To think at a private school, it’s not the teachers that are better...

[Caitlin555]

....it’s just you are less likely to get the bad behaviour, and more likely to have smaller class sizes?

It drives me mad that there’s this perception that the teachers at private schools are so much better than at state. They are not. In fact, you don’t even need a teaching qualification to teach at a private school.

It is obviously easier to get good results and control a class when you’ve got a smaller class of (probably) better behaved, more affluent kids whose parents want them to be there and to not have the social problems that some schools contend with.

I wish parents would just be honest about why they are sending their kids to x private school - it might be the small class sizes, it might be the facilities, it might be that it is super selective - but don’t make it about the teachers as that’s an insult to those amazing teachers who work hard every day to make a difference at state schools.

And no, I’m not a teacher.

@MarshaBradyo Yes you were and you know it. You’ve already admitted to wanting to set the record straight which was bollocks. Nothing wrong in admitting you were wrong.

@ToastyCrumpet

I was at uni with people from boarding schools and also babysat kids who went to a private prep school and the big difference to me was that the kids from private schools had next to no life skills, had never taken responsibility for anything, had to think for themselves or mixed with people who were not like them. In some cases, they were downright odd.

Good bit of stereotyping here. The private school kids probably thought the same about you.

[quote Shimy]@MarshaBradyo Yes you were and you know it. You’ve already admitted to wanting to set the record straight which was bollocks. Nothing wrong in admitting you were wrong.[/quote]
Don’t be ridiculous. I can post for whatever reason I like. You are wrong.

I can add my experience. If you can’t handle other people posting their experiences better get off mn.

I can assure you toastycrumpet that my dc can:

Sing
Speak French
Drive
Get A*s, distinctions and 1sts
Cook
Manage money
Steer and clean a boat
Play tennis
Play the piano
Navigate London
Change a duvet cover
Shop
Converse
Be well mannered and welcoming
Sort out their healthcare

Cleaning, laundry, ironing - not so great - no need - other people do that. Don't they

Don’t try and be clever Marsha by twisting facts. It is you trying to stifle other people’s experiences not the other way round. You are the one who thought a discussion where 7 people! gave their experience at private schools versus hundreds with an opposing view somehow thought it was more skewed towards private schools being diverse, (mind truly boggles at how you arrived at this conclusion), and by your own admission, came on to set the record straight with private school posters. That is what your post was about.

Your purpose was to silence the private school posters who gave their experience which is every bit as valid as yours.
I have not once told you or anyone on here that your experiences are invalid on the contrary I have agreed with you so don’t try and pretend you are the injured party.

@Shimy

Don’t try and be clever Marsha by twisting facts. It is you trying to stifle other people’s experiences not the other way round. You are the one who thought a discussion where 7 people! gave their experience at private schools versus hundreds with an opposing view somehow thought it was more skewed towards private schools being diverse, (mind truly boggles at how you arrived at this conclusion), and by your own admission, came on to set the record straight with private school posters. That is what your post was about.

Your purpose was to silence the private school posters who gave their experience which is every bit as valid as yours.
I have not once told you or anyone on here that your experiences are invalid on the contrary I have agreed with you so don’t try and pretend you are the injured party.

Ok I will say it clearly.

I do not think private schools across the board are not diverse.

I do not refuse you your experience nor do I want to silence your opinion on your schools.

I simply wanted to post about my experience of London state and private. I have used both. It was a couple of lines in a thread. You are giving it far too much importance. You can’t tell people not to post their experience.

As my MIL says, you pay or your pray.

Paying can be paying a premium to buy a house in a good catchment, tutoring for the 11+, or school fees. No method is any better or more ethical than the other. Those who bleat on about the unfairness of private schools can more often than not be found ‘paying’ for advantage in other ways. I have yet to find one parent who has not sought to secure the best school for their child using all possible means at their disposal.

You only get one shot at a decent education and I’m fully prepared to pay for it. What I won’t do is pretend to ‘find my faith’ and suddenly become catholic, which I find underhand and dishonest.

Education never has been and likely never will be a level playing field.

Two things I would say about the original post !

(i) Teachers may or may not be better , but it's much easier to get rid of the poor ones, which will improve the overall average.

