If you can afford private education but remain in the state sector...

[TheseJeansHaveShrunk]

It's going to be hard to avoid this becoming another state v private thread, but what I'm interested in is a slightly different take on that debate. It's not "which is better?" but "if you think state school is better even though you could afford private education, then why is that?"

The question is based on the assumptions that the DC in question is/are reasonably bright (so might benefit academically from academically selective education), that the state school is non-selective (as most people don't have access to grammar schools), and that you hope for your DC to go to a good university (to make the £££££ fees worthwhile!)

I've been mulling this over ever since I heard some maths professor from Cambridge talking on the radio about the age-old private v state inequality of Oxbridge admissions. He was all for improving access for state school applicants but said that the simple fact was that for maths, even the best state schools generally teach only to the A-level syllabus, whereas the best private schools take their maths/further maths A-level candidates well beyond the syllabus and so the state school applicants are at a huge disadvantage - they simply don't have the starting level of knowledge required for the course.

This made me wonder: with this sort of unequal playing field, if you have the choice of private education, what reasons might you have not to take it?

Would be interested to hear from those who've made this choice - how it's working out, or if your DC have finished school now, how did it work out? Did they go to good universities/get good jobs, etc? On the other side of things, if you paid for private schooling but now regret it, why?

My DC go to a state school by the way.

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x posted with happygardening (DS's school is one of those she mentions).

For a school to truly give inellectual ability preference over everything else, it seems to me that two (no, sorry, 3) things need to happen:

• The school needs to take children based only on their intellectual ability, becoming wholly blind to their ability to pay.
• It should actively seek out such children from wherever they may be, rather than waiting for them to apply, as many of the most able children will be from families who would not consider applying to such a school.
• It should use a test (or preferably, a wide-ranging battery of tests) that is purely of intellectual potential, cannot be tutored for, and is independent of syllabus covered up to the date of selection.

I realise that there are schools who are on the journey to one or more of these three criteria.

(I should state here, by the way, that I do not object to private schools per se. I choose not to use one for my children because the state options available to me are better.)

Thank, Happygardening.

Countrykitten, I did. I just don't feel it that way. I am one of those parents that can see the weaknesses of both systems.

Everybody admits that private schools are very good

Not me! Some private schools are good but others are not (just like state schools). There is was a particularly awful one be me that was going broke but is now, I believe, becoming a free school...

@anita The posh schools where I live have significantly less good results than the grammar school.

@pointedly Selective state schools often have pupils with SEN conditions. My own Dd1is one such.

@anitas,all your posts make you seem incredibly ill informed.

All I am saying anitasmall is that I was giving you factual information regarding certain schools and their entry requirements and you were ignoring it preferring your own wrongversion.

But it's ok - as it's Christmas I forgive you!

yellowtip I started working there relatively recently and was almost immediately asked to become involved in the widening access initiative. I suspect because of my background (I am achingly working class and from a school that hasn't sent anyone there since Dick's day).

To be honest, it's no big secret! The universities know they have hell of a lot of a lot of work to do in this area. They're pretty open about it. Meetings take place regularly across colleges and departments to disuss how to move forward.

To be honest, I can't quite believe anyone doesn't accept this is a real problem!!!!

Of course they want to widen access. But my experience is that your comment that state school people come from only a small handful of schools is completely and utterly wrong. My experience is only of Cambridge though, of course. Not this 'Oxbridge' place (that doesn't exist). And as I said upthread, but you ignored, in a Cambridge context it is highly unlikely you would be having one to one interactions with students from across the whole university because that is not how the tutorial system works. There are clearly not enough state schools sending pupils to Cambridge but equally clearly the ones who do go come from more than a handful of schools (although of course ultimately there are proportionally only a handful of actual places at Cambridge every year, when compared to the total of student places, so it's all relative).

As a student, I was involved in a lot of outreach, because of being a state school person myself. I was aware of more than a handful of state schools sending pupils to my college, let alone the other colleges. I don't think things have consolidated since then.

I would agree that selective schools are seen as havens for some children with SEN, rather than closed doors - as much has already been suggested to me with respect to my ds1. It does depend on the particular needs and the particular compensating abilities, of course.

country kitten

Wordfactory - precisely the point I think. Put these families in an area with no grammars, just a couple of sink comps and no faith schools and what would they do......go private of course. Or move house to get in the 'right' catchment area - thus using their money to 'buy' the right kind of school. Hypocrisy on this issue is rife and I really wish that people would just be honest and stop kidding themselves and being judgemental those who do go private.

couldent agree more those who do send state and have money and socialist priciples dont make the system any better they just like bleating on about it.

many of them make sure they own in areas with good state schools tiny catchments.
or tehy live in grammer areas
or they find the faith-david camerons go to state coe school.

i suspect many of the above have very narrow social group
thats not even including the ones who close the gap with complimentry tutoring.

