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)

I don't have a chip on my shoulder about selective education, I am opposed to it. Completely different.

I have explained why I want Xenia to put her money where her mouth is on this matter.

And he didn't fail by a whisker- he failed catastrophically.

Ah. So "dregs" is now not a derogatory term?

It's a bit simplistic to think that 95% of the population has failed because their parents couldn't afford to or chose not to send them to private school. State schools have a mixed intake, therefore results will be more mixed. I really think some of you have lost the plot

Yes, it can be used like that. Yes, amazing but there are some children who are nicer than others, some fatter, some less clever. I know some people would like the world to be full of clones but it isn't . Some even get better exam results than others and some of whom I am sure most of us are very sorry come from very bad homes and sadly are the dregs of society and we would hope they get good schooling and do fine.

Some are creme de la creme etc etc.

Most children do not live in areas with selective state education in England so they are not siphoned off into grammar schools at 11 but even there you get selection by house price.

If we want to go into this topic of course from a moral point of view you may well have a very unintelligent child who is useless at just about everything and in one of our sink schools but that does not mean on an individual basis they are not kind or with some redeeming features.

However if we accept some children are very bright and some not then yes it is not that novel to suggest some are at the top and some are the bottom. Only the Animal Farm book or the most rigid of communism would suggest we are all the same when we clearly aren't.

Which RAE grading source are you looking at, Grimma?
If you go to www.rae.ac.uk you should be able to find the stuff. Have a look at some of the engineering subjects - surely we need some of our brightest doing electronic engineering, its not exactly sutton-13 dominated and oxbridge evidently doesn't sully its ivory towe

Xenia you really are a piece of work, aren't you. Answer the question. You use your own children as examples- I am asking you to use mine as one. Have you suddenly got squeamish?

My DS is also at a comp and chances are he will go to uni. Top stream, in Year 7 he was taken to Birmingham University as he is gifted in Science and is also in a special group for English as he is very good at this. His Maths however is only just above average but enough to go on to get a Grade A if he works hard. I believe that he will go on to a good university and both my ex and I went to Russell Group Universities. I do not believe in grammar education hence did not put him in for the 11+ but will do some tutoring in specific topics if I feel the need but not just because I feel the need to have to tutor. My daughter at the moment is only 8 and is struggling at the same school although her brother did at the same age and only really kicked in in Year 5. If she continues to struggle I may choose a different school as some near us whether private or comp. I am lucky though I have a choice of excellent schools nearby and I have faith that she will pick up just as her brother did. If not she will need to choose a career based on her abilities. To me the statistics are a waste of space and only lead to worry parents in to believing that just because their child is at state school and they cannot afford to go private they are doomed.

Just over half of students at the leading universities of Cambridge and Oxford had attended state schools.[37] State schools which are allowed to select pupils according to intelligence and academic ability can achieve comparable results to the most selective private schools: out of the top ten performing schools in terms of GCSE results in 2006 two were state-run grammar schools. WIKI

In 2000, the UK had the third-highest graduation rate among OECD countries, with 37% of young people getting a degree compared with an average of 28%. Denmark and Norway scored the same and only Finland (41%) and New Zealand (50%) were higher. But in 2008 the proportion had fallen to 35%, below an average of 38% and behind countries including Iceland, Portugal and Ireland.

Therefore taking out a small percentage for above average kids choosing grammar above comps, generally comps should have 30% of kids getting degrees but this will be in universities overall and not the small group of select universities. Look at this list at my sons school for instance 109 continue to sixth form out of original 204 which is just over 50%, 75% of these get to university with 29% going to top universities and therefore just above average compared to the population. Therefore 15% of the kids that start at his school go to top unis which ties in with the number that get 10As and A*s. To summarise therefore he has the potential to do it and is in top 15% at the start of school. The rest is up to him now.

docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdEF6N0F4bUYtYVE1N0Fzbi1JN3dtWlE&hl=en_US#gid=0

Yes, its a wine term - but not in the context it was used:
. dregs, the sediment of liquids; lees; grounds.

1. Usually, dregs. the least valuable part of anything: the dregs of society.

Not an acceptable term to use about 11 year old children (the age at which they start whatever school their parents and/or the state decide).

Genuinely not sure what the questino is. If you are asking me if your son is the dregs of society... well a child with a very low IQ who cannot get into any other schools who probably has a chaotic home life, is often falling asleep in school and not properly fed at home and probably is having to deal with lots of family problems in the house and hardly has a clean uniform to wear - that is probably one one might clal the dregs (and of course feel sorry for him)

Every area has its sink schools. You don't need me to tell you that. We all know that. It's the schools mumsnetters bend over backwards to try to ensure their children aren't in.

