Private school vs private anything educational

[stopitstopitnooow]

If you have an issue with private schools, why? Do you have an issue with:

Buying houses in expensive catchment areas
Extracurricular activities such as music lessons, swimming, sports coaching
Tutors; language, 11+, GCSE

(Also, private healthcare, dentists, opticians)

I honestly don't understand the angst when it comes to private schools. Let people spend their money however they see fit.

To bang on about voucher systems, which I think would be a good approach, what percentage of people would top up the per capita state funding? Assuming that the voucher is worth £5,000 per annum per child (which is about the national average) would your family contemplate finding another £4,000 to pay for (fairly standard non-selective day) school privately?

This more than anything else would level up all schools by making a majority of parents more engaged. Dissatified? Take your funding elsewhere.

I really like the idea of the voucher system. One of the worst things about our experience of the state system was how disempowering it was for all of us. Giving parents more choices can only be a good thing.

DD's prep is far more ethnically diverse than her state primary was. Definitely much less homogeneous.

With experience of both systems, state schools are failing due to:

the inability to give effective consequences for poor behaviour. Kick violent and disruptive kids out. Just kick them out. Education is a privilege. If kids realised they could be kicked out, then 60% of them at least would start behaving. The other 40% of trouble makers could go to a PRU (we don’t have these in Scotland). The bleeding heart liberals will say that’s not fair on those from a troubled background, but the current situation isn’t fair on those kids who want to learn.

Not being able to pay teachers enough to attract them. If it takes £70k a year to attract a physics graduate to teaching then the money has to be found to pay this or we will have no physics taught in schools.

Not being able to buy basic resources such as textbooks.

fix those 3 problems and you are 80% of the way to closing the current chasm between state and private education. A lot of state schools these days have great facilities. Many have various clubs. It’s the lack of teachers and the lack of behaviour that makes the difference.

and why do people get so fraught about private education? Because they feel they are failing their kids if they can’t afford it and the state option is inadequate.

This in no way describes the private school where my GC go. There is a rich mix of cultures, of personalities, of abilities. There are children there on scholarships who come from disadvantaged backgrounds too.

I recognise that they are privileged to have this excellent education. But I am not complacent about this - I want this for EVERY child in the UK. I am sad that under this government it is not possible.

It was in the 1970s so a long time ago. My memory is that when I failed the 11+ my parents gave me extra coaching then I had to do it again. There was a small group of children of middle-class parents redoing it. I don't think any of the working-class parents bothered.

My memory is that a teacher told us we were privileged and we should all 'count our lucky stars'. My parents didn't think music or sport mattered. In those days the most important thing was to not end up working-class (or gay). That would bring dishonour on the family.

Although I did work in the local industry after leaving school, for a short time. In Northamptonshire where I grew up it was the boot and shoe industry. I drove a van for the warehouse of a boot and shoe factory. The people in the factory were quite jolly, which surprised me because my parents and teachers thought that the worst thing that could happen to you is ending up in the local industry.

It was easy to see why they were happy. Their standard of living had gradually increased since the war. They had council houses too. That was all to change when Margaret Thatcher came to power. Years later I found out that there had been iron ore mines in the area. My parents and teachers were unaware and uninterested in any of this.

Well you'd have difficulty with sending Theresa May's kids to state schools, she hasn't got any.

Cameron sent his kids to state schools while in No. 10 but at least two of them went private afterwards. If you think that the Cameron kids went to a sink comprehensive though, you are very deluded.

There is no chance that Sunak's kids will go anywhere near the state sector. He can easily afford to pay VAT (the family are near-billionaires), unlike the middle class professionals the policy would hit. If private education were banned entirely (say in an alternate universe where a nutter like Corbyn got elected) the kids would be sent abroad.

Yeah, money can't fix this, and neither would forcing some high achieving children with motivated parents to be educated there.

Honestly, I think if that was my only choice of school, with no option to change catchments, I'd give up my job and home educate.

@MasterBeth you would just get new free schools in desirable areas or outstanding schools having more expensive catchments. Our house in the catchment for our second choice school is 200k more than just outside (our location is more rural and nicer) because it is rated as outstanding. A local private to us went across to the state sector, it is an area where the average house price is over 1 million the kids are still from that area the parents just save money. All that has happen is the few who got in because parents paid or they won scholarships now don't get a chance

And once upon a time most children did go to private school. Until Governments nationalised them long ago.

