The best Independent schools generally take the highest qualified teachers?

[Hamishbear]

It might be obvious to many that the most academic schools insist that their teachers have an outstanding degree from one of the best universities but it wasn't to me.

For example if you want a job in Maths at Guildford High school allegedly you need a first in Maths from a well regarded university. You obviously need to be an outstanding teacher in the fullest sense too.

So do the elite schools usually have the best teachers? I suppose it stands to reason that there is more competition for jobs at schools that have a fantastic reputation?

High quality music education isn't the sole preserve of schools, anyway. My cousin's DC go to private London day schools but do music at their local conservatoire and have done since they were four - the music teaching there is much better than in any school, according to my cousin. And there are pupils at the conservatoire from both state and private schools.

Also, another difference betwen you two, metabilis, is that you clearly value musical education both for its own sake and also, I imagine (?) as part of a good general education. Whereas in Xenia's case, she seems far less interested in musical education so as to encourage a love of or understanding of music, or even to aid general learning, but rather as a means to get a high-paying job as a result of being able to discuss music intelligently and take part in musical hobbies with other high-flyers. To Xenia, learning music is what deportment and using the right fork would have been to earlier generations - a means, as TOSM, of sorting out the U from the non-U.

Of course, I may be doing her a terrible injustice, but to me her posts seem to put playing an instrument well in the same category as skiing and I daresay wearing the right brand names and living in the right area. It's about creating the right appearance, rather than innate interest in the music. A kind of expensive version of Hyacinth Bouquet.

Sorry, that was rather bitchy. But I have just Xenia's post elsewhere in which she lectures disabled mums worried sick how they are going to afford to eat once Universal Credit comes in, on how she went back to work full-time once her children were little and has never taken time off blah-de-blah. Which coming from someone who claims perfect health strikes me as astonishingly lacking in empathy.

Xenia may possess many very laudable qualities (ability to choose high-paying career, etc) but empathy is not amongst them.

@Bread I think that may be a little unfair, Xenia often talks about music, she clearly loves it. She even accompanies her DCs for exams etc which I think shows more devotion than me. I've been known to accompany practice when begged (playing the bass, my piano playing is poor) but that is my limit.

I have many issues with many of the things that have been said in this thread but, because it's my own special interest, it is the 'they don't teach music properly in state schools' which is for me the most irritating thing purely because it's not only manifestly untrue it represents a sort of snobbish ignorance which is just horrible to observe.

Sure. My own bones of contention - as an Oxbridge graduate currently teaching in the state sector - were more the general points made in response to the OP from Xenia and others.

Well, obviously I agree with you there for Roughly the same reasons. I particularly liked being labelled as an undesirable common person at Cambridge, forever doooooooomed by my love of footy. In fact, of course, it's my ability to speak fluent footy as much as my Cambridge degree, publications, professional reputation etc that has me in the career I'm in today. [grub]

Quite. I know nothing of state music teaching outside of my own lmited experience but have been quite happy with it for my dcs - my dcs' experience seems vastly improved on my own education 30 odd years previously. Though again, I don't know how typical that was then - maybe grammar schools then were more focused on the 3Rs than now?

The 3Rs alone, i should say - clearly grammar schools now still care about the 3Rs1 But providing the whole package seems to matter to them more now.

In the Victorian age when girls were taught virtually hnothing to keep them uneducated and marriageable learning the piano was a key skill, one of their accomplishments. However it is not true that I want the children to do music for social or career reasons. I sing every day. I want them to love whatever hobbies they pick even if they are different from what I would choose. Both duaghters run, one in marathons, one likes throwing balls around with a stick. I don't force children to pick particular hobbies. I like it when we can share things - sometimes both my daughters come to bikram yoga with me. All 5 refused to come to a lovely singing day in Temple Church with me which would have been a nice family outing,.. laughing as I type... and I do accompany the younger ones every day if they are practising every day although I think if you are very musical it is not until the chdilren are grade 6+ that is pleasurable in the listening in sense.

However it is fair to say I have mentioned on mumsnet now and before that some hobbies give you things in common with those with whom you might work. I've said one daughter sails and skis on work things. of course you don't need to sail and ski to get her job but on her interview day it was talking about horse riding which may have helped her with her job or possibly that she can talk to almost anyone about anything. Also I have totally opted out of all this - goodness knows how rich I mgiht be if I drank alcohol, entertained customers, played golf and loved football or even if I sponsored classical music concerts. I just can't be bothered with all that stuff. I just let the excellence of my work shine through without being sullied by quasi bribes and bonding... although the latter without doubt does work in business...Ah just read M's post above... indeed football (or rubgy) the key to much bnusiness sucess. Mind you even an evening in sexist fashion with female industries having pointless junk put on your face (which is the feminine equivalent) is just as odious to me. I'd rather be at home.

