.. to think we should scrap private schools?

[katnyps]

How can we ever have an equal opportunities society when people with more money can pay for their children to have a better education?

I know that there are exceptions to the rule, and great teachers in publicly funded schools, but I get the impression that influential roles in society are disproportionately represented by people paid for education... or am I wrong about this too?

I believe that Finland has one of the best (internationally recognised) education system in the world and (apologies if I'm not quite right here, but broadly speaking) that it is actually illegal there to charge for education?

One of the features I rate highly at private schools is the fact that it encourages competition.

Everyone is NOT a winner.

Whereas at state, it’s almost as though winning is discouraged. Everyone bloody get the medal!

Oh there is sometimes competition at state schools, my mistake.

For the child with the best attendance!

OP it’s one thing to be against private education when you can’t afford it, but if you were to win the lottery and your child is at a state primary and is sat at the back being overlooked because she’s one of the few out of 31 kids who can be expected to sit and work, but never gets pushed or any help because the teacher is trying to get the child with a chaotic background and challenging behaviour to sit down and not climb out the window, you might change your mind.

Life isn’t fair. Quite a lot of state school children have private tutors these days to get them up to speed with the curriculum. It’s one of the hidden costs of being a parent. I think only the truly poor working-class families don’t bother with some kind of formal extra curricular education.

There will always be people with money to pay for private education, and banning private school will further contribute to the pushing up of house prices nearer the outstanding schools meaning poorer families will be priced out anyway, not to mention the creation of a two tier system in schools as the top sets will be filled with children who have extensive private tuition. Middle and low income families won’t get any benefit from the scrapping of private schools, they would benefit from more funding however so why not campaign for that instead.

My dc has (1 of them) has been failed by state but its nothing to do with funding.
She has sen that were missed and I've found out teachers training barely included any sen spotting at all.

The stragety we have implemented have been slight tweaks but unfortunately it's culture in school that can perversely also go agaisnt children eg an obsession with learning to read via phonics.

It simply does not work with all dc!!

@Sethy38 What's your actual experience of state schools? My children are at secondary level and there is a lot of competition to be in the top sets and in the first or second sports teams, because these afford the best opportunities to the pupils. There is competition because unlike at private schools, where every kid gets the chance to do things regardless of merit, in the state system only some kids get the opportunities. And it's the best ones, so they compete. No idea why you think otherwise, other than a general inexperience of the state sector?

@LickEmbysmiling please don’t lay the blame with the school system. Surely you yourself as the parent had ample opportunity to pick up on SEN traits??

Doesn't matter if you're rich, it's the value you place on your kids education.

We can't afford private but we make time to sit their wondering what the hell they're going on about. I mean helping.

You want a more equal playing field? Make all politicians send their children to the worst performing schools in their area.

Rather than complain that rich people shouldnt be allowed to pay for their children’s education, we need to raise the standard in state education (which btw think is fantastic from my experience so far).
If you think it’s wrong allowing rich parents to give their child a ‘better’ education, where does it stop? Do we stop them buying ‘better’ clothes’ higher quality food? Etc ...? Point is, if you had the money, wouldn’t you want your child to receive the best?

Arf no!!

How would i and why would I when I'm being told to wait and she's fine??

Only when several years down the line, I wonder... How much longer can I follow the or advice and wait for things to click? And buy in help.

Since I've now become immersed in the world of sen I realise its very common for sen to be missed because teachers are not taught it.

That's not a teachers problem but the way they themselves are trained isn't it, so yes, I'll shout it from the mountains, all teacher training must include how tough spot sen!!

@BlusteryLake

Youngest only moves to private last year (so reception to 2) and eldest was redemption to year 4.

An outstanding state.

That’s my experience of state

@BlusteryLake

So no experience of state secondary.

But state primary - very much “everyone’s a winner”.

I suspect it only changed for your children in secondary, as I have heard similar from friends in state primaries as my experience

There is also a culture I cant say more too outing , that certain SEN do not exist in our school!

Lego - I understand now, thank you for answering.

