically selected

Not all private schools are academically selective.

@Supergirlthesecond yes absolutely. I think the formula for that works in my children's school is that it’s smaller, smaller classes to 18 max (which allows a better opportunity for the teacher to teach them as an individual), big emphasis on sport- my son plays 7 hours a week, and I know would be a horror in the classroom if he wasn’t exercised.

As an ex private school pupil i can say that they are a complete waste of money anyway.
Most of my peers who went to state school have done far better in life than me. If the rich want to hothouse their kids let them get on with it. I learned that the rich dont let anyone in anyway.

Not all private schools are academically selective.

The ones that get the fantastic results are.

The ones that get the fantastic results are

Again not always

The school my DD was at was a top-performer, it is not academically selective and has a way above average number of children with SEN.

As an ex private school pupil i can say that they are a complete waste of money anyway you mean you wasted your parents money?

@Iggly I do believe that if you work hard then we live in a country where you can succeed. My husband and I were state educated, have no degrees, came from working class families. We both are driven by a fear of poverty and giving our children more than we had. My children will probably not have that drive/grit/determination because of their privilege- that concerns me. Issues like too many privately educated politicians needs to be solved by reforming government. I also don’t wish to be represented by a majority of Eton school boys, and that school isn’t representative of the whole independent sector.

@BusyMum. You are spot on about sport/physical activity. The private school I knew kept the boys so physically active throughout the day. It is the only way to offset all that teenage energy and they are calmer in the classroom, then. It is not their fault they have that energy yet we do insist they suppress it which doesn’t seem fair to me

The education system can't cope with the kids they have now never mind adding the currently privately educated children to it. We should be thankful that people that can afford to pay more do do. Is Labour's whole ethos not those who earn more pay more.

All that’ll happen is the ex-indie pupils will have a load of tutors and still do academically well, will mix with the kids who would have gone to the school any how as will the parents. Nothing will really change except they’ll all be in the same school but a massive divide.

@glueandstick and that is very clearly happening now. Think it prob always did happen we just didn’t know it.

This seems unlikely to happen due to practical reasons. The reason some areas have capacity and others don't is due to economic growth or lack of it (exacerbated by stupid planning laws and taking away LAs ability to directly create school places).

In my nice but not particularly posh outer London borough the state schools are full to bursting (the only exception being recently opened free schools that are filling year to year) but so are the private schools. If the privates closed the borough would need to find over 1000 places at primary level I estimate. More than a classfull for most of the state schools. The baby boom is due to hit secondary in about 4 years.

Also, independents get more students into Oxbridge, Russell Group and particular professions because that is their aim. If a state school had that aim and the same resources, things would be very different. There is at least one state school doing this: Harris Westminster sixth form. It has cost the taxpayer a fortune! Their Oxbridge numbers are good although it's too early to say about access to the professions.

What Eton's got to do with the vast range of other independents, I have no idea. Eton is Eton.

There is an interesting article in the guardian today about PTA funding and how it varies which is probably relevsnt to this discussion.

@Phineyj Absolutely spot on.