Paying to keep your child away from certain types of other children… I don’t understand?

[Reasonthis]

I’ve seen so many threads recently bashing people who use private school as a way to remove their child from an environment with other children who may be challenging, disruptive etc.

I am completely against private education for a whole host of reasons… but surely if you send your child to a state school, even then you hope they don’t mix with the ‘wrong’ types? Ie those who are disruptive, rude, aggressive etc? Surely you also want your child as far away as possible from that?

I am absolutely amazed that there is suggestion that kids should be around that environment as it’s ’real life’ and shouldn’t be segregated for example by private education . Are people actually saying they are ok with their children sharing a classroom with kids that really aren’t interested in learning and have no values instilled in them by their parents? I will forever use the state system but if I knew my children were mixing with other children who didn’t give a shit and were disruptive, I would do all I could to keep them away from it. Isn’t that just sensible?!

A private education gives a distinct advantage in access to a high-status university, a good job and high pay. These gains simply add to the educational advantages you've listed of growing up in an already unequal society; family background, wealth, parental involvement etc.

That's why an unusually high proportion of private school alumni occupy highly influential positions in business, in the judicial system, in the press and in politics.

Those advantages are from the boost that a private education gives pupils, that boost on grades is wiped out by the time they graduate, but the advantage is there for life.

So we end up drawing from a small pool of, not necessarily the most talented, people in the most crucial positions. People whose advantage is, whatever their respective backgrounds, added by simply having a private education.

The reason I said it's not debatable, is because the data is very clear.

https://academic.oup.com/ooec/article/3/Supplement_1/i842/7708089?origin=serp_auto

It's so interesting to me that this is such a topic of discussion! In many countries, there’s a blend of public and private schooling, but it seems like in England, some people take offense at the choices others make. I personally want my kids to have a well-rounded experience, just like I did, where they can meet a variety of people while still getting a good education. It’s amusing to hear people describe certain state schools as crime hotspots, or when you think about how intriguing Boris Johnson's childhood must have been why on eaeth you wouldnt want your kid learning about people like him. It’s really a shame to have such narrow views, especially when it comes to children. It's a bit puzzling!

Child Boris would of been my best mate you sound boring prudish victorian respectfully.

What’s your point? That we all have social boundaries? If you go to state school, only to segregate your child from (what you consider) unsuitable/poorer/SEN friends, you have no moral high ground whatsoever. Presumably some of the most disruptive kids are those struggling on some level?

All state schools have children that disrupt the education of others. That is just a basic fact of life. All of mine have gone through state school over a 25 year period ( big age gap).
At the oldest child's secondary school in a seemingly nice marker town, the entire school was disrupted by fire alarms being constantly let off. Only resolved when the child was finally permanently excluded after being arrested for threatening a teacher with a knife. No doubt he rocked up somewhere else the following week under the fair access protocol. Dd was also frequently sat next to badly behaved kids presumably to try and stop them being worse.
Add in the utter underfunding of Primary education where children are disruptive, run around the classroom, try to escape, shout etc.
I too beleive in state education but I can understand how your average child probably has a better time of it without all that going on.

My understanding from recent teaching graduates is that SEN is covered in a half day session. How can teachers without special training help? Ditto trauma effected children.
Stable homes are what makes a difference in the vast majority of cases. People no longer have that. Some children don't even have a bed or breakfast.
Personally I think this is about the expectation that school provides the whole childhood experience. It can't.
And I'd also get rid of uniform. It's just too expensive and I know of children sent home for the wrong shoes, nuts.
If someone wants to buy private education that's their choice. But I actually think this thread demonstrates it doesn't necessarily buy an advantage. People will always judge and try to select friends for their DC. Good luck with that!

The one thing that has been shown to make the biggest impact on educational outcome is parents who made a choice about education. The fact parents made a choice has far bigger impact than what that choice was. In other words parents who are interest and involved in the education of their offspring.

If we want to remove ‘unfair advantage’ we would have to remove parental involvement and dismantle the family unit. Then all children will be equally disadvantaged.

There's always poster who spout crap to try and make themselves look morally superior. It happens on threads where people have scumbag neighbours too. Like we should all have to tolerate the worst in society and be happy with it.

Sorry but I worked my arse off for years to get away from the council estate where I grew up. I pay for that privilege and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And I don't want my child's education to be disrupted by kids like the ones I went to school with. They didn't want to learn, now loads of them are in prison or tough, low paid work.

I work in an outstanding state primary school, which my children also attend. There is a fair bit of screaming and shouting to be honest. The Teachers and wonderful support staff do what they can to keep things as calm as possible but when you have children in every class who a decade ago would, without question, have been in highly specialist settings it's very hard. In some cases we have told the Local Authority that we are simply unable to meet these childrens needs and the response has basically been 'tough'. There are some children who are very loud because of their SEN, others because they are angry and distressed by circumstances outside of school that we cannot control, although we do what we can to support. Screaming/shouting is not constant, but it's pretty regular. Staff try to guide children to quiet spaces when they become distressed but we only have so many spaces and additional staff available so it's not always possible right away. Inevitably some lessons are disrupted. The staff and in the vast majority of cases parents aren't to blame for this, and the children themselves certainly aren't, it's just the reality of the situation.

No, it’s a delusion that private school would have brought out the best of you. I was like you but in a private school and academically they were not interested. I did do pony riding at lunchtime however, but what good is that for me now??

