Discussion over private schools brings out illogical viewpoints, sheer hypocrisy and the worse traits in people?

[ByPeachJoker]

First off, not that it should impact an objective debate, but we do send our son to a private primary school but would consider ourselves middle income earners.

As you can imagine, this is linked to the PMs debate just now, but having read a recent MN thread on a lady who wanted to know how she might be able to avoid paying VAT on school fees should Labour come into power, I was shocked at the vitriol thrown her way. As far as I could tell, the issue wasn't so much that she wanted to avoid the VAT but the majority of comments were coming from people who essentially felt like this lady was somehow getting her comeuppance, that she automatically deserved to suffer some form of penalty just by virtue of choosing to send her DC to a private school. She made a 'bad' choice and should suffer the consequences.

One comment was simply 'how about sending your kids to a state school like 93% of the population'. It completely disregards the fact that there is a child at the heart of this and that a fairly arbitrary tax change is a) going to lead to an additional cost for exactly the same thing and b) for many parents, this change will mean they cannot afford the fees and this may lead to a child's education and social environment being uprooted. I'm not here to necessarily discuss the actual fairness of VAT being imposed on private school fees but more that there is this automatic reaction by a majority of people whenever private schooling is discussed and that this reaction is rooted in nothing logical and is based on the worse of human emotions such that people ignore the fact that many parents are making a financial/lifestyle sacrifice for their children.

Much of it comes from this completely incorrect assumption that you must be wealthy to send your child to a school. I get the impression that many are misinformed and assume that most private schools are like Eton or Harrow and have fees in excess of £20k a year which really is not the case. I think the negativity comes down to the fact that it's people's children that are involved and so people naturally come to see parents who send their kids to private schools as paying for some form of advantage and this being inherently unfair. Now I accept that there are a lot of people who simply could not afford private school fees BUT (and I know this will be incredibly unpopular) to be quite frank, most middle class families can but the parents simply aren't willing to make the financial and lifestyle sacrifice to send their kids to private school and yet they are happy to try and hate on those that do.

Ultimately they might choose to spend their money on a more expensive car, a bigger house, a nicer holiday etc. I used to live in a new build housing development where people in one bedroom flats had brand new Range Rover Sports parked up outside. It was ridiculous that people who could seemingly 'only' afford a 1 bed flat were buying or leasing cars that were almost a third of the value of their home. However we let them make their choice and move on.

Now you can argue about the ethics of private school education but I think those who automatically view parents who send their kids to private school as people who should endure some form of suffering or deserve whatever is coming to them need to look at the hypocrisy they show when compared to their own lifestyle choices but also understand that we're not all millionaires and have actually made a sacrifice for what we hope is the benefit of our children - have you done the same?

You realise your nursery feels point only holds up if you have one child? How does the argument hold out for the large proportion of the population that have more than one? It costs £16k pa to send my youngest there (after the deductions!) and I cannot wait to be free of the payment so we can have more fun as a family again. If I just kept paying this for my three children I'd need nearly £50k disposable income. Funny enough I think this would only be possible if I had an extremely high income.

And I drive a second hand banger already! 😂

4 out of 5 of the secondaries here are really decent - great results majority middle class kids minimal disruption. Not perfect but eons better than my comp. Still people go private. That’s fine their choice but here yes it definitely is a luxury purchase.

People keep confusing public school with private school. It's not expected public schools will be affected. We're talking about private day schools where the fees are around £15000. Parents are often older and have saved up to pay the fees. They have better paid jobs than most, but they're not hugely well connected. Many of them are immigrant families with aspirations. They might not even speak the language that well, never mind be fabulously connected in high society!

Also, I have friends in law who went to bog standard comprehensives. You have the qualifications and you apply for the job. What kind of law jobs are you talking about? Do you mean you need to be connected to get promotions, to find work as a barrister?

The law firms I know now are extremely right on blind applications etc. There’s been a concerted effort to breakdown this type of thing.

Anecdotally Dh and I got to city law firms from comps with zero personal connections. I was literally told at interview that my face fitted!

Oh do you check every single word you write to see if it’s been used correctly? Clearly I didn’t know it was a mistake if I used it incorrectly so wouldn’t have thought to check…

What a foolish comment rather than accepting you made an unnecessary dig at someone who isn’t a native speaker. I don’t need an apology, but doubling down on your statement is silly.

So the private school your SEN child attends has similar numbers of children from low income families as your other child's school and the same amount of money to spend per child? Same pupil/staff ratio? Same class sizes?

If people feel strongly about equality in education, I’d suggest they also target grammar schools, which are essentially private schools by stealth. The tests are designed to be tutored towards - however much the schools claim that you don’t need tutoring. So many grammar schools claim that everything in the test is from the national curriculum. Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning are not on the national curriculum for a start and require very specific, rote skills. Not many children at average primary schools are reading Dickens, Tolkien or Eyre; all of which have appeared on past 11+ English Comprehension papers.

I find the grammar system much more distasteful and dishonest.

It’s possible to have ethical issues with both private school and grammar schools. Ditto faith schools.
The only reason there are so many threads on this topic is because they’re being started by aggrieved parents of private schools children! It’s topical.

I agree. I support VAT on private school fees, but it would be a higher priority for me to get rid of state funded faith schools and grammar schools.

I firmly believe that all state funded schools- with the exception of special schools for SEN - should be fully comprehensive and open to all.

Grammar schools have no more money to spend per head on educating children than comprehensives.

They have approximately 7K per child.

The average private school charges 15K per child.

Grammar schools have more children from educated and middle class homes than comprehensives. They may have more children from private primaries than is representative of the demographic of their catchment areas, and they usually have vastly fewer children on FSM than the nearest non-selective state school.

