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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I dont think Latin is necessarily a bad thing to be honest. Its logic and the rigour required to learn its grammar has enabled my DS to learn a 3rd language much more easily. My DH a late comer to Italian has also found that his Latin A level has definitely helped. Hockey I think you will find is taught in the state sector as well. As for all the guff boaters gowns etc Id quite cheerfully ban the lot whether at school or university this is the 21 century for heaven sake.

Happy. She was clearly talking about Oxford.

@five you don't have to wear gowns for exams at Cambridge. Unless things have changed since my day. Which I doubt.

I loved my red gown. It made an excellent dressing gown and had good pockets. Very good, I was reliably informed, for shop lifting.........

I had a nightmare the night before my Finals started at Oxford that I turned up to Exam Schools in a blue skirt and without my gown and was sent back to my College to change into proper sub fusc, thus missing the first 30 minutes of the exam...

I never bought one - I never attended a formal hall (no vegan option at my college in those days) and you only needed one for matric and then graduation. So most people I knew just borrowed. But if you were at a college which had mandatory formal halls it was a different matter, obviously (I'd never have gone to one of those).

Happygardening, I've been out so things have probably moved on but just to clear a few things up:
I did not ask you what your experience of state schools was that was another poster.

I did not say that all private school kids could not talk or write coherently,I was very explicit in saying it was anecdotal evidence based on the experience relayed to me by one Oxford don. And I said nothing about coherence, I said he had to work hard to undo some of the over elaborate ways of writing that they had learnt as he valued clarity and simplicity. Incidentally your 'rule' about not using the word 'lovely' is an example of this.

In terms of my own experience, I also do not really want to make myself too identifiable but since you ask, I was at one of the top private girls schools- league table wise- they alternated year by year in which one came top. My brothers were at the equivalent for boys- ones mentioned on this thread. I left and went to my local comprehensive so have direct experience of both systems.
I have already said I work with children, adolescents and families (who knows perhaps in a similar capacity to you!). It is with all of this experience that I made the decision to send my child to the local comprehensive- one that is certainly not outstanding! But like I said, although I personally think there is much I do not like about the ethos of the 'top' private schools - based on personal and professional experience, my fundamental reason for definately not buying into that system is ideological.

I've just rummaged through the bookshelves and found Gaudy Night. Can't wait for bed time!

Mordio, my (Oxford educated) brother came to meet me out of my (Cambridge) finals and completely missed me because he was looking for someone in a gown etc, which of course I didn't have to wear.

I came back to my room several hours later to find him curled up on my college sofa, drinking his way through my coffee and reading my books (ancient locks being only too easy to pick!)

Seeker, I love Gaudy night - complete with Pro-proctos in liripipe sleeves, whatever they may be.

The DD at Maudlin wore an ok gown for her Prelims but was nearly chucked out for wearing brown Primark shoes (brown was the problem, not Primark). This stuff is not a problem, just quite quaint. Really, does it matter? The important thing to my mind is the quality of education. And the thing I can say with absolute certainty is that my DC went into Oxford, even after a fabulous secondary education, fairly unformed, and have morphed during the process into extraordinarily sharp thinkers. Very different intellectually from the DC who went in. Each and every one of them. I actually find it an extraordinary transition. I don't believe the 'seminar' process which economically is the only thing other UK universities can provide can do it anything like as well. The gown thing is peripheral and doesn't go to the essence, which is really the thing. Hence their value to employers at the top end. Top end employers need graduates who can cut through the crap and really think.

Does it matter? Yes - whichever position you take. It's either an attraction or a barrier. All the trappings of tradition -the gowns, the Latin, the right sort of rugby or hockey or Lacrosse - define, reinforce and perpetuate the club giving advantages to the members and excluding and distancing the non members.

The whole thing about getting a few more working class kids into the club strikes me as rather missing the point of what the hell we're doing with this sort of outdated class structure in the 21st century?

But that's all by the by. My point, admirably reinforced by posters here, is that of all the things that private schools are known for, innovation is not the first that comes to mind.

'Top end employers need graduates who can cut through the crap and really think. '

Mm.. or graduates who can shake the right hands.

I'm not denying that great brains go into and come out of Oxbridge and private schools but if you look at who gets where from where it's not brains that are the most striking thing. Boris Johnson for example.

