Aibu to wonder why private schools produce more "well rounded" children? Is it the school or the parents?

[Kenthighst]

I know all state schools produce well rounded children eg those kids that are academic, musical, sporty, confident, excel at drama & can try their hand at anything.

But private schools churn out well rounded kids so aibu to wonder if it is the actual school who produce these kids or is it parental input?

Of course private school students are more well-rounded. Their education is more well rounded, therefore they are.

My children all left school with much higher than average academic results than they would otherwise have achieved. More importantly they have all been exposed to learning music (to a high standard) and to sport and other cultural extras. Not a brag, just what it is. Two of my three are ND, another reason for our choice to go private.

We are not wealthy and have literally worked ourselves to the bone to put them all through a fantastic education. Would do it again in a heartbeat.

Pots of money doesn't make for good parents.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7308039/Britains-private-schools-awash-Class-drugs-according-new-study.html

Loads of parents spend money on their kids but have no time for them.

Access to better resources (funding) provides private school children with better opportunities both at home and at school.

Most PS children also have families who can afford: tutors, holidays that expose them to different cultures, extra curricular activities with specialist teachers etc.

The school is funded by fees unlike state schools which face horrendous cuts to their budgets.

Money gives people exposure to better resources and education - so the children are more educated.

Its access to facilities and opportunities, which comes from money one way or another.
The small rural comprehensive I attended had sod all facilities, no extra curricular apart from the hockey and football teams. There was no money to pay for accessing things privately, or time to ferry us about.

I don’t know about ‘more rounded’ though. You could argue that being around mostly people who are like you in terms of social class leads children to be socially and culturally less aware.

A sack of qualifications and being able to play a musical instrument is an extremely shallow view of what "well-rounded" means. No wonder we end up with the absolute shower who think of themselves as the intellectual and righteous elite just because they have more money.

Are they kind?
Do they have emotional intelligence?
Are they self-aware?
Are they generous and tolerant?
Do they have a good understanding of other people's lives and circumstances?

Ticking all those boxes makes someone a well-rounded person, not qualifications and money.

In saying that the private schools near us are always going great trips & residentals, really good international trips also. My dc's school goes nowhere!

Do they?

Aren’t the stats overwhelmingly higher for kids who believe they have gender identities outside of their biological sex, from these schools?

What I don't understand is why state schools can't replicate at least some of it - they manage it in other countries.

I mean, I assume it's money, and probably number of pupils, but US schools have entire stadiums, meanwhile some state schools can barely manage to have a school pitch/court with the proper lines painted on it.

My kids (state, small - about 400pupils)) primary in Ireland buys in dedicated drama/dance/science/sport/whatever teachers either for one-off lessons for the school or on a weekly basis - I'm very impressed with their provision actually, these roaming PE/Drama/Science teachers just have a set of schools they service, so the kids get the specialist teaching, but it doesn't cost the earth for the individual schools.

My state school (bog standard comp) did really good trips in the 1980s and 1990s, I did three language trips for five days to a week to France and Germany in five years, plus a week long residential team building trip in the UK. Could have also gone ski-ing but didn't fancy it.

It's a crying shame that state schools can't offer such opportunities now.

@shearwater2 I think some of the very affluent state schools do. Ours literally go nowhere.

You could also ask Aibu to wonder why private schools produce more "arrogant" children? Is it the school or the parents?

Not saying they are or they aren't, but since we are doing generalisations...

Lol to no disruptive children!
I taught in both state and private...worse behaviour in private schools!

Lol - it wouldn’t be mumsnet if the convo somehow didn’t get turned into something to do with gender indentity…

What I don't understand is why state schools can't replicate at least some of it - they manage it in other countries.
Some can and do.

In my experience they're the ones where overall the pupils and families value education, want the children to do well, the families value a range of interests.

In other schools staff are busy trying to create a sense of calm, order and safety because if they call parents to say their child is preventing others from learning, refusing to follow simple instructions, and is being verbally abusive to staff and students, the response from the parent is to shrug their shoulders or worse excuse behaviour. In these schools a huge amount of time is taken up firefighting and dealing with a lot of issues that aren't really education.

I've worked in both. Family cultures make a big difference. In one school I ran lots of enrichment activities. In the other I was too exhausted to run them and the staff who did try to offer nice things found they were terribly attended.

It’s mostly true though isn’t it?

First world problems and all that

If state schools are ‘bad’ they end up in a cycle of underfunding because they’re undersubscribed.

Each child brings the school money but if people don’t pick the school they end up still having to pay the same amount of teachers but with less money.

1 form entry schools suffer a lot in this way.

I think that’s fair. I also think that @Echobelly ’s post about entitlement, while entirely true to an extent, only works if that entitlement is only on offer to a small proportion of the population —- ie the ‘polish’ simply wouldn’t be appealing if everyone left school with it. The doors, by definition, can’t be open to everyone. The supposed cachet of a private school is only there because only a tiny percentage of the population attends one.

I also don’t think it’s general. At Oxford my college had a lot of ex-public schoolboys. Some were classic Hooray Henrys whose grandfathers had built the new cloisters, came from castles in Scotland, were in exclusive dining clubs and left for big City jobs and marriage to a Cressida. Some, from the same schools, were deeply ordinary, had got into Oxford on good A levels and a confident interview, but certainly, if they felt entitled to the world, no one had told the world.

It is both.
If you pay fees then you have skin in the game so more invested.
Paying fees then also gives access to a whole host of extra curricular activities every day, not just once a week.
Add to that smaller class sizes to grow confidence, teachers who have freedom to go off piste in lessons and explore depth as well as breadth.
All subjects taught by specialists with MA/PhD level (at DDs school) so the passion and knowledge for each subject is there.

Add to that (probably) more money for travel outside of school and life experiences. I say probably more money because obviously some DC are on bursaries or are at SEN specialist schools.

I think it’s good schooling in an affluent area with good extra curricular provision that helps combined with parents having the budget to give their children experiences and attention . I don’t think it’s as simple as private v state . My kids were nowhere near as self assured as their privately educated peers at primary level . They are teens now and I would say that has now evened out. One has been exclusively in state education the other recently transferred into the private system

This is all utter nonsense. Sweeping generalisations.

My ds spent 7 years at a small state primary and then 5 years at a small independent.

He was strong at maths & science, weak at sport, ok at everything else. By year 6 he was angry, frustrated and miserable. He felt he was held back at the things he was good at while teachers focused on getting weaker pupils through SATs.
He was ridiculed and humiliated by the headteacher over his inability to play football and became isolated and depressed.

The (minor unfashionable) independent school has been brilliant. Encouraging him to achieve as much as he can in maths and science, and carefully undoing the damage and building his confidence in sports he will take part in. Giving him access to a gym, swimming and archery club. Finding things he enjoys. Showing skilled support, kindness and pastoral care. Aged 15, he will finally play football at lunchtime. He is happy and confident. A different person. 😊

I think it comes down to the resources of the school, small class sizes, the levels of bullying the school tolerates and in his case the decency of the teachers.

@Meadowfinch glad to hear your son is thriving now after such a tough time in his previous school.

@Kenthighst huge relief for us, but I worry for those left behind.

When I was made redundant during Covid, I used to listen to dcs practise reading at his old school, to try to get them back on track after lockdown. So many were struggling. 😕

Agree with this. I don't think there is any difference. You pay for the contacts and opportunities. I have met some privately educated people who were terrible at a lot of things, and state educated people who had a broad set of skills and very accomplished in what they did. It's about the person, not the price tag. Private education just offers more opportunities and a leg up whether you are talented or not.