Apologies, Xenia, I clearly did you a disservice on the music front.

Though these days, kids in state schools do get to do a range of non-academic subjects to a high standard too - my dd is doing sailing through her state school for example. So don't really agree that a private education is necessary for this.

And Metabilis's point that state schools teach music as well as private schools do, or posibly better, still stands.

So in the context of the whole thread, still not seeing a massive advantage gained by paying 15K or whatever per year. Other than in networking opportunities or having a naice accent. Which obviously matter a lot to you, but rather less to me.

The private schools around here are so mixed ethnically and culturally that I don't think there is the remotest chance of any good accent being obtained. Nor do I think networking is a huge benefit . I've never had a single bit of work via an old school friend nor have my children so far although it may work better for people with a different personality and those who cannot get on without it in life so they contact someone they were at their boarding school with.

If bandb is happy with a sttae school and I with private that's fine. I said on another thread I would be happy to pay double what I do for the day school fees if necessary so clearly we are each happy with what we have.

I don't think state schools do teach music as well and because there are fewer children learning and at higher grades the standard is lower.

So what is the advantage of paying fees? I would probably have a list with 1000 things on it if I had the time. If you want selective single sex education in most of the country you have to pay fees to get even that. Segregation from trouble makers is another reason. not having to mvoe to be near posh comprehensives is another.

I suppose there is no issue, is there? Plenty of state schools parents are very happy with what they get and many private school parents and that's what is nice about the UK. You can home edxucate, you can pay fees, you can use state schools and those can be religious or not and in some areas selective. you can pick a specialist music college like Chetham's or one where you don;t do lessons if you dont' want to like Summerhill.You can go for Eton or Manchester grammar, muslim fundamentalist, hindu state primary, state Jewish, boarding school with jewish house, state boarding. We have such variety which is great as we are a nation of very different people rather than identikit Swiss or conformist Japanese.

@Xenia: I don't think state schools do teach music as well and because there are fewer children learning and at higher grades the standard is lower.

If we leave aside for a moment that this sentence actually doesn't make any kind of sense, the fact remains that you are not a musician (or at least, you never mention a performing shadow career, and I'd think that you would mention it if it existed) and you do not have any direct experience of state schools. I am (a little bit - used to be a lot more when I was younger), I do, and you are wrong. The teaching at those schools that bother, is the same, provided in most instances by the same people There are private schools that don't bother, there are state schools that don't bother and there are proportionally fewer children learning music in state schools but that is to do with cost not to do with the quality of teaching which is the same. It doesn't matter how many times you deny this, it won't make your narrative true.

Also, the Swiss are far from identikit. They split along mother tongue lines, for a start. My colleagues in Geneva are very different from my colleagues in Zurich.

Xenia, as I have said before, my DS (state primary) learns from the same teacher as pupils do at the local, famous, private secondary. His 1 to 1 lessons cost me something under £50 for a series of 10, but other than that can you explain in what way their experience is different?

For his group music making (he loves jazz, so plays in a jazz band), he joins a county group for pupils from state schools all over the county. This is not available to private school pupils, and means that even if very able and well-taught musicians are spread more thinly in some state schools, they can get together in very professional ensembles (performed in big local venue a term or so ago).

hmm teacher in my experience, even where the teacher is the same at both state and private schools you do get more at the private one (maybe not £x k more, but still more).

For example, ds has had opportunities to perform at school at least once a term (probably more than twice a term on average), he has had master classes (organised through the school) with two highly renowned specialists on one of his instruments, he has had aural classes organised in break times which he attended weekly until he passed his grade 8 and theory classes too (which he didn't attend as they clashed with his trio group). There are a very large number of orchestras and other ensembles at a surprisingly high standard. He has done symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, swing band, baroque group, piano trio and string quartet through most of his time at senior school as well as a few other more transient ones (such as a jazz trio). They have performed at a huge range of venues (if he was a singer too, as most musicians at his school are, it would be even more). He has the chance to accompany other musicians and play in duets and there are concerts by professional musicians to attend for free on a termly basis. In our county the county music service activities aren't restricted to state schoolers so he would have the opportunity to participate in those too though he hasn't had the time as he also does a fairly time consuming sport, but others do. It's because he can do the music at school that he has had time for both.

I'm fairly sure the music provision at his school far exceeds the local state ones even where the instrument teachers are the same, but conceed that some state schools are better (they are probably all/nearly all music specialist schools though), and many independent schools are not as well set up for music and of course many children do not participate in all the activities even when they are offered, so for them it would be a waste and others may be able to access similar activities outside school if they have the time, so may not need it in school.