Personally I'm completely against selection at 11 or 13 in the state sector - I think it can't be made fair and there's plenty of evidence from educational research to back up this view.

But if you want to argue the case that children attending grammar schools have access to wildly better and more educational resources as they do in private schools - as far as resources go this is simply not the case. Grammar schools have much larger classes than private schools. They have far less money to spend per child.

Also completely against selection by faith.

I agree @izimbra

In my experience (DS at grammar) the facilities are not better than other state schools

In some cases they are worse, and they offer less choice. No drama or food tech GCSE for example. Other schools have fabulous drama facilities.

Every grammar school I’ve ever tutored towards (London, Surrey, Kent) ask for hefty voluntary (ha!) contributions at the beginning of the school year.

Grammar schools also retain and gain teaching staff much better than your average comprehensive. Behaviour issues are also nothing like what you would find in your average comprehensive. Teaching staff not having to deal with behaviour all day = more productive lessons.

Grammar schools also offer a more expansive range of extra curricular trips and activities; they know money is not a barrier for parents. A local grammar to us offered a trip to China for their Year 10s as part of mandarin studies. I’ve not heard of many comprehensives offering that.

Many grammar schools have wealthy alumni who regularly visit and donate to the school. I know of one school that was donated a new sports hall a few years ago (no doubt there was some sort of benefit for the donor, I’m dubious that it was out of the goodness of their heart!)

So, whilst they may only get £7k per student from the government, grammar pupils do have access to much better educational resources. It absolutely is private school by stealth.

Drama is a soft subject

Oh they have been. There’s a whooooole other post running on this too currently, dont worry.

My son's private school has no children from low income families.

It's also the closest school to us with specialist SEND provision.

Rather than wait 18 months for EHCP/tribunal and have to travel to an SEN school I decided to pay for private.

Yes this means I've paid for a privilege that other parents of disabled children cannot afford. However I am not trying to gain an advantage for my child over the majority of families whose children (like my other child) attend their local state school.

There is no "elite" club at this school. No children from my son's private school have been to Oxford or Cambridge (at least as far back as destinations are published. Whereas my oldest son's state school sends maybe one or two a year).

I'm very grateful to be able to pay for a full-time SENDCO, a permanently staffed SEND hub and teachers that have experience with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Yes private school is a luxury choice. Yes it should attract VAT.

However not all parents that send children there are "elitists". Some just want an environment that there child can cope with where there is support with social skills, rather than constant detentions and isolations.

That’s the same as the school DS will be going to in September. It’s a school for boys with speech and language difficulties, as well as other SEND such as ASD, dyslexia. Hardly the school of the elite.

I disagree with the comment about it being elite. However, within the SEND community, being is to afford this level of education might feel elite.

@ageratum1 what's your point?

Personally I don't think it is but I'm probably in the minority.

My point is, grammar schools came have less facilities than state comps or private schools, and a narrower focus with fewer options.

This will bell's on.

Life has been very unfair for many people recently. It's life unfortunately.

I'm not sure what bombarding MN with these echo chamber threads is really going to do. It's not going to do anything to change policy. If it does change, it won't be because someone posted a frothy post on here.

@pintofsnakebite But that narrower focus with fewer options often far outstrips the same offering from a comprehensive school. Yes, they often have less focus on the arts, but parents of children in grammar schools can often pay for stage coach etc. out of school. Similarly, most elitist jobs which those at grammar / private schools often aim for, don’t value the arts. It’s all about the traditional subjects - at least for careers such as law and medicine.

If there weren’t clear advantages to going to a grammar school vs comprehensive, I wouldn’t have a long line of parents paying me (and plenty of other tutors) £80 an hour to coach their children through the exam process.

@Soukmyfalafel
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I'm not sure what bombarding MN with these echo chamber threads is really going to do. It's not going to do anything to change policy. If it does change, it won't be because someone posted a frothy post on here.

You could say that about anything. Will Labour change their policies on trans people because of posts on here?
Will the Israel v Palestine situation change because of the numerous posts on here on the subject/

@Proa I'm not denying the advantages, many of which you mention.

This was about money and facilities, compared to some other schools, often newer.

@pintofsnakebite Ah, I read your previous post as you arguing that whilst your DS’s grammar school is great in what it does, it’s not great in other areas (drama, facilities, the arts) therefore it somehow levels the playing field with the comprehensive schools.

Grammar schools in NI have a lot more money- parents pay 'voluntary contributions' which range from about £500 per year to £3000.

"This was about money and facilities, compared to some other schools, often newer."

You'll need to back that up with some evidence.

"So, whilst they may only get £7k per student from the government, grammar pupils do have access to much better educational resources. It absolutely is private school by stealth."

They have no more teachers per pupil than any other state school.

Many have crumbling buildings.

Super selective grammar schools tend to take a much lower proportion of children on free school meals, but other grammars have up to one in 10 children on FSM.

BTW - according to the Sutton Trust "Attainment in GCSEs is higher in grammars than comprehensives, for both disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged pupils. However, much of this is attributable to high levels of prior attainment of the pupils entering grammars. Highly able pupils achieve just as well in top comprehensives as they do in grammar schools".

On the other hand, attending a private school confers advantages at A level equal to one additional grade in one subject. So a student that gets AAB at a non selective state school would be likely achieve AAA in a private school. This is according to the Sutton Trust. The Sutton Trust report on this advises that this is likely down to advantages confered by the 'rich resources of private schools'.

The same report also says: "Applicants from non-selective state schools were less likely to receive and accept an offer from a Russell Group university compared to independent schools (44% compared to 71%). Almost two thirds of those who applied from grammar schools were accepted (63%)." Note that there were fewer acceptances at RG from pupils at grammar schools than at private schools. This report was published in 2018. There may have been some changes since, as private schools have got even richer since then, and state schools have got poorer.