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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But noddyholder, you are posting on an Education site. You're hardly going to get people talking about non-educational things on Education... it doesn't mean it's an all-consuming obsession in real life.

I'm very interested in education, and politics. And the way our society works. Surely so is every other thinking person?

Yellow - my access work is going to be based on issues already identified by the powers that be (which happen to coincide with my own views). The issue with the over representation of. Certain grammar schools is not one of social mix but the bald fact that the vast majority of DC don't have access to them! Yes there are clever kids in them but the vast majority of clever kids don't attend them and not because they couldn't get in! To be honest your reaction seems a little protectionist. There will still be places for those kids who deserve them both from your superselective and my DCs public schools. But the competition will just be a little stiffer lol.

@noddy really? I am by some margin the least pushy parent I know. There are a couple of (very pushy) parents of my acquaintance who keep telling me it's all very well for me to be so uninvolved in what's going on but I don't know I'm born because I have such 'easy' kids. Since all my kids have SEN conditions I'm not quite sure what they mean by that but hey ho.

@mordion I was delighted to see that my old school sent 2 girls to Cambridge and 1 to Oxford this year. Which was exactly the number and distribution in my year too.

I am also interested and always have been but I think there is n=more obsession about schools and achievements on here. My friends are all quite laid back about it and most of their kids are doing well at uni etc.

Sorry that was @yellow. My mind has gone, basically. It's the horror of two weeks off work being mainly a panto chaperone. It's rotting my brain. :(

Mind you am in the hell of shall i shan't I university process with ds so amy be just at end of tether!

Mordian - geography may well play its part, as do fees etc. But the main issue identified it not applying (as distinct from not getting in) seems to be perception. That oxbridge will be too posh, too hard, too elitist. That its not worth even trying. Some students when questioned even thought it cost more. Some teachers were woefully out of date about the admissions process.

My reaction isn't in the least protectionist word, nor do I worry about competition: I'm greatly in favour of merit. I know a bit about access too, it's hardly the preserve of a small cabal :). Which is why I know you're wrong about the handful thing and why I know that there are radically differing views on the access question within the universities themselves. As you said yourself, you're a new girl on the block. And you do need to get your figures and facts right before you swing in as an evangelical, or you could do more harm than good (if you acquire influence I suppose).

I'm also massively unpushy. I know pushy when I see it and it isn't for me.

Yellowtip - "CRGS, Henrietta Barnett, QEB, the Tiffin schools etc and all the other similar superselective grammars are bound to have a higher representation than the Kent grammars because of their intake."

Or also, perhaps, because the Year 13 cohort is significantly smaller in the Kent grammars than the outer London grammars? I think that if you look at the statistics you will find that the superselective Kent grammars are performing competitively versus the schools you cite.

With all due respect Yellow, I'll just give it a go my way. I doubt very much I will be single handedly responsible for worsening access - so try not to worry. I have the facts and figures and have been tolld how the university want to change their approach...so we'll see. Nothing ventured and all that.

@word the accusation of protectionism is a little odd. I don't feel any need whatsoever to protect Tiffins. I do feel a need to challenge your agenda rich statement that only a handful of state schools send students to Cambridge because I know that this is not true. I don't 'believe' this or 'feel' it. I know it's not true. Unless your definition of 'handful' is very different than mine (mine would be fewer than 10). You also seem keen to push the idea that it's just grammar schools that send kids there and again - I know this isn't true.

My son't bff went to cambridge in september from bog standard comp. She wasn't the only one although interestingly she came back at xmas and is not returning. hates it. In fact quite a few have dropped out way more than I have ever experienced before. Wonder why?

@word I also find it quite amusing that you think it's necessary to tell me what the barriers to applying to Cambridge might be for a working class person.

Of course, state school and working class are in no way synonymous categorisations so you have another definition problem there.

noddyholder, interesting.

My DB regularly recruits graduates scientists into research roles. His opinion at least for the sciences is that the style of teaching which Oxford and Cambridge use suits some but not others. Again his opinion but his view was that it wasnt to do with academic level simply style.

Very intensive but also very hands on from tutors. If that is your style then it will work for you but if not then it wont. I understand from DB that there is a fairly regular flow of students out into other universities where the style works better for that individual.

I think that some potential students see Oxford/Cambridge as the holy grail rather than looking at what will suit them.

You don't have to be from a bog-standard comp to find Cambridge distasteful. My sister went to the same college my father, his father and his father before him had attended (as well as plenty of uncles and cousins), so was totally prepared for the experience. She got through it, academically very successfully, but not without needing to vent a lot - and ran away to Paris and London to do her PhD and get some air!

Yes I agree think this was the other side of the coin. The fact that she was 'oxbridge material' was the be all and end all and she just went with it.

No Bonsoir I know that what I am really interested in is the numbers dropping out from all universities tbh. I think uptake is down and people are leaving more than ever before.

I think university can be very disappointing! I found most of my peer group dreadfully insular and interested in the kind of parties I had frequented as a 14 year old, and the academic staff were mostly really odd and out of date.

I think thats it. Our friends whose kids have gone are finding them returning and my son is unsure whether to go. The thing is as you say my son and his peers have had a very social teenage life parties open house attitude from parents and they are probably not going to gain anything from a social POV so i think the course and ambition have to be there to keep them engaged. My ds and his mates have all travelled worked etc

I agree - I think young people who've had access to the world during their childhood and teens need to be fascinated by their subject in order to put up with the rather closed world of university socialising!

The first Uni I went to had a 25% dropout rate before 2nd year (I became one of those, I switched to a cheaper Uni instead). Telegraph says 20% dropout recently in UK, so still less than what I took as normal 30 years ago.

Bonsoir there might be some variation in numbers in the different schools' cohorts but I'm looking at percentages per cohort. Obviously there will be exceptions to the general rule in Kent. I know some of the schools there are excellent.

word these concerns have been rattling around for years. You refer to them with an air of surprise. Hence my use of the term evangelical. You're right about teachers though: they need to be appropriately aspirational and make full use of all the many access schemes now available to potential applicants, including getting the student hooked up to the excellent, myth-debunking websites at the eariest possible stage. But there's nothing new in what you say, and considerable progress has already been made. You make it sound such a secret!

Sure, and if you look at percentage per cohort of say, 10% to Oxbridge for an outer London superselective and the cohort has 250 pupils = 25 pupils. Then you compare to a Kent superselective with 120 pupils per cohort and 8% get to Oxbridge = 10 pupils. The representation difference between 25 and 10 pupils per school to Oxbridge is an awful lot greater than the percentage difference. There isn't a meaningful access issue there at all (nor even a quality of intake issue).