Apart from the free concerts by professional musicians, and the string quartets (because she doesn't play a stringed instrument ) DD1 gets exactly the same opportunities through the state system whether at school or through the conservatoire scheme (the additional 'famous person' (if you play her instrument. Not otherwise) lessons. Which she has once a month). I do have professional musician friends who do free concerts in state schools though, in their 'home area' (and a bit further afield - my BF from school was performing in schools in West London last week which definitely isn't either her home patch or that of the other members of her quartet!). DD1s school will be performing a specially commissioned piece for the cultural Olympiad at the weekend, in the past my old (state) school has commissioned and performed pieces by well known composers and also performed new pieces commissioned by the Arts Council (in the good old days when the Arts Council did that sort of thing).

To clarify - there are string ensemble opportunities both at DD1s school and through the wider state provision in the county. Just, she isn't to do with them. The string performers get a huge range of performance opportunities though because there is some kind of scheme with Gabriel Prokofiev's 'nonclassical' project promoting new composers which some of the people involved in the high level string tuition are also part of, and so the young people get the chance to perform new commissions.

Your school does sound excellent for music and I'm not surprised you are happy with the provision but honestly, there is nothing there that doesn't happen in state schools for the really gifted/committed young people. If DD1 was only performing twice a term I reckon we'd have one grumpy daughter. Actually, same for DD2 and her state primary school is truly rubbish for music. But she still racks up performance opportunities.

meta, your dc's schools sound good too and it's encouraging to be proved wrong on this. Sadly I don't think our local schools are remotely similar so I do see where xenia is coming from. We didn't choose our school for the music as I assumed most dc gave up music lessons by senior school (I'm sure that's what happened in my day), it's just been something that's happened on the side that in the event we've been very glad about.

String players often do get more opportunities I think (but we have flute groups, trombone groups, percussion groups, concert bands...). Think twice a term performing was a gross understatement as it happens - 4 times just this week (one of them paid) as well as several earlier this term for example - but a lot depends which ensembles you are involved in.

DS's state primary does not have many in-school music groups (which is why he attends the county ones). He does get to perform solo, though - looking forward to the school concert this evening, as it happens.

The secondary he will transfer to in September does have a huge range of group, individual and orchestral stuff going on, in addition to singing (which so far he has only done in the highly polished 'musical theatre' type school shows which each class puts on every year in his primary). However, he is the ultimate 'sporty boy', in addition to being obsessive about maths and about politics / world affairs, so we have yet to see whether he will take the music opportunities up or whether his time will be spent on the sports field or the Maths club or the debating society. He will have individual music lessons outside school so that he can continue with his current teacher (who loves jazz as much as he does) rather than transfer to the peripatetic teacher at his new school (who I understand is very much more in the Xenia mould of music making!). Whether he takes up the opportunities for music making at his new (state comp) school or not, I am very happy to know that they are there and that they are of such a high standard.

I will miss tonight's concert at the primary because I'm en route to forn parts again (this week, Prague :( ). Dd1 is singing and playing. The weekend concerts all clash - I'm playing on Saturday so are the girls, different gigs, then on Sunday DS and DD2 are in a they're group thing (mixed state and private kids) and Dd1 is doing the cultural Olympiad thing.

From what I know of private schools, where music is a thing, more kids do it. For the schools where it isn't, very few do. From what I know of state schools (and my school was chosen by my parents as much for its music as for the nuns) the numbers are fairly similar whether the school is renowned for music or not, because there is always stuff at county level. Or borough level in London.

On the whole state schools have worse music than private schools. Obviously there will be some exceptions but I am pretty sure I am right. My children's father taught music in both sectors. He probably knows more than anyone about that and I was pretty connected to all that. I was asked if I had a music career. I have been paid to sing often enough but I would not want to rely on it as the main source of income. Although if any mumsnetter wants to hire me for a wedding or funeral I would be happy to oblige. I could even rustle up a son or two to play the trumpet too - they major on the Last Post at funerals which usually goes down quite well.

If there is no problem over music funding in state schools that's great. I want many manyu cut backs and much smaller state so if Boris J does not need to do his initiatives in this area and we can even reduce funding because it's all find in the state sector with music that would be brilliant.

The level of funding is the main driver behind quality in many domains. Private schools, which are generally better funded than state schools, can provide better teaching in lots of areas and music is no exception. But there is plenty of music provision outside schools. Peripatetic teaching is still very prevalent in music.

I'd like to hire you for a funeral, Xenia - you know how in Victorian times they used to have decorative mutes in attendance?

I couldn't not sing.
I'd like to do the Durufle Requiem, 2 voices per part would be fine so you'd need more people. mmmm lovely.

@Xenia My conservatoire teacher friends disagree. My professional musician and composer and conductor friends (and these are all plural not singular) disagree. I think that they are more likely to know what they are talking about than you are.