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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder how one would go about abolishing private schools?

466 replies

Chuffin · 19/07/2019 16:41

If anyone is following the @abolisheton campaign, they state their aim is to integrate private schools into the public sector and hope this to be included in Labours next manifesto.

My children are about to start independent school, having had a terrible time for a whole host of reasons in their state primary.

Aside from the moral argument for or against private schools, I am very interested in whether it would be legally possible to abolish private schools and how this would happen? Would this even be feasible realistically?

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 21/07/2019 15:55

“The state system funds schools that discriminate on faith...”

That’s wrong too.

AtmosClock · 21/07/2019 15:56

what’s interesting is the push back you see when hypothetically suggesting a situation where you could discriminate against affluent children, whereas the reverse discrimination is a mainstay of British society.

CendrillonSings · 21/07/2019 15:56

No, but by supporting private schools, yoh are supporting it.

I'm afraid that doesn't follow - if you have two candidates for the job, and the state-educated candidate is better qualified that the privately-educated candidate, then they should most certainly get it. I support private schools because they are better able to nurture those with academic talent, not because I believe that those of their pupils who fail to achieve academically should receive an automatic advantage in job applications!

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 15:57

what’s interesting is the push back you see when hypothetically suggesting a situation where you could discriminate against affluent children, whereas the reverse discrimination is a mainstay of British society

Doesn’t the current state system discriminate against poorer children by virtue of pricing them out of catchment for good schools?

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 15:58

AtmosClock

Do you have children currently in the education system?

AtmosClock · 21/07/2019 16:01

Cendrillon, perhaps you’re being naive. If that is truly the case, then explain why privately educated people dominate so many professions, beyond their academic ability. Why were two old Etonians competing to become PM after a recent old Etonian PM? (Eton is only the most notable example).

I think you’re fully aware you’re purchasing privilege that extends beyond grades

AtmosClock · 21/07/2019 16:02

Yes, poorer pupils are discriminated across the scale and it’s not good. Yes I do have children in the state system

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 16:03

Yes I do have children in the state system

In the school/s you wanted for them?

CendrillonSings · 21/07/2019 16:05

I think you’re fully aware you’re purchasing privilege that extends beyond grades

You should have sat in on an interview I once conducted with someone who had attended my own, very well-known school. If anything, I held them to a higher and harsher standard than I did the other interviewees!

AtmosClock · 21/07/2019 16:07

Yes, but it’s not really relevant

BertrandRussell · 21/07/2019 16:08

“If anything, I held them to a higher and harsher standard than I did the other interviewees!”

That’s extremely unfair too.

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 16:08

Yes, but it’s not really relevant

On the contrary it is absolutely relevant and exactly as I expected.

CendrillonSings · 21/07/2019 16:14

That’s extremely unfair too.

To be clear, I did nothing to prejudice the interviewee's chances, but I tell the story simply to give the lie to the idea that the privately-educated are all backslapping, old-school-tie imbeciles whose main concern is to give one another jobs.

BertrandRussell · 21/07/2019 16:17

“To be clear, I did nothing to prejudice the interviewee's chances,”

But you held them to higher and harsher standards.....

BertrandRussell · 21/07/2019 16:19

“On the contrary it is absolutely relevant and exactly as I expected.“

Are you saying that people only act in self interest?

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 16:23

Are you saying that people only act in self interest?

Well apparently private school parents do....?

The fact is it is incredibly easy to have these great and laudable ideas surrounding education when you are in the privileged position of having your children in the good state school of your “choice”.

Debfronut · 21/07/2019 16:26

Atmosclock It is a choice for a great many people as explained by a PP. We could have lived in a nice home in a nicer area as many of our friends do but we chose instead to help our child by sending her to an independent school. I also got a second job to help our finances. There will always be a section of society who does not have the ability to choose or make sacrifices to choose but we all don't have the intelligence to be a brain surgeon or a solicitor for example (I don't)and have to do the best with what we were born with. Out of my three children the one who is predicted to do the best is at an academy state school where the teaching and structure is brilliant. But the independent school was needed for my daughter for other things which a large state school could not hope to achieve. So I believe in many cases we have choices and should have the right to exercise them and in others we have to go with what we can get.

FenellaMaxwell · 21/07/2019 16:26

It’s asking the wrong question. Surely the question is not ‘how do we close down private schools to penalise those able to attend?’ But ‘how do we do something about our state education system, which is so awful people remortgage their houses to take their children out of it’?

Knittedjimmychoos · 21/07/2019 16:27

Atmos I don't think much of Northern Europe countries if that's what they perpetuate people to believe. That thick children are sent to private schools... What a nasty horrible idea and ethos.

Embarrassing parents whose dc go private.

Nasty.

I have friend with dc in private and the exams and the level of study and work expected of them has been far higher than my dc school.

The only exams my dc school are and have been concerned with are sats.

The private Ed child however has been working towards top private secondary schools entrance exams and the 11+.

They have been pushed more and had higher goals. So in that respect the mum said sats papers were a doddle compared to other papers they had been working on.

Whether that plays out by gcse time who knows?
Our state school pays much attention to its top achievers, has Oxford outreach and program for top achievers.

However it hasn't seemed to cater so well for the lower achiever esp those with mild sen.

Knittedjimmychoos · 21/07/2019 16:30

Totally agree fenella.

It's sidestepping the actual problem, the state school.
The comps have not been a huge success, for years they have failed top and bottom and only catered for those in the middle.

One reason we have sats is because dc were entering secondary with excellent grades from primary but ended up with nothing from secondary.
It's goalless.

sionnachbeag · 21/07/2019 16:30

The state system isn't "awful".

Agauh the people saying its a choice when it isn't but making themselves out to be saints.

Bad news for you, it isn't the education that makes the difference for the top jobs that private school kids get more than they should do proportionally. Its the impact of their parents wealth that helps them overcome the artificial barriers to entry.

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 16:34

The state system isn't "awful"

The application system isn’t exactly working.

Knittedjimmychoos · 21/07/2019 16:34

Debronut I'm similar.

One dc has done well inspite of lots of issues with her primary and I am very confident she will do well at our local comp, we are very lucky. However that's not fair because my dc is top set. And I know other dc who went their who have mild sen and it's failed them... Not fair.

My other dc is not doing well at all in her primary, she needs more support, they have enough ta, but the school, the head, the ethos are failing her and have failed similar dc.

I'd move her in a flash to gorgeous school near us, small, homely, cosy private.

But it's not an option for us at the moment.
I have no faith in state schools to cater for dc like my second.

sionnachbeag · 21/07/2019 16:35

It works for the 88 percent of kids who get their first choice or the 96 percent who get first or second.

JacquesHammer · 21/07/2019 16:36

Embarrassing parents whose dc go private

I can’t imagine many would care Grin