Tory by-election candidate on state education....

[seeker]

......sorry it's the Daily Mirror, but so far it's that or the Huffington Post! At least they are showing their true colours......
Here

I agree, its funny how some think paying excessive sums for a house to get into a desirable catachment area is OK but actually coming out and saying that you are paying for private ed is seen as the devils choice, paying your way into privilge etc

Its exactly the same thing.....

And for those of you who think we are wasting our money and state education is the same etc. You make your choice and I will make mine. You might have a great grammar, good for you. Or you might have a bog standard school and want more for your kids. You might choose to move house to get a better school. Its fine.

Here is a map of the catchment:

www3.hants.gov.uk/schooldetails?dfes=4175#catchment

As you can see it has been lovingly gerrymandered to include as many middle class areas as possible.

To the north they include Otterbourne, which from Rightmove is a pleasant affluent area:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E19102&insId=7&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on&googleAnalyticsChannel=buying

In the west you can see 'Baddesley Road', which again looks lovely:

www.zoopla.co.uk/home-values/chandlers-ford/baddesley-road/

But no room for the kebab shops and council houses of Eastleigh.....

Actually how much more are you paying for a house in a desirable catchment area I wonder? If you took private ed from 11 it would cost you say £12k x 7 years = £84k

Are these house £84K more I wonder. Of course it self fulfilling. When you come to sell they are easier to sell, nicer areas,etc so for some I guess a no-brainer....

Of course you can then smugly say you dont believe in private eduction etc.

I agree - I absolutely detest the postcode lottery.

Where we live, the immediate area is nice enough and leafy, but when it comes to schooling, we live in a not so great area (including secondary schools in special measures)... meaning DH and I are either looking to move before DC goes to school OR go private. Likely both to happen (as we're currently renting).

Tasmania - the majority want what is best for our children. What I have found in the private sector is that when parents are paying for education they have certain expectations. Of course there are the parents with lots of money who dont care how they children do (just like the state system) but IMHO they are a tiny tiny minority. Most people paying these sums of money are doing it for a reason.

Its funny how surrounding yourself with pupils that are there for a reason means that the very few bad eggs messing it up for others get spotted very quickly. A friend of my DS was expelled from his school last year for mucking around in school, paying more attention to girls and egging others on. The school didnt like it. So he moved elsewhere. But I thought explusion was for very serious issues, it seems not nowadays.

The postcode lottery is an example of something imperfect in the state system, which should be fixed. It's not how it is intended to work. The private system, on the other hand, is totally designed with the paying of fees to get a "better" school in mind. It's how it was always meant to work.

I appreciate that's a subtle distinction which not everybody will get.

maisiejoe123

That exactly is the reason that DH and I are particularly pressing for private education. Not many sane people would throw away 15k for nothing. Once your DC goes to school, you sort of have to let go, and as they say - Parents, Peers, Perception. When the parents let go, the peers become the major influence of a child's life. They are shaped by those around them massively, until they reach a certain age, where they develop their own perception of those around them.

Also, I want DC to have a similar experience to my education (small class sizes, etc.), and things have changed so much, that this would now only be available in the private sector.

How I agree with you Tasmania. Speaking as a ex sec modern pupil I would go private every time. Some on threads have an issue with private education. They have never set foot in a private school and there are the very very few who dont believe in them. Of course that is fine. I love people who dont believe in something and follow it through in real life but they are very rare.

And there are some who think that somehow we are wasting out £15k, the state is fine and for them it might be, they might have their children in a grammar (private schools for the smug some would say!) and for them and the right child it works brilliantly.

FWTW - I think grammar schools should be everywhere, make them the norm for the bright. Make schools for the trades equally as important. Have you seen how much some top hairdressers in London charge and they have a mammouth waiting list.

My DS looks like he belongs in a boy band, handsome boy (proud mum alert!) but his best friend is a scholar at his school. Friend is very bright but a little shy. So, they work well together. He can rush his way around a squash court, he can play a reasonable game of tennis and as we live near London I would like to think he is street wise. He travels on the tube on his own, can get lost and find his way around. I have always insisted he do this and if he is really stuck and lost he can call us (he never has!)

So, in terms of confidence he is great, going on the tube the other day he helped one friend who had never been on the underground and there are a few of his friends that are very sheltered but generally boarding brings out confidence. You have to sort it out yourself. There is no M&D to guide. Its just you and for the right child it is a powerful lesson to learn.

Speaking as a ex sec modern pupil I would go private every time I don't understand what you mean by this? What has the one to do with the other?

Because based on my experience I dont think they are fit for purpose. They are not one or the other. They arent for the academic and they arent clear what their purpose is. Technical Trade college perhaps?

They are purely in place to take the kids who dont pass the 11+.There is no expectation and I dont want want for my children.