Indeed in one experiment some very left wing communists in London sent about 8 children to a very very bad state school a few years back as an experiment - their chidlren were middle class and clever and quite well spoken. Instead of masses of integration the few bright ones sat together at lunches and the teaches pounced on them to teach as they sat still and were interested. They didn't do too badly as they were the few who were good in a sea of disengaged noisy trouble makers which made up most of the school.

Sorry not doing it to brag about my DS but just to show that if you do your homework they have just as much chance in a comp based on the cohort.

Once again: can we all just notice here who it is who does and does not call children thickos?

Thanks.

well a child with a very low IQ who cannot get into any other schools who probably has a chaotic home life, is often falling asleep in school and not properly fed at home and probably is having to deal with lots of family problems in the house and hardly has a clean uniform to wear - that is probably one one might clal the dregs (and of course feel sorry for him)

or Xenia, it's usually the case with children with low IQ that they have other underlying issues, special educational needs or learning disabilities

I have a child with severe learning disabilities who will never be able to even read or walk down the street on her own. She is still a valuable member of society and deserves to be included within her community as much as anyone else. Please think about how you are portraying the people who you type about.

As I said. Easy to write off a cohort. A bit more difficult to write off a named 11 year old.

people even go across a county border to find a selective school here and there are many many different religious schools and load of good privates to choose from so presumably it just gets the dregs

I very much doubt that even with the other choices available to those who can access them, all the kids at the comp you were talking about are 'very low IQ who cannot get into any other schools who probably has a chaotic home life, is often falling asleep in school and not properly fed at home and probably is having to deal with lots of family problems in the house and hardly has a clean uniform to wear'. A lot of them will presumably be normal IQ range, normal income household, not able or willing to play the faith school game. Children like Seeker's son, not your later characterisation of 'dregs'.

The top four schools who sent more to Oxbridge than two others were I believe Eton, Westminster, St Paul's and a state sixth form college in Cambridge. All over schools bobbed along so if you are that desperate to get your child in save money on private schools and move to Cambridge!

Well if the money is not a huge cost out of what you earn as a woman (and many women earn well) and if you enjoy other aspects of the private school too as I do, choirs, lakes, grounds, the other parents, nothing like as important as the education but I still find it nice to pay for those elements too... then pay. It's our choice.

If people are suggesting all comps are equal and the UK has no sink schools they are just plain wrong.

You might possibly have to do a little more than just moving to cambridge...you might possibly need to re-engineer your genes if you're not already Cambridge don material.

I wonder if anyone has the stats on academic achievement of kids relative to their parents' IQs and educational status...and just knowing the admissions tutors your way round the College system must help.

which school is your local comp, Xenia?
Holloway? Islington city of London Academy? Elizabeth Garrett? Highbury, Regent, Acland?

As they are if they are suggesting that comprehensive schools are either 'sink' or 'leafy' and only take a middle class catchment.

Most schools are just normal.

Xenia is right about one thing. Some people are bright. And sme very clearly are not.

And Xenia - kids from comps go to Cambridge (and Oxford too). I did. If we are the educational dregs (and I grew up in a council flat so I guess I fit that part of your lowest of the low criteria too) then what does that make kids who went to private school - top 20 schools, maybe - but didn't get in?

And think on - not every mother who earns above your oft-stated benchmark for a 'good' salary, and who therefore could theoretically afford school fees, chooses to pay school fees.

The experiment that you talked about is a good one and shows that even in a sink school and there are some but not as many as people scaremonger in fact a friend of mine teaches in one - even in the really bad school the children didn't do badly thereby showing that influences at home are greater than the school. They sat together and were pounced on by teachers. I could cope with that and not only that but think how good for self esteem to know you went to a sink school and still did well!

Xenia, if you are refusing to answer me have the courtesy to say so.

Well if the money is not a huge cost out of what you earn as a woman ... then pay. It's our choice.

IF. Its a choice I was fortunate enough to be able to make for my DD at primary age when the state system didn't let us access the village school but I'm sufficiently in touch with reality to know that the majority of women - hard working women - do not have this choice.

Grimmer I agree with your comment and there is research to back up the fact that children's whose mothers have a higher level of education go on to do better themselves.

No don't move to Cambridge because the percentage that Hills Rd. gets in isn't that great.

Hamish the school my lot go to is named on your list and the score attributed to it is significantly out. I pulled out the last few Speech Day lists of leavers' destinations and did a proper count (the percentage would be even higher if I added in the gap year students I know of who also got into those universities). I'm guessing that if one set of figures is wrong, others may well be too. 20% got to Oxford and Cambridge alone last year.

And quite apart from that the Sutton Trust list is a bit . I'm not quite sure why Birmingham is in but not Leeds say, or Newcastle. KCL isn't there, or Exeter, or Bath which has some very highly rated departments. Vets and medics at very good places which happen not to be on the list aren't rated at all. So I'd take the whole thing with a pinch of salt really. Good headline stuff, but not much more.