Private schools extra holidays - how does this not harm outcomes

[Eranie]

Looking at 3 private schools around us at the primary level.

School 1 -
8 weeks summer
1 week October
3 weeks Christmas
1 week February
3 weeks Easter
1 week May

17 weeks total

School 2 -
8 weeks summer
1 week October
2 weeks Christmas
1 week February
2 weeks Easter
1 week May

15 weeks total

School 3 -
6 weeks summer
2 weeks October
2 weeks Christmas
1 week February
2 weeks Easter
1 week May

14 weeks total

All these schools seem to be very good academically. All have similar length school days (8.45-3.15 in infants, 8.45-3.30 in juniors). The one with the most holidays caps class sizes at 16 and guarantees a TA present at all times in infants and over 50% of the time in juniors. Others seem to cap class sizes at 20-22, not sure if a TA is always present.

AIBU to wonder how the school with 3 week end of term breaks is keeping academically which so much less time? Does anyone have any insight on this?

I don’t work so we can handle the long breaks and we live the facilities better at the school with the longer breaks (further out of the city so has more land, therefore tennis courts/pool/better playing grounds. However I’m concerned that with longer breaks they will fall behind academically?

@yellowpetals

Because (ok this is KS1) the school I worked at didn’t publish SATS results, didn’t want the year by year comparison and didn’t want any exam/SATS type comparison to other schools in the area.

I’m not so familiar with private senior, but I suspect that - if a school has a bad year, they could spin what they publish.

Is there an easily accessible comparison table of private senior school exam results (like you’d get for state) for a county? I can’t say I’ve seen one, and I think a private school would possibly opt not to appear if there is one. And if there isn’t one, why isn’t there one?

It has also been reported that private school students with the same A level grades as state students - tend to struggle more at Uni than their state counterparts.

@TwentySecondsLeft - there's often a degree of 'spin' for any school in this respect, private or state? A state school's website might mention how well they do compared to the national average in a certain subject but not another, for example. Or they might say 'congratulations to these 10 pupils who received 9+ A grades at GCSE', but not mention the 150 pupils who got far less impressive results...

I think there are lots of ways to compare schools, no? Published league tables (eg Sunday Times) or the UK Gov site - you can search for any school in there and compare results.

Your point about private school pupils faring less well at uni is a bit nebulous too. I think the study that comes from was based around attainment - eg if you get BBC at A-level and then get a 2:1 degree result, you are achieving more than if you get AAAA and the same degree. Because private schools do tend to get better outcomes at A-level, it will have an impact on this measurement - just as the 'progress scores' for private pupils at earlier key stages will generally score lower than for state: they're not starting from the same place, if that makes sense.

Forgive my bluntness, but it seems you have a dislike of private schools and it's fuelled a bit of an odd suspicion over them! Alongside a handful of brilliant state schools and grammars, if you are going purely on results at GCSE and A-level, it does remain that independent schools dominate the league tables. That's not 'spin', it's just a fact.

Aware this sounds like I am an absolute supporter of independent schools - I'm not, I think the system in the UK is wrong in so many ways - but I do think it's important to get the facts straight. 😂

@yellowpetals

I wouldn’t work in one if I disliked, but suspicious yes! I think when I work, the joy is the children so yes I like my school and job.
I also work there because the holidays are amazing.
I just see a fair few things happen that are wrong and seem quite deceptive. Maybe it’s the morality behind a school being run as a business. And fairness.

I can’t see KS2 results for one school where I worked they are ‘not published’. I can’t see GSCE published ‘officially’ for my current school, but A levels are there. I’ve only had a quick look.
What I’d ideally like to see is a gov table clearly comparing state/independent in a county - for KS1, KS2, GSCE and A levels - year by year. To me that’s transparent.

Another thing I’ve seen is an independent school being loaned millions by bankrupt county council (which they can’t repay) - yet being awarded ‘prep school of the year’

So yes - things like this make me suspicious!!

Schools are not just a place of working all the time. There is so much faff and behaviour management.

If you have smaller classes of children who by in large are behaving (because they will get kicked out of private quickly if they dont) then you get more done.

@Eranie You've answered your own initial question.
The one with the most holidays caps class sizes at 16 and guarantees a TA present at all times in infants and over 50% of the time in juniors.

• smaller, capped class size
• TA support = More adults to help less children so gives them more focused, individual support with their learning.

@TwentySecondsLeft - but I'm sure you COULD find the data if you dug around a bit. League tables comparing results are really straightforward to access (though one single table comparing every single school in the UK would be enormous - breaking down by region might be better). Not so sure about the earlier years outcomes - again the measurements won't mean much across state versus private because the initial demographics are going to be different.

The council funding a private school point sounds really odd (why would a local council fund a private school?). Re awards like 'prep school of the year' - they also mean very little and can be totally dependent on who is giving the award 😂 My eldest is about to go off to uni in the autumn, and we were told not to get too caught up in rankings of what university is 'best', for example - they all measure differently. What's number one for a law degree in the Times will be different to the Guardian and the 'world rankings' also...

The answer is very simple. Private schools can easily remove disruptive children. State schools can’t. Classroom disruption is what sinks children in state school’s chances of a good education.