Not often i agree with labour mps but jack straws honesty back in october surprised me

Labour grandee Jack Straw has taken aim at the party?s so-called friends on The Guardian, including strident columnist Polly Toynbee, who bang on about the joys of state comprehensives while studiously avoiding the schools for their own children.

?Let me name names,? says the former Foreign Secretary.
?The people running The Guardian almost exclusively make sure they live in grammar school areas, or they send their kids to private schools. I don?t want to be lectured by Polly Toynbee, who sent her kids to Bedales ? a very expensive, exclusive school which does a good line in liberal guilt.? Hear, hear.

wonder where harriets kids go?
balls was privatly educated after his dad campaigned to scrap grammer schools .
Blair was faith and private i belive.
Abbot said she did best thing for child and her wasent a political football.

I get angry about the hypocrisy surrounding schools.
its so sensitive and people make assumptions I know plenty of people who sent private who are not overly rich just 2incomes and think fees maybe slightly cheaper here than south east.

My cousins twins go state village primary near their barn I have no doubt they go secondry independant as nearest and only comp in nearby town was awful unless you were catholic or private you couldent opt out of it was a true comp and crap.

Where I live like most cities the comps are worse than most people imagine. My local comp has 43%gcse pass rate and thats one of better results.

My choice will be luck a lottory I have no idea and fully anticipipate if lucky getting my 3rd choice.Apart from going private or becoming more religious I have no choice.

Im not sure how to solve it as education standards vary in both sectors.

I guess the concept of comp mixed abilities , socially mixed sounds good but dont think it always works.

mordion in respect of access widening, things have massively consolidated. The approach is department and university wide. You are out of date.

It's actually been a fab thing to be involved in as it means I have met heaps of folk across the board.

As for which one I'm at. No can do, I'm afraid. T'will out me for sure.

@word I'm really not. :) You said yourself you've been wherever it is you are for 5 minutes. I'm quite involved on the alumna side, because of my job.

word you're just wrong about the handful thing, sorry. If you want to do a decent job on the widening access team then you need to be a bit better informed and approach things in a rather more nuanced way. Nothing is likely to deter students from under represented constituencies more than these hyperbolic headlines. They'll run a mile.

To be honest word I doubt nailing you mast to either Oxford or Cambridge would out you. They're both pretty big places.

your mast.

Yellow and Mordian - with all due respect I have seen the stats, lovingl prepared so even a maths dunce like me can understand them, and the facts are clear; huge swathes of schools, indeed whole areas are woefully under represented and the current widening of access has not made an impact here. As someone in my department said 'more kids from tiffin does not diversity make'. As for my mast, academic or otherwise, I am afraid I am too identifiable because of the day job so shall leave it there. I have been outed before so am nervous, you see.

@word but whole areas of posh schools are underrepresented too. The fact is, there aren't enough places at either Oxford or Cambridge to make offers in every single school in the country. And geography also plays a part. Oxford is ok (isn't it? i suppose i might be wrong there but im fairly sureits fairly accessible - that old Yes Minister joke....) but Cambridge has historically been a complete bugger to get to, from many parts of the country. And that has historically had an impact on applications. Which obviously then has a knock on effect on admissions.

I am completely not denying there is an applications issue. But,like yellowtip, I see no evidence (from current involvement, as well as past) that the only state school pupils come from a mere handful of schools (or, now you've named one, come from Tiffins). As far as Cambridge goes. I know nothing about Oxford (she does, though). Although I suppose we would need to understand your definition of 'handful'.

Bloody iPad. Capitalisation all to cock. Sorry.

There seems to be an obsession with Oxbridge but we live in a globalised world at my DS's approximately 35% go into Oxbridge but increasing numbers are going abroad approximately 9% per year obviously the US currently being the main destination but I understand China and others are being increasingly considered. I suspect many top independent schools are either going down this road or planning too.

Quite understand about not wanting to out yourself word.

You're nevertheless wrong to state that 'virtually all' state school students at Oxford and Cambridge come from a 'handful' of schools. That's wrong, mathematically (since you mentioned the maths).

CRGS, Henrietta Barnett, QEB, the Tiffin schools etc and all the other similar superselective grammars are bound to have a higher represenation than the Kent grammars because of their intake. In the same way that Westminster and SPGS have a higher representation than similar priced independents for the less academically able. There are all the arguments about grammars being basions of social exclusion of course (not my personal experience, but there you go). But focussing access on schools simply because they don't send many to Oxford or Cambridge is a strategy very capable of missing the point.

Anyhow, please be wary in your access work about generalising from the particular of these MN threads. With a number of rareish exceptions these threads don't show the true breadth of the grammar school population. In my experience they distort a good deal. So that would be doing a disservice to clever kids who happen to get to a superselective and who tick all the Oxford and Cambridge accss boxes, bar the one labelled 'under-represented school'.

Cross-posted with Mordion. Again.

I have never known such obsession with education amongst my RL friends. We all want our children to reach their potential but MN is beyond pushy and obsessed!