Ah, you mean that faced with a secondary modern or private, you would choose private? I thought you meant you would just choose private whatever.

afaik there are no secondary moderns.

I would strongly oppose the return of the grammar; 11 is too young to split children into 'academic' and 'practical', and why should they be split anyway? You would end up with 11+ being 'who can pay a tutor the most'.

I have no problems with private schools. I do have a problem with a prospective MP declaring that her son is too good for the state sector. Presumably the state schools are good enough for the children she is hoping to represent, because they are not 'very gifted' and don't aspire to be cardio-respiratory surgeons. (though as someone said, I'm not sure that actually exists anyway; you have Cardio-thoracic surgery, and you have Chest medicine - not aware of a speciality of cardio-respiratory surgery!

There are sec moderns in the grammar school areas. If one is faced with a sec modern and they can afford it then I think private is the only option.

BTW - if one had the choice of ANY school without any thought of money or location which school would you actually choose. ....

1. Grammar school
2. Private school
3. Sec Modern
4. Comprehensive

I suspect the sec modern would come down very low...

There are secondary moderns. And there are grammar schools. But very few. Practically statistically negligible.

Most children go to comprehensive schools. And, as I have said repeatedly, my beef in this particular case is not that Maria Hutchings sends or doesn't send her child/ children to private school. My beef is that she is able to say something which sounds as if she believes that it is impossible for a very bright child to receive an education in the state sector, and that it is impossible to become a surgeon if you go to private school. Had she been taken out of context, Conservative Central Office would have issued a denial or a clarification. They didn't. Which suggests she means what it sounded as if she said. And that the governing party shares her view. Which is both wrong, and outrageous..

You say there are few Seeker but there are some in both our areas and very unpopular they are too...

Maisie- my ds is at one!

maisiejoe123

My choice would still be Private School on (1), Grammar School on (2)... and I don't really like options (3) and (4) as they are too far off my own school experience.

Reason being that generally, a Grammar School still has a larger intake (~30) than a Private School... and I feel very strongly about that issue.

Seeker, but you did want Grammar so the sec modern was not your choice.

I went to a grammar school. Nobody, that I knew of anyway, was tutored to get in. It just didn't happen.

The only reason the whole middle-class tutoring madness has sprung up is that people perceive a limited supply for a growing demand.

school catchment map

As posted by someone else to show how unfair it all is... Whaaa? Gerrymander??!

The bit between Otterbourne Golf Course and Sandpit Copse is fields.. well-educated cows, anyone? Boffin Barley? AND that section is in the catchment of Kings in Winchester which comes more or less second to Thornden throughout Hants in terms of academic performance! You can get into Kings from miles out of catchment yet its academic results are stellar!

If you're going to throw that in, you need to check your facts better. You haven't made your case well.

And seeker, yes. I am in agreement with you. Everything we've heard so far does tend to point to the idea that this candidate considers the schools in Eastleigh, including as they do, a school that gets 92% of its pupils A-C in GCSEs inc Maths and Eng, (and 58% Eng Bacc if you like that measure) not good enough for a DC who I'd guess wouldn't understand the branches of surgery if he fell over them.

Most catchments in small towns will be an odd shape. In cities they're vaguely wedge-shaped, spreading out from the centre. Given the social make-up of big cities - there will always be poor white working-class areas, always particular areas which have higher than average % of certain ethnic minorities, always more affluent white middle-class suburbs, etc. - it's hard to see how you could have catchment areas which don't reflect this.

I'll say it again - none of the imperfections in the system in practice mean that state education, with school catchment areas, is in any way a bad idea in theory. To argue that it's a bad idea, you need to show how it is supposed to work ideally and then pick holes in that, not talk about the imperfections in practice.

I'm still chuckling at O'Farrell junior's comment "I didn't know there were so many blonde people in London."

Indeed, dad- catchments aren't necessarily created to piss parents off- they come about to reflect different changes in areas. Naice areas where every house has a 3/4 acre garden suddenly get much smaller catchments as everyone in that area sells half their garden to profit from the building of another house, supplying more DC to the local school. Schools are static things, multi-million pound 'set' investments that cannot relocate to reflect every small but incremental change in the local demographic.

My own estate is neatly riven across its centre. Originally, one could get into the 'local' comp from 20 miles away but its reputation grew, the catchment shrank (via stuff like the garden grab and the need for the County Council to inexplicably make housing for waaay more than its fair share of wannabes) so the estate got carved in half, but that was actually before one school became more desirable than the other. Now one is way better than the other. But that's not the council's, or my, fault.

Q, maisie: "They have never set foot in a private school and there are the very very few who dont believe in them."

What I found most amazing about recent poll the Sunday Telegraph held up as an example as to why private schools are so bloody amazing is that 57% of parents, given the choice, would send their DC private"

Only 57%? What about the other let's assume 36% (excluding the 7% already going private)? Do they count as 'not believing' in them?