To feel I have utterly let down my children by sending then to a state school?

[hibbledibble]

I went to a private school, and achieved very well academically.

My children go to a state school, as I can't afford private school. I will never be able to afford it sadly. They go to the local community school, which has a reputation for not being academic.

My eldest is extremely bright, and tested many years ahead of her age on entering the local primary. Now, she has failed to even get to the second round of the 11+. She has really just coasted at school, as they have not set any appropriate work for her, despite multiple requests. They say they can't offer 'gifted and talented' provision, due to funding.

Her sibling is very behind on learning, as she missed loads of school due to lockdowns, and the school offered very little remote provision throughout most of the time. I have asked for support for her, but am told that nothing is available, again, due to funding. Meanwhile, she is struggling with even the basics.

I do think that both of my children would have done better, had they gone to a school where their individual abilities and learning stage was catered for, and they were helped to achieve their potential. I feel I have let them down by not providing them with a good education, which they could have had if I had the money.

Now it's looking likely my eldest will have to go to the terrible, and rough, local secondary, and the underachieving will continue.

Geee how do you think the vast majority of bright kids in this country manage? I'm comp educated with a degree and post grad; DH ditto but with an Oxford First and PhD and post doc and v high earner. DC ditto - Durham and Cambridge and doing OK out of it. Their schools definitely didn't push. The aspiration came from home and us.
DS might have been described as coasting at some stages of his education but was in fact a bit lazy. Are you sure this isn't the case with your child? Didn't make any difference for DS bc fortunately he knew when to pull his finger out and did so in style for his exams.
No tutoring either.
And as a family we are not weird statistical out-liers.

I promise I'm not trying to be an arse...but if you went through private and can't afford to send your kid to private now...then surely you know going to private school isn't the be all and end all.

Children can go to state schools and still go on to have wonderful careers just as many private school students go on to have very average careers.

@sheiselectric this is a rather shallow viewpoint IMO. Having a good career is not solely down to how much you earn!

So, you paid for tutors, your oldest was "so intelligent" she was testing at years above her age, but she failed to even get past the initial stages....it's not the school, IT"S YOUR KID.

Your child is NOT "bright enough" to get into grammar. You need to accept that. The requirements for grammar schools are easy enough to find out - reading lists, expectations on what they expect for maths and English, etc. You've just not bothered to even check this, or even check the educational level of your child. You could've done this YEARS ago, but you didn't.

It's not the school. It's a) your child not being bright enough, and b) your fault for not even bothering to check what was required.

Private schools do tend to have better exam results, but it's because schools reflect their catchment / demographic, not because the teaching is better

And our two local private schools actually have lower exam grades than our local state schools

Small class sizes are popular with parents for obvious reasons, but in fact, a good teacher should be capable of setting work at different abilities

So, I'm sorry if you feel that your particular school has not delivered, but it's simplistic to assume that your DC would have done better elsewhere, and you certainly shouldn't feel you have "utterly failed them"

@hibbledibble

electric I'm a doctor, so I have done well academically, and professionally. Unfortunately, private school fees have gone up way above inflation, and doctor's wages have stagnated to below inflation. I have not failed, but have chosen a job I am passionate about, rather than one which is well paid.

All the drs I know can afford private school. I didn’t even sit my GCSEs yet I’ve made damn sure my options for a secondary school for my child isn’t a terrible school. Lot of self pity in your posts.

Well as private isn’t an option for you take it out of the equation look for other schools instead if you’re not happy with the current one
If you’re unhappy why haven’t you done that already but I appreciate Covid would have frustrated that

State or private the key is parental support. It sounds like you think school will do everything. That’s not my experience. The children are at school for six and a half hours a day, what are YOU doing for the other 17.5?

