Private education - a waste of money, for arseholes?

[Pooella]

There's a certain irony in this title in that my DCs are both privately educated (both primary age)

And I apologise also for what must be the umpteenth rehash of the 'private vs. state' debate.

That said, what do you think?

I was thinking this having taken my DD to a playground near a state primary school. More community because the children tend to be local.

OTOH I shuddered a little when a couple of 'rough' kids came into the playground (about 9 or 10, swearing, etc.)

Though diverse ethnically the social profile of parents at private is very homogenous - if you're not a middle class, skiing at Christmas, type, you don't fit in.

We are quite well-off, about £150k/year net, but even so I'm conscious that senior education for 2 DCs is about a quarter-of-a-million. It is a little hard to see the value in that you can buy a whole set of after-school activities for about £1k/year (music, ballet, drama, sports, whatever you want), and then for bright children GCSEs and A Levels are not much of a challenge. (I went to a comprehensive school (albeit a rather leafy one) and got As and A*s in everything and then Cambridge, so hard to see what benefit I would have received from private.)

Outcomes so far from private? Posh accent, good behaviour, good levels of academic progress. But, we don't 'fit' in to the prep school parental mould, so not much social interaction for the DCs outside school (compounded with the greater distances to school), which is a shame.

My old school (now) gets about 80% A-C, so it's not exactly Stabton Comprehensive, but I'm not sure if the 50-60%-A-C-type places are necessarily mediocre (as in, if you've got the option to pay for it, as we do, then you'd be mad not to), or what.

There are some independent schools known for being for the 'nice but dim', but they still seem to get 80%+ on their GCSEs, and assuming the intake at these places is not up to the standard of the average comprehensive (which seems likely, unless you believe that being able to afford school fees means your kids are brainy), then they are presumably delivering better outcomes. But whether that is because the parents are more motivated, or because the school is better is not clear? Perhaps the expectations on the lower sets in comprehensives are not high enough? Or are they just too many kids/parents there that don't give a shit?

So is it in fact the nice-but-dim kids that get the value from private, where they will be coached to an inch of their lives to get them up to GCSE/A Level standard, whereas the brainy ones would get their A*s (almost) anywhere and might as well just go to the local comp and save £100k, and there will be plenty of motivated top set kids there to mingle with.

" I shuddered a little when a couple of 'rough' kids came into the playground (about 9 or 10, swearing, etc.)"

I can't believe you actually typed that

Portofino
90%+ of children do not go to private schools. That's a hell of a lot of campaigning power if even half the parents got motivated. Ultimately politicians want to get elected and if millions of parents were making a bigger fuss they would do more. The fact is that the proportion of state school parents campaigning hard on this topic is not high. My Dad was chair of the PTA at our school (state Comp) and I know how much trouble he had getting even a handful of the parents motivated.

"The system is flawed because the people who have the power to fix it have the choice to opt out"

I am in no way under the illusion that I could fix a failing school, or improve an average one, by sending my children there and joining the PTA or writing letters to the governors. If only I were that powerful!

Xenia said something very true on another thread about private education - it encourages and rewards determination and grit and constant hard work in the way that IME state school just doesn't. Sports clubs that run whatever the weather, kids that dont train and attend regularly are not on the team etc. This doesnt happen in my youngest child's state primary - grit and determination are not rewarded unless perhaps it is someone at the very bottom of the class who has achieved. Diligent, hardworking, consistent children seem to just get either ignored (no trouble!) or used to sit with more troublesome children as a calming influence. No real reward (ie star chart system at my dds state primary) is ever given and there are no compliments given.

"many parents who currently use private schools do it because they think they are too busy to spend time improving the local state school"

?

Why would these parents be able to improve the state school. What makes them so special, and able to do what the hundreds of parents already at the state school cannot do?

Private parents are not some sort of ubermensch, capable of performing miralces.

miracles

Yes Porto you do rather assume that private school parents are better than state school parents.

I'm always a little puzzled by the idea that private school parents can make much of a difference. What is it exactly they're meant to be doing?

I've been a volunteer at my local primary. I'm still a governor at a state secondary, and there really is very little you can do to make any meaningful difference.

You can't get more resources. You can't change the curriculum. You can't get rid of crap staff. You can't get rid of disruptive pupils. You have no cntrol over the pupils and parents' attitudes. You can't influenece the local culture.

From where I'm standing you can't do very much at all on a macro level.

If I sent my DC to those schools how would that help anyone?

Are your DC at private schools wordfactory?

Yes.

But I ended up volunteering at my local primary because a. the HT asked me and b. no parents would do so.

It was hard graft. I went in at least two mornings a week, often more. So I did make a fair committment, I feel.
But the school had deep seated problems that I couldn't help with.

Similarly I was asked to be a governor at a state secondary and I feel I've been able to make bugger all difference. The problems are just too deep seated and institutional.

I don't know what more I could do if my own DC attended. Or what another well meaning middle class parent could manage to achieve. You only have so much time, energy and expertise. And of course you can't have any sway over decisions taken on a macro level ayway.

