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.

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The most prestigious baccalauréat is the Bac S (scientifique) and so most of the clever DCs do that one and have therefore done Maths A Level equivalent, even if they go on to do something non-quantitative. But there is generally a lot more prestige doing a quantitative degree than a non-quantitative one.

I actually agree with this. Less with the teaching methods!

Coming from a family with an engineering background, that makes total sense, given that I was always told that engineering is not respected in this country in the way it is in France, Germany and Switzerland, for example.

Who knows, Tasmania - I don't where she was coming from or going to (there are specifics involved) - just in general British universities consider a wide variety of qualifications whereas French HE doesn't, and this is well-documented.

A favouring of the arts in this country is a legacy of our class system and private schools of the past (and a few of the present!).

rabbitstew - indeed, this is the point. School generally doesn't help much with university guidance but parents with insider info are much more useful than parents without.

DP has been on the selection panel of his alma mater grande école for nearly quarter of a century... still going strong...

As family breakdown in France and Germany rises to meet the epidemic proportions of the UK, maybe French and German schools will start feeling the same pressure as English schools to step in and take over roles formerly played by parents.

rabbit - you can see that in the payscale, too. Engineers get paid a lot more in those countries. Someone I know has an engineering job in France, and you'd be lucky to get paid half the amount she does over here...

Pity that... because really, you want to reward those jobs that are known for bringing in technology and innovation. As Audi says: Vorsprung durch Technik. Not necessarily lawyers, for example - sorry this isn't meant to be an insult... several of my family members belong to this category.

I don't think they will, rabbitstew. The levels of family breakdown in France are similar to those in the UK and a strong hypothesis for part of the explanation for the really awful slide in academic performance versus other countries and in real terms in France is the weakening of family support for education. The whole system was designed such that mothers parents did an awful lot of repetition with DCs at home. The availability of mothers to do this has been severely curtailed due to much longer working hours and family breakdown.

Bonsoir I don't take my kids to school but if those journeys are anything like any other journey they perform extracts of Bleak Expectations (word perfect) until DH loses the will to live at which point they all listen to dr who audios. Or the actual cast doing bleak expectations.

I will admit thought I did go through a phase of bursting into rooms crying 'what's 7x8' when DS had a mental block about it. This phase lasted 2 days before I gave up since I was bored. He does know what 7x8 is now though.

Ah, another Dr Who family.

In French school, the conjugation years coincide with the times table years. There's a lot to get through - the journey to/from school (four times a day) just feels like the perfect opportunity

Rabbit - you have no idea how much of an understatement that is

My DH spent some time in Italy for work. He stopped at a barber for a shave and hot towels every morning (on expenses - those were the days!). To start with the barber addressed him as Signore. After a week he was promoted to Dottore. When he was a really valued customer he got promoted again to Ingeniere. Says a lot, I think.

Not an understatement in this house! Sighs as she thinks of the groaning shelves of videos, DVDs, tape casettes, CDs, scripts, books...

rabbit Divorce rates are similar. Parents in Germany are not necessarily more nurturing / self-sacrificing either - you won't find many parents willing to refinance their house so that Little Hans can have a deposit and buy a property of his own. No - British parents win that point by a mile.

The one thing Germany has going for itself is this: they are the economic powerhouse of Europe. It's an advantage that England doesn't have (though if you ask many over there, they see it partially as a curse in this crisis when they have to fork out most for bailing out other parts of Europe). Living standards are higher in general. Most of my friends from high school who went to uni, got married and now have kids don't have to work. They can be SAHMs, spend time with their kids, and still afford a nice, swish lifestyle with holidays and all that. Not because their DHs are rich... but one income is often enough. I think this is mainly due to everything being cheaper, particularly real estate. No one in their right mind would spend the amount of money we do over her for putting a roof over our heads. But here, that's the norm. Therefore, people have much more disposable income. The German government is very keen on not letting a housing bubble erupt like it did in other places, so that will most likely stay.

What I have to say though is that's it is more of a flatter society. There will be people who are poor, but we have a large MC base and a relatively thin upper crust. I never heard of the ostentatious bonuses before coming to the UK. Also, the upper crust makes a point to not show off. So if there are social differences, it is less visible, and people are less intimidated by it which is probably why nobody is fazed about applying to uni at all.

It isn't perfect. It doesn't have exciting cities like London. It isn't as multicultural as the UK either. And there's an East/West divide that is very slow to heal...

I think you are confusing understatement with overstatement. It's the religion in my family. I was born into it and like any religious zealot I made sure my kids have been brought up 'in the faith'

I've just given Big Finish another HUGE chunk of my disposable income preordering the 50th box set and the second series of the 4 stories (that barely qualifies as a preorder obviously since the first one is due out any day now). All this despite my first instalment of Destiny not having arrived yet even though I preordered back when it was announced (November?). :( Sometimes I hanker for the 70s when the only merch available to buy was target books and chocolate wrappers (there was chocolate inside the wrappers obviously but I couldn't eat it so my sister got that :( ) On the other hand at least the most expensive decade ever for being a fan is one in which I can afford to buy most of the stuff.

I was once interviewed for French TV about being a fan, actually - back in the mid 80s. Surprisingly nobody has ever recognised me from this moment of fame whenever I've visited France subsequently.

This is actually HIGHLY relevant to the theme of Oxbridge interviews since at the non mathsy interview I spent the whole time talking about dr who and blakes 7 to my future director of studies. She hadn't seen the French interview either though.

. Don't suppose the interview made it onto youtube, then?

Mordion There IS something about 7x8 that makes it difficult. Don't know what - but I remember finding that one particularly hard as a kid!!!

All the combinations of 7, 8 and 9 in the times tables are hard: Stanislas Dehaene writes about very well in his book The Number Sense.

When I was little, I found 7x8 far easier to remember than 8x7 - something about the rhythm of it when chanting... I would therefore always reverse 8x7 in my head before I answered...

is. Take your pick.

Yellow Fuckard. Must have brightened up their day of interviewing. Soundproof DS's room, buy time table CD and lock him in every night. There... nothing for you to do.

dd1 decided that 7 ate 50 sticks (six)

How very greedy!