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'm not quite sure why Birmingham is in
me neither, and I went to B'ham. Maybe because its got more red bricks than any of the other 'redbricks'?

Just possibly they limited the list, excluding some of the perfectly reputable but large universities (Leeds, Manchester ...) because they rather want to maximise the skew of the figures for headline-grabbing purposes. There is a huge disparity, which needs addressing, but it may not in reality be quite so bad as that report suggested.

If Cambridge is like Wymondham it's impossible to get into the schools after your children are school age. Straight to schools in other towns & villages.

Exeter, KCL, Bath, Leeds & Newcastle are in Sutton Trust list now, but weren't back in 2007 (document Xenia linked to dates from 2007).

Interesting. I have always thought Exeter is where you go if you are posh and not that bright like St Andrews was (is?). Bath bit similar. Leeds sand Newcastle slightly below your Bristols etc. The 2007 list is not that bad actually.

What is even more interesting to chart is how many of the children at age 35 - 40 earn what and in what jobs.

No I don't think Bath is like Exeter in that respect - more mathsy. When I've stopped boiling the pasta over I'm going to rework the numbers for the up to date list. If St. Andrews is in, Exeter should definitely be in :)

Did all of yours go to Bristol Xenia?

I try not to say when things are too recent same as I don't about current schools or what they do. One was the subject of a very long thread elsewhere about the engagement which was in the paper which nicely someone pulled and I am sure it was not up long enough to be seen but it's not fair if things are out. Anyone who knows me can probably find the linked in profile of the second one and where she went to university.

St. Andrews beat Bristol in the 2008 RAE . I know of local girl who turned down Cambridge & went to St. Andrews instead (vet school) Most certainly not the "Posh but Dim" choice.

I have a notion to encourage DS1 to study chemistry and St. Andrews again is in top 6.

St. Andrews ranked best in UK in 2009 for chemistry teaching.

You really can't just order universities like that without considering what subject you're interested in. Where would you tell your child to go if their passion was electronics?

Well yes exactly indeed, Grimma. My last degree is from a Uni well outside all these elite groupings, but still top 3 department in Europe.

Right. My ds is "dregs" and intellectually challenged, and now I find that two of my degrees come from a university that caters for the posh but not that bright.

Seeker you may as well give up now!

I fail to see what is wrong with being a car mechanic I personallly could do with a capable honest one as I'm sure could most people, nearly all women get their hair cut even where I live in Smalltownsville they are charging £35 for cut 16 years ago I used to pay £65 every 6 weeks in Dickens and Jones in Regent Street God knows what they charge now! Many skilled trades actually requitre a high level of imtelligence in fact the sad thiing is that many trades are looked down upon and seen as only suitable for the less able. To design beautiful but functional and often complex furniture to the clients exact requirments, make it with eliptical curves etc requires not only excellent comprehension skills and imagintion so that you can turn the clients often rather vague vision into what they want, excellent computing skills or drawing skills. most eliptical furniture for example requires an excellent understanding of geometry and then to make it excellent hand eye coordination skills and also the desire drive to try achieve perfection. Go to my beloved and jaw droppingly beautiful Lincoln Cathedral with its extraordinary carvings made by tradesman with relatively limited education this work endures.
So Xenia do look down your nose at those who have not been to RG universities tradesman many have skills that those who have been can master in a million years.
I too think to call any chidlren "dregs" is unbelievably insulting no child what ever his ability is a dreg.

So very true, happygardening. With the added proviso that presuming to know whether a child is destined for university or technical training at the age of 10 is clearly bonkers.

My ex who went to Birmingham Uni so a good one according to this is now working in a bar and supporting himself on benefits. That could start the thread on what people are doing at 40. Whose next.

