Financial Times Top 1000 Schools

[Xenia]

398 of the top 1000 are independent
Of the top 100 schools 80 are private and 19 grammar. Only one is a comp but it is a partially selective comprehensive.

(England only)
My older children's schools are 5th, 24th and 35th, not too bad.
www.ft.com/schoolmap-2011
The % ho get A or A* is proper subjects is a good measure and the fact they give the position in 2009 and 2008 too so you can see if a school has just had a bizarre year.

What about those of us who don't equate success with salary?!

How much do you earn ? because I always find those who are in roles with oddles of job satisfaction tend to be paid above average wages too.
Perfect example friends mother when I was at school, lived in a huge 6 bed, 3 storey house, three children, 2 holidays a year telling me from a council flat I simply must do something I love with my life. I just wanted to be able to walk around Asda without a pen and paper checking I could afford the food I was buying before I got to the check out. A job you love is a luxury like any other.

Xenia 'women pick careers that enable them to pay school fees'. Why would anyone select a career simply to be able to pay school fees? What about job satisfaction, worklife balance? It just seemed a strange comment. I would hate my DCs to believe that the only career they should choose should be the most lucrative. Often the more wealth, the more unhappiness. This is showing signs in the US with more university students taking courses in 'happiness'.

Your daughter's comments are her own experience. Some of the best debaters I was at university were state school educated. Don't forget the Millibands were state educated.

Universities should receive more funding for state kids in my opinion and the return of a better grant for kids from really poor households who have the potential to become the next Margaret Thatcher. For me that is why many poorer kids are put off and so are their parents. It is at this stage really when universities should be Added Value assessed like schools. The best universities should be striving for getting the best out of their students this will lead to a bigger pool of potential employees. I would hate to see the return of the 11+ and do not believe this is an answer but inspirational teachers in schools who can really motivate pupils are needed. Not just those with the best degrees.

It was the teachers who pushed me to go to university when my parents tried to put me off because uni was full of posh kids and the full grant that allowed me to go.

'Umming and aahing' is no less annoying than 'ok yahing' actually, if we are going to resort to that level of inanity.

I seem to remember once a discussion whereby it was suggested that state school children should learn to box in order to 'get on'.

Try suggesting that to the highly intelligent DCs I know, who are now at Oxford and Cambridge.

xenia my children's school WON the great shakespeare debate 2010

It was one of the only state schools in the competition but apparently better than all the private

MottledCat

Yes, the majority of private school pupils don't go to Oxbridge, just as the majority of state educated pupils don't go to high performing grammar schools. The only difference between the most selective grammar schools and the most selective private schools is that the tax payer foots the bill for the middle class kids who have been tutored into the grammars.

It's just as easy to get into Oxbridge from a grammar school like Latymer or HBS as it is from a private school, but not so easy from a comprehensive. And the pupils from the comps tend to be the ones who need a year to get up to speed. Not their fault by any means, the fault lies with their schools.

A job I love is a necessity to me, not a luxury. Many people get fed up with no job satisfaction which is why leave the city for teaching or similar. They earn enough.
I could imagine that if you are an archaeologist you don't earn much, but you spend your life following a passion-much more important.
However I'm not interested in paying school fees and having lots of status symbols-I only need enough to live comfortably. I couldn't bear to work in something like advertising or PR or anything to do with money or a whole host of things. I want a job to live, not live for a job. I want my DCs to follow a dream and not think 'what earns a lot' and get on some horrible treadmill of school fees.If landscape gardener makes them happy I don't want them to be a lawyer. (I have nothing against them being a lawyer, but it shouldn't be the salary that influences them)

OK xenia you want to find out how much we earn. I am in the top 10% of salaries in the country and work part-time. State school comp educated, not quiet at uni. I chose my current job due to job satisfaction and not salary. Can afford to send my kids privately but choose not to because of the inverse snobbery they would face if they decided to work in Birmingham or Manchester.

Oh and my DS plays two musical instruments at the age of 10 is very musical, is also a club swimmer and my DD has already had her first professional acting job at the age of 6. One-up-manship is so degrading but worth it in this case.

Yes, I agree happygolucky.

(By the way, my children weren't tutored to get into their highly selective grammar school. Neither were their state educated primary school counterparts. Some children do get there on their own merit.)

Yes, agree re the oneupmanship being highly degrading but sometimes it is necessary in order to make a valid argument.

the oneupmanship is never necessary, it always degrades the argument and those arguing!

