How are private schools spoonfed or pushed?

[OfCourseWeCan]

I often hear this and have seen this mentioned on several threads.

My DD is only 6 and is at state so I am really just curious.

I would disagree that private schools 'spoonfeed' their pupils.
My experience is exactly the opposite; they make them think, they challenge them to question. As the teachers are often passionate and excel in their subject, they can teach broader and beyond the curriculum. This is not to say that there aren't many state school or grammar school teachers who don't do this. There are inspirational teachers in all settings, but the 'best' of the private schools will have many such teachers who have excellent facilities to teach in, pupils with high aspirations and good work ethics and often much smaller classes where true debate is more easily achieved.

Letsescape Agree with all you say. Very good post in my opinion. Here is an example of what I think is good about a good private school:
If your DC is the only one who has not done a piece of work then they are the only one - they feel out of it and try to conform to the norm for that class. Same thing happens in a negative way in a poor school where say three or four people have not done a piece of work and regard themselves as "the in crowd" then the others soon start to conform to that norm. See what I mean?
In a good school the pupils bring each other up but in a poor school there will always be a few who pull the others down.

Letsescape and Crosswordaddict - I agree with you both. The advantage for the private school is that a disruptive or underperforming student may be told asked to leave. This certainly isnt possible at my DCs' state school.

Spoonfeeding is pejorative as others have said. I think it means different things to different people. For me I dont see it as simply academic but that private education brings a whole package of opportunities which are presented to the student. This may be in terms of extra curricular activities or extra tuition. The state educated student isnt presented with these, they may be available but the student will have to go out and find them. To achieve to the same level the state educated student may have to be much more self-motivated than the privately educated student.

Sweeping generalisations of course.

My DS (5) is in a good state school and his friend (6) in a private girls school, both in Y1. She is in a class of 26 and on comparing notes they seem to do pretty much the same. The friend seems very academic though and read before starting school, my DS seems rather average so far, but that has nothing to do with the school.

Two of my children; DS1(17) and ds3(9,year 4)are in a selective but not overly so independent.

What i wanted for them academically is that they would be stretched ,(not pushed)and also that the norm is to work hard.Some of the children with my older son are not in the top quartiles of academic ability,far from it in fact ,but they all acheived at least 9/10 GCSEs because that is the norm,thats what everyone does so they don't think of any other option.

The work habits are instilled early on so that there is not a huge leap in effort required in years 10 and 11 .That said they get enormous amounts of support from the teachers and the classes are smaller and when ds1 starts to drift off work wise,as he always seemed to ,there was always a phone call from the tutor a word from the housemaster .

We just had a dip in the second half of the first term in year 12 ,the first reaction within a couple of weeks of his grades slipping was "whats wrong,how can we help,is there a problem?"A friend with ds in our very good local stae sixth form commented that it proably wouldn't have even been noticed but maybe thats a good thing my boys are used to being noticed ,they know that the teachers expect their best all the time,perhaps thats spoon feeding but it's what i wanted for them.

DS3 is pretty academic ,he does spanish ,is working probably on year5 maths at least,but they do lots of fun maths activities ,so difficult to tell if ahead or not,if they like shapes for example they will be encouraged to take it as far as they can etc ,sofinding areas of irregular shapes including circles the other week.Very little use of worksheets ,a lot in done on a combination of whiteboard and individual marker boards,he is in the rugby team and plys chess attending competitions etc ,they have lots of outing as ,loads of musc and every child learns an instrument for at least one year .Above all else they are taught to always do their best and make the most of every opportunety that comes their way,the school is relentlessly optimistic!!He does science in a science lab and art in an art room,he also does food tech etc and DT .
They also have poetry reciting competitions and do teh ESB exams where they have to prepare a topic and speak on it and answer questions etc

His homework is actually less than most of his state school contempories ,he has 20 spellings a week to learn this weeks include aware,area ,nightmare etc,a crossword using these spellings using definations and synonyms as clues,5 sentences including 5 of the spellings,his maths might be two or three excercises on mymaths.co.uk and there will be one other subject at the weekend,this week we had a history game to make ,last week a book review .

I do think they are given every opportunety to do well and if that is spoonfeeding so be it but they are expected to give a lot in return ,the old adage is true that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

It came hoime to me last summer when standing at the supermarket checkout,it was the day of the history GCSE, and one mother was telling another in the queue that her son had answered the wrong number of questions ,now that just doesn't happen in my sons' school,its not rocket science but they all know the mark scheme and format of the exams like the back of their hands ,they don't throw away the silly marks they know how to maximise their chances .I felt so cross for this poor boy ,apparently the teacher had said to the mother that it was his reponsibility to research and be aware of the format ,well theoretcically maybe but in real life you need all the help that you can get.

My boys aer very lucky and i hope they understand that,but they also know that they have to make the best of themselves and that only your best,not the best but their best is good enough .

Haven't read all the threads but whoever thinks private schools spend less time on voacational subjects and sport really don't have a clue. But then that's the point, all these comments about spoonfed and pushed generally come from ignorant parents who don't ave kids at private schools and do not have a clue about how they function.

You haven't read the thread at all have you FloreatEtonia or you'd know that there has been a lot of discussion of what spoonfed actually means and that if you define it in a positive way it takes place in all good schools state or private.