Generally, as far as I know, children don't apply to half a dozen in London - partly because some will be too far away, but also because it's not a standard exam. St Paul's Girls' 11+ and City of London Girls, for example, are rather different. My siblings and I did two each, but that's 25-35 years ago, in London.

My younger son is ten years old, at a private London primary, and of those children who are doing an 11+ for an independent school almost all are only doing one, a couple are doing two. That might not be typical, but is my experience. His primary specifically advises against multiple 11+ applications.

Quality of teaching is better.

I've worked in a state school and frankly little teaching and learning go on the week before term ends. So that's three weeks that might be better spent at home (although I realise childcare is an issue).

My son's primary also does this - one class for Years 1/2, one for 3/4 and one for 5/6 (which he's currently in) and it works well for the children there. But it can mean you get spat out of the primary school system a year early - one of my sisters and I both did 11+ aged 9 and left primary just turned 10, and went to secondary then. My sister's younger in the year than I am, so she did her A level exams aged 16, and turned 17 just after she finished. That meant she couldn't go to uni then, because they weren't interested in under 18s.

SATS? As far as I'm aware, private schools don't publish any of those because they don't do them. No private school I'm aware of does SATS at all. It's a state thing. As DS1's comprehensive the private primary children all had to do a separate standardised test to place them in bands, because they didn't have SATS from any of their primaries.

There isn't universal agreement @yellowpetals about which universities are the absolute best for law, but there is a pretty definite view in my part of the legal sector about whether a uni is a "good" one for law or not. I'm on a recruitment committee, and "which university" is taken pretty seriously. We don't make much of a difference between (say) UCL, Cambridge, Durham or Bristol, but we definitely don't take Westminster, Hull or Brighton as being nearly as good.

I am also in London and most people I know apply to at least 3-4 independent secondaries, often plus grammar. Maybe it's just my circle?

Because a lot of private schools are clustered - e.g around Dulwich but also other clusters

It might very well vary - as I said, those of DS2's mates applying are doing 1 or at the most 2.
Things also change over time - people I know who went to the Dulwich cluster schools rarely applied to JAGS and Alleyn's, or the College and Alleyn's. Girls tended to apply to JAGS and one of Blackheath / Syndenham / Croydon / Putney Highs. That was 1990s. But Alleyn's was then significantly less academic than the College, and miles below JAGS, and I think they are now more equal.

Most people I know seem to deliberately target one preferred school and tutor and prepare for that exam but to apply for a few more in case they don't get in - often deliberately choosing one less academic as an insurance

I am thinking of private school for secondary and trying to figure out what the odds actually are which is quite tricky because all independent schools want to appear in demand

It's very different to when I went to private school 20 years ago

Have a look at their sample 11+ exams? That gives you a least a vague idea of what they are looking for.

Yes but it doesn't really tell you how high the pass mark is - my child is bright so generally scores highly but I realise that the margins can be quite tight

The private school that borrowed millions of pounds from Woking Borough Council has approached the bankrupt authority to say it does “not currently have funds” to fully repay its debt. Greenfield School in Old Woking was given loans totalling £13.3million by the council with £2.4m of these due to mature later this month.

@LondonLawyer - oh, absolutely. It was more a point about how what’s ’best’ is defined. Obviously there might be some debate about whether, say, Cambridge or UCL is better according to who is defining that - but I didn’t mean that Cambridge and Hull would also be classified the same 😂

For GSCE/A Level:

www.ivyeducation.co.uk/insights/best-private-schools-in-uk

It’s also the case that marking is becoming less common now. Many schools marketing themselves as non-marking schools. As an English teacher it is one of my most time consuming activities but also the one that gives me real insight into students’ progress.

Nowadays, most apply to both, or certainly we did as did those I know. We applied to both Alleyn’s and JAGS and then Alleyn’s and DC. Got places at both and then decided. Alleyns and JAGS are directly opposite each other so you can’t use commuting as a way to decide either.

Back to OP’s question, these schools have 19 weeks of holidays!
The infant/junior/senior pupils are in school by 8.20ish and finish around 3.30/3.45 so the clubs running until 5.15pm latest (earlier for the younger pupils).

When I used to do the school run I would see the Charter pupils walking to school after the youngest JAGS/Alleyn’s pupils had gone in and at the end of the day the Charter Pupils were at the bus stop around 3pm whilst the JAGS/Alleyn’s pupils were still in lessons.

It probably equates to an extra hour per day in the classroom,
so extra 5h per week i.e a whole school day extra per week-

with 33 weeks of school/year that is an extra month of schooling without the added faff/time lost of getting pupils settled in the classroom etc.

Actually, 33 days is 6.5 weeks of school. So they have nearly 40 weeks of equivalent time in school as the local state school, if my maths is correct
or just over 12 weeks of holidays.

@TwentySecondsLeft - that list looks questionable to me - some schools that are frequently in the top 10 or 20 are missing from it.

I would beware getting stats from companies that might have a commercial interest/hidden agenda (this list is from is a tutoring company) and either look at the uk.gov site or possibly newspaper rankings - eg Sunday Times list.