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. :)

More than - where did you think Augustus Gloop, MikeTV and Violet Beauregard came from, then?

Erm. How exactly am I missing the poiint
I'm$ commenting on the most extreme views expressed on here.

Sorry - depressingly I suppose you are right . It is those on either extreme who are missing the point.

Good call on Charlie Bucket, morethan.

I am sending my dc independent for secondary because he has SEN (AS/HFA) and so that he is safe and has the best possible pastoral care we can find for him. That is what we will be paying for (the facilities are worse than many state schools; the curriculum is slightly more limited than some of the state sector; the results are very, very good for a non-selective but not as good - obviously - as the state selectives - but these are all factors secondary to his safety and wellbeing).

Ds has a high IQ, great SATs results, good behaviour and manners but is extremely odd socially.

Dh and I both work in the state sector (one grammar, one comp - yes it is a real comp - they are over 35 miles apart...), know some teachers/parents at the independent and are confident that we have made the right decision, (knowing the experience ds would have in either of the two local state schools he would have got into - he might just have 'coped' but it's unlikely he would be happy); that he will be as 'accepted' and safe at the private option as he could be. That is what we will be paying for - not to buy some unknown advantage for a future date - but to give him the best possible chance we can of being safe and happy now so he can learn and play and continue to mature (as well as he did at his lovely state primary).

I am only occasionally and only mildly offended by the assumptions made by some that everyone has selfish or evil motives for privately educating their dc.

However, I am endlessly baffled and repeatedly outraged by the likes of some posters (private and state parents) who seem to conflate SEN and bad behaviour at every opportunity. Sorry if my SEN son should grace the doors of your dc's school. I hope your dc are more tolerant and understanding than you seem to be.

I have to say, I haven't seen any state parents conflating SEN with bad behaviour.

I agree KitKat - I am astounded by the view that SN means bad behaviour. Some DCs with SN have bad behaviour as do some DCs without SN.

Not on this thread, no TOSN, but on others, yes.

My ds was often coming home from his (on the whole, very lovely, calm, well-behaved) primary saying 'Only Little X (other child with AS) and I listened to the teacher all day today. The other children were a bit naughty'...!

Well I worked in a state school for a few years and was often surprised by the List we were given of pupils with SN, SEN, etc: quite often very pleasant and well behaved children, whilst plenty of really rather difficult children not on it. I won't lie: in dd's state career so far she has encountered some bad behaviour and some problems, but I am reasonably sure none of it has ever been connected with children with SN or SEN, of whom there are also many at her school.

KitKatGirl. I'm sure others did too, but as soon as I saw the offensive posts I hit the report button. I haven't done this before as I believe in free speech. I can't begin to understand how challenging it can be to find working solutions for the education of dcs with sen. This on top of other problems I hear a friend of mine talk about. It is disgusting and a crying shame that some people make the assumption that they are responsible for the bad behaviour in schools.
Ime the worst offenders are children who come from homes where there are huge difficulties and are neglected. Or those that are shown little or no love. The children whose parents quite frankly don't socialise their children.

I am sending you my best wishes for your ds and really hopes it works out well for him. I am so glad you have found the best option.

Metabilis. I didn't equate the two to be honest. Ok the characters were foreign but with the exception of Augustus weren't the others accents pretty indescribable.
I thought the message was loud and clear, these were the worst behaved children, given the worst set of values by their parents and the working class kid was the only really respectable one there

@morethan It's a book and it is made clear that Augustus is a (fat, greedy) German, Violet is a (fat, greedy) American and MikeTV is a (loud, spoilt) American. In the original film, the accents were very obvious. I've only seen the Johnny Depl version once and I honestly can't remember what any of them sounded or looked like but since Charlie and the chocolate factory is a book the casting of a Hollywood film is rather irrelevant.

