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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Anyone at all, including the authorities, who suggest that kids will be irrevocably damaged if they have to share a room.

ps I'm also very impressed by the number of children you have produced, Yellowtip - assuming they are all biologically yours! I note that you don't mix the boys in with the girls in the older age groupings, though. Would you (and they) happily do this??? Or are you too precious? And how do you fit 3 in a room? They must be reasonably large rooms to fit in a bunk bed plus one other? Or have very high ceilings?

Or do they share a big bed?

I've never known anyone suggest that room sharing irrevocably damages people. Although I'd feel a bit sorry for myself if an elderly relative moved in for me to care for them and the only room I could offer them was a share of my own bedroom .

Yes I remember their births rabbit: all biologically mine. The sequence is three girls then three boys so it always made sense not to mix them. No bunks, just beds very close together. I suppose the girls room is big, but it doubles as the homework room too. I am beginning to fret about the youngest two though. One boy, one girl, currently sharing a box.

Can't believe you don't know parents who think that to fulfil its potential each child must have it's own suite ....

I'm genuinely impressed! That is a lot of children for this day and age. You must have had to be incredibly organised to keep the household running when they were little, given the closeness in ages. Do you ever annoy them by calling them by the wrong names? It used to annoy me intensely when my mother did that to me, yet I occasionally find myself doing it and I only have 2 children, so far less excuse than she ever had!!!

Yellowtip - not sure who you are talking to? Who thinks that for a child to fulfil its potential, each child must have its own suite? Even Tasmania didn't claim that.

Are there really parents who think that? Oh dear. I now realise I have mixed with very downmarket company. . I always thought I was rather posh.

I always had my own bedroom, after all.

Tas, my DS is at Durham. He was not interviewed and in 2 years there has never worn a gown. Ever.

I do get rather told off by other parents rabbit. And the DC assure me that I do vastly more annoying things on a regular basis than merely calling them by the wrong names. They're fairly voluble about it actually.

grovel the students at Castle still wear gowns for formal I think, though interviews went out years ago. There are far more applicants per place at Durham than at either Oxford or Cambridge: logistically it couldn't be done.

One of the reasons why indies send many more dcs to Oxbridge is because they offer subjects which are rarely found in state schools now such as Latin/ Greek, unusual modern languages. Whenever schools publish the number of pupils they send to Oxbridge check out the subjects they're reading many of them play the system of getting their pupils to apply for unpopular or obscure courses which are easier to get on as less competition such as Old Norse to up their annual Oxbridge quota.

I can't account for other independents sending a high % to Oxbridge but my DS seems to think physics is the subject most boys he talks to are planning to studyand as chemistry and Physics are the most popular subject taken at Pre U this would make sense. I somehow doubt few go on from his school to study "Old Norse."

grovel - it depends on the college. The more modern "Hill" colleges don't (with a few exceptions), but some of the more traditional "Bailey" colleges do. Unless it has changed since I was there (my Alma Mater). Re interviews - I was never interviewed either, but in my understanding, some people do get interviewed these days... which was surprising. Might be for highly popular subjects / people who weren't dead certs?

Thinking about it, maybe there IS a link between state school applications & traditional places after all... State school students tended to be in the Hill colleges (they used to be a lot more diverse, too) while public school students used to go for the Bailey colleges. Never understood how you could ever be intimidated by tradition and old buildings though!

The first three sentences above relate to the gowns...

Ah... there are exceptional cases where they do interviews such as in Medicine, where it's compulsory, apparently...

happy - Physics is immensely popular these days. Can't help thinking it's due to The Big Bang Theory. Makes it cool to be a nerd... finally. My much younger brother is literally aiming to be a nerd (incl. joining Mensa, etc.)...

TAs my DS"s school has a reputation promoted according to the Tattler Good Schools Guide as being a school for geeks and nerds!

Going back to the comment on the US, school tax is a line item on a resident's local tax bill and the amount reflects the wealth of the area and is paid by every household irrespective of if they have children or if they use state v private schools. My parents live in the mid-west of the US in a very nice area. Their school tax is over $10,000 a year. Needless to say, the local high school is very nice with facilities better than most privates I have visited.

"Never understood how you could ever be intimidated by tradition and old buildings though!"

Really? You must be blessed with extreme self confidence, then! Or perhaps you were brought up with such things?

JoanByers- do you really feel comfortable using language like that about vast swathes of the country's children?

I don't think old buildings and old traditions are particularly intimidating if you aren't from a culture where they are considered important: they are just curiosities, then, aren't they?

Tas whilst you may agree with my comment: "A few years ago I was employed to sit with a yr10/11 child in every lesson for a couple of months (covering mat leave) at a well regarded grammar school... But what struck me was the lack of debate/discussion."
Some others felt that this was because this was not a "good school" it is this state education is brilliant what I can only describe as complacency that must be one of the factors in the lower numbers from state ed with a similiarish intake going to the likes of Oxbridge.

Can you re-phrase that happy? (not clear what it means). But if you think the best state schools are 'complacent' then you're quite simply wrong. No leading school will stay in the lead by being complacent. The teaching in the school you describe sounds very dull indeed. It doesn't sound anything like the teaching in the leading state schools, even if this school muddles up the league tables because it's a grammar. It sounds complacent but that doesn't mean all other schools are.

The college application system has changed entirely now Tas.

At Durham that is. So in effect a student can't choose, or has limited opportunity to choose.