I find it depressing that those with children in the state sector can only validate their choices by sneering and jeering at those with children in the independent sector, and vice versa. Anyway, I'm not sure there's a huge moral gap between those who pay for their children to have an advantage through incessant tutoring, those who pay for their children to have an advantage through private education, and those who pay for their children to have an advantage through moving into the catchment area of a high performing comp at the expense of locals who are pushed out.

it is excruciating the ignorance of the private sector about the state sector and the amazing things it has to offer

i have had three children so far at state grammar - one of which has gone to a top university

none of my children were tutored - they too play musical instruments and debate - they are not alone

loads of their friends are hugely wildly talented and state educated sometimes by choice not necessity

ds is at university and says not only do the privately educated kids seem intrigued by bright state educated kids ( how did you get here??) but also (and a whole other thread i know) but terribly ill educated about the north of england ( southern university)

PaulaYates

Do you not think the same could be said about the ignorance some people have about the private sector?

Personally, I went to a state school and my children go to an independent school. I think it's fair to say I have experience and knowledge of both sectors.

Do you, or are you basing your views of private schools on hearsay?

I have had three children so far at state grammar

I'm sorry but that is not a true reflection of state school, come back when you've experienced a state school where 50% of pupils have free school dinners and the GCSE pass rate even with fiddled figures is 30% and then tell me how wonderful the state sector is.

Happy - you are managing to sound very patronising

I was state educated my dp was privately educated and half of our children are /went to a state grammar - is that informed enough for you

I live in a town where despite having a top comprehensive - a large percentage of families go private and another large section go out of area to state grammar

Most of my close local friends send their children private and some split them

Informed enough???

mama i was state educated

Paula

I apologise if I sound patronising. Don't you think you sound equally patronising in the manner you dismiss children in the independent sector as being "intrigued" by northerners?

As I've said before, there really is very little difference between those educated at highly selective grammar schools and highly selective private schools - at least here in London. In my experience, that is.

As you have close friends who send their children to private schools, would you describe them as "excruciating" in their "ignorance"?

Define amazing in terms of state school and I'm sure most inde's already have that, and more.

But who cares? We all think our choices are the right ones. I'm not going to judge the smug middle-class parent with a child at grammar school who, for social reasons(!), wouldn't dream of sending their kid to a private school. Nor look at their kids in awe for being all singing and all dancing in every field because they have loads of excess income to splash on them, which has nothing to do with the state school they go to.

Those that need to criticise others' choices obviously feel insecure about their own decisions they have made.

Have you read the thread Happy?

Etonia -who has excess income?

Eton Mum get a grip

Well Paula so was I and how many from the class of 1994 do you think went to any university nevermind a good one, 2.
We according to Facebook churned out plenty of single mums, drug addicts and the odd escort, an under taker, check out chicks and an estate agent. They must be so proud :)

I don't think anyone is sneering or jeering, merely giving a robust reply to the suggestion in the original post that those not 'in the know' are inadvertently sending their children to schools which have 'basket weaving' as an option at GCSE.

Obviously privately educating one's children gives them a massive advantage (why would people do it otherwise???). The real discussion is whether it is morally right that a child's right to a decent education should be dependent on their parents' income. And whether those children who are already advantaged should be even more so in terms of their education. Lots of people would say why not?? Life isn't fair, so what?? Other people might disagree. The whole premise of this thread was to point out how lucky some people are that their child attends Westminster/Eton or whatever and the veiled suggestion that anyone could attend these schools, should they just try hard enough or earn enough which is nonsense. I really can't be bothered to explain the whys and wherefores of it all.....it's been explained many a time on here.

Luckily for some, myself included, we are able to access an excellent state education for our children (and even get in the top FT schools' list, whoopee) Some people are not so lucky and their predicament should not be so dismissed by some people (okay one person) on this thread, along with the other asumptions about state school educated chidren at top universities and their accents or whatever.

who has excess income?

Thats easy - people like me who could have sent their DC to a private school but chose the state school. In our case because other things were equal and DD preferred the atmosphere at the grammar - its suiting her perfectly so far. And so, lucky us, we do indeed therefore have some excess money which is unlikely to make her all-singing, all-dancing but may well help her become good at watersports.

The kids of people who can afford private schools are bound to have more opportunities of the sort money can buy whether they get it from a private school or direct from the parents.

Floreat is right to neither judge nor be impressed

Exactly, if DD chooses the grammar school option available to her on Wednesday (please God) we shall take her to Australia as a treat because she'll have saved me £35k. I won't tell her this until after the decision has been made obviously but there's no getting away from it I will save a lot.

Happygolucky, I think there is going to be quite a big difference in social/financial backgrounds between those at a grammar school and those at a top public school.

There are some reasonably wealthy parents at my DCs grammar school (doctors, lawyers, company directors..) but they are hardly in the realms of aristocracy/minor royalty/proper royalty for goodness sake/international popstars etc!!!!!

And yes, I am sure there are some scholarship pupils whose parents aren't any of the above but they are in a minority.