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. :)

No. Value add tells you how well a typical child might do on average, it doesn't take things like personality type and individual quirks into consideration. It is arguably more useful than absolute A/AS score though, especially if your child isn't one of the high flyers.

@happy the BBC tables are taken directly from the DfES (they are linked to there). As gelatinous pointed out it is possible to sort the data in different ways. I'm happy to go with the one the BBC chose, it seems the best one to me (and of course in the A level table, using the BBC's sort field, the second two schools are independents so it's not just all grammar schools all the time using that sort field and equally there are (different) grammar schools near the top using the other sort field (which of course allows the situation, common in independent schools, where a child only takes 2 A levels where he or she will get a great result and is banned from taking any others for fear of damaging the stats, to look good rather than shoddy)). I don't know why the private schools sometimes display completely different results on their websites to those published by the DfES and reported by the BBC (the newspapers sometimes make up their own tables and sometimes leave schools out for no discernable reason so I don't think they can be considered reputable) -if indeed they do, I don't check private school websites- but this sin't the first time recently that someone has referred to strangely different information being available from the DfES site and from a private school's website. I can't think what possible advantage there could possibly be in not displaying the official data......

@Gelatinous - I completely agree about General Studies - waste of time in my opinion, I wish my DD1's school didn't make them do it (and the results are pretty poor for that A level too, compared to all the proper ones, so I really don't know why they bother).

gelatinous - there's only so much a general league table can do - seems a bit much to expect them to "take things like personality type and individual quirks into consideration", surely?

Surely, this is where parents' subjective value judgements come into play.

Not saying league tables should cover such issues bread, I was really agreeing with rabbit that burying your nose in statistics is often rather futile as they don't/can't give the full picture.

The results I pulled off websites from both the state grammar and the websites of my DS's school and Westminster and St Pauls. As all three have at least a 30% Oxbridge entry and as I already said 50% for westminster I doubt any are letting their students sit only two A levels in fact as we know children at all three and it is a relatively small and of course competitive world we know of none and I'm sure would be told if any sat two only A levels. At my DS's schools they only offer the much harder Pre U and they have to do three subjects although many already have A level maths. I do accept that this may happen in other less selective academic schools.
Oh and as far as I'm aware no general studies at either of these three!

Indded, gelatinous - plus lies, damned lies and statistics make the picture rather unreliable even if the data really is all you care about, as this thread nicely demonstrates.

rabbitstew as someone whose actively involved in the pastoral care of children at boarding schools I will say again that I do not meet any callous or uncaring parents. I work with children in a variety of settings and as a general principle callous and uncaring parents are few and far between OK they may not be parenting like me but that doesn't make them uncaring or callous.
Sorry your DB not DH. As I say proof reading is not my strong point.

Well, it seems to me that for some posters they will refuse to admit state schools can be anything other than shoddy even when they produce excellent results (we know there are many other measures for why people like state schools but examples of these have already been dismissed as 'smug' and 'irritating' upthread. Anyway, as the recipient of a superb, couldn't have been bettered education myself (state comp, Cambridge) and the holder of the sort of career that posters such as Xenia seem to dream of for for their kids (although I think that this is mad, I think there should be far more to aspire to in life than earning pots of money in the city, just because it's what I do doesn't mean I'm blind to how B ark it really is) I reckon I know quite enough about what constitutes a good education to be more than satisfied that my DCs are all getting one. If you people with your educational and professional experiences are happy that you are securing the same for your kids then I'm really not sure what your problem is. You are quite probably right. Your kids will probably do well enough (by whatever criteria you consider relevant) that you fell the money was justified so why are you so concerned? Why are you so determined to paint state schools as unremittingly shoddy when they clearly often aren't?

Happy - the we should want our children to be part of the "community,"

Ok I guess this refers to a conversation once where I said that one of my ideals about education was that it would be a Good Thing if children who lived in the same community went to the same schools (to sum up quite briefly, anyway). I remember that as quite a civilised conversation, although I've noticed you've mocked the line a few times since. I didn't say 'you should want that': I said that I did.

Now if that is as offensive and ignorant as the comments that....

State educated children cannot speak properly
State educated children all do 'joke subjects' taught by bad teachers because....
State educated children all in fact go to Secondary Moderns where behaviour is bad, no-one's allowed to be clever, bright children are all bullied and expectations are zero
State educated children are 'feral'

...and all the others which Xenia and Jabed trot out all the time, then I'm
a) sorry
b) busy eating as many straw boaters as you care to lob in my direction.

SOme state schools are good. I have never said otherwise. I choose to pay and in mym view get a great education for the children. State school parents on the thread seem pretty happy with what they obtain too so what's the problem? I can continiue to live in a fool's paradise thinking Habs and NLCS may be better in 1000 ways than the non selective Watford Grammar or selective Henrietta Barnet and parents who choose those state schools can continue to think their girls will do where they will and indeed those at my local comp 34% A - C in GCSE can also continue to be happy.

I am not sure there have been many posts trying to paint the state system as shoddy. I listed on my list what I buy and elements are possible in some areas in the state system but not in most areas and plenty of those things I listed are not what state parents want anyway.

I certainly have never wanted children to be something I make them and identical to each other. My children get as much from the soft side of their top private schools as they do from the academic and earning/class / confidence side.

All I want is that teenagers have information - that they know if they do X they can achieve Y, that they are not misled by state or private schools about what they need to achieve their goals which is why league tables of all kinds have been so useful, not for parents like I am who will always know St Paul's and Manchester Grammar etc produce good results but for those who aren't informed.