Unfortunately the 11+ preparation needs a specialist tutor who knows the format of the particular exam your area offers. It's not really down to the school to prepare them for that. Some of the 11+ exams test on school topics that are only covered later in Year 6 and on top of that, speed and accuracy are key so there needs to be lots of home practise. We had many families at our primary school who felt that any tutor would do and left them to get on with it. It didn't work for many, despite bright children, as they weren't tutoring for the specific exam format and felt one practise paper a week would be enough.. This is important in London as it's so competitive to get a Grammar place that kids and parents really need to put the work in too.

It sounds as if you weren't particularly knowledgeable about the 11+ process unfortunately and I'm sure that was compounded by the lockdown.

I would now look for other schools you might be in catchment for, visiting, finding out via social media/neighbors etc about what they're like. If your eldest is clever, could she sit for the private exams and you explore the bursary options?

But would be happy if they where working or doing apprenticeships.

Clearly you haven’t looked what’s happening out in the real world. Apprenticeships are desperately hard to come by, and other entry level jobs are dominated by zero-hours, temporary contracts, where the employees live on a performance based knife-edge, where two weeks of underachievement can lead to being sacked.

OP. You're being ridiculous, but you're also better off asking somewhere like PMGUK where you'll get more sympathetic responses. However frankly I think your attitude is really depressing

I'm a doctor (recently finished training, now a hospital consultant) and it was so tiring during uni being with all these privately educated people who had not a clue about the real lives of normals (like me). I would have thought those attitudes would be bashed out a bit by the end of your training - you should have spent enough time by now with good colleagues from all backgrounds to appreciate a private education isn't everything. But apparently not.

I do appreciate what the pay of "junior" (in quotes because I know you may be a senior registrar) doctors is like and of course you couldn't afford private education with that. I know you also won't be able to do a big move during your training programme - but surely there are better school catchments within your deanery?

We won't be using private education for the reasons above- we think it turns out blinkered people with little empathy- but we chose to move to an area within the deanery where the state school provision was decent. Unless you're in the only affordable area adjacent to some tiny deanery, I'm not sure why you can't do the same.

(NB for all the people with unrealistic views on what doctors earn - our pay circulars are easily located online, the BMA publishes the scales every year)

Sorry my post sounds harsh on you. It's just laying out the reality of what bright kids can achieve in mediocre surroundings. We had no option of grammar where we are. And were never going to pay because we disagree with that kind of leg up when our children already have abundant middle class home advantage.
I hope you got the point loud and clear that my DS was lazy, not coasting!

I'm not sure you can blame the school tbh. I had a similarly advanced child, they told me they had never known a child like him. Schools did what they could do, I felt for his teachers because he was an outlier and they had so many other children with very different needs to his. We decided that school wouldn't be the primary source of his education and at home we helped him follow his passions. At school he was sometimes bored but he threw himself into sports and all the extra curriculars on offer and he loved school, had a wide circle of friends, plenty of hobbies and interests and at home he would do maths and statistics and computer programming for fun. He's very successful now in a niche field in a global company.
His cousin, just days older, went to private school from day one and yet doesn't seem to have benefited a great deal, his A levels were poor, he has none of the supposed confidence that comes through private education and has never progressed in his career despite all his "advantages"
I don't know how a child could fail an 11plus despite having tutors if at seven they were at the level of a 12/13yo tbh . My own son just weeks after starting secondary won the whole school maths challenge despite not having studied the secondary maths curriculum merely following his own interests at home.

Surely OP other children in your daughters class passed the 11+ despite being in the same class as your daughter and learning exactly the same things she did. How did they all manage to pass the exam when your daughter didn’t despite them going to the same “rubbish school”. If the school was the biggest factor in failing these children then surely none of them would have passed? It’s almost as if personal responsibility, intrinsic motivation and work ethic are the biggest predictors of success.

If some kids in the class passed the 11+ and your daughter didn’t, clearly there are more factors at play then just the school in determining success. I assume the parents of these children who worked hard and passed the exam don’t feel they were failed by the school.

State schools don't in any way prepare for selective entry exams.

That is entirely a parental responsibility. You needed to buy the test packs and do it with them. Or the father.

If she wasn't able to pass the test having practiced maybe she is not as smart as you think.

