Would you prefer private school?

[Dontbeamenace]

I'm sure I would prefer private school for my children. Would it matter to you if money was no cost?

Actually most of the data shows that there is a correlation between migrant communities and high performing schools. Statistically you would do better and be pushed harder in a class with a good proportion of migrant children.

A private primary school in my city recently closed as it went bankrupt. A lot of parents chose to homeschool instead of sending them to the state school.

I mean, how exactly are they meant to do that? I've never seen any actual examples given, other than maybe they might raise some extra funds for the PTA to fund some equipment.

I agree and it’s so patronising to the other parents who are apparently incapable of making improvements without the help of new ex private school parents.

Lola, I'm not sure how ex-private school parents tutoring their individual child and paying for enrichment activities for them "boosts the school".

It boosts those children, certainly, and raises the average grades for the school so that on paper it looks better, but for the other children surely nothing has changed. The quality of the teaching or the extra curricular opportunities provided by the school haven't suddenly taken a turn for the better?

RockaLock
It boosts the school because it means the overall attainment of their cohort increases, and it also means that the 'better' state schools will have an increasing number of families who value education highly and have the money to pay inflated house prices.

If I think about two different Year 7 classes I have had in different schools.

School A: Students come from high prior attaining primary schools. Tutors for SATS is quite normal. The feeder primaries have much fewer social issues to contend with that others in the same local authority. Students who join from prep school are often higher prior attaining too. This Year 7 class was almost entirely expected standard with a large proportion of greater depth. Some children are working towards, but they generally have SEN needs and because they're such a small number it's very easy as a classroom teacher to meet their needs. In a mixed ability class I am able to meet the needs to all students well in my subject. The children in this class have good oracy, arrive in Year 7 with strong reading skills, they're good at working with other children, they've got a range of soft skills that means they handle challenges well, and generally can resolve disputes well. The curriculum is challenging, moves quickly and in turn these children are likely to cover a lot between Year 7-11.

School B: Year 7 students come in with highly varied attainment levels. Most are below average, with many leaving primary school with a reading age of upper KS1/LKS2. These children have to access a secondary curriculum from this point. There's a high level of diagnosed and undiagnosed SEN, as well as a high prevalence of poor SEMH behaviours. The school employs parent and family workers as well as a huge pastoral team to pick up the never ending series of issues from outside of school (many of these issues are caused by problems accessing other services). In a class of 30 Year 7 students, only a tiny number come from households where reading is valued. Attendance in this school has been low for decades, just like previous schools in the catchment. Lots of time at the start of the year has to be spent teaching 11/12 year olds how to disagree without being rude, threatening, and verbally abusive. Many of the parents have a low view of schooling and a sizable minority are highly confrontational. On the whole the school is not only having to try to catch up children who are behind educationally, but they're having to try to break complex intergenerational cycles.

School B has a mixed history with it's standards, but locally it's accepted it's doing the best it can with the cohort and they're making some progress. Outcomes are low though.

In the event private schools close, those parents are going to move into School A's catchment. They're simply not going to send their children to School B. Why would they because the overall level of education is lower?

School A will be even more oversubscribed, School A families who lose out due to School A catchment prices astronomically rising will find their children sent elsewhere, (School C, D etc as parents select the next best schools). Nobody concerned about outcomes will choose School B. Some children whose parents haven't the means will be forced into School B, and they'll get a substandard education. Those with the means to home educate and pay for tutors will do that rather than send their child to School B.

Closing private schools isn't going to suddenly make School B better.

I’m glad that you’ve found somewhere that your daughter is thriving.

And yes, there are lots of academic, geeky, non sporty kids at state schools as well as at private ones. I have two who were very happy at their state secondary,

Same as they are lots of non academic, cool and sporty kids at private schools.

They all just need to find their tribe.

But, I still don't see how school A has been made intrinsically better.

They are getting better results, sure, but this is due to the parents of that cohort spending money on their children. Is it actually due to anything that the school are doing?

