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

[happygardening]

Thought I repost the OP although the debate has moved on a little .
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.

.

peterenas the post concerned interviews at Durham and which subjects that university does or doesn't interview for these days. Durham does interview for Medicine and like happy I thought all medical schools did. Certainly all those that DS was interested in applying to did. I'm surprised there are any which don't but I'm interested too: which are they?

Free, mass delivery of education has been going on for an awfully long time in Europe and inevitably systems bear the burden of their heritage, for better and (often) for worse. It is frightening to see newer high-octane economies do better than European countries. The fear goads some countries into action more quickly than others.

If attending an interview would risk 'breaking' a medical career then surely that's an excellent reason to interview .

"I have to admit, my ds2 would be in 7th heaven to be surrounded by intelligent, like-minded individuals and to have lots going on of a high quality all the time."

Yes. Their children's happiness (and not just their own ambitions for their children and the perceived social status obtained from high-ranking education) is a strong driver many parents when seeking out selective education.

I believe Southampton doesn't interview or at least they didn't in 2010.

happy - The thing that simply has to change in the UK is the thought that "segregating kids" should not be thought of as "a bad thing". I never understood the abolition of grammar schools. Segregating children by ability is a LOT fairer than segregating them by their parents' financial status. And some sort of segregation has to take place simply because it's only in a utopian world where everyone is truly equal. And I'd rather have it decided by merit rather than money (though it seems that currently, if you want excellence in education for your kids, you may have to go with the latter in the UK). So kids get segregated after primary school (in my days, it was middle school, but they moved this further back now it seems), and based on pure ability and - more importantly - potential. Some kids got put through to grammar school with a C average, if teachers thought they were late developers/their German wasn't good and had potential.

However, that said, the article I quoted failed to mention that German companies are very different compared to their UK counterparts. They have proper apprenticeships in place for those who do not go to a grammar school. They are actually willing to train. There are 3 different types of schools - only one leads to university. The middle one makes a broad range of jobs available to you through apprenticeships, e.g. banking (you can make it as far as those who went to uni, if you're determined), the lower one opens up vocational jobs like hair dressing, etc. A friend of mine who moved from Germany to the UK in her 20s is now doing a job that requires a degree and so forth here. She has none of that - she was simply trained up by one of the banks in Germany before moving here!

So in Germany, there's no push towards going to university to the same extent as here in the UK, because there are other options if you do not have the equivalent A-levels. In fact, some of my classmates chose to do an apprenticeship instead - even after doing their A-levels, simply because at that time the economy was shaky (weirdly enough, doing better now!), and getting onto one of those schemes seemed wiser than going to university.

Here in the UK, on the other hand, I will see a job advert for a travel agency, where the requirement is for a "graduate". Ffs - why do you need a degree to work in a travel agency?!? Even A-levels?? In Germany, the equivalent of GCSEs alone would be enough. I'm guessing the company just doesn't want to train people up, and see uni as some sort of an assembly line producing potential employees. So yes, in the light of that... I can see why people find it difficult to come to terms with segregation... if that one thing can literally impact the rest of your life by ascribing to either the "Haves" or "Have-Nots". But if you actually had companies that are willing to put in effort in training those who didn't go to uni, that might not be the case.

Germany also has the big industrial companies like BMW, Mercedes, etc. - and in the past, the families who still are the majority shareholders used to have a "noblesse oblige" approach where they took good care of their employees (all the way down to the mechanics, etc.), and their employees thus often stayed with them out of loyalty. It would be stupid to train up a mechanic - only for him to move on somewhere else. Sadly, this may be changing now due to the global economic climate.

"
"seeker - do you know what the original Waterstone's strategy was? Can you describe its marketing concept?"
Ok, I'll bite. Why?

Aren't a lot of Germans unhappy with their education system, though? Maybe it's the norm for European countries to be unhappy with their own education systems and looking to change them?...

Yes, particularly at universities where people often don't even find seats in lecture halls. And this has now moved on to schools, too. I put a lot of the blame on ever-increasing class sizes. Germany is also becoming increasingly multi-cultural (compared to when I was there), and obviously, you will have the problem with languages that you might not have had in the same extent before. Berlin is the one definite place in Germany where those who can afford it are likely to opt for private school despite the grammar school system.