Yes I think it would be very easy to say 'this is not accepted at my kids' (private) school' or 'we do things this way' and come across as arrogant/interfering. Unless people are proposing to make rich people private school parents the HT, don't see what you can do.

But I am talking about the Politicians and their chums the leaders of Industry etc - the ones with the clout - as the ones who can influence what happens and how much money is invested. Not you and I necessarily. If everyone was forced to use their local state school.....I know this is a bit of a lefty dream of mine and is hypothetical.... I do believe that state education would become much more important on a political level. ..Yes people would move...they do that now. There are things that CAN be done to improve things for everyone. But on these threads no one ever discusses what those things might be - it is always, Well I am alright Jack.

Ah but you see porto if the politicians and those currently running the country were forced to use state education, said state education would not look anyhting like it does now.

The changes they would seek to make would be wholly unpalatable, especially to the teachers.

They'd want reintroduction of selection. Much more traditional methodology. Plenty of homework and exams etc etc

The teaching unions already have a collective heart attack every time Gove tries to introduce his agenda. Can you imagine how they would react to 'parental pressure' from the movers and the shakers on education policy?

"The problems are just too deep seated and institutional."

I know exactly what you mean, wordfactory. And parents who volunteer and who are clear-headed, knowledgeable and have the communication skills to say what needs doing scare the living daylights out of teachers and school administrators whose brains are scrambled after year and years of operating in a corrupt and incompetent culture.

Portofino
I am very cynical about politicians especially career ones like Cameron, Clegg, the Millibands etc. They all live in a bubble. Yes the Millibands went to a state comprehensive but they were hardly from a typical background. They are part of the North London intelligensia and their experience of the world was vastly different from some of their school counterparts.

Some politicians will act out of conviction but a lot of them will act if they are pushed and there are plenty of parents out there who should care enough to push.

"But I am talking about the Politicians and their chums the leaders of Industry etc - the ones with the clout - as the ones who can influence what happens and how much money is invested. Not you and I necessarily. If everyone was forced to use their local state school.."

Yes but if you have £50 million in the bank, then you can ensure that your local state school is a good one.

Not by improving the local sink school, that won't happen, but simply by buying a house nearby.

And that happens already.

There are some outstanding state schools, and there might be a few more if the private sector closed down, but there aren't enough pushy plutocrats to transform the entire sector.

The privileged already pick and choose from the best of the state sector - expensive housing near good schools, religious education, selection (private tutors, more books at home, etc.), so that wouldn't change at all.

If it turns out that the local school near your £50 million mansion in Kensington is good for crack, smack and knives, but not so good on math and English, then you'll just send the kids, with the nanny, to your leafy second home in Kent where the local school is delightfully middle class.

Could I just say that the vast vast majority of schools are neither 'sink schools' nor 'delightfully middle class', though. This kind of binary isn't very helpful or realistic.

" I shuddered a little when a couple of 'rough' kids came into the playground (about 9 or 10, swearing, etc.)"

I can't believe you actually typed that

My thoughts exactly Fangs.

No there not, TOSN but they're still nothing like what the average CEO or QC would want them to be.

If the idea is that we get these people involved at a macro policy making level in education, I think much of the populace would be horrified.

My idea of a good school would positively terrify your average MNer .

"Could I just say that the vast vast majority of schools are neither 'sink schools' nor 'delightfully middle class', though. This kind of binary isn't very helpful or realistic."

No it's not, but the parents who ask 'Eton or Winchester' would in a 'no private education' scenario would instead be coming and asking 'London Oratory' or 'Wimbledon College' - they'd be picking between schools on this list:

pp.include-digital.com/table/state-secondary-schools

You don't come to spend £30k/year on education by being indifferent to which school your child goes to, and that £30k/year would simply be diverted to ensuring that your child goes to a delightfully middle class state school, and not the ones where most children are speakers of English as a second language, etc.

mine too

or indeed, not something sort of middling - people currently do, and more would, devote their considerable resources to ensuring that their child's state school was not merely average but THE BEST.

At no point would this result in state education getting better.

YouMayLogOut- I am so glad at least one other person found that objectionable :)

Yes, but it's an opposition we see a lot on here, and I think it's unhelpful. I don't want to get QCs making policy in schools anyway - it's a leap from saying 'it would be better for society if everyone just went to school where they live' to saying 'I want posh people to change our schools for us'!

I don't: I just think that theoretically it would be an awful lot better and nicer if everybody went to the same school. The problem is that if you say 'ah well you probably live near a good school and paid billions for the privelige like old Ed Millibands, but if you lived near a bad school you'd sing a different tune', you're missing the point that the vast majority of us live near schools which are at neither end of those extremes.

Private Education buys a lifelong ability to be totally arrahagant.

I'd love to sail through life with me nose up in the air, and given half a chance would buy the package for my own children.

TOWIE is testamont to the fact that the nice but dim still can't be saved no matter how much money is thrown at them.