Also, surely you realise that is a wide variation in schools. Why didn't you move house to an area with better state school, including secondary.

I can't fault my kids schools. First lockdown was a bit rubbish as no one nationally had had time to prepare but after that much better

@Lightsabre

Unfortunately the 11+ preparation needs a specialist tutor who knows the format of the particular exam your area offers. It's not really down to the school to prepare them for that. Some of the 11+ exams test on school topics that are only covered later in Year 6 and on top of that, speed and accuracy are key so there needs to be lots of home practise. We had many families at our primary school who felt that any tutor would do and left them to get on with it. It didn't work for many, despite bright children, as they weren't tutoring for the specific exam format and felt one practise paper a week would be enough.. This is important in London as it's so competitive to get a Grammar place that kids and parents really need to put the work in too.

It sounds as if you weren't particularly knowledgeable about the 11+ process unfortunately and I'm sure that was compounded by the lockdown.

I would now look for other schools you might be in catchment for, visiting, finding out via social media/neighbors etc about what they're like. If your eldest is clever, could she sit for the private exams and you explore the bursary options?

What a broken system.

Also if its super selective then it could be 1200 children applying for 100 places. So it's possible she just didn't reach the grade.

Exactly this. I thought this was obvious to everyone but there are some people who think the reason that so many more students get A’s at private school is because they are remarkably better than state schools. They’re confusing cause and correlation.

More students get A’s who come out of private schools because the intake of students who go to private schools is very different to those who go to state schools for the 3 main reasons of socioeconomic factors, parental input and the heritability element of intelligence. A student who goes to a private school is more likely to come from a background with money, parental input, parents who value education highly and talk about it in a positive light, parents who were most likely educated themselves, less anti-social behaviour at home, surrounded by peers who also value education etc. These kids would most likely get A’s in the state school system anyway.

I'm sorry but this just isn't true.

Yes, the private schools have an intake who are higher achieving and better supported on the whole, and so the results are bound to be better, but if you think that's the whole story you're kidding yourself.

I went to a private secondary from 11-13, state from 13-16 and then also a state 6th form centre.

The difference in education between the secondaries was immense. The private school was better funded, class sizes were smaller, the facilities were better, it was much better resourced with enough equipment and of decent quality. The difference is sports, science, arts equipment and facilities was astronomical.

But the most important thing in my opinion was the expectations were higher. You were expected to achieve and were encouraged and supported to do so.

I learnt pretty much fuck all in the state school. I had a great time and learnt a lot of good life lessons but because I was bright I was allowed to coast. I wasn't pushed at all. I passed my GCSEs on what I learnt at the private school by age 13, pretty much.

The 6th form was great, that was an example of state education done well. It is possible. My state primary was excellent also.

But there are still loads of state secondaries that are failing kids, particularly bright kids.

The Tories have messed around with the state school sector and defunded it. Teaching in state schools is a hugely stressful job, every year the profession loses brilliant teachers who, understandably get out of the system as it's untenable. The schools are strapped for cash so often choose to employ loads of cheap NQTs instead of a balance that includes expensive teachers on higher pay bands. So experience is being drained from the profession.

You're absolutely kidding yourself if you think the only advantage private schools have is the intake.

The solution is to get rid of private schools of course, as then the state schools would be decent as the rich and powerful would care enough to invest decent money in schools, but that's not going to happen any time soon.

Despite the above, there are some great state secondaries. The are some dire ones also. More often, there are schools that will give your child an OK education, but won't get the kids achieving to the best of their abilities.

DH is a GP ( equivalent to consultant in hospital medicine). Been qualified for 20 years now. There's no way on earth we could afford private school fees!
He earns £65K a year and works 7-7 in practice 4 days a weeks and 1.5 days at home admin time. He would not be fit to work weekends after a 70 hour week. Our local plumber and electrician take home better pay than him. DC study hard, go to a local grammar and I help where I can as dH isn't home until 7.30 most nights. I work part-time to be there for the DC and that pays for extras like a tutor for DC A levels.

