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?

Certainly, my experiences (limited) of working in private schools was that the profit motive predominated, and corners were cut where they could be. But more than that, I feel things like education and health cannot be measured in financial terms nor should they be.

Sorry -

www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028071.300-the-bonus-myth-how-paying-for-results-can-backfire.html

Hmmm, well looking round a sought after private school in the second richest borough in London the head specifically said the school was buying flats and houses locally then renting them to staff as it was impossible for teachers at the school to buy a house locally due to massive prices in the area. He said it was their biggest staff recruitment issue - non affordable houses.

I recognise this is an anecdote and not data

@Xenia I think either you had a smartphone moment or your fingers have done too much typing for one day (this often happens to me). Either way I couldn't quite follow some of your last post but just in case you were thinking that I think the school referred to above is anything other than the mumps - I don't. It's an appalling school which has a terrible reputation yet had a very highly paid SMT. If terrible state schools pay so much (I have no idea what my DCs excellent state schools pay anyone other than the head teachers, but they earn less than the one who was the subject of the scandal allegedly earned) and private schools pay so poorly then I wonder why anyone would teach at a private school? Or do they in fact pay top dollar (as Duchesse's post from a couple of days ago seemed to indicate)?

I'm getting a bit muddled over where we have got to and we are nearly at the full thread (40 pages).

In general good private schools pay more. A few dire state schools need to pay a lot to attract heads but not on the whole. Therefore many teachers would prefer to work in a private school and that is for all kinds of reasons.

The suggestion private schools have profit motives is just not right. About 95% of them make no profits at all and are charities.

As for house prices and jobs my own figures are correct for those professions and a comparison between then and now and bb is deliberately confusing things. I am talking about London zone 5 on the underground not commuting from Luton. Anyway the nice news is if your daughters choose a good career they can just as easily afford a small freehold detached terraced starter house in outer London as they could in 84.

State School Teachers' Pay

IAPS Guide to Salaries

Couldn't find anything solid about Independent School pay scales - the most useful document simply stated that there was a huge variety of pay, that some Independents pay up to 15% more than state schools and that others pay significantly less.

Xenia, that's nonsense and you know it. You cannot buy a house in zone 5 as any kind of new graduate which is why YOU introduced Luton to suggest it was affordable!

You may be talking only about your particular profession, conveniently, but I have demonstrated categorically that even if true (which I dispute), then your particular profession is so unusual as to be effectively irrelevant to the general discussion.

Whether you wish to believe it or not, it now costs 5.5 times the average salary to buy a house now compared to 3.5 times in 1984. You don't have to be terribly good at maths to work out that that is much harder.

And also, as I've said, even those in that profession at one of the top paying firms can't afford anywhere tolerable in a tolerable area (Clapham/ Stockwell etc) unless they have a massive handout from a willing donor to reduce the size of the loan.

As far as teachers pay is concerned, only boarding schools are likely to hand out a tied house, which can be actually be limiting for a family - by no means all spouses want to live on site. I would guess that many who teach in the private sector do so simply because it makes for an easier life.

Xenia almost all of DD1's friends from Oxford have sold their soul to the devil (for now) and are making hay in the City and on silly salaries comparable to your own DDs' (a few of the cleverer ones have stayed behind to do further degrees). They're all sharing in relatively central places - it makes for a better social life. I'd much rather DD followed suit and stayed central for the next few years and enjoyed life rather than trailing miles up and down the Northern Line every day just to get a foot on the ladder.

bb, I think you misread me. The first house we bought in zone 5 is on one of my links above and it costs about £250k - £275k which is proportionately almost identical to the teacher and opther professional salaries being bandied around on the thread. So I am right with that example.

Metabilis the West Exe governors got the external auditors report today, so watch out for further leaks via the Express & Echo. The school mums' grape-vine buzz is that some of the perks (top-of-the-range Mercs leased by the school have been whispered...) are more offemsive than the salary.

Ironically, he has led a potentially difficult school well; arguably, he is Exeter's best head (though personally I think that goes to Mandi Street at Isca). But no way is he worth twice as much as any of the others.

The villains of the piece are the LEA who agreed to all his "demands". He's pushy but decent: if they drawn a line, he'd have stayed behind it.

Ah the school DD's Latin & Greek teacher is going to is Harrow- which I believe is rather well funded. Compare that to even one of the oldest girls' schools in the country but significantly less well endowed than Harrow, and furthermore out in the deepest provinces, that might account for the salary gap.

Metabilis, I believe the E & E had an expose a few issues ago of what other HT in Devon were earning, and none of the others were anywhere near. I'm sure nobody would mind as much if that bloke had turned the place into a silk purse, but it's still a shite-hole as far as I can tell.

Why doesn't Harrow get better results then?

erm, thick posh kids? At a guess. I was quite surprised, I have to say. Would have expected far better results.

Well on the basis of using a single school as an example, the best teachers get the best pay at one of the best known independent schools and then the results are relatively ***.

Xenia, your synthesis?

Although having just trawled through the FT's tables, Harrow actually appears to be a little higher than DD's school, which I don't really understand because if you look at their breakdown of A level results on their site, they get a fair number of not very good grades (ie below C) which afaik doesn't happen at DD's school. Do they only have to report the 3 best results for each candidate for those rankings?

Per the official tables, which are on the BBC website, Harrow got 1075 A/AS (or equivalent eg IB) points per pupil. Your DD's school got in the high 900s. I guess it's an average (presumably the mean).

In the old days if you were bright you went to Eton. If you were thick you went to Harrow. That has all gone now although Eton is certainly more academic. Harrow used to be well below.

So now we have :
Westminster 1
North London Collegiate 5
Eton 13
Manchester grammar 14
Habs boys 20
Habs girls 24
Merchant Taylors 35
Harrow 39

And various others in between [ rankings.ft.com/secondary-schools/secondary-schools-2011]]
The FT is very good because it takes out rubbish A levels that don't count and is can give a several year picture rather than just flash in the pan and anyone looking at the list will also find those state selective grammar schools which are up there in the top 50 too.

rankings.ft.com/secondary-schools/secondary-schools-2011

Xenia,

So you prefer the tables which support your prejudices ['rubbish A-levels that don't count'......hmmmmm] rather than the official ones....

I wonder why???!

@teacher because in the official ones, the free state school which Yellow and I have kids at, is significantly better than NLCS which cost Xenia an arm (if not also a leg) They don't do rubbish A levels at our school either (well. I must be honest. I don't rate PE. I'm sorry, I know other people do. But I'm not going to go against my sworn duty as a dyspraxic just to oppose someone on every point).

To get a better view of how schools really compare, add the 'points per candidate' column to the table and then sort the table by that instead.

The initial table is ordered by the FT's own, rather opaque, 'ranking methodology', whereas adding the raw scores column allows you a more transparent view from which you can make your own judgements.

I can understand why Xenia would prefer you not to do that, as it makes 6 of the top 10 state grammars, with only 4 independents.

However, from my knowledge of local schools it now puts the local superselective grammar properly ahead of the 'posh selective independent', which is absolutely in line with their true academic results.

Or just look at the proper tables published by the BBC... much easier,.

Metabilis,

Yes, true of the best state school in our area, too....

Though I did rather enjoy my tinkering with the FT table. It showed that the boys' grammar in the neighbouring town (which isn't even the best local state school) has exactly equal A-level points per candidate to an extremely famous boys' independent school, internationally famous for its high academic standards......