Private school underperformed I think my friend should get a refund. AIBU?

[Rambler96]

Friends daughter did her A levels at a posh girls school in Shrewsbury and failed to get the grades she needed for her university place. Now all the results are published, it looks like the school has massively underperformed for some reason. I think she should get a refund on some of the fees.

I’m glad my friends and I don’t send our kids to any “posh” schools 😂

We’ll stick to the state schools for the plebs, which are doing really well.

Unfortunately, shit happens. There's always a chance your child will be in the disruptive class, or have the crap teacher, or be in the school when it has a terrible inspection or loses its wonderful headteacher and gets a rubbish one. You can't prevent these things and you can't get your money back from a school that never gave a guarantee of the experience your child would have. At least with a state school you didn't pay out in the first place (except via the taxman).

Or it was, overall, a relatively weak cohort.

You're lucky. There are very, very many state schools which are doing far from well.

As far I know, they did well. As OP said the head left then, and a new one started when this year started Yr 12. Don't see how it can be the heads fault ?

GCSE and A-levels are different though. Especially when pupils only join in 6th form. I wouldn’t imagine the school can be ‘blamed’ for newer pupils failing to achieve grades the parents think they’re ‘buying’. Is it a (highly) selective school?

They did terribly for middle class Shrewsbury? The A levels were much worse than the GCSES I’m told for that cohort - unless they lost the bright pupils to other schools - maybe their parents knew something my friend didn’t ?

There were plenty that were on the Oxbridge and Russell Group path. Then they all seemed to fall off it together!

I think the onus is on the parents to remove their children if they think the teaching is subpar. You can't wait till they do their exams and get the results and only then demand a refund. If she knew the teaching was pants, she could've found her a place elsewhere and potentially saved her money and/or her daughter may have got better grades

If the whole year did badly and they all got a refund then the school would be bankrupt! They aren't going to be handing out refunds to anyone that didn't get the grades they were hoping for.

posh kids going to a posh school aren’t that bright? Who knew.

I think I’d want to know more about what happened if I was your friend.

I did badly in one of my GCSEs because the exam was on topics we hadn’t covered (and this was in pre-internet times, so not so easy to find out about that). That was the school”s fault, and thankfully didn’t impact anything.

If the school had taught everything they were supposed to and the pupil hadn’t done enough work to get the grades, that’s on the student.

I think you have a cheek even thinking that. Sounds like some of the parents are ignorant too. The head having to ask the parents to be polite is a disgrace.
I think it's best you get in with your own life and stop making such stupid statements. The patmrents should not get a refund.

What comes out is a function of what goes in! If the students that go in are not very bright you aren't going to get very strong results. The academic schools make sure they have very demanding entrance exams. There is only so much teachers can do with what they get! Just because the school is 'posh' doesn't mean it was academically selective or that it attracted bright kids who you could then expect to perform well.

Maybe they were all just thick. It happens. The school can’t work miracles - even if you pay for it!

Maybe they should fine the parents for bringing their stats down 🤷‍♀️

it would be unreasonable to request a refund.

Fair point but difficult to move children in the middle of a year

People who pay for private school just to get good grades are morons.
Private school is about the full experience, the access (to art, music, full range of science, musical instruments etc etc), and the confidence that often comes from having a system that wants (expects!) you to do well.

Not everyone gets the university place they want. Not everyone gets the A-levels they're predicted (and ultimately obviously didn't merit)

You can teach unqualified. It does happen in state schools but much more common in private schools who can do what they like more easily. Having taught in both private and state, you’re paying for a lot of things (facilities, environment, connections…) but not the quality of education. At the school I taught at, most of them were so rich their grades didn’t matter anyway.

It’s a GDST school they aren’t going bankrupt

That’s really interesting and probably explains a lot

Interesting any ideas what was going wrong

Nobody here knows enough to answer this. Yes there could have been a weak cohort, though such a plummet feels unusual. Is it selective entry? Did the exam boards change suddenly with inadequate time to prepare? What is the teacher recruitment and retention like? What is the culture in the SLT? Was it all subjects or just STEM where there is a serious teacher shortage?

If the kids and teachers worked hard, then this is disappointing for all concerned. No chance of a refund though.

Plenty of private schools worrying about that these days!!

I teach at a private school. The teaching is no better than state. It can add value in that the children have good facilities and smaller class sizes. But you can’t make kids more intelligent, you can’t make them work harder if they don’t want to and every cohort of children is completely different. Some private schools have quite a lot of children with SEN, because parents who can afford to have decided against state as their child would flounder. Some private school kids are entitled and think the world is going to fall in their lap no matter how hard they work. In short, no your friend should not get a refund.