All of DH's colleagues locally do the same - grammar or state schools. Parents who privately educate tend to be business owners or old money in our area - certainly not doctors!

Op you know how much most people resent privately educated people in the U.K? Wrong place to post your concerns so ignore the rude posters here.
I understand your situation to afford private school which is your first choice for two kids it is for high earners, tax is high too so you need to add to that. Take into account the good advise given here. It is a similar situation for quite a lot of people specially in big cities. Really hope you can overcome this. Pretty sure there are better state schools so you need to move the kids to an area with better schools.

A bright child will do well anywhere. It’s those who need extra help who are often failed by the state provision, not because the teaching is any better, but because they simply don’t have the resources for additional support for pupils who need it.

Your eldest will be absolutely fine and in a lot of ways will probably be better off in a state school. They can stretch themselves by reading more on their favourite subjects; doing extra at home on things that interest them. Your youngest sounds as if they need extra support so that is where I would focus on getting additional help in the form of a tutor.

You have not failed your children op. However, those who come on here saying their child was state educated and are going to Oxford etc are missing the point. Those children are not the ones who need the extra help private schools can often provide.

It doesn't quite make sense to me that your dd was testing at the level of a 12/13 year old at 7 but 4 years later, doesn't pass to the 2nd round of the 11+ (isn't this also very early in the year to hold the 11+?)? Has she been regressing? How did she reach that level prior to the age of 7? You can't learn Year 8 and year 9 material without someone teaching you unless she was teaching herself algebra, ratios, graphs etc.

The lockdown has been going on for 18 months but what about tutoring and extra curricular enrichment before that if your child is gifted and talented? You noticed there was a problem, asked the school, school said no and then nothing? For 4 years?

We live abroad and it's hard to find good English speaking tutors here. So my daughter has a maths tutor over zoom. Not perfect but works pretty well. If you need your kids to catch up due to missed learning and its hard to find someone to come to the houes, why not do it remotely?

It really seems so black and white between private education and failing state schools but there is so much in the middle and parents CAN do so much to fill in the gaps where needed.

And if your DD has failed the 11+ and will be going to a shitty school, I'd move to an area with a good school. I know money may be tight and it can be a lot to move but you ARE on a decent salary which you can reasonably expect to signficantly increase over the next few years. If the school is wrong for your daughter, then find another - you DO have options even if it doesn't include private school.

@AnyOldPrion makes a good point about social mobility & declining opportunities for those who are younger.

I understand. I went to a great private school- small classes, well behaved, motivated kids, honestly it was very easy to do well there. Obviously some super bright kids will do very well anywhere, but a "high input" school can drag pupils up several grades.

HOWEVER I've worked in private schools that are not academically good, and that don't stretch pupils to achieve to the very best of their ability.

Have you investigated the various bursaries or music/sports/drama scholarships that your local private schools offer?

@hibbledibble

I'll repeat it again, I have offered a lot of support at home.

Quite likely it's their state school. I have thought about moving them, but there is no guarantee another state school would be any better, and I am limited by childcare, which limits school choices.

I don't know if others have found that they state school offers effective provision in terms of support for children who are gifted, or need extra academic support?

The discussion I have had with the headteacher leads me to believe this is a nationwide issue, due to funding issues.

Absolutely my son's state school has provided more than effective provision. DS1 10 x Grade 9s at GCSE, 3 x A* at A Level (Academically challenging subjects). DS2 9 x Grade 9s at GCSE and studying 3 academically challenging subjects at A Level. A wealth of trips and opportunities. I teach at a secondary school. We might not have the same level of academically gifted students but our students achieve exceptionally well and we offer by far the best Pastoral care that I have experienced in nearly 30 years of teaching. Lazy blame OP. You don't just sit back and watch your children under achieve.

Rather than blame the school. It's clear your eldest is not academically gifted, otherwise she would have passed the 11plus with the help of the tutors you got her. Which is fine, not everyone is. Look at the child you have, rather than the one you want.