(ii) The teachers they do have, have more time to do stuff which makes them better teachers , for example , if you don't have to spend an hour afterschool chasing up behaviour , you have an hour to spend improving your lessons / chasing kids about more productive stuff / running small interventions / ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, thus making you a better teacher than you would have been in a state school.

Pay or pray...what a ghastly idea. We do pay, we pay taxes so out kids can have a decent education.

Small class sizes
Smaller school
Better facilities (sometimes not always)
Affluent families
More privileged children
Better access to extra curricular activities (Music/sport)
More homework

Parents who are more supportive of their child's learning because they're paying for it directly.

Many families are neither affluent nor privileged, many parents make huge sacrifices for their child's education, cars, holidays, social life etc.

@keeprocking choices, not sacrifices

No matter how many choices/sacrifices I made, I'd never be able to afford private school.

@randomer ghastly it may be, but it characterises the school system perfectly in many places. Consider yourself to be lucky if you haven’t been brutally made aware of this before.

@MarshaBradyo You have admitted to trying to correct other people’s experiences which is ‘silencing’, please show me where I have tried to silence your experience or anyone else’s for that matter.

[quote Shimy]@MarshaBradyo You have admitted to trying to correct other people’s experiences which is ‘silencing’, please show me where I have tried to silence your experience or anyone else’s for that matter.[/quote]
Oh please. I wasn’t ‘correcting’ you. I was adding my experience to a long thread. Which is fine and pretty much the point of mn.

I don’t even know where you are based! I’m in London. My experience is very particular to this section of London. I have not made any statement about anywhere else and have zero desire to do so!

It’s silly I think you just have to let it go

I have worked in a private school and two comp schools, one in a very deprived area.

Teachers, were better in the comp schools in terms of empathy (only in my experience not as a rule) I heard teachers calling children in care, ‘scruffy pieces of shit’ Behind their back. Sniggering at a girl getting bullied for being over weight. Refusal to fully differentiate lessons for the less able learned as ‘they won’t be here long’.

However, lessons were calmer, less behaviour issues in the classroom, so learning for the pupil was almost immediate. There were more opportunities for development both in terms of education and extra curricular activities, and pupils were definitely given a greater exposure to more opportunities- open days in the private school would have FTSE companies, at the comp school it was friends of teachers etc, class sizes were almost smaller which was great for lesson planning.

BUT - bullying was worse, 1000 x worse than any other school I’ve worked in. I’ve actually never seen anything like it, particularly amongst the girls. Pupils weren’t as happy, progress was better of course, but mental health wasn’t as good.

I hated working in a private school. There was definitely less behaviour management, but the workload was horrendous, parents spoke to me like shit on their shoe (as did some pupils).

This is my experience of one private school in Manchester, so not by any means the only experience. I’m sure many other teachers have the opposite experience.

Also, lots of parents send their kids to private school thinking they’ll mix with affluent kids, not the ‘tough kids’.

I taught the children of gangsters. Seriously well off, but literally criminals. The child brought drugs into the school, and sold them. They were caught, but the parents made a contribution to the school and the whole thing went away. This wouldn’t be tolerated in a comp school.

@MarshaBradyo

It’s silly I think you just have to let it go

@Marsha I think that’s one thing we can agree on, don’t let it drag so much next time when you’ve realised your mistake.

Haha hope you are v irritating though I’ll give you that

Nope not hope

Still annoying though

I find these threads fascinating. I send my dd to a private school because it gets better results than my local options and there is more extra curricular opportunity particularly for sports. My local state school has fantastic facilities much better than some of the private schools I looked at.

*Do you really think your worthy conversations round the dinner table will give your children the same understanding or empathy for the experiences of their diverse peers as sharing classrooms and friendships with them?

Have you not noticed that 25% of UK children now come from ethnically diverse backgrounds, a few more than in our grandparents’ time?

It’s great news that you allow your kids to mix with their poor relations, though. Well done, you*.

I'm just entertaining myself that you have found offence in this. My point was simply that some places in the UK are not diverse and that's actually ok.

I'm not about to put our cottage up for sale and up sticks from our life because my poor kids live in an area that's too middle class and they arent friends with enough multinationals because of the local school demographics

Multinationals??!!

Jeez...