Private education and healthcare

[LeafUsAlone]

I'm just curious as to why they are considered morally indefensible when people being able to afford better quality clothing, houses, safer cars etc aren't commented on in the same way?

Considering both private healthcare and education doesn't necessarily mean a better quality, why do people get so annoyed over them?

Not when you count the amount of children who can’t access university places or job roles because they are almost exclusively taken by those that were privately educated. Or those people that die having spent extended time on cancer waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment.

Yep.

Can I ask why you’d want to? Moral high ground?

I choose to live by the beliefs I think are important.

The bit re: university places is absolute bollocks. Widening participation + diversity schemes are everywhere these days with reduced offers and bursaries for students from less privileged backgrounds being very common place

If you really believe that private education does not gain you better outcomes in further and higher education and job roles, both individually and generationally, then I can’t help you.

I think it's due to the fact that private schools are the engines of inequality in the UK and the growth of private health care is contributing to an explosion of health inequality in the UK.

But if you don't care about growing inequality - and many people don't if they're at the 'winning' end of life's unequal playing field - it's all good.

If you are in the position to buy luxuries with surplus income then you pay VAT on a shiny new car, designer clothes or hotel stays. For most people using private schools it is a luxury, so I don't see why it shouldn't incur VAT too. I say that as a parent who will have to pay that VAT. I think there is a complexity around SEND provision in private schools.

I'm not sure that private healthcare is really a luxury - avoiding unacceptably long queues doesn't seem the same to me and I think that NHS waiting lists and the number of people unable to work must be at least partly related.

My only issue with the private school VAT issue is that it looks vindictive. It seems to be one of very few policies that Labour actually have. There are plenty of discrepancies in the tax system, but a commitment to fix that one, but not others looks punative.

Some. Some is better. Some certainly isn't.

You should read a book by Michael Sandel called ‘What Money Can’t Buy, the Moral Limits of Markets’ it’s about this.

people get worked up about private schools because they entrench privilege and reduce social mobility.

people get worked up about private health care because most find the idea that rich people get to live longer than poor people quite difficult to justify.

the reason people don’t get worked up about cars snd fancy clothes is because they have no societal impact and no one died from having an undesirable car or a cheap outfit.

Where I live the standard waiting time for a referral to a specialist in many areas of medicine (gynae, muscular skeletal, allergy clinic etc) is 18 month. Long enough to cause serious harm if you can’t afford to go private. This was not the case 5 years ago. By contrast the primary schools are quite good and sixth form colleges excellent. So good in fact that private schools struggle to keep kids beyond 16. The 11-16 schools stream kids by ability, so the top streams tend to have good behaviour and results. The main advantage of private education is wrap-around care for working parents that includes sport etc. A childminder can’t usually take your kids to netball or brownies after school and nannies are expensive. It’s worth remembering that the teachers all come from the same pool and they all prepare kids for the same exams.

Sorry - meant to add wrap around care and SEN. If your child can’t get into the top sets then they can be stuck with bad behaviour. And large secondary schools can be really overwhelming for some kids.

Wrap around care is most definitely not the main advantage of private education. A teacher from any pool preparing for any exam is a more effective with a class of 10-15 pupils, the funding for educational enrichment and a school that manages out SEN.

@Didimum 10-15 is a certainly not the norm in big name private schools for GCSEs. 20 is the usual cap, but they can be up to 24. Even prep schools often have a cap of 17-19, but no teaching assistant, whereas the primary class of 30 has a teaching assistant.

"It’s worth remembering that the teachers all come from the same pool and they all prepare kids for the same exams."

My son did his A levels at a decent comprehensive.

But his A level classes were big - and their physics teacher was 72, and had quite a few days off from ill health.

Many state schools really struggle with recruitment of shortage stem staff, especially in an area where they're surrounded by lavishly resourced private schools, as my son's comp was.

In addition to this my son's class got very little lab access as their school was hugely over crowded. Head teacher took on masses of additional pupils in response to funding cuts - it makes sense when you know the money follows the child. But they were having to teach some classes in tents in the car park because they couldn't expand the site or afford to build new classrooms.

My son's girlfriend went to a good private school. She was one of 5 girls in her further maths class. My son was one of 18 in his. In the end my son was 4 marks off an A* in physics & further maths. And this is what private school gives you according to the research - an edge when it comes to A level results. It's why private school students are hugely over represented at top universities.

www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf

This is something of a nonsense argument - no amount of being against the grammar system by these people will alter the fact that they're stuck with the system they're stuck with and have to navigate it despite hating it. If it's a grammar area, no amount of wishing for a comprehensive will make one magically appear - and people who are against grammars tend to be against the whole system, including secondary moderns.

It is putting a ridiculous burden on people to expect them to say: "I hate the education system of the area I live in, I hate that grammars and secondary moderns exist I think the 11+ is problematic and divisive and segregating children from age 11 based on a single test result is mad. I am however stuck with this system, and because I hate the system so much I will purposely place my child in the less academic option even if the more academic option would suit them better."

(to save you time: I don't live in a grammar area and have a child who's doing well at our local comp.)

Not sure what private schools you’re on about as the ones that DD went to were very oversubscribed with classes ranging from 24-30?

Saints preserve me from champagne socialists 🙄

Yup, but a primary class of 30 in the state sector that also has a teaching assistant will also usually have 2 or 3 children with significant special needs but no EHCP.

@izimbra
Some state schools undoubtedly have their problems. I worked in one with eight teachers in long term sick leave. Their continued virtual presence made it impossible to get permanent replacements. However, in other ways it was the best school I have worked in. It was on the edge of a large council estate, so the demographics were challenging, but the professionalism of the SLT was awe inspiring and my colleagues were far more talented than most independent school teachers I have worked with. Their classroom practice has to be spot on. Private schools are sometimes more able to rely on pupils to behave well, but not always. They often scrimp on training budgets. They require their teachers to offer a myriad of extracurricular activities ( these sometimes bring more important than classroom practice). Parents put a lot of faith on these schools when they choose to pay an arm and a leg to send their children there and you’d be surprised by how often they are disappointed.

@goldenretrievermum5

"Not sure what private schools you’re on about as the ones that DD went to were very oversubscribed with classes ranging from 24-30?"

Private schools have double the number of teachers per pupil than state schools.

A TA is not a teacher (though, yes my niece who attends private primary school does have a TA in her class of 14). The presence of a TA does not negate a class size of 30, the lack of funding for educational enrichment on the same park as private education or presence of children with SEN.

I’m afraid I really can’t continue discussing the extremely obvious benefits and privilege of private education with someone who doesn’t appear to grasp the fundamentals.

The poster was talking about class sizes, which for us were nowhere near as small as 10-15

My children's teachers in state schools were heroes to me - just incredibly people doing a really hard job with great skill.

Goldenretrievermum5 "The poster was talking about class sizes, which for us were nowhere near as small as 10-15"

Yes I'm sure there's the odd exception to the rule.