Well Charlie bucket is an interesting diversion... I guess I'd say that actually if anything that book vindicates the Honest Poor against the nouveau riche and the brash. Verruca and Violet are over indulged lower middle class arrivistes, and mike TV is not middle class at all. The values of the middle class are venerated, despite the Buckets being poor: don't chew gum, don't be materialistic, don't watch lots of telly (though bizarrely, eating lots of sweets is good!). Verruca's father is an industrialist, not posh by any means. Its a charming tale and all that, but I think essentially the values it propounds are middle class. Genteel poverty and all that.

@TOSN and don't trust the beauty foreigners

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Kingscote. Would you send your daughters there if you possibly could?

When I was thirteen, i probably would have sold a kidney to go to Kingscote. But no, if it existed in real life it would not really be full of Jans and Nicolas, I don't suppose.

As MNer who looked at my DC's school on the Good Schools Guide commented that it looks like it is settling specialists SN school from the stats of children receiving support. In fact, it is because such needs are identified early and addressed where they might otherwise be ignored. I too would say that the correlation between the children needing learning support and those who are most disruptive is non-existent. I have never known or heard of anyone being asked / encouraged to leave, either.

OTOH if you looked only at the leavers destinations and similar stats, you would say this was a super-selective school.

Appearances, in both sectors, can be deceiving.

Because I can, because I want to and because the state school he was offered was a seething mass of testosterone. We saw it during the normal working day and many teachers had their feet up on the desks, ignring the pupils - and that was on open day! Other lessons had teachers not in control of the class. It was amazingly scarey. My son tends to go with the flow and that was not a flow we wanted him to go with...and it was all boys. He possibly has ADHD - still a bit woolley on the diagnosis. As an only child we wanted him to mix with some girls. Current private school has about 20% girls, which is perfect. It is not high flying academic school. It aims to find the best in each pupil and to develop that. CBA to read all the posts, but I am aware of NLCS, Habs etc..I am in that north London/Herts area, which if your child is not high flying/tutored/academic or within a few metres of a decent state school, you are basically stuffed.

Re parents sending their kids private to get them to speak RP - this mystifies me. Don't kids grow up speaking with more or less the same accent as their parents??

I am now struggling to imagine what Xenia sounds like in RL that she does not want her dds picking up...

The kids I teach (in the state sector) have a range of accents from plummy to v working class, reflecting their backgrounds. Are there really kids out there who completely lost their native accent at school??

And since when are regional accents regarded as inferior?? I do often find myself back in the 1950s on jabed's/Xenia's threads - this seems to be one of those times. They appear not to have noticed that nice gels no longer have elocution lessons and indeed, for some jobs these days, a regional accent is more or less essential - I challenge anyone to become a radio DJ with boring old RP. :)

Jan Nicola and Miranda and possibly Monica were very much the only decent people there. Well - maybe Esther and Sally too. That's not very many out of a school that big!

Gah. Please excuse typos from over-enthusiastic predictive typing app.

Sorry that post was directed at Theoriningalsteamingnit. I suspect nobody else would have 'got' it.

LAK11 - I live in that Herts/N London hinterland and there are loads of perfectly acceptable state schools of varying ilks - no 'need' to send your child private at all.

Well I would have liked to do the Tempest and be in Lower IV and eat Special Chocolate Cake.... But I would imagine Benenden etc and its pupils are no more like that than they are like the school my daughters go to in real life.

Certainly hoping year 11 dd will stand new year 7 dd a raspberry sundae on her first day though, a la Rowan and Nick.

It's usually more of a drawl, if there's a difference to be defined

I think you need to understand RP. The only person who comes to mind immediately who speaks with RP I can name is / was (retired I think now) Trevor McDonald. The accent is affectionless by drawl, estuary "innits" or any other regionalism. David Suchet might be another. Huw Evans (although he has a slight Welsh accent). Such RP still exists.

It?s the way we speak in my home. I would thank you to remember my DS is HE so his influences from outside are more limited.
(I am sure you will turn that into a value judgement).

The usual disgusting crap from both ends of the spectrum

That is the most reasonable statement I have read all night. There does indeed seem to be a gulf opening with opinions at both ends and little between. I suspect that is because posters are being forced to defend one position because of perceived attacks from the "opposition? and are becoming more extreme as a result. Of course extremes also give good contrast.