Why on earth would you go state if you could afford private?

[Schmedz]

This thread is for Maisie and happygardening . I like dares!

Has anyone thought that the examiners might have a bias themselves? Looks at a paper from a private school boy and marks it HARDER because of course they have had it easy? Do examiners even know when they are marking a paper where the pupil goes to school?

Thats an interesting comment maisiejoe. One to which I have a personal anacdotealthough it goes back many years. I was bit working ( many the time) in two schools - one state and one private several miles apart. When the results came out I found the pupils in the state school had done far better than thoseatthe independent. I taught both so it was unlikely to be me. I sent for scripts in both and found out that the independent school pupils had indeed been marked harder. I complained to the exam board but got short shrift. Wy the descrepency in marking I cannot be sure - it may have been an examiner well out of standardisation (but that should have been checked) or it could have been someone realised the school was indi and did the deed
(saying they should have been better - or were they marked with a brighter cohort, see below?).

Sometimes too it can cause marks to drop significantly as an examiner gets into a mind set.A colleague of mine ran through many scripts and marked - all around the same , doing the same work ( it was a PRU btw) . Then as he worked through he found the scripts changed ( the answers were correct!). He couldnt believe the chalk and cheese in the school and was tending to mark down in accord with previous scripts. - and then he looked and saw they were different schools and went back and re marked them

So I do think that sometimes markers do mark harder although I cannot prove it.

I personally am not an examiner. I think marking is a thankless job and have better things to concentrate on.

Socareless - oh how true choose your partner carefully is. There are plenty of threads on MN's swearing and trashing their ex partners, but not before having a few children with them that they are then left to bring up on their own.

And I think it is envy of sorts. Trash private schools, call the pupils attending them 'dim witted' and 'hooray henry's'. State that you will be given an A* as an automatic right. Be critical of their parents who despite the brilliant brilliant state system choose to waste vast sums of money on something that is no different than the schools their kids attend. How stupid are they.... Maybe YOUR state school is great. Good for you but dont automatically assume that everywhere else is too....

And did anyone catch This Morning today. The question was 'Should parents be allowed to buy private education' (or something like that!). Nearly 70% said yes...

Sorry this may no longer be on topic but in answer to the OP. We choose state because there are literally no independent schools that are feasible for us to send our child to. She could when she is older take a train and bus to an indy in the nearest big city but it would add an extra 1.5hrs travel each way, as opposed to 20mins walk. I suppose boarding would be an option but that would be beyond our budget whilst an indy day school wouldn't. Plus whilst I'm agnostic on private ed I loathe the idea of her boarding.

DH could drive her (I can't drive) but could not then get to his own place of work in the other direction in time and she would still need to make her own way home.

The other indy day schools are out in the sticks and are inaccessible unless you have a non-working parent who also drives - and our DD does not.

Fortunately the local state primary is lovely and the local comp seems fine.

Ronaldo - how interesting. I have always stressed to the boys to present their work neatly, it will make the examiners life SO much easier and if I had 100 papers to mark and saw a neat, well presented one I would perk up, at last, something that I dont need to spend more time on trying to work out whether that is an 8 or a 5...

So, now we have come full circle. We are suggesting that a A* private school pupil now needs to get more marks