Seeker the problem with our society is that we like to pigeon hole children and IME no one does this more than teachers. Years ago when I was studying philosophy (yawn) we looked at the idea that people became the people you think they are. Much of this research is almost anecdotal but there is some evidence that if teachers think Henry is as thick as a plank and only good for unskilled mnaual work the that is what he becomes.
All people deserve our respect no one person is better than another just becasue he's in a higher paying job.

hg, I can agree with you on that which is why if you manage to get a child who may not even be that bright into one of the top 20 schools they tend to do well. It is also explored in the book Outlier - that 100 people might do as well as each other but only 1 gets into Harvard of 100 who are up to the standard and that one who had their chance does well. So if we can improve a chance for our child then it is encouraged.

Of course I treat everyone well and I hope we all do. In fact I look at how people treat those from whom they haev nothing to gain. Surprised as people may be I am terribly good at this, do loads of stuff for nothing and I suspect if asked people would mention it. In fact someone on another thread on here yesterday said she knew who I was and I had helped her out a lot when she was younger. I have no idea who she was. However I certainl believe we should treat everyone with respect and well . However I am not going to call black white and white black or suggest everyone has the same IQ or there are no differences when clearly there are.

If you want to see my class conclusions on the ASDA leader - working class male of course as their ad is so sexist see here - later posts quite fun www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1604633-to-think-the-new-ASDA-advert-is-the-biggest-pile-of-sexist-crap-in-a-long-time

This is why I have always been anti-selection at 11 and do quit like the idea of one school till 9 then another till 14 and on to Ruth gymnasium type school like in Germany, professional vocational or trade vocational. It offers greater options and if children are to stay in school until 18
They need to change teachers. In the area I grew up in everyone left school at 16 and went to a sixth form college, tech or job. I would just like to bring that down to 14 as it was difficult for some kids to remain motivated by fourth year doing the same old subjects.

To be honest nobody should take offence. It is an opinion if you don't believe it the whole point is to say your argument. I agree with Xenia on somethings but my view is different towards education. It sometimes makes a thread more interesting though but sense of humour and everything with a pinch of salt.

You did get yourself into trouble with dregs though.

Conveniently Xenia has now changed her tune to how much her graduate DC earn thus sidestepping the fact that however much one pays for education, one can't actually buy a place at Oxbridge if they are simply not bright enough.....
My DCs school is a super selective state grammar (is on that Sutton Trust list further up the thread). They send many to Oxbridge every year. Total waste of money to go privately in our area, unless they are a 'thicko' (but obvs they do have choirs/shiny hair/posh accents/go ski-ing:)) Local comps v.g too.
I expect they'll have the opportunity to earn lots of money when they graduate too...although some may not put that at the top of their list of things they want to achieve.

Of course, as has already been pointed out, all this talking about cleverness and super selective grammars and Russell Group universities does kind of ignore the glaring fact that clever does not mean the same thing as academic - the two merely overlap (and, frankly, I've known some not particularly sharp minds who nevertheless have the boring tenacity to become extremely good in one particular field, good enough subsequently to find their way into "elite" universities, even if not for a first degree). To force all people to do academic degrees and shoehorn them into careers requiring those skills above all others is to fail an awful lot of clever people and force them into work they find boring, and to fail society, by failing to attract the right people to other types of work. Personally, I think you need a fair spread of bright people in all walks of life, not to have them all clamouring for the work that society is stupid enough to deem superior.

Quite agree. Why is law so stupidly competitive? I can see that doctors are always useful, but surely we're overstuffed with lawyers by now?

Ah, but lawyers can MAKE themselves useful - they can use words to confuse everyone, then they are needed in order to interpret them .

Oh no! Are they meant to have shiny hair as well?

Looks like the cat's my best bet for oxbridge then.

I think my lawyer will have charged me £100 this afternoon just for phoning me to tell me she's had 'flu for three weeks (hence no update on a case). They're a scourge. Mind you if the standard offer for a decent place at a RG was dropped from A*AA I suppose we'd have even more aspirants positioning themselves to fleece the meek. Still, we need fewer, not more.

Jesus Christ, "dregs", "thickos" - xenia can you not see how unpleasant that is? These are CHILDREN you are talking about.