To think private schooling should be abolished

[year5teacher]

Just to preface, I’m not criticising individual parents. You have to do what you consider best for your child - for example if the choice was a private school with excellent dyslexia support and a state school that was notoriously bad, for example, you must make the correct judgement for your child.

Just to get that out the way so the thread isn’t flooded with “well I sent DC to private school because...”. I’m not talking about individuals, I’m talking about the system as a whole.

AIBU to believe it’s morally wrong for us as a society to allow children of higher earners to access a generally better level of education, which in turn can affect their trajectories for the rest of their lives?

Bloomburger - of course dear. And perhaps if we actually reduced funding to schools and hospitals it would encourage people to work even harder to avoid them.

Bluegrass where did that come from?

@sevencontinents

I just want to say that the posters who believe that the answer to improving the lives of the poorest kids is to address poor parenting are snobbish and totally wrapped up in a bubble of their own privilege. First, being poor does not equal bad parenting. Second, there are reasons why some parents cannot push education, such as illiteracy, mental health struggles, disability. Honestly, it's shocking how judgemental and totally unaware of the nuances of this some people are.

Yes, totally wrapped up in the bubble of directly working to improve the educational attainment of children of deprived backgrounds.

What a dick I am, eh?

You do know that illiteracy, mental health struggles, disability are highly correlated with poverty right? I have seen the effects of this first hand. I have interviewed and surveyed hundreds of teachers. I have worked with highly experienced experts in this field. I have worked on complex projects to address these issues.

It's shocking that you have the bare-faced mendacity to accuse me and those who raise such ideas of snobbery and privilege.

You are letting defensiveness get in the way of comprehension.

I don't think poor parents are wilfully not providing their kids with a good educational background. I'm saying they DON'T HAVE THE FINANCIAL RESOURCES TO PROVIDE ONE THAT'S AS GOOD AS WEALTHIER PARENTS. At which point, SURELY you have to agree?

Or are you saying that in spite of poverty, parents of children in deprived backgrounds are able to provide them with hundreds of books, trips and experiences?

Honestly, your post was just bloody rude.

I agree Oliversmumsarmy

The difference between a high performing and low performing school is the parents whose children attend the school. Opponents of private education won’t like it but you cannot fix bad parenting by abolishing private schools

@year5teacher, you’ve answered my question about why lessons are always pitched to the middle by telling me that most of your class would switch off and be bored if you pitched it to the level of your high achievers. Do you not see that this is a flaw? That there’s a chance that very able children will and do switch off because the lesson isn’t engaging them? This was a serious problem for my DS1 at primary. Many of these children go through primary with just the odd extension piece or exploratory question. This was quite acute in YR when so much time was spent doing phonics and numbers to 10. He could read at 3 so with a September birthday, by the time he started school his reading was fluent and his spelling good. I’d been doing Jolly Phonics with him since he was 3 so he knew all the sounds. He also knew and could manipulate numbers well beyond 100. Of course his social and play skills developed during that year and they were hugely important but there categorically was no taking his starting point and pushing on with the same level of progress that was expected of the others. I was just told that it was fine as he was already working at a Y3 level. So is it fair that he made less progress than his peers? He vividly remembers a topic he did in the juniors around the subject of space. He knew his class would be doing it and he was so excited about it having read about the subject since before starting school. He was crushed by disappointment. It was ridiculously basic and when he asked questions he was told that maybe those things were best kept for his own reading at home. Now I don’t expect the entire topic to cater to his needs but really none of it was. He sat and was offered a place at a very well known independent day school where I’m sure he would have thrived. (They are also famous for having a virtually blind admission policy) However, we didn’t take the place because I really wanted all 3 to go through the same system. It helped that our comprehensive is outstanding and also streams. He has thrived there.
So my experience of state primary is that whilst they pay lip service to differentiation it’s still done with the mindset of pitch to the middle and extend or support the fringes. Also that this rarely covers foundation subjects or science. His Y6 teacher admitted to me that there would be far more push and effort to ensure that as many as possible reached level 4 than there would to push him further.
I feel that state primary has met the needs of my less academic DS2 a little better but he does seem to get forgotten about in a class of loud kids, 2 who are disruptive. DD who is bright, top group, loud but polite and helpful is definitely the most suited to the system.

@sevencontinents

I just want to say that the posters who believe that the answer to improving the lives of the poorest kids is to address poor parenting are snobbish and totally wrapped up in a bubble of their own privilege. First, being poor does not equal bad parenting. Second, there are reasons why some parents cannot push education, such as illiteracy, mental health struggles, disability. Honestly, it's shocking how judgemental and totally unaware of the nuances of this some people are.

