To ask teachers in the state sector what it’s really like at the moment?

[Unifgo]

Is private better?

we’ve been saving towards private and have a chunk there but it’s very depressing living so frugally when we work almost every waking hour! I know parents have various views on state and private but i just want to know the reality from the actual teachers! Is it as bad as the press would have you believe? Is there violence, not much learning due to managing classes? Dd is 3 soon and due to go to school next year.

Probably varies by school and by area, although I would say the level of need is higher than it used to be across the board. I teach in a deprived area and the number of children with very high needs who would never have been in mainstream schools in the last has increased a lot, whereas the support they receive has decreased a lot. This impacts on all children in school. Another thing is that the curriculum is packed and quite boring. Private schools can choose their own curriculum although I would expect the more academic ones to still have quite a dull curriculum.

Private at primary is a luxury - you’d maximise your impact at secondary if you have to choose between the two.

Our biggest issue is attendance. Behaviour can disrupt learning at times, but that often depends on how experienced the teacher is, to be honest. Attendance is awful and we get a lot of reports of cyber bullying and behaviour incidents on the buses to and from, but I don't know how that would compare to a private school. This is an oversubscribed secondary school in Yorkshire, with a fairly deprived catchment area. As everyone's pointed out, it varies school to school.

You have to look at each school individually. In our area, we have 3 outstanding primary schools. There would be no value in private education. The state provision is excellent with small, well organised classrooms and excellent facilities.
Secondary however is fairly dire. The local state school is in special measures and has been for years. The alternatives aren't much better but we do have 2 Grammars. Many people tutor their children for the 11+ and aim for the Grammar and if not successful, then pay for support during secondary at the state school.

Every school is different. If you leave in an affluent area with a restricted catchment then you will likely have a good school. If you live in London, there are some excellent state schools too. I am a teacher who has taught for over 20 years in a school in a deprived area, and it’s a pretty depressing place. Now I’m in a school in an affluent area and it’s wonderful. The schools are 6 miles apart, but the difference is unbelievable. It’s sad really.

I’ve heard of private schools fudging their data to make it look like their students are doing well to justify the cost. True or not I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ve taught in state schools and it does vary by area. Some lovely and some absolutely shocking. The budgets are really tight atm though. Unfortunately those state schools in ‘nicer’ areas get the worst of it because they don’t have the PP funding, grants, etc. that those in poorer areas get. My DS are currently in state primary and are happy. Not pushed academically though really but I make up for it at home. I would 100% send them to private secondary if I could afford it.

I have never heard of a state school informing parents on Wednesday that the school is closing for good on Friday leaving Year 11 and 13 to fend for themselves weeks before their exams.
Some schools in both sectors are shockingly bad. Loads are great.

This sums it up in my mind. Whether you can justify the additional cost is perhaps another argument, but to suggest they are the same seems counter-intuitive given the choices made by the wealthy in society.

I'm not a teacher but I am a governor at a state comp in a fairly mixed income area of London. Behaviour is generally excellent and we have a reward policy which means high achievement is encouraged by peers as well as teachers. Loads of extracurricular, including leading scores in several activities traditionally dominated by private schools. We're just a normal comp, no entry requirements, banding, or other social sifting.

It is single sex (f). But if you're in London you will usually have excellent options. My kids went to a private international school for a few years and the behaviour and teaching was bloody awful. All the state schools they have attended have been streets ahead of it.

DH teaches in state secondary and finds the behaviour challenging- with a lot of staff avoiding the reality of dealing with it. They can’t face the toes with parents who simply can’t see that the rules apply to everyone, yes including their own child. Letting low level stuff slip means that it all snowballs into bigger issues which should have been nipped in the bud a year earlier. He’s been teaching nearly thirty years and it really is getting to him.

I left state primary teaching for state specialist provision. I knew I wasn’t able to provide the support needed by the children with SEND in my class. I now feel that I am meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children (I teach in SLD) and giving them the education that they need.

However, increasingly there are strains in our system. My class of eight is about to become a class of nine as another child joins me from mainstream. It will make a huge impact on the provision my team can offer. I understand that it sounds ridiculous to complain but my class has a very high staff ratio for good reason. One extra child is five additional language therapy sessions a week, around 15 new pad changes a week plus additional EHCP target sessions, behaviour management and socialising (usually 2:2 sessions).

There will be a point where parents will realise that even in our settings we cannot meet the needs of all the children.

DS went through state system and is happily settled at uni. Maybe we were lucky with the school, maybe he was out of compulsory schooling before things got to the current state we are in.

The short answer is to state primary, private secondary.

The longer answer is, it depends upon what your local schools are like, whether your child is academically minded and would thrive in a private setting, what support looks like if your child is ND, what you can afford, if there are scholarships etc.