My uni boyfriend was a private school boy.

He informed me that he was surprised at "how clean" my home town was for a coalmining area and referred to striking mineworkers as "criminals". Guess what Dad's job was?

He also told me that he hadn't introduced me to a particular friend because he thought that he'd disapprove of my degree (Russian) and the fact that I had relatives in a Communist country (not Russia or any part of the Soviet Union).

Oh yes...and my middle name was "common".

It's a shame - his parents were lovely. Dad was a doctor - a working class lad made good. Unfortunately, his parents had decided to send him to Kelvinside Academy in an attempt to keep him away from bullies. Sadly, it just allowed him to mix with a different class of wankers.

Yep the unfair advantage bestowed to children is the difference between shitty parent and a good one. The advantage / privilege of a motivated, intelligent and interested parent stays with a child throughout their lives. There’s a lot of focus on private schools vs. state schools when actually this isn’t the only factor that sees a child plot a course to success, the wealth and privilege of the parent is a key factor too. Obviously deconstructing perfectly functioning families isn’t the solution and neither does it make sense to deconstruct successful schools (be they private or state). Parents need to up their game. That’s what private schools have in bag loads - parents who bring their A game.

I don't think they do, but I had an interesting conversation with my line manager (a chief exec) a few years ago. She'd gone to a bog standard comp, while her sister had gone to private school. Her take on 'real life' was that you cannot avoid difficult people, or people who have very different beliefs, backgrounds, values, etc once you enter work. She believed that going to the comp had better equipped her with the life skills to deal more effectively with challenging individuals. She believed that her sister's relatively sheltered education had meant she struggled more in the real world, with people whose experiences were vastly different to her own. I've no idea how true this is in the majority of situations, but I always thought it was an interesting take.

When I was at uni, I noticed that the private school kids struggled more academically - they were used to a great deal more spoonfeeding. Mind you, that was in the late '70s, early '80s.

The private school kids, paradoxically, had a bit more confidence.

I went to private school and there were bullies and chavs just like any other school. In fact, it was never dealt with properly as the parents would just donate to the school to make sure their little angels weren't expelled.
The most horrific bullying I ever experienced was at a private school and I'm not talking about name calling, I was thrown down stairs and my head bounced off radiators.
My parents moved me to a local grammar school and that was miles better.

I can imagine him not wanting to share his toys!

My dc are at the local state comp. The staff have been excellent and most of the children are lovely but there are a few who aren't. Ds1 has experienced low level bullying and ds3 has been threatened with a knife (that turned out to be a prop from the drama department in the end). I think that level of behaviour is inevitable when you put 1000 11-16 year old's in a building together. The staff have always dealt with any problems very quickly.

The risk, if you send your child to a private school to avoid them being in a class with disruptive children from the housing estate who don't know how to behave and don't want to learn, is that they assume that everyone from the housing estate is like that. They miss out on discovering that there are lots of kids with the local accent who are hard-working, bright, loyal friends, brilliant athletes, whatever else, and that it is actually only a minority who are deliberately disruptive.

On a herd level, if you have enough "nice middle class kids", that makes the disruptive ones easier to manage, because the predominant attitudes are better. Obviously you have to consider your own child, though, not the effect on others; I'm not suggesting anyone should be doing anything else.

Would you mind pointing me to the herd research you are referencing? There’s a great podcast called Nice White Parents that explores two studies, both of which showed that children from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds didn’t receive a better education when a number of middle class kids were added to their school. What happened in both cases was the MC students were skimmed off for talented and gifted programmes and students from other background were educationally segregated, with the majority of state schools resource redirected at the middle class children. Worth a listen: www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html

Wow, aren’t you delightful?
I am glad I didn’t leave my state school education with this sort of attitude.

I'm afraid I wasn't referencing any research, sorry. I was basing it on my own experience in a sink school.

We had a year when there was a particularly high birth rate locally and so fewer of the middle class kids from our catchment were able to get into other schools. Not only were that year group academically stronger on intake, but there was a major difference in behaviour and attitudes. That was particularly pronounced in one of the tutor groups, and on more than one occasion, a disruptive child was moved into that tutor group, where they discovered that misbehaving did not gain them any respect from their peers, and they settled down and started behaving. The whole year group was much easier to teach.

I'd take BoJo over a thief or drug dealers child.

I am a big believer that your future prospects can be adversely affected by the friends you have at school. I don’t smoke, i am sure that’s partly because none of my friends smoked . In an ideal world it wouldn’t be an issue as all children would be loved wanted and nurtured by their parents but that’s not the case so I do not want my child anywhere near children whose parents are scumbags. Getting in with the wrong crowd can ruin a child’s future.

I feel the same way about exposure to all sorts of diversity, and certainly it has been a very positive part of my DCs' experience in a big American high school that they have all commented on from the vantage point of university and subsequent careers. They met many young people at university who had lived in bubbles, and imo and theirs, that is not a good preparation for real life.

However, there's a tipping point where the value of a student body distinguished by varied levels of ambition and engagement with school diminishes. I think that point, for most people who value diversity, is about 3/4 'people who are motivated and engaged' and 1/4 'people who are not'.

I think that's the sweet spot where there are big benefits, but if 1/3 of the students are disruptive or unengaged, nobody benefits. I think that's the point where the wheels start to come off, and kids from all backgrounds who want to progress in school start to struggle.