Being poor doesn't automatically make you a bad parent

However there is certainly a big correlation between poverty and not being able to provide for your children. There is a reason the vast majority of children taken into care are taken from poor parents.

Poor families often do not have the means or the ability to help push their children. Many might not even care.

@Oliversmumsarmy - that's my experience too. State education simply didn't provide for SEN - not emotionally or academically. I can't begin to thank DC's private school for the work they did to make my very unhappy, isolated ASD son with a history of bullying and being behind academically in his state primary into the happier, relaxed person he is today. He still has problems but school have minimised them and maximised every good quality he has, building his confidence. It really was like handing him over to loving family members who also happened to be academic and psychological experts. At his school 30% of the pupils are SEN.

You have to look at why people send their children to private school.
For me and I suspect a lot of other parents it is about buying their children an education that they aren’t receiving in the state system.

Although in a post Covid world I suspect there are a lot of parents like me who are going to switch to the private sector because of the state’s total failure to ensure a decent, consistent standard of education for children since March. I have lost all faith and trust in the state sector and am only thankful that my children are not yet secondary aged. I can’t see myself now being happy to send my children to a state secondary when I have the means to avoid it; that was not true in January.

I agree that abolishing private schools would do little to erase inequality in the education sector, it would just shift the issue. A leafy ‘comp’ where all the houses in catchment are over £1m and parental donations to the schools are high vs one in a poor area where parents can’t contribute?

The admissions system, including grammars, faith schools and house price selection needs a thorough overhaul.

@JassyRadlett is absolutely right. Abolishing private school would just create elite enclaves of state schools, but without the specialist focus that some private schools have developed.

@NellyJames Like I said, I can’t pitch an entire lesson that’s above the heads of most of the class. Whilst some HA children would love it, it’s not fair to make a lesson inaccessible to most of the class.
What I instead try and do is pitch it at the highest level which is accessible to most of the children, and then I use the strategies I listed to differentiate within the lesson, whether it’s different work or tailored questioning. My LA children then need it scaffolded. I will add it’s not that often that my HAs totally speed through work, and if they do, it tells me that was crap and I need to do it differently next time.
There’s going to be parts of the lesson, say, in maths, when I’m going through something which is accessible only to the HA children. There’ll be parts when I recap something that the LA kids need going over. I really try to vary it, it’s hard to hit the right level for 30 individual children every time.
I’m sorry if you find this unsatisfactory, ultimately I’m an NQT and I’m not going to have the perfect answer for everything, I’m still learning but hoping to put things into really good practice. I believe, though, that my practice in the classroom does not hold children back in the ways you describe. If a child has a question that’s even above my level of knowledge we still discuss it and find out the answer. I’d never say “find that out at home”.

Bloomburger - it was a response to your ridiculously tired and dismissive “politics of envy” comment.

As a country we benefit from everyone getting access to the best education possible. Talent and potential does not magically concentrate within wealthy families, so we all lose out if the children of poorer parents don’t get the same opportunities to achieve their potential as the children of wealthier parents.

By having a “ruling” class that largely opts out of the education system that most of the rest of the population experiences we make it easier for them to both ignore and “other” it. Why put as much effort into supporting and properly funding a state school system that you didn’t go through yourself, and when you have no intention of sending your own children through it.

This isn’t about restricting people from buying Rolexes, yachts, giant houses or whatever other trappings of material success they want. The health and education of the population are fundamental to the country and to our future success. We won’t eradicate a disparity based on wealth but we certainly shouldn’t facilitate it, and there are structural steps that can be taken to reduce it.

@thecatsthecats. Wow. I wasn't even THINKING about your post when I wrote that. I was referring to a post a few pages back, which said that lots of parents in deprived areas are not good parents. I am very aware of all the issues you talk about. I think we believe similar things, even.

Children who could be in private school will be taking opportunities and places away from children whose parents can’t afford private school. So I think it would be a disaster to suddenly have them in state schools.

Having said that, when we recruit at my company we now actively work to filter out the unconscious bias of employing people who had private schooling. If we have two recruits, one who went private and one from a state comp we will look much harder at the raw potential of the person from the comp. We believe it will benefit us as a company if we recruit from a wider range of socio-economic backgrounds than we have in the past, so we are trying to make that happen

While I agree it is important to recruit from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds don't assume that everyone who has attended a private school comes from a privileged family. My DH was from a very working class background but attended one of the best independent schools in the country thanks to the assisted places scheme. That scheme saw your local authority pay your school fees if you passed the entrance exam. More young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds benefited from that scheme than they do from the bursary schemes available today - unfortunately Labour abolished it making it harder for non- wealthy but academically able young people to access these schools.