Like I keep saying, a voucher to the average cost of education. With the parents deciding where it's spent and the money following the child.

Yup.
Need private education for every child.
it’s dreadful that the State has taken over education.

Also letting the State get at the mind of a child is disturbing

Yes.
Mine would be abroad.
As would the c.50% of their class mates who come from abroad.

The issue is bigger than schools though. When middle class boys are frozen out of professional jobs, they go abroad at that stage.

As happened in the 1970s, nearly requiring the IMF to intervene in the UK.

Luckily voters wanted to turn the country around then.

Now I have the sense that they don’t.

It strikes me that the majority of voters want the State to bleed the populace infinitely until the parasite kills the host.

Get out while you can is the only answer.

Good answer. Hope we get to see Milei implement it.

Allow good schools to expand and let the rest suffer the consequences of failure. While sadly there are parents who are not invested in their kids' education, probably because their own education failed, parents want their kids to do better than them. This is one way to make it happen. Of course, there comes the problem when the good school runs out of space to expand. Ideally, another school would have an ambitious head who will chase and compete.

The important point is that each child admitted brings an average voucher. Ideally it would be the same from Lands' End to the Scottish Borders (not true now, because some London schools per capita funding is over £7k and in Cornwall it's about £4.5k). To level the field and improve provision for all state-educated, that difference needs to be minimised. There will still be students with needs whose parents will top up for the education indivdiual kids need to succeed, but it really should not mean paying income tax towards education and then starting to pay for education a second time from taxed income.

If every child comes with funding, and parents want Eton, and the kid is selected by Eton, then they pay £35k pa instead of £40k. Nobody is hurt by it because Eton is highly academically selective. That means, if you are not selected, you are not clever (or Royal) enough. There are other schools.

Apologies for the barrage of posts!

I think you are deliberately misinterpreting my post! Let me rephrase it - I want this QUALITY of education for everyone child - in other words in the state sector.

My two DC are at completely different schools to one another due to their specific needs. One is at a private school paid for by us, with help from grandparents. The other is at an independent specialist school paid by our LA. The private school is small and relatively unknown. We will certainly not get any networking advantages from it. People who have network contacts which will benefit their children will still have those contacts regardless of where their child is educated, including in the state sector, including if all private schools were suddenly abolished. My brother went to a grammar school and then to Oxford. He’s done enormously well for himself through his Oxford contacts.

DS2 is only at his specific private school because it meets his needs so well. We moved him from another local private school which couldn’t. If a local school in the state sector could meet those needs equally well then he’d go there. All state schools are not equal to one another, just as all private - and public - schools are not equal. I think a lot of posters on this thread believe that all private schools must be the contacts and networking equivalents of Eton. They aren’t. And the vitriol is really unpleasant.

@Areallyboringperson One thing worth saying about behaviour (certainly in primary but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s similar in secondary) is how much is linked to special needs. Almost every disruptive or violent child I’ve ever taught has an additional need that we don’t have enough funding to meet. So while I completely agree that those extreme behaviours are unfair on the rest of the class (especially if they’re being actually hurt at school which is completely unacceptable) I do think there could be more productive solutions than kicking them out. Most could be supported in the state sector with the right funding / resources / staff. It generally happens when work is too hard or a child is overstimulated and even something as simple as popping outside for a breath of fresh air with an adult can help re-set before things spiral. But funding for additional adults is shrinking by the year.
And if I didn’t have children in my class shouting over my teaching or hurting others, I would definitely be able to manage any actual ‘naughty’ ones and get them in line.
(It obviously goes without saying that many SEND children don’t have behavioural issues at all).

I absolutely endorse the comment about absence of funding for support for children with behaviour problems. We have pupils with EHCPs outlining necessary 1:1 adult input but the funding does not follow the assessment.

You know what makes that happen. Markets.

Quite right.

And they would all be cheaper and better if the Govt quit interfering.

YABU - I don’t agree with such an unequal education. I know all schools are different and the catchment areas are different; however it does not seem fair to buy a better education because you have more money. Or course it is the government’s fault because state schools should always be able to offer a good education.
but as they don’t, the rich are able to make sure their child will get one when others can’t.

I don’t agree with grammar schools either.

I work in a state school and have always disagreed with the difference in private education. However seeing the state the government has put schools in, if I won the lottery I’d put my kids in private school, which is a tough and gutting thought for me.