I can see that if you have a class full of highly motivated children who are keen to learn, then this will make the teacher's job easier, so I suppose it might have an effect on overall results if the proportion of such children in a class was high enough.

But even if school A benefits, then as you say, there will be children that would have otherwise gone to school A who will lose out - thus continuing the inequality, only this time it's because of house prices and not the ability to pay school fees.

RockaLock
Because it much easier to educate to a higher level if your intake becomes higher prior attaining, has a higher literacy level, with low to non-existent social issues caused by poor public services, able to work at a curriculum at a higher rate, and there's less time spent on a huge range of pastoral issues.

If a private school closes and those families flock to School A, the families who'd otherwise get School A won't get in and School A will become a private school cohort in all but name.

I'm not a better professional working at School A and School B, but I'm certainly able to offer a better quality education in School A.

Which of my GCSE groups gets a stronger education:

• The group where I can spend 55 minutes out of 60 teaching, I can circulate well, speak to every child every lesson, the children are regularly attending, there's huge support for homework and revision from home, parents value education and there's a positive culture of home and school working together

• The group where I regularly have 5 or more students missing from school, others regularly excluded/in isolation, pastoral staff in and out dealing with issues, other interruptions due to non-teaching issues, huge range of literacy levels, inconsistent homework completion, a substantial number of parents who are ambivalent about GCSEs, and a handful of students who will disrupt the learning knowing their parents will argue with me and pick fights

For the children in the second class who want to learn, it doesn't matter how great I am as a teacher, they get a worse deal than the first group.

Yes, I understand all that, and I did say I could see an effect for the class as a whole if the proportion of ex-private pupils in a class was high enough.

But realistically, you are likely to only have a few ex-private pupils per class turning up in each state school. At least, that's what posters on this type of thread seem to always say: local schools wouldn't be overwhelmed, it would only be a handful of extra children per school etc etc.

So I'm still not convinced that forcing lots of private schools to close would result in a noticeable improvement to any individual state school.

@RockaLock

No parent has a chance to try and change an entire school. I. Know one school that is known for its bloody mindedness and yes actually it's a reasonably good school.
However their sen provision was atrocious.
Parents lobbied, tried to educate, wrote everywhere got on governor board... Zilch.

Parents of sen children know the harsh reality of trying to get knowledge into school.
There is absolutely no hope for any other issues.

@LolaSmiles
The main chance of breaking those cycles you see in b is by education in sen across the board and proper Senco.

Proper diagnose and support from as early as possible and getting children reading by using flexible reading scheme.

This needs to happen from primary

But realistically, you are likely to only have a few ex-private pupils per class turning up in each state school. At least, that's what posters on this type of thread seem to always say: local schools wouldn't be overwhelmed, it would only be a handful of extra children per school etc etc.
But it isn't likely to be a couple of pupils shared across schools.

What's likely to happen is that the ex-private school families will flock to the best state schools, and the knock on will happen on average families, and not much will change for those at the bottom.

RamblingRosieLee
I totally agree with you. I don't think private schools is the big issue here. The state sector isn't going to improve for the majority until SEN services, SALT, EdPsch, social care, OT, physio, the services that many parents/families need to break their own cycles etc are all properly funded.

Until every family can access the support they need, schools are always going to be papering over the cracks with limited resources. The families with money will flock to the top schools that are least affected by these issues or they'll opt out and home educate with private tutors. Ultimately the more a school has to paper over cracks in wider services, the less time and fewer resources are available for educating.

I don’t see how a level playing field can ever be achieved. Private / state is a red herring. The real advantage is having engaged and
intelligent parents. We were having this conversation today as discussing results. Mix of state and private parents but that wasn’t the point. The state schools are good here. We all university educated. Friend who’s a pharmacist guiding her Dd to be a doctor as she knows all about that career path and most of her friends are doctors.

Dd wants to be a solicitor - we both are so can offer real guidance there and contacts. Not to mention the “soft” social
skills of being middle class having high expectations for yourself. How much harder if you have a single parent mother who is a cleaner and left school at 16? You’re on your own then in accessing a professional career even if your school is quite good. That was Dh - he did it all himself his parents left school at 16 and were blue collar workers - it’s possible but it’s much much harder.