^^ Universities have changed a lot though since I've left. So at least, they are doing something...

HelpOneAnother - I saw that on TV the other week... that large accounting firms were offering apprenticeships. Step in the right direction. I think things like that have to come from up above (i.e. companies > education > people).

Yes it looks as though Southampton doesn't interview as a matter of course. I think peterenas said her DS applied there, so I expect that's it. Very unusual though, I wonder why they've taken that line. A lot of interviews just seem to be to say hello though, so perhaps they reckon it's just a waste of their time.

Incidentally, I don't think not knowing every detail about every medical school in the UK is a hanging offence either peterenas. I know a bit about the ones DS applied to, anda little about others he was considering and nothing at all about the UKCAT, since he didn't take it. It was his application and it's his life. My knowledge is limited to that.

Tasmania, I do agree up to a point - but I've had this conversation with German parents at my dds' primary school, and they are not happy with a system that segregates on perceived ability at primary age. Not happy at all. They say that so many kids are judged unfairly, not just because they can be 'late developers' - but because of family circumstances (which can change), physical problems (that can change), etc etc.

I have no experience of this system, but based on it I would have been labelled a very high flyer in primary school - although I flunked most of my A levels because of family problems and rebellion. Whereas someone I know (whose mother was an alcoholic) did not read until he was 7, then within a year was reading Tolkein, and went on to medical school. Anecdotal, I know, but it worries me when I hear talk of early segregation....

Actually, I should rephrase that - sorry, rushing - they are not happy with the inflexibility of the system. 'Streaming' seems fine, as long as 'streams' are flexible and individuals can be moved back and forth between 'streams' as achievement/circumstances require?

Elibean - Not sure why they thought it was that rigid? Usually, if your kid improves over time, you can always ask for him/her to be moved across... and the good teachers - not everyone is, unfortunately - should suggest this.

If teachers at the primary school suggest the kid should go to the school just below the grammar school level, parents can appeal. The kid will probably have to sit a German & Maths test (in Bavaria, that is - each federal state has different rules), but if, as you said, the kid was suddenly much better, he/she should pass this. However, I can understand why a few German parents don't know this - a lot of people do not appeal. My dad did this with my brother who was a late developer, and who apparently is now in the top 2 percentile of the world in terms of IQ...

Definitely not rigid... in some federal states, it isn't even up to the grades where the kids should go, but up to the parents...

If you do comparisons on LEAs in the UK where the schooling is segregated at 11, and LEAs where it isn't, there is no significant difference in the end of school outcomes.

Selection at 11 is not the answer, because in general, it's not the children who go to grammar school who need the extra input - they mostly come from supportive and aspirational homes. State selective education just adds another layer of advantage to the privileged and disadvantage to the non- privileged.

"Elibean - Not sure why they thought it was that rigid? Usually, if your kid improves over time, you can always ask for him/her to be moved across... and the good teachers - not everyone is, unfortunately - should suggest this."

No you can't, Tasmania!

seeker - what are you talking about? This was in response to Elibean and specifically about the German education system - which I happen to know a whole damn lot about.

I'm sorry, Tasmania- I thought you were talking about the UK system.

I don't know why the parents I talked to thought that, Tasmania...probably as you suggest, they weren't aware of options. They have since left the school, so I can't ask, sadly!

Elibean - my guess is they don't know that things have changed. Fifty years ago, parents may have had no options, but for the past decade or so (at least), they do... it's just that some people don't quite know their rights (Google/internet should change that).

One of the main problems of segregating children in different schools rather than using setting within schools to group children of similar abilities together is that few children are equally good at everything.

I have two DC with ASD. They are both really good at maths and science but struggle with English because of issues around interpretation and imagination. At their comp, this is easy to deal with. In some subjects they are top set and in others they are close to the bottom not. This means they get the teaching they need in all subjects. If we lived in a grammar area (thankfully we do not), they would not be able to be supported in this way.