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 can understand your point on a service level. I wouldn’t want to pay for a bad job done to the house. A bit harder to prove there was a failure across the board in teaching v student inadequacy.

Exams on entry but not sure how selective they actually are. They appear to have lost a lot of staff recently again my friend doesn’t know why, and I know other parents have moved children because of concern regarding teachers. Still think she should get a portion of her fees back

Totally this and A lot of parents whose children are SEN but don’t want labelling or borderline SEN but won’t get additional support are sending their kids to private school for the smaller class sizes and pastoral support. It’s sad but I would go private too if my child wasn’t that able or lost in state system.

The pupil underperformed, not the school.

Tricky if the parents had no idea and the school kept telling them they were on target

While it's true that private schools can employ unqualified teachers, and this detail is often trotted out, IME (and I am not by any stretch a private school parent) the teachers are qualified at private schools too. I was a classroom teacher for several years and have a lot of friends who still teach; some are in the private sector and they are still the excellent, qualified teachers they were, as are their colleagues.

I think it is possible that the cohort at this school was weaker; perhaps the teaching in some key subjects taken by a lot of students was not the best; possibly a key topic was missed out or mistaught (unlikely but possible); or maybe some of the DC just didn't work as hard. If it is a small school (sorry others seem to know which school but I am not familiar with it) then any issues will seem amplified.

You can't ask for a refund as no school, state or private, will guarantee xxx results; a teacher can predict grades but there are so many variables.

Can happen in any school. Schools go up and down.

And a lot of families with the money send their “nice but dim Tim” to a paid-for school in the hope that the smaller classes and spoon feeding will get their DC better grades than they might otherwise merit.

It’s why universities look at the overall school record - educational advantage generally maps onto socio-economic advantage.

I think that’s part of the issue - told child was on target and blatantly she wasn’t

Is it the gdst school? That is a selective school so a reasonably bright cohort. The grades should be decent.

Yes but often they can't spend their time teaching because the students are so disruptive. My friend who teaches physics says that she loses in average 1/3 of every lesson due to this. So logically students get 1/3 less teaching time than their private school peers which is a lot. She was the one who told me to put ds in private if possible, yet she works in a state secondary.

Yeah. Everyone seems to be dismissing your point out of hand but there is an interesting point.

if your kid doesn’t get the results they wanted, too bad, of course you don’t get a refund. Anyone paying fees thinking they magically buy those A* grades deserves to be parted from their cash.

But your point feels more fundamental. That there is evidence the school hasn’t done the basics, ie: fulfilled their contract of actually educating the kids, teaching the curriculum appropriately and so on. Surely the whole year aren’t dunces.

And for the whole year to have done so badly despite likely being from motivated homes where they were encouraged to study etc (before anyone shoots me, statistically parents who pay for their kids schooling tend to be motivated to get them to revise…) - makes me wonder if there was just a massive b*lls up like they were teaching the wrong curriculum or something? Or changed exam boards and hadn’t got up to speed with the different courses or something?

Because if it was that I do wonder if there’s any legal protection for breach of contracf though it would be so hard to prove

There are a range of things that could have happened.

• It could be a weaker cohort. Every school year group has strengths and weaknesses. One year group might be more STEM. The next year group might have a Humanities skillset.

• Behaviour might have taken a dip. The more disruption in lessons, the less learning going on.

• The exam could have been harder. You've only got to look at some past papers to see that some years a particular subject's exams are harder than others.

• The grade boundaries might have undergone a drastic overhaul having a knock on effect on grades.

• The exam questions may have slightly changed. Or been worded differently. Or the marking focus might have changed. This isn't always clearly communicated to teachers of the cohort it affects.

Ultimately, she's not getting her money back. She can always resit. I'd pay for some really good quality tutoring to help bump up her resit grade (although resits are about to start now, so it's a bit late for a November resit).

Yes it is and grades were really bad not just a bit down - I think something has happened at the school and that’s why she should get a refund

Exactly.

But other local schools have done as well as they always have - it’s just the girls school that has had a massive dip. I think a refund and explanation is due

If the school were to refund your friend the money for the two years of A level, what do you think would be the criteria. A percentage per grade dropped? Half the fees? A third?

What about the cohort who dropped grades? Are they entitled to refunds too, or just your friend?

There are several reasons for under performance

Lack of ability
Lack of application
Poor teaching
Poor subject knowledge
A badly run school

As has been said, there are some parents who opt for a private school because of the pastoral care and smaller classes. That doesn’t mean effective, top notch teaching though.

I’d guess it was a combination of difficulties and lack of leadership in the school, leading to ineffective teaching and lack of effort from the students.

😂

I think 1/3 back on the fees and an acknowledgment there’s been issues would be good.
Take home message teaching in the local state school may well be better

The whole cohort underperformed

Based on your posts (and I have read the whole thread) it does sound like something odd going on.

Two examples for me come to mind - my brother many years ago was at a secondary school where they had a new head who wanted to try some experimental ideas. Homework was scrapped and kids were guided towards independent study… bright cohort all did terribly in their GCSEs. Another a mate who was at a posh school again some years back and they decided to pivot to doing IB away from A levels. The head figured the teachers (who were only used to teaching A level) could just figure it out. Of course they didn’t, bright cohort all flunked and no one went to oxbridge that year (a big deal as it was a place used to sending a lot of kids on).

My point is, f ups do happen. They do. But it would need to be something properly major like the above examples to be in refund territory - i don’t think ‘poor management’ could cut it.

A friend of mine teaches in private schools. He’s got a degree from Cambridge, but isn’t a qualified teacher.

But it wouldn’t be the grades that would be the metric for a refund. I think in this case the argument would be about the input - showing that the actual level of education has been so lacking as to mean a breach of contract.

I have no idea if this could be proved but I do know from cases in my own life there have been situations where schools have failed to provide the basics and in the state sector exam boards would step in and take a view. So if this has happened at this private school (it could just be a weak cohort) the girls ironically would have less protection.

To add as well, there’s no way anyone will be getting a refund. That money will already have been spent. The majority of private school fee money goes on staffing (not just teaching) and it will have gone on salaries. There is no money to refund.

I think that’s the difficulty proving they failed to teach to the level required- and it wasn’t just thick or lazy pupils