Areas where state schools are better than private?

[Narrie]

Does anyone live in an area where the state schools are really better than the private ones? I picked this up elsewhere but am afraid to comment there.

I have lived and worked in the Midlands where there are few private schools to choose but the state schools are not very good. I have lived in Nottingham, where again I felt the state schools were poor.

Even in London there were some awful schools and private was best.

I currently live in Cornwall having got here working in Exeter, Plymouth and Barnstaple. None of the state schools were good there.

Just wondered where the good state provision is. Is it just odd schools within a mass of poor provision or are there really whole areas where state schools are better?

Thanks.

(PS I have my own DC in a boarding school partly because of the state schooling and partly because we move around so much)

The cuckoo clock is mrs molesworth, yes?

TOSN - surely the percentage would remain the same? And in the main, it would probably be the same people as well, though with some variability at the borderline...a little bit like the 11+ or similar exams, where the 'definite passes' and 'definite fails' would remain the same over time but there at the borderline there would be some children who would succeed on another day who fail, and vice versa.

The old shippen? Well, baked potatoes get made, coins turn to fairy gold and bullets Rico- whatsit.... Shayed, I mean.

Oh, I would have thought that without private schools, all the universities would have to close, TheOriginalSteamingNit, or sell all their places to those highly educated overseas students who are desperate to study here, or increase the length of their degrees by 2 years so that they could give remedial classes to their undergraduates.

teacher, Yes, I rather think it would.

nit Yes. Not to be confused with Nigel's mother chizz chizz

SEEKER! BOTH??? I have heard of The Wind on the Moon but am not entirely sure that I have read it. Will research

Hello birds hello trees he say.

Love wind on the moon, and have quoted to my girls the line about 'ah but when I'm an old old lady of 92, you'll still be only 90 and going to parties'.

Has anyone ever thought it odd that a child like N Marlow, who reads Virgil in the original etc etc is not sure whether it was C Bronte who wrote J Eyre or the other way around?

But can you pla Fairy Bells on skool piano?

Fairy bells no, adeste fideles because of latimer being classics, yes.

seeker Quicksnow. (The best people pronounce him Hackloy you know)

Has anyone else bought (and read) Spring Term?

Of course we are all shooting ourselves in the feet because just look at how gutted Nick was at the prospect of having to go to the Coleridge Grammar. :(

without private schools the big hoo-hah would be why such a big proportion of oxbridge places went to grammar school children rather than comprehensive ones.... unless rabbit has it right.

Yeah, have read spring term!

If colebridge grammar wasnt a good school, Edwin wouldn't be thinking of sending rose there, would he? Yeah, nice post hoc argument Pam, but if it you thought it was that good you'd be moving the lot of them there not just the nice one, wouldn't you?

nit My kids are all acutely aware of the danger of inviting hubris, because of Nemesis, directly as a result of that fateful cricket match (even though I did myself have a classical education, it was reading about that at age 10 that had the most impact)

seeker no I spend all my time reading Proust.

nit to be fair it's unlikely eithe Gin or Lawrie would actually get in. And Ann was already doing her levels.

I really enjoyed Spring Term. There will never be a book as good as Falconers' Lure though.

I have read Narrie's posts carefully but she never says how she defines an excellent school. She says that she is wary of defining excellence in terms of exam results. She mentions broken comps (doesn't say how they were broken).

In the meantime most replies are supplying examples for Narrie, in terms of high exam results.

It would be nice if someone could supply examples of excellent schools where excellence wasn't defined by exam results. Although maybe too late for Narrie, who left thread 180 posts ago, I think.

Since I don't know what Narrie wants as a satisfactory definition of excellence, I don't know if I can help, either.

You like falconers lure best? Golly! Interesting.... I think I like cricket term best of ten school ones and prob peter's room best of the holiday ones.

I had to explain nemesis and hubris in a lecture recently. Just wanted to say 'it's nemesis that does the clobbering if it's hubris you've got'

The school ones, not ten school ones. If ONLY.

Everything went Marlow and then everyone went to bed, bah!

Yes... the schools around here are absolutely marvellous [adopts hypnotising voice] you have to move here. We need people like you... really clueless, but motivated people... with, like, kids, who you think are, like, really clever and that... Yeah, move here. No, actually we do need you guys. Have you ever thought about the social good you could do in Harlow?

Examples of excellence which is not exam results? There are absolutely loads. You don't have to attend lessons at Summer Hill for example. Excellence could be how well you learn your Koran at the Madrass or other muslim schools in the UK (although there is a private muslim school which has good results Sany something or other in N London). Jewish boys who will never work and study at the Yeshivas that for many will be excellent education and nothing to do with results.

Children who are great at sport but a bit thick - they go to Millfield which has big pools and children do sports well.

Music - you may have no interest in exam results and be devoted to your instrument from age 6 and go to a specialist music school. Drama - all those children in London who go to Italia Conti and get on East Enders.

We have a massive ranage of different "goods" in terms of educatino. And in fact although my children went to academically very selective schools in the to 20 in the country it was the other factors too like sport, music, ethos, kindness to others, values which were as important to me as any kind of exam factory which I never sort.

Also there are some very good private and state special needs schools, schools for the blind, schools for people who don't want integration into main stream school etc. Then we have finishing schools cooking and stuff for girls who will marry well - I bet some of those exist. Tudor Hall for example is oprobably where you go to board if you are not at all bright but your parents might want you to marry well.

I doubt that any 'very academically selective' school fails to excel in its provision and achievement for sport and music or ethos '('kindness to others' is a bit ).