@Xenia: plenty of those things I listed are not what state parents want anyway

What do 'state parents' want? What things that you value in a school and in education do you think that 'state parents' don't value? Would you be happy to be labelled a 'private parent' and bunched in with every single other parent who sends their child to a private school as if you formed an homogenous group with no variations according to location, profession, educational attainment, preferences etc?

Xenia - I doubt many parents with 34% A-C are thrilled at those results, to be honest, though it's possible they may be happy with the schools in other ways. Plenty of good comps in this area, though, and some excellent ones, so no need to go there if it bothers them, I suppose.

Interesting to hear you say that one of the things you feel you are buying, or trying to, is 'class'.

Can honestly say I don't feel my children lack this, so no need to pay for it, thankfully.

It's interesting that most of those who are the most passionate advocates of private education here weren't privately educated themselves, and possibly have a slightly fantasy view of how perfect their lives would have been/their children's lives will be, if privately educated.

Whereas the most passionate advocates of grammar school education tend to have been grammar school educated themselves.

But some grammar schools and comprehensives 'suggest' that selected pupils leave at the end of GCSEs if they think their A level results are going to adversely affect results. I would imagine the same thing happens in private schools.
League tables are a fiddle all round.

(And why should children get points for music exams and playing god in Kenya? These are obviously going to favour the more well-off.)

flexy - UCAS points may be awarded for music exams etc but I am yet to see an offer which takes them into account (Head of 6th form)

Anyway, UCAS are currently reviewing the points system, so that might go completely.

at buying "class"!

That's good new evil! I did notice they were on their way out.

It's still a giant fiddle though, isn't it?
Same way as some primaries fiddle progress tracking by reporting low scores at the end of YR or the end of KS1. It happens - unfortunately some SMTs lack integrity!
Once dishonesty creeps into statistics, it makes all comparisons invalid.

happygardening - you seem determined to interpret anything I say as negative towards boarding schools in particular and I'm not sure why. You may persist in believing that boarding schools have solved all the perennial problems of miserable homesickness, abusive behaviour, poor teaching, emotionally distant parents, stress-induced anxiety and depression etc, but those of us who are more realistic understand that no school has solved all its problems and become the perfect environment for all its inhabitants and no school has a perfect system for ensuring only the children who will enjoy and make the most of everything on offer to them will get in. And that is before you get to the issue of society as a whole and how to get the balance between striving for a tiny minority to achieve perfection and not be held back by the hoi polloi, and ensuring that the strongest in society actually stop and think from time to time what impact their obsession with perfecting themselves has on everyone else and what these supposedly perfect specimins are doing to stop the world around them turning into a desert with a lonely oasis of perfect people in it who are still too busy trying to prove they are more perfect than the other people on it to notice what's going on outside their ever shrinking oasis.

I listed my reasons above. It makes sense to buy an appropriate peer group particularly for teenagers. If all the class is hard working and bright and going to good universities it ism uch easier to ensure your own teenager does. If most of the class speak well it is likely that your children will too. I am not saying there are no posh comps of course and plenty of parents move to leafy suburbs where house prices keep the poor out of the local schools.

Xenia does have the germ of a point regarding aspiration and peer group pressure. However where she completely goes arse over tit is when she assumes that only the non-poor have aspirations, speak well, or go to good universities.

Xenia - it's not the financial asset hurdle which provides/provided your DCs with the sort of peer group you crave at their posh schools. It's the entrance exam. Thus your comments about 'the poor' are irrelevant. AIUI most posh schools now offer generous burseries to the really poor bright kids whose parents are not discouraged from applying by the attitudes of their prospective peers. So your DC may, for all you know, be mixing with the poor every day at school.

Xenia - I don't think I'd call what you refer to in this post as buying "class", which one cannot buy - well, I suppose one can buy one's way into the nouveau riche, but am somewhat unconvinced this is especially desirable.

I do appreciate that having a hard-working peer group is something many parents, myself included, value for their dcs - but not clear why you imagine this only exists if you pay for it?

I've already stated my opinion on accents - afraid you are doomed to failure on that one, Xenia, as your kids will inevitably speak like you do, whatever accents their classmates use.

Others might enjoy reading this:

www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528753.400-an-appeal-for-fairness-in-society.html

• reflecting on rabbitstew's point about seeking the best for oneself v the best for society - several thought-provoking features in this week's issue. Found the "just world" hypothesis referred to there esp interesting - handy philosophy for the Xenia's of this world to congratulate themselves with.

The main reason people send their kids to private school is cos they don't want them mixing with 'ethnics' and thats the truth.

It makes sense to buy an appropriate peer group particularly for teenagers.

I would much prefer to leave it to them and assume that by the time they were teenagers (if not before)they can make their own friends. Maybe I have just been lucky but mine have always made lovely friends without me having to interfere and it is a horrible thought that you have to buy friendship.

TheBlackShiksa - at the name - don't think that really applies at say Xenia's schools - am guessing probably 50% of girls 'ethnics'. Don't know anyone at Habs who is not 'ethnic' actually.

Still wondering what Xenia wants from a school that state school parents don't.

And I am interested that when happugardening was asked for examples of unpleasant remarks about independent schools, pupils and parents she came up with criticisms of boarding school. These are two completely different matters. I think boarding school is a bad idea whether private or state and this is based on published research and close family experience. But that is a completely different thread.

Oh, and I don't, for the record, think that comprehensive schools are "heaven on earth" but I do think they are the best system we've got.