DC at private school. Wouldn’t change it.

No, it probably wouldn't make a massive difference as the type of state schools that ex private school pupils are likely to go to are probably fairly high performing anyway.
In fact this scenario occurred in our area a few years ago when an independent school closed at short notice. Some children went to other private schools, but of those who transferred to the state sector they pretty much all ended up in one of the two sought after schools in the area. I know some took places in less good schools initially because they were the only schools with space but they all went on waiting lists for the popular schools and by virtue of where they live all got in eventually. People who educate privately tend to live in more expensive areas of course and the state schools in their areas tend to be the more sought after ones, for all the reasons LolaSmiles describes.
Having a more affluent parent body does help schools directly too. The demographics of my DCs school are quite mixed, but on average we're a fairly well heeled bunch of parents and you see that reflected in how much is made at fundraisers and donations made by local businesses that are often run by families with a link to the school. And it's not just money, parental involvement makes a difference too - plenty of solicitors to advise the Mock Bar team, engineers who help with the robotics team, doctors and scientists who come in to give talks to the STEM club and so on at our school. It is so much easier for schools to run those kind of activities if they have supportive parents with appropriate skills. In an area where lots of parents are struggling to put food on the table then no matter how much they might want to help the local school they just can't.
But I agree that closing private schools wouldn't have many positive effects for the state sector. It wouldn't benefit struggling schools because those children would not end up going to those schools, by virtue of where they live. And the schools where they do live are likely to be good and relatively well resourced anyway. All that is likely to happen is that competition for places in the good schools would go up even more, potentially leading to at least some less well off children who currently do benefit from a good state education being pushed out.

Totally agree with this, the whole being smug about your left wing politics whilst owning a £2million house in the catchment of the best state school in the country is exceptionally irritating.
Equally annoying is “bright children do well anywhere”. Well maybe my kid is thick as a plank mate, piss off

Totally agree with this, the whole being smug about your left wing politics whilst owning a £2million house in the catchment of the best state school in the country is exceptionally irritating.
I agree. It comes up on most private education threads though.

There's also a (misplaced and naïve) belief that as long as a school isn't in special measures then it's a decent school with few issues, so you'll also get people saying things like "people with funds to go private are unlikely to have poor state schools". Anyone who has spent any time in the state sector would be able to give dozens of examples that show this isn't the case.

Most parents want to do what's best for their children in their circumstances with the education that's on offer. The tiny minority who will deliberately give their kids a poor deal so they can get on their political soapbox and maintain their place in the purity spiral need to get a grip in my opinion.

Why do people assume that the behaviour in a state secondary is so appalling? The behaviour in the inner city deprived area that I teach in is excellent and more schools round here are going down the route of zero tolerance.

30 pages here of posts, many from your teacher colleagues, despairing of appalling behaviour in schools. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4836123-is-behaviour-out-of-control-in-a-lot-of-schools?page=1

I live in an area with both state and private schools in plentiful supply.

I can't afford private school so my DD went to a good state school. In spite of it's good-not-excellence, she did well at GCSEs and that's down to all the effort she put into it.

I admire the private sector's facilities and class sizes, alongside their promotion of extracurricular activities. My daughter never wants to join anything. I also note that PS is much more culturally diverse these days, if not economically so.

Maybe if I did have the cash, I'd send her. But the "normal" thing for me is state school. I don't know anyone who went private.

But it’s anecdotal and not all state schools have bad behaviour.

The kids from private schools are often more entitled and snobbish. You hear them in the park with their braying voices, spoiling it for everyone else

Yes.

chillidoritto · Today 14:30
The kids from private schools are often more entitled and snobbish. You hear them in the park with their braying voices, spoiling it for everyone else.

Bingo!

The kids from the state schools are often more entitled and chavvy. You see them in the park chucking litter and hurling playground equipment muttering ‘fuckin mental’ and ‘innit’, spoiling it for everyone else.

chillidoritto is that acceptable or stereotyping?