Op, you are decades late to this debate. Nothing would change, if all rich people were forced to send their kids to private you will see that the already over priced houses in good catchment areas would get even more expensive so the less economically able students would be pushed further away from the possibility of a good education.

@LickEmbysmiling and nurseries too then? Childminders, nannies etc

Haven’t read the whole thread, so sorry if this has already been said (it probably has).

If private schools were banned, then the nice state schools in affluent areas would effectively become private school. Well off parents would buy up all the properties in the catchment area, pricing less affluent folks out of the market. So you’d end up with very well supported (by the rich parents donations) wealthy schools, with great facilities and less well funded “poor” schools.

It’s a shame, but it’s life. I believe therefore, that unfortunately state school pupils are actually better off while private schools exist.

@Sethy38 you obviously know nothing about state schools. How sneery (or were you trying to be funny?) with your little joke about attendance. There was plenty of competition at my DC's huge comp.
In DS's year 5 got to Oxbridge. Pretty unprecedented. But among them were the son of a fisherman and admin assistant, the son of a farmer (not landowner) and the daughter of a Riyal Naval rating. And DS whose dad went to Oxford, also from a state school.
I consider that cohort as being more stellar than any cohort from the nearby private school which had coaching for entrance exams and interviews. And teeny class sizes. Moreover those kids with ordinary backgrounds (of the type you'd probably hold nothing but contempt for) will be caterpaulted into the best jobs and academic careers.
Of the remainder of the (hundreds of) students they'll have gone to diverse futures as tradespeople (shock!), and also grad jobs if they went to uni. And most will make their parents very proud.
For the record we could easily have afforded private school for both our children but disagree with the extra leg up it gives kids who (like ours) are already massively advantaged. Neither DS or DD (who is now on a competitive Masters at LSHTM) had any extra tuition. They're just bright and were lucky to have aspirational parents (like all those parents at private schools I imagine). No need for extra help
On top.

@Fucket we're against it and can afford it. Easy peasy. But felt it's wrong for all the reasons already stated in this thread.
Just to let you know we don't all feel we have to flash the cash.
And I haven't trawled the thread yet for the Sacrifice word. You know - we made sacrifices to send our children private. No you CHOSE.

@Imapotato

Completely agree. My old 'comp' now has a catchment area where to get in you would have to pay over a million pounds for a property. It is marked outstanding and is praised for its ability to get a very high percentage of pupils into Oxbridge let alone Russell group universities.

Also where I now live you would have to pay a similar amount in catchment to get a place.

Both state schools have numerous after school clubs, indoor swimming pools and extensive playing fields.

Scrapping private schools would make this so much worse.

@scentedgeranium

Don’t be daft! My children only moved from an outstanding state to private in last two years.

And your experience of primary must be... what, 10 years ago. Minimum. A lot has changed!

@Sethy38 my twins are 9 and would struggle with that amount of screen time. Evidence shows that isn’t classed as high quality provision of online learning - OFSTED.

Db went to Cambridge and I was at university of London. Both have excellent careers as do all those I am still in touch with from my state secondary. Implying state school student can’t succeed is misleading. Drugs are far more available in boarding schools than any state school round here.

@m0therofdragons

Db went to Cambridge and I was at university of London. Both have excellent careers as do all those I am still in touch with from my state secondary. Implying state school student can’t succeed is misleading. Drugs are far more available in boarding schools than any state school round here.

I agree with your first part but not the last. Dd1 went to state 6th form and all the parties were full of ket. It actually isn't so bad at dd2s private sixth form as they are mainly very academic and driven. Anecdotal! But i chose the private school for dd3 partly because of this.

If you want to make everything fairer you would need to bus children from rich areas into poor ones for state school education as indeed brighton tried for a time, abolish all grammar and C of E, Catholic, Jewish etc schools in the state system throughout Scotland, NI, Wales and England and then try to ensure children have the same length of school day with clubs to 5pm etc and possibly Saturday school as in the private sector.

Some groups to be fair also remove children from their parents and make them live in a group set up - original kibbutz did this and other groups too so no child has the advantage of a particular kind of parent.