To want to educate my child in state but provide the straw that make it like a private education?

[palegazelle]

Is that even possible? I don't think I quite have the money to send all my children private, but I do have some money that I'd like to use for extras like tutoring, music lessons, sports extra
-curriculars and the opportunity to spend some time with them myself on things that others might use a tutor for.

So how do I give my children as close to the advantages of private school as possible without actually sending them to private?

What is the difference that makes the difference and which parts of it can I replicate in the state system? How?

I haven’t paid a penny and my DC got top grades (DD just got all 9’s). No extra tuition etc. The difference I think is they attended an outstanding primary and outstanding secondary, but they also had a lot of drive to study for hours to do well

All this talk of “connections” is making me a little queasy tbh. You’re really saying that you want your kids to be part of some kind of unfair old-boys network type thing rather than just grow up to be decent people who work hard and get things on their own merits? Have we returned to the 1950s?!

Apart from the tutoring, most parents do this anyway. Do you think that we're a different species?

This

My kids went to state schools and did well all the way through to university. They have benefitted occasionally from useful chats with some of my friends but that’s mainly been around careers guidance so nothing particularly old-boy about it. I did benefit though and was lucky enough to retire at 45 which most definitely wouldn’t have been possible if I attended a state school. I now spend my time focussing on music which as been a lifelong passion. I find it annoying that the professional classical music industry is again a form of cronyism as you must have attended a private school(preferably music) and then a conservatoire to even be considered for roles. I want to change that and open it up to state educated musicians.

Privately educated children do less well at University than state educated children. When corrected for parental income and education there is no evidence that private school improves grades (i.e. middle class children do well at school however they are educated). Privated educated children do well at school not because of the expensive school buildings, they do well because they have well off parents who value education. Sadly, privately educated children are more likely to take drugs and alcohol at a younger age and have more sexual partners than state school pupils.

And also, considering how much private education costs I'm never quite sure why so many people 'have' to send their childrn to a private school because their local schools are so terrible, why not move to a better area, you presumably have plently disposable income to do so. Or maybe engage with the local school and use your considerable resources to help improve it.

This school sounds incredible. Are classes capped at 20, or is it just half empty? Most schools push to get their classes filled to 30 (or more in KS2 where legislation allows an unlimited number) as funding is per pupil, so schools with only 20 in a class are down 1/3 of their funding straight away. At the minute most schools which are full are unable to fund (or even find, even if they have the money)a TA per class, but this school has 2 plus extras for SEN kids, most of whom don’t get additional funding? Sometimes schools in middle class areas can get round these funding issues by having very active PTAs and parents who give generously, which funds lots of stuff freeing up state money for extra staff, but you say most parents are low paid. I honestly don’t understand how this school is making ends meet. It does sound incredible and yes if all schools were like this there wouldn’t be any need for private!

Privately educated children do less well at University than state educated children. When corrected for parental income and education there is no evidence that private school improves grades (i.e. middle class children do well at school however they are educated). Would you have a link to this research please. Thank you

Would you have a link to this research please. Thank you

Here

Or maybe they are just naturally bright children

Where have you got this information from? I work in a deprived area and put two kids through private/ believe me there is much more risk taking going on in areas of social deprivation 🙈

“In the real world more independent school pupils get A*s in the first place, and overall get better degrees. Previous, more thorough research shows it is wrong to conclude that more than a tiny number – around 1% – of state school pupils entering at the same level will do better at university.”

What can you do? Be a middle class parent. Sorted.

It's the networking

You mean this paper from 2015, which analysed the introduction of A* at A-level for the cohort from 2010? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03054985.2015.1090967

Of course it's difficult to know whether research from 2010 has any relevance to the current situation but did you read the underlying paper? It wasn't specifically concerned with independent schools but one of the findings was that students educated at independent schools were far more likely to achieve A* *star than state school students (more than 3 times as many in this cohort). When you control degree outcome by A-level achievement (not parental income etc) then state school students with the same A-levels were more likely to get a 'good' degree. That's probably not surprising given that they were looking at students with A star and this meant only the very top slice of the state students but nearly 20% of independent. One problem is that thet partially rely on a HEFCE paper that said state school students did better. That paper was later (quietly) corrected because they wrongly transposed the independent and state school data and in fact in raw data independent school students had done better (https://www.alansmithers.com/reports/HEFCE.pdf). lots of the articles written on the basis of the eroneous paper were not corrected and if you google you can find headlines from around 2014/2015 that give the reversed results.

Anyway, that's all rather old now but I am not aware of any research that looks at degree outcome for state/private controlled for parental income and education (or indeed much that looks at the state/prvate outcome at all since then - most is now focused on target groups).

They are bright, but they aren’t the type who would walk into an exam and get 100% with no effort. They’ve both had to put in a lot of work (way more than even the school would expect).

There are some good state schools around where bright children fulfil their potential. Ours is all girl has best results in the county and the results are equivalent to the local girls private. It’s not perfect but it’s decent.

Mine have fulfilled their potential anyway been happy and have lovely friends. Some teachers are excellent most actually some aren’t. Sport is better at private - but there are good local sports clubs. We do values/manners/ cultural education in house. Could have afforded private but it would have been a painful stretch for two of them and frankly for us - not worth it.

You can't (speaking from experience as I'm a state-educated survivor, raising a privately educated child). You can't replicate the smaller class sizes, the better teachers (it's harder to fire bad teachers in state schools), and the better respect for your child. I didn't want my boy screamed at, manhandled, publicly shamed etc - which takes place in every state school. Private education isn't about the results (they're often about the same as the best state schools) - it's about the emotional care. Who do you want raising your child 30hrs a week?

Are you able to follow the thread? Why are you addressing to me? Does PeachSalad read to you JaninaDuszejko?

I didn't want my boy screamed at, manhandled, publicly shamed etc - which takes place in every state school.

Really? Don't recall anything like that. Neither does my 11 years old child. I think that private school parents have odd perception about what happens in state schools.

@PunnyAzureCrab neither of my state educated dc have ever been ‘screamed at, manhandled, publicly shamed’. In fact they have both excelled in a large, Welsh medium state school which offers not only a great bilingual education but a huge array of extra curricular activities too. Just as all private school are different, so are all state schools and they definitely don’t all deserve to be tarred with the same brush.

Teachers in private schools don’t need to be qualified teachers. That in itself would be a concern to me and would need a lot of homework on my part before I would ever consider letting them form a part of my dc’s education.

My DDs have 12-1 ratio with a teacher and a TA. There is also 2 floating "reading" TA so all children from Reception to Year 2 and read with for 20 mins a day.

They have specialist teachers in French, art, ICT , music and PE. They have swimming lessons weekly from Reception to Year 6.

You just can't get this in state.

Because you posted the guardian article quoting my request for the research.

Yes I did but it doesn't mean I am the one who put that claim. I just helped to find you it.

F