I'm from somewhere where there is practicallly no private schools, faith schools or school rankings. Because I grew up in this environment I find the UK system very foreign to me. I don't have kids yet, but I'm trying to do research about how our house location will effect my child's education. I agree with OP but it requires a lot of work to make hold possible since the system is not set up that way.

YABU. What, the answer to piss poor state education is to level the playing field and make us all subject to it? If you're dissatisfied with the opportunities available to state funded education you need to lobby for that to change.

If public schooling in this country were "abolished" I would 100% be moving my life to benefit my children's education, however I could. Luckily I don't think it will ever happen. Life isn't fair.

Godsowncountry- when you say “Life isn’t fair” do you actually mean “life shouldn’t be fair”, or “I don’t want life to be fair”, or perhaps “ I like it that life isn’t fair”?

If not, and if you think unfairness is a bad thing, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to at least take some steps towards reducing that unfairness.

Whilst some HA children would love it, it’s not fair to make a lesson inaccessible to most of the class.
What I instead try and do is pitch it at the highest level which is accessible to most of the children, and then I use the strategies I listed to differentiate within the lesson, whether it’s different work or tailored questioning.

I think that’s just about ok in primary (though as the parent of a bright but naturally quite lazy child outside of his academic passions, it does rely on the strength of the teacher how effective this is - we have noticed huge variations year on year.

In secondary it is a disaster, speaking as a high achieving student who was at a school that didn’t stream by ability until the equivalent of year 10, and even then it was only partial streaming for core subjects. We didn’t get separated by ability in eg science subjects until the equivalent of A levels. It was dreadful and frustrating and definitely affected the quality of education we received.

I think it would be much more unfair if a load of rich kids started taking school places from children whose families have a lot less money and therefore a lot less power to get what they want. A child who was in private school could snap up a school place in a state school that another child could have had instead. This is why private schools have their place in my opinion.

@JassyRadlett I definitely can’t speak for secondary - I know that being in the bottom set for certain subjects really fostered a belief that that was all I was capable of, and I was “bad” at that subject. That’s literally carries on into my 20s. However, probably not the case for other children and may be to do with the specific teaching I received. I absolutely know there will be bottom sets throughout the country with a high level of self belief due to different teaching strategies.

It’s definitely a difficult one, I feel like differentiation is something that even more experienced teachers are constantly adapting. It’s probably the number one thing that never gets “easy”, having spoken to experienced teachers about this.

@year5teacher, I appreciate you can’t pitch everything above a certain level. What I’m trying to say is that for those kids in that level they benefit from the right level pitching every single day. The HA child rarely gets that courtesy.
And with respect, being an NQT means that you are full of optimism and have nothing but snippets of idealism to base your statements on. You state that you will do this and that within a lesson as if it’s textbook. But come back in 5yrs and discuss when you’ve taught classes of 30 with 2 disruptive children, another with complex needs and another 6 who regularly cause low level disruption. You really won’t have the time or energy to ensure they’re all reaching their potential every lesson. It’s simple maths that a class of 18 with 2 adults and a zero approach to low level disruption will achieve better even if you remove all the extras that parents pay for.

I know that being in the bottom set for certain subjects really fostered a belief that that was all I was capable of, and I was “bad” at that subject.

I mean, even without streaming kids know when they’re the bottom of the class. I was shit at PE and art and knew I was bottom of the class with or without streaming.

I’m not sure it’s a good enough reason to hold back the potential of very bright teenagers to learn (and kill their motivation to learn) by having all-ability classes and teaching primarily to the middle at best.

@year5teacher I think the crux of the issue is you teach primary, which is very different to secondary.

It's easy to teach mixed abilities when you're teaching them all at a pretty 'basic' level, ie the difference between levels is teaching the 5x table and the 15x tables.

At secondary is when the difference in ability really comes through and causes issues. Many middle earners will only send their child to private secondary as primary isn't that big of a deal.

I think it would be much more unfair if a load of rich kids started taking school places from children whose families have a lot less money and therefore a lot less power to get what they want. A child who was in private school could snap up a school place in a state school that another child could have had instead. This is why private schools have their place in my opinion.

^This. Simply abolishing private schools clearly is a far too simplistic solution. There would need to be a lot of state school places available, and that will take some doing, especially as we would all need to pay more tax.