to find it incredibly irritating when in certain circles school fees are talked about as if they are a necessity, not a choice?

[emkana]

Like Emma Thomson currently on the Women programme on BBC 4, or very often in the "Style" section of the Sunday Times.

Not all private schools cost £££ madonna.

If I paid £200,000 for my child's education, I would expect more than a guaranteed place at Oxford or Cambridge, I would expect a guaranteed place in the kingdom of Heaven.

Indeed, one could often say certain people on here seem to discuss it in such terms.

The private school mob is HUGELY, disproportionately over-represented here. It accounts for about 7% of people in the real world, and yet its voice on here is, I'd gauge, about 50% - that "weighting" makes it seem strident. (Ooh, I love that word.)

i think these kids are being educated privatley more for the parents rather than the kids. You still meet same kids whether at St.Oiks comp. or St. Oiks,private. its just they have more money to throw around.Check the competative mummies at the school gate.
Everyone 's child is bright.

You want to be careful bandying words like that around on here at the minute UQD.

We are having a feminist renaissance, and strident - well...

UQD from the other side of the fence I would say it was nowhere near 50%, personally.

Oh yes mine are very bright.

Belledechoc I have taught in state schools that had Latin and Philosophy teachers.
My school would benefit from the presence of your "very bright" DS, but that isn't your responsibility I suppose.

But if your son's day at school costs less than my son's three hours of out of school club time, how can the school afford those small class sizes?

I was intending to ring my mother and deliberately turn off the computer because I have thought a lot about this.

Not all private schools are incredibly expensive and there is a group of schools that are deliberately as cheap as possible, in contrast to the fairly luxurious living standards in the top public schools.

(NB; we are in a good area for state schools so I know we are lucky and I am quite sure that if I lived in London, the entire situation would be different).

What really annoys me....
Really annoys me...

is when people (Simon Heffer) say that they are doing the state a favour by paying for their children's education; that they are paying for it and not receiving the benefit.

fallon8 - don't judge all independent school by St Oik's private. Yes there are lots of pointless snobbery-based independent schools aimed at parents with a lot more money than sense. There are also lots of very good ones whose heads are extremely aware of the cost and focused on delivering real value to children and parents over and above what can be delivered in the state sector (and there are lots more inbetween the two).

Oh I think you've got her wrong. She's trying to justify - to herself, him, us, anyone - why she works all hours, wasn't she? So she says, I've got to pay the mortgage, the school fees - it's a lot to do. I've got to work until 2.00 in the morning.

Whereas, I thought they got closer to the truth when she said, 'no, I can't delegate, no, I'll just do the work myself' -

I reckon if she didn't want that kind of work load, she wouldn't take it on. She's not doing it to pay the school fees as such, but because she's obsessed with her work.

stealthsquiggle - really? I'm not certain by any means. It's only an anecdotal figure. It just seems to me that, whenever private and state education are discussed, there are about as many voices coming from each side - hence my 50% estimate. (I mean, it may be 40-60... I haven't analysed it scientifically! - but no way it is less than 10% of people on here who have kids in private...)

Look, whatever you think of the pros and cons of our education system, and of private education in particular, it just is incredibly irritating for people who don't have the choice of buying educational privilege for their children to hear other parents discussing it as though it as a 'necessity'.

You know, my dd is also very bright, and really doesn't cope well with large groups of children, and private schooling is absolutely out of the question, so it's slightly galling when those who are lucky enough to be wealthy deny that by insisting they have no choice, and implying that if the rest of us made different choices and had different priorities, we could have those choices too.

In a class society, this is just manners, people!

Good point Balliol. Mind you, I think we did our local state school a favour (though not the system in general, to forestall UQDs comment) by going private - if we'd not had that luxury and had to do the church attendance farce to get a place, boy would there have been ructions once she was safely in and DH could tell the vicar and his acolytes what he really thought.

And, it is not a good thing for our country that the people going into the professions and the higher levels of employment will not be the brightest but those with the wealthiest parents.

Grammar schools would be best.

iggi, I don't live where you are, if the state schools here offered the subjects he enjoys and asks about all the time then I'd be more then happy to send him and save the cash. I can't see a state school giving him maths/english/science that is 4 years ahead of his age group either. He has been at a state school so it's not as if we've not looked into this, he was at one school for a term and a half, they wouldn't differentiate his work and he spent most of his maths/english lessons giving out work/collecting work/running errands as he'd finished. Then there was the bullying because he stands out.

After school/before school fees here add up to about £130 a week as they are not run by any of the schools. Add activities to this, packed lunch/babysitter for the days the school is closed and there's no holiday club etc then I may as well be paying for a private school.

Yes emkana this irritates me too.

I rather suspect The (Sunday) Times is not actually read only by the people it thinks it is written for

Belledechoc that's ridiculous, frankly. So there are no good state secondaries that aren't grammar schools? How can that possibly be true?

UQD thanks for the use of "strident" I love it too.

It's all the "ooh, he is so bright and sensitive and works best in small groups and we are so opposed to testing, so of course we had NO choice" malarkey that can come across as intensely annoying.

You never hear people saying, "Well, my child is a bit thick, and quite insensitive, and actually loves the rough-and-tumble of big, boisterous groups, and enjoys being in large, shouty classrooms - and in fact really likes being regularly, pointlessly tested. So that's why we 'chose' the state system..."

UQD, in discussions about private education obviously we'll get a disproportionate number of people who for whatever reason use private schools. And a disproportionate number who are philosophically opposed to them.

Well, in an average cross-section of the population having the same conversation you wouldn't. Maybe the vast majority of people just don't bother to contribute to these threads...

There's 3 or 4 really good state schools here clary, I will not change my faith so that ds can go to one of them, nor will I move to a better area and pay school fees through the back door by paying for higher house prices in these catchment areas. I did say that not all areas had access to goood state schools or to grammar schoolsm not that there are no good state schools that are not grammar schools.

But you've been unhappy with some private schools too fluffy I think. Yet you are not tarring them all with the same brush.

I taught a MAths prodigy once who took his Maths A levels 3 years early in a bog standard comp. So it can happen.

Oh Ok thread has moved on.

Belledechoc, £130 a week for before and after school care? That's £26 a day? Even the out of school club from 8am to 6pm only charges about that for a full day [puzzled]

I rather suspect The (Sunday) Times is not actually read only by the people it thinks it is written for

True - I always think it should cost less outside of London because its so london-centric.