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.

100% this.

But a child's standard of education will nearly always be related to their parents, even if private were banned tomorrow.

More affluent areas tend to have higher achieving schools, in a circular process. A good school will drive up house prices locally and exclude lower earners from buying. If people are happy to pay extra to live near a good school, even if that means giving up luxuries (we stretched to afford a house in a nice area with good schools, but drive 2 old cars and haven't had a foreign holiday or new clothes for ourselves in 10 years) then they are the parents who are going to engage with their child's education and get involved with the school as governors, PTA etc to try to drive up standards and funding.

@Unsrr it's parental education, parental influence that's always the major factor in success anyway hence low paid children from immigrants particularly I believe Indian and Chinese do extremely well.
They have focus and drive.

I’m child-fee 🤦‍♀️

@Mugcake again… how is this different to buying an expensive home to get into a good state school? Can anyone answer this? It baffles me that the private schools take the hit but nobody is willing to accept that this use of parent wealth is apparent in every aspect of a child’s life whether you like it or not

The standard of education is not always better but the standards of expected behaviour are better and the tolerance for bad behaviour lower.

I think some people think private school kids are all learning Latin and having world presidents and royalty coming in giving motivational speeches.

You only have to look at the massive improvements in London schools for example during the 90s with the Excellence in Cities programme. Initiatives like Aim Higher too. It is possible.

Because many European countries manage to educate children without such disparity. We are stuck in a class system that used big, expensive buildings to educate a small number of priveleged kids, and those places still exist, grew, and people aspire to them. Other countries don’t have that ‘legacy’.

We can afford private and choose instead to send our child to an underperforming school because we think that there are more important things than traditional learning with lots of advanced highers and a future doctor / lawyer. My child is learning about all sorts of people and how to cope with all sorts of challenges and how to be a good citizen and live the way you believe is right. Plenty of our friends are choosing to support the local school despite having options to pay to avoid it.

I think the point is the ‘like it or not’. Those of us against private schools see the widening gap between the rich and poor, and take note of research that shows ALL children are unhappier in less equal societies. So yes of course, people with wealth use it to buy better for their children, but if we didn’t as a society provide for an promote this capitalist ethic, we could have more of a sense of ‘these are all our children’ and work on a system that provides equity in a universal system like education. It would be wonderful if there was more equity in housing too, but we live in a capitalist world unfortunately - education seems an easier system to reform.

If you are saying it's because of money, how about we ban inheritance? When you reach 18, you are given £100 000 and that’s what you have to make a life. Would that be better? Thought not

So why isn't it happening across the board.
How many children are being failed in the mean time

Even without private schools this is already the case. In our area house prices are significantly higher in catchment areas of outstanding schools. A 3 bedroom house near the outstanding secondary school is £1M minimum. And who can afford that?

It really is about the whole experience and not only the education. Just with anything in life, there will always be better or opportunities that is unequal or unaffordable for many. No point in proving something that will not make a dent in the issue, whilst denying your child that opportunity if you can.

What a bizarre attitude. Hopefully this is primary school.

My privately educated kids have coped more than successfully in the 'real world'.

Your attitude to education is more ideological than someone who privately educates!

I'm not against them but I think it's a sign of a criminally irresponsible government that they exist to the extent they do.

It ought to be the case that the extra money buys no better education but merely allows children to receive that education in a snobbish enclave of super-rich who don't want to mix with the poor, and that wealthy people who aren't so snobby are happy to send their children to the local state school because their education will not suffer for it.

It's laughable that people blame private schools for creating what they call a "two tier" system when there's already about a seven tier system even within the state sector. Plenty of people on this thread with a holier-than-thou attitude have the good fortune to qualify for one of the better state schools. The state sector includes plenty of selection by wealth, whether through postcode catchment areas where houses cost £200,000 more than the same size house near a worse school, or selection by exams that require 3 years of additional tutoring to pass.

I want private schools to exist but to go out of business because no one needs what they are selling. But until the state provision is better they need to exist.

We used private because that was cheaper than the cost of moving into the catchment of a good school. People wealthier than us get a good education from the state for free, but our choice was a substandard education or an expensive one.

Because the rich kids are mixing with a grater range of society in the good comp than they would in the private school.

And state schools can go from good to bad and bad to good relatively quickly, so it's not fixed.

I can't afford it for all of my DC despite being a relatively well off household. I would probable consider it if I could afford it.

I am lucky that my state options are good though as my income allows me to live in an area where schools are generally sound. I don't know how you ever resolve that inequality.

I don't agree that all private schools automatically give useful privilege/ connections though as mentioned above with BBC apprenticeships etc. Yes that's true of the top tier ones like Eton or Winchester. The benefit of the more "ordinary" private schools are largely around smaller class sizes aren't they? I don't know though as I don't have much exposure to private schools.

What are low paid children

Absolutely! Our girls attend a good primary in a nice area which we had to work hard to afford to live in. But it also covers a large council housing estate in its catchment, and I would say these parents are no less aspirational for their children or any less supportive of the school, if anything it's the reverse, it's these parents who are more often running the school discos, the bake sales, helping on school trips and with listening to reading. Some have clubbed together to pay for group tutoring for the 11+, many aspire for their children to have a much easier life than they have had.

It's extremely patronising to say that state schools would suddenly improve if the 7% swooped in the save then. If the 93% want them to be better, than the 93% can and should make this happen!

@SchoolDilemma17 worker

The idea that private school kids can't cope at uni is a lie people tell themselves for some odd reason.

In my experience the drop outs are those who have a) got in through contextual offers and then can't hack the work or b) kids who have MH issues (which can be either state or private).

I think that private schools are OK: not everyone fits in to the state schools system or the state schools near where they live. But I don't think they should be allowed to be selective: they should educate everyone who lands at their door (and can afford it), just like state schools.

It would be better if every school provided equally good education but that isn’t the case, so if I could afford it I’d definitely send my kids to a local independent school.

@CharlotteCollinsneeLucas in my experience people mix with like.

You may have 40 dc in a class you will usually find it's the ones with similar backgrounds who gravitate to each other.