You are clever webwiz , I recall writing, "Haven't read all the thread"!

Then what is the point in commenting as your succinct point may have already been made several times before.

Are you the thread police?

As it was I was making the point that those who comment on schools, especially in a negative sense, generally have never been to a private school. I was more surprised at a post on the first page assumming that private kids achieve well because they do less extra-curric/dt/art which is laughable as they do 200%+ more than state schools!

There is a big difference between students from state and private schools that arrive at university with the same grades. The State school pupils do not expect to be told how the marking scheme works and will work it out for themselves. They usually do better at this stage in my experience.

"The State school pupils do not expect to be told how the marking scheme works and will work it out for themselves."
My DSs were at independent secondaries and are marking scheme experts! They are also expert exam question spotters. Are there a lot of ex-indie students who haven't learnt those tricks?

Yes, indeed there are. However, the ex indie students are much better at asking for information and getting what they want. They also tend to do more as students. They are the joiners and tend to continue with sport etc.

Ex State pupils usually have to learn that at university level they can talk to teachers/lecturers and will be treated as equals. They tend to go away and work alone, they do not expect help/advice. This is not always a good thing.

Personally I am more interested in the students that really want to learn, not learn the marking scheme. Those are rare

I do think though that learning how to show what you have learned to its best advantage, is a skill worth knowing.

Like a barrister with a killer legal point. So much better if she or he knows how to deliver it well.

Absolutely.

However, I can't help having a soft spot for the quietly brilliant students that have had to overcome challenges to get this far. They usually have just that little extra to offer.

Litchick; absolutely,one of my biggest frustrations is the fact that often trainees etc are completely unable to comumicate in an accurate way the information that they know .It's not good enough just to know it you have to be able to comunicate it to the client and you have to be sure that what you are comunicating actually means what you intend it to!

I am beginning to wonder whether spoonfeeding is actually neutral to some children and very very helpful to others.

My older 2 children are both at an excellent state primary.

My DD1 is fairly bright and top of the class but what she has going for her is that she is stubborn as a mule, fierce, will make herself heard/noticed in a big crowd and has a innate sense of hard work. She will come home and singlehandedly write/expect me to sit down with her and practice things etc....

My DS1 is completely the opposite and is sinking pretty fast imo. He is imo much brighter than my DD1 naturally speaking, however he is quiet, introverted, incredibly sensitive and very young/small and he is just getting lost in the system. He is also drawn to the older/naughtier boys, so will spend all his time on the bikes/getting injuries rather than actually sitting in the class learning anything.

I could see him just very easily getting lost and I am getting increasingly concerned about whether this environment will bring the best in him or not.

So all this to say that a bit of spoonfeeding would be great for him, whilst I am sure my DD1 would achieve the same at either types of school as she is incredibly self motivated and he isn't.

emy72 - I think you make a good point there. Some children do have the ability to get themselves going no matter what. Others need to be helped to get going.

We lived in the Netherlands for a while. The school used the Dalton method which encouraged children to take responsibility for their work from a very early age. DD1 thrived in this environment. DS struggled and just couldnt get it. Now in a more structured environment he is thriving.

It would be wrong to suggest that private school pupils do badoly at university. They make up 7% iof chidlren and about 50% of the chidlren at the best universities. They do marvellously and follow them through and they still do massively better in later life than state school pupils - take any institution or b ody or board or group of b ishops even or MPs or whatever and even after graduation the private ones continue to prove their worth so any myth that they cannot work things out for themselves just isn't true. In deed my daughter felt in her group at univesrity tne private school ones seemed much better to speak up, debate things and have opinions which would not the case had they been "spoon fed" to repeat stuff without understanding it. The lack of coherence, the likes, the bad diction, and a host of other things seemed more concentrated amongst those who were state educated adn those things count going on to jobs after graduation.

DD has been in both systems. Difference is, in state system, her work was always excellent. In her current indy, there is a sharper definition of what 'excellent' is, and hence marking and guidance to get her moving in that direction. I see it as a clear benefit, as she is clearly improving, but yes, it can also be potentially seen as spoon-feeding. So long as it is age-appropriate and ability-appropriate, I don't see a problem.

Pushy? Sure, but not all schools, some are and some aren't, so that is more school-specific than category-specific. Parents come in all sorts, and the market caters to them all.

I have a freidn who is head of year 7 in a high achieving grammar school. She says that, as a broad generalization, private school children know more, but state school children are better at finding things out.

Make of that what you will.

Spoonfeeding can take the form of teaching children how to get the right answers without ensuring that they have grasped the underlying concepts. IMO as such, it is never a good thing. I am sure it happens in both sectors.

Pushing in the state sector is I believe known as target-setting. Kids are made aware of their NC levels and a certain amount of progress is expected within a particular time frame. IME this process is les well defined in the Independent sector.

less well defined even

Let us not forget private school pupils do 'massively better later in life than state school pupils' due to a variety of reasons, one of which is not because they are all more intelligent.......(see Andrew Neil documentary the other night and, I could also add, see Jacob Rees Mogg but maybe not go there....).

For every one of Xenia's stories of the privately educated at university, I can counter it with stories from my state educated DCs who managed places at top universities too despite not being spoonfed :).

Xenias comment it fascinating, for many reasons.