Fivecandles, I agree with you. I do think Oxford values clear thinking but clearly having been at Oxford does not mean you are a clear thinker!

I also think that the gowns etc is alienating.

It's funny too that in these kinds of threads Oxbridge is valued so highly but academia itself I don't think generally is. It does make it seem as if it's a status tick box for many people..

I personally can't stand Boris but anyone who thinks he has no brains is deluding themselves he may be a buffon but a highly intelligent one.
Fivecandles I'm a little baffled you seem to heavily critisize independent schools and their allumni but work at one. In my experience those who critisize the system they work under are rather frowned upon by their employers.

Quite agree with happygardening: Boris is hugely bright - why deny it?

fivecandles mine, and so many of their friends, wear the gowns as the statutes dictate but let the Latin wash over them. And don't play rugby, hockey or lacrosse (well, one might dabble for enjoyment). Nevertheless the education they get there is far superior to the education available in universities who can now only offer 15 plus student seminars. It's absolutely undeniable and evident and I'm very glad that it is. It's seriously patronizing and wide of the mark to suggest that it's all about handshakes. Bollocks it is. Don't delude yourself. No-one with brains buys that crap any more.

seeker were you St. Andrews? Is there much shoplifting done at St. Andrews?

But I have said that there is much to admire in some aspects of the tradition or at least the eschewing of innovation in private schools. I probably am ambivalent and working out where I stand and where I want to be at the moment. Like the other poster, I have been disillusioned by working in state education and particularly because of things that have recently happened to me. I'm surprised by where I've ended up, never more so than when I'm singing hymns in assembly with begowned colleagues, but possibly more surprised by the series of events that have led me from the state sector and, separately, drawn me to private education.

I suppose my background is why I'm so aware of the sort of class structures and, frankly, bizarre traditions that many others either take for granted or are nostalgic or admiring of or are completely oblivious to or are repelled by depending on their position and their own social class.

fivecandles as far as we as a family are concerned these things are attributes, not going to the essence, and as such can be taken or left. In short, not a big deal, almost superfluous.

Boris Johnson's ability to make people think he is a buffoon is what makes him one of the most dangerous political figures of our time.

Is it social class that influences your view on bizarre traditions. I'm not sure it's as black and white as that. Plenty of people we know all in the same class have diametrically opposed views on Etons uniform.

'It's seriously patronizing and wide of the mark to suggest that it's all about handshakes'

I don't think you should underestimate the handshakes (for which, read contacts, privilege, being in the club) either. If you look at the make up of the House of Commons (biggest misnomer ever) in terms of education and top positions in all fields, that's ridiculously obvious.

It is also the case that once at university those kids from state schools statistically outperform those kids from private schools.

Privilege in this country is self-perpetuating. For the very wealthy and privileged in this country there is still a seamless progression from Eton or Westminster and St Pauls's to Oxbridge and then top careers. It is still the case that 5 independent schools send more kids to Oxbridge than all the state schools in the country put together.

And I've not seen any evidence at all for Boris Johnson's intelligence which is exactly my point. You can hide all sorts of idiocy behind the right background and the right friends and Britain, being what it is, laps it up. There is a legacy of deference in this country which is evident in the way in which ordinary working people voted in a bunch of toffs like David Cameron to tell them what to do.

There's surely no other country which sends their kids to schools that dress them up in garters and hambone frills and sees this as a sign of quality.

Bloody right seeker. I'm hoping your average man in the street will be able to see through his facade to what truely lies beneath before they vote him in as PM.

'as far as we as a family are concerned these things are attributes, not going to the essence, and as such can be taken or left'

Well that's OK for you but don't underestimate the importance of such things ether to attract or to repel. They're not there by accident. Otherwise they could have been jettisoned decades, no centuries ago.

'Plenty of people we know all in the same class have diametrically opposed views on Etons uniform. '

Exactly my point. It's either attractive or repellant. It's never neutral. It's not intended to be is it?

'Boris Johnson's ability to make people think he is a buffoon '

But in what other field, in what other class do people accept, even the facade, of 'buffoonery'. You don't get buffoons stacking shelves in Tesco or teaching or even running companies. They'd never be employed.

What a country that sees buffoonery as a good thing (as long as you went to Eton and are in a position of power). Bizarre!