To wonder if you are against private schools…

[Unsrr]

Why is this? As in against their existence?

I was brought up in a reasonably poor area and my education was not good. I sometimes went to the nearest private school for swimming lessons and remember being in awe of it. We have one dc now age 7 and can’t afford private but there is maybe a chance we could for secondary. I wouldn’t give it a second thought if we could make it work.

I have never felt private schools should disappear because surely that’s what we should be aspiring to? An education that is excellent (yes I know not all private schools are good and lots of state schools are better), isn’t that what we should aim for?

I feel sad that this country has now made it harder to access this education. What is the reason people are against private schools existing at all? I don’t think it can be jealousy, I think many people are genuinely opposed to it from an ideological perspective and I can’t understand it at all. Just interested really as there’s been so much talk about schools recently.

Given what Kemi Badenoch has said about reversing the VAT, it would be interesting to see, if she ever gets to be PM, what would happen. Because I doubt school fees would drop by 20% in a few years if that happened.

I'd very much rather that she - or Labour - introduced an option for the schools to offset the VAT by giving fully-paid scholarships to local residents. Lightening the load on local schools is inevitably going to be a key part of improving education in this country.

But lightening the load on local schools should not involve giving some children extreme privilege, and if scholarships are by academic achievement then you get into the grammar school situation whereby grammars have been long shown to degrade the quality of their nearby state schools.

Regarding some learning needs, bright kids, mainstream - perhaps adhd, slow processing, dyslexia, poor organizational processing, asd.etc etc. Can do the work, can get the grades, but not as easily,

If you are a MN who doesn’t believe these learning differences exist, skip this post.

Some private schools support accessing national curriculum for these kids thru learning support, study skills sessions, extra help sessions, quiet study/exam areas. Parents usually pay extra to have child supported until they can learn strategies for academic success. It’s not special needs, but another area of education where it benefits kids to have parents who can afford private school.

Wouldn’t it be nice state schools could identify and support these kids too …. Without waiting years & years for an nhs/camhs assessment and then too little support, too late.

Just to clarify - the confusion I had earlier was around children who have an ECHP and higher needs funding, and if they were in that group of children we were talking about in private education by parent choice.

In work, it’s those children I work with LAs and schools to provide support packages for, and at home… well he wouldn’t fit in a private mainstream setting, and none of you would want him there either tbh. The child brings the chaos, he’s not in the demographic you’re talking about.

I wasn’t in anyway dismissing children with any other form of need, learning or otherwise. I am of course aware that children with different needs to the ones I’ve encountered exist, and deserve an education.

Yeah, but a) wonder what their exclusions are like and b) if your kid has SEN I wonder if most parents would actively choose not to send their child there so it sort of becomes self selective.

In fact it was a government initiate to get as many schools into a MAT (multi-academy trust) as possible. I lose track of where that is these days.

That is a huge issue, those deciding on placements often have very limited professional knowledge. As a health professional I write reports for ehcps, and you can see they just pull random phrases from each professionals report which looses context and ends up with the report making no sense.

They tend to be better than state maintained ones (primary level). I don’t know about secondary quality for academy yet.

I think it’s variable (state school governor).

Philosophically I’m conflicted about MATs. On the one hand curriculum and policy autonomy is good and poor support from the LA gives them buying power and other economies of scale etc. However, the size of some MATs are akin to publicly listed companies yet trustees remain largely volunteers who are unable to adequately challenge. There’s an issue with span of control.

Sad they are needed really. All education should be great. But don’t blame people who can afford them for picking the best for their child.

This

I do blame them. I can afford it, but wouldn’t consider sending DS private. To do so wpuld be participating in a system that perpetuates inequality.

Some, such as those with SEN, would struggle in mainstream but get more support in private schools. I’m not going to flame those who want to do that when they have zero support in traditional schools.

But you might if your child had unmet needs in state. Do you really not understand that? Loads of us had no intention of beggaring ourselves to do this until our kids were utterly broken. Anyone who hand on heart would leave their child in a setting in which they were terrorised and then developed EBSA and didn't move them if they could is a bloody terrible parent in my view.

I support private schools. Hopefully the litigation will be won and Labour will not be able to go ahead. We save teh state a small fortune and have our children educated well which benefits the nation which relieving the state sector of the cost of 500,000 children a year.

So you’d put up with your child being kicked black and blue every day for your smug ‘perpetuating inequality’ values? I’d doubt it.

Is your child at a failing State school?

It’s the endless fighting your child’s corner. It’s so draining!!! You become such an expert in your child’s rights!

London Oratory perhaps?

Agreed. What I meant was the teachers are no better at private. It’s the same standard of actual teachers. But nice to have one that has knowledge of the subject.

Id say the private school teacher turnover must be much lower as so many of the teachers are committed to staying until their kids leave the school (and they no longer need the staff discount).

But when they don't have to deal with disruptive behaviour, have small classes, excellent resources and parents who are generally engaged with their childs education its much easier to teach.
DDs GCSE History class had 10 kids in, DS's classes have between 15 and 20 tops.

Not commenting on private vs state but the reality is more complex than going private saves the state money.

Pupils = state funded income for schools. True.

However, there are many fixed costs to running a school. Whether the class has 24 or 30 students it’s still requires 1 x teacher. It requires the same building, utilities and lots of other overheads associated with it. So the variance between fixed and variable costs is less than you might think.

Schools are in deficit budget in some areas due to falling pupil rolls. This is either propped
up by the state or schools are having to scrimp in other areas because they still have high fixed overheads. An influx of some ‘private’ students will be the opposite of a burden. It will be funding/income that as a ratio makes fixed overheads more bearable.

I am absolutely opposed to private schools, it puts certain children at a significant advantage than other children just because mummy or daddy or rich grandparents etc can fork out an eye watering amount of money each year

Where do you want to stop though? My late OH spend ages helping our granddaughter to develop her reading, I spent some time this weekend talking to my grandson about a problem he was having with his Maths, my son-in-law almost ran private revision classes in his subject at half term. for his daughter and her boyfriend. Is the suggestion that able and caring family should not try to give their children an advantage? Shall we ban selling children's books because not all can afford them or bother to direct their resources in that direction?

I presume you do not enrich your children’s lives in any other way - no instrument lessons, sports, trips to museums or theatre, no books at home or visits to the library, no cooking together, exploring cusines, visiting different parts of the UK or going abroad. Where do you stop?
Do they have a warm home, full stomachs, a quiet place to study, broadband, devices?

You already are part of the system that perpetuates inequality. We all are.