I send my child to private school because....?

[jabed]

Well, I don?t actually, I just work in one. But it seems to be a constant source of questioning on MN and given the current news articles (I have been reading the DM and Tory graph online) about how many of our left wing leaders hypocritically claim to be egalitarian and socialist whilst buying education for their children , or have had education paid for by their own parents. I just wondered, what is it we expect from education, and why is it some of us are willing to pay for whatever that is and how they see that as worthy of their money.

There you go. :)

Most of then are not as they are grown up :).

If children are being taught well at school they shouldn't need to do a lot of homework. What good is homework actually doing?
Why do parents need to keep such iron control over their children's work?

Why do you need to know what they learn, what they read and what they think about it?
They are the learners.
They are doing the reading for a purpose (don't tell me you read everything your child is told to read....)
They need to have their own thoughts and will get very pissed off having to discuss everything with mummy.
How old are your children piano and iyatoda?

pianomama - was that to me? It makes no sense.

Evil - I meant most of my DC are grown up so they are not allowed to just be children. I was trying to be funny.Sorry.

So if they're grown up, why do you want them to do homework every day?

I think homework is really another thread. (Should I start that?) I have very strong views about homework both as a parent and a teacher.
I certainly do not give homework every day or every week even. When I do set it I do so because it is necessary. Unfortunately it always seems to me parents somehow measure school by how much homework their children get (lots - good. None = bad).

Personally if I have to set homework I consider that I have failed in my primary task of teaching. As a parent I believe children should be allowed to play not have to "work" all the time. At a principle level I am against it because I feel it is part of a hidden curriculum that indoctrinates us all into the idea that we should work without suitable remuneration ( pay!) and we should work in our own time.

- Jabed - something about which I agree with you wholeheartedly

I still have 1 young one left. And he does do homework at school every day and weekends as his prep school sets it. But before he went there I felt the same as yiatoda. We had homework as children. You have a lesson at school, you come home and re-affirm whet you've learnt after an interval (play and relaxation).

I totally agree re. homework jabed. Any homework should be set for a purpose, and it should extend, rather than consolidate learning. Homework should always be used as a tool in the classroom - it should never be seen as a waste of the child's time.

Once every half term, I give children research homework (e.g. find 3 facts about.... (they're Y2!)). The children come into school, and share their facts with their friends. In doing this, we 'grow' their knowledge painlessly (and with lots of excitement) - instead of me droning a few facts out, they will have actively found 40+ facts between them.

Homework should not be a repeat of something done during the day to act as a communication device about the curriculum for parents.

Why do you need to re-affirm what you've done at school? If the child hasn't got it, the teacher should be picking any problems up through continual assessment and rigorous marking.

Iyatoda and Pianomama. I totally agree it is important to know what dcs do at school. Not necessarily bringing work books home but more communication and homework.
Alot of people forget the law states that it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure their children receive an education. If state or Private you need to know that this is happening. I have no preference for either but don't trust the government or any private agency with other aspects of my life without monitoring. Why should education of dcs be any different.

Not necessarily bringing work books home but more communication and homework.

I think that when parents request more homework, often what they really want is better and more effective communication with school about their children.

Jabed- I so agree with you on the subject of homework. My dd is at an excellent school which sets relatively little homework and I am happy with that because I am confident that she is being taught very well and paying close attention in lessons. So there really is no point to loads of homework . Ds is starting at a different school I am less happy with in September and I will keep a very close eye on what happens- and homework will be a useful tool for this. There's no real point to homework if the school is good.

My PFB 11 year old was leaving his lovely state primary in a nice village, but our catchment secondary in a nearby dodgy town and was having a few er....issues.

We went to visit two independent schools, more as an insurance than anything else, as we'd also applied to three other state schools, but we weren't confident about getting a place.

In the event we got two offers of places at other state schools we felt perfectly happy with, but in the meantime we fell head over heels for one of the independents we looked at, and opted for DS1 to go there anyway.

We then moved DS2 AND DS3 there, (they were still in primary and infants) and moved house to be nearer to it.

The original catchment school we had been so keen to avoid soon went into special measures, so we knew we'd done the right thing.

Slipshod. Yes I would agree with that and also learned a valuable lesson about spellings not coming home for a weekly test. However, if the teaching at a school isn't particularly good surely the parents need to know that they can help at home. Parents evenings aren't always so good and informative. Don't get me going on reports.
At least homework tells us what our children are doing. (obviously you can see from previous posts I am speaking in past tense)

That said, I have never had a downer on state education per se. Had my son ended up at one of my preferred state schools I would have been quite happy, I was just anxious to keep him out of one particular school.

More on homework subject : its good for learning new spellings/ times tables whatever.Also teaches good habbits of being able to work independently.

I think that you will often find that people haven't actively chosen private education-it is far more likely to be that they either don't like what the state offers in their area, or they fail to get the school of their choice.

The received wisdom now is that leading spellings does not actually do anything to help children learn to spell- it just teaches them how to score 100% in spelling tests!

And as for learning tables- I have not met a school, state or private, that does not get the children to learn their tables.

Must be me being silly again then..

Oh, pianomama- do you conduct your RL conversations like this?

Seeker I too heard that about spellings but ime it wasn't the case. My older 2 dcs did the write, read, cover etc at school and brought spellings home, tested at school. They spell well. They also learned tables by rote. DD 10 years later has not learned like this and can't spell or do tables. I know this isn't conclusive evidence as so many other facors, but still my experience.

Of course children have to learn their tables (by rote).

Spelling lists do not help children learn how to spell. Spelling is linked to phonics, which young children do daily.

Not always . I believe homework is good. You don't agree. No point arguing about it then - is it?

I didn't say I thought homework wasn't good in some circumstances. I said that research has shown that spellings, specifically, are less helpful than people think. And you obviously think spelling is very important- so you wouldn't want to waste your time championing an outdated method, now would you?