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. :)

"reverse psychology" being a euphemism for "being a twat" in this context, I assume.
Oops swearing. Forgot he was paying good money to get away from that. Talk about pissing it up the wall

I don't think anyone is saying all disruptive children need to be educated in different schools but there will be some who need to be excluded from the class or the school because they disrupt the education of others. We all know you can get one little horror whether they be naughty or with some problem who ruins the lessons of every class they are in always. Private schools have fewer of those as parents would not stand for it.

My slightly (never quite bad enough to have help) dyslexic daughter I am not even sure if we give her that title but I think so.

I am surprised about the concerns over received pronunciation. Surely we want all children to speak like that. If that is not an aim in state schools then thank goodness I pay fees. It is almost as important as exam results and personality in getting jobs. If loads of parents are happy for their children to have thick hard to follow regional accents hurray - leaves the door wide oopen for mine to seize the day. Perhaps in today's competitive world we shoudl encourage huge difference between staet and private sector so private sector can thrive all the more. Let state have legions of disruptive children and large classes and poor results and be totally inclusive and then the field is left clear for success for children from the independent sector.

" We both take personal flack without taking offence."

I never get the attraction of RP. Where I live it is the regional accent. The result is people I meet from outside the area think I am terribly posh. That can be a real pain.

Xenia, I am all for using good diction and language skills, but there are few people who use received pronunciation now. Perhaps in the 1930's it was more acceptable, now its a good joke used for comedic purpose.

Jabed - you are as offensive as anyone else on MN. You just claim not to be. If someone takes offence, you blame them for misunderstanding you, blame your age, claim to be from another era or claim that you are too polite to ever intentionally wound.

Exactly so, evil. Jabed, your comments about state schools and those who use them do offend me, but I don't want to hear any 'I'm sorry if anyone chose to took offence at my old fashioned self using words which are common parlance to anyone well-educated' type 'apologies'.

I don't think it's the case that one 'has to be careful', and I think comments abut 'the mn thought police' are frankly ludicrous. I just think you have to not be awful.

"I am a self made man. My success and the circles I move in are a result of my efforts despite my lack of early education, not because of it. Most people in that circle do not realise my background either."

I know. But I have tried to engage by other means!

As far as RP goes- very few people use it nowadays. I do, but I am very old and old fashioned. My children speak modern posh, which has a touch of Estuary, like they young Royals ( and they go to state school!). But there is a whole range of accents which are socially acceptable-clarity and correct usage are much more useful than a very narrow specific accent.

Jabed's comments are certainly offensive - if you take them seriously, that is, and I have to be absolutely blunt and say that I'm finding that increasingly difficult, for all the obvious reasons.
In the interests of being even-handed, however, plenty of pro-state school posters on MN have made plenty of gratuitously offensive things about parents choosing prviate school for reasons of raging snobbery, because their little darlings are too thick to handle it in the state sector etc. Personally I have chosen a private school because its small size, flexibility and ethos makes it the best able to deal with my ds's highly individual needs (he has ASD); contrast with our LEA who have tried and still are trying to thwart what we are attempting to achieve for him at every turn. Thoughts of social advancement do not really have an opportunity to come into play when one is trying to tackle a serious neurodevelopmental disorder. And no, I don't wnat to hear any BS about how we are "lucky" to afford it. having a serious disability which will most likely mean he can never function independently, however bright he is, is not by any stretch of a sane person's imagination "lucky".

There is a huge difference between clarity and lack of accent and RP. RP is the stuff of Joyce Grenfell, 1950s BBC and social climbers with election lessons. The only RL person I know who spoke RP was my Grandmother, and only on the phone.

So the public and often private school accent one hears- oh my god it was say embarrassing, I'm like raaaally raaaally embarrassed - do we count that RP now? Or is that as deplorable as any northern vowel sound?

I wonder....

Fortunately, Nit, that is merely a variation (albeit an especially annoying one) of "teenager" and they mostly grow out of it.

My 9yo says "golly gosh" which is quite sweet and better than swearing, but that doesn't mean he will as an adult - and he is definitely not allowed to pepper sentences with "like" in my hearing.

Yes, but if you were sending them private to get an RP accent, would all the raaaally likes annoy you, do you think?

I had four eleven year olds in my car recently whom I think most people would say are pretty well spoken, but my god they were incapable of saying anyone said or did anything: instead people are 'like' things. I'm sure they'll grow out of it though.

When we are talking about the socialisation of children in terms of manners and values all I say is good old Charlie Bucket. I think his family instilled good manners. Can't say much for Verrucca Salt and the others. Maybe just a film to some, but an important lesson that most children should understand.

It was a book before it was a film! And since one of the other subliminal messages is English good, foreigners bad, I'm not so sure it's that great an example for kids to be honest.

depends if I was deluded enough to think of it as RP, I guess.

I have no doubt that my DC will talk like that at some stage. As long as they keep it between themselves and understand that you cannot communicate with the non-teenage world unless you speak English, I suppose I shall have to ignore it.

Some of the posts on this thread are worded in such a way as to imply that 93% of the population (who are solely or partly state educated) are common oiks incapable of expressing themselves eloquently or even comprehensibly, prone to dishonesty, incapable of behaving appropriately, and harmful to more genteel children. A fascinating perspective...

Yeah I guess what I'm saying is that none of the privately educated children, or alumni of private schools, really seem to speak with what I'd consider RP. It's usually more of a drawl, if there's a difference to be defined.

Exactly rabbitstew- you would wonder how our DCs manage to get through school with top results, make lovely friends, speak nicely, cope with university and hold down important jobs! They also manage to mix with students from all backgrounds without caring which school they came from!

I agree, Nit - hence my scepticism at jabed's insistence that his DS speaks RP.

The usual disgusting crap from both ends of the spectrum.

I also think that public school drawl gets diluted (as it should) in the melting pot of university.

Metabbilis

Neither I nor my dcs got the foreigners bad subliminal message. However, it did show the middle classes greed, dishonesty, high expectations,

Rabbitstew, I completely agree. I suppose its similar to the view expressed by a southern friend of mine. Quite tongue in cheek but "I thought you norvrners wore flat caps and clogs, have you got a whippet?"

Missing the point, yet again, that lots of people have a DC who has done both or that they have a child in private education at the same time as I e in state education.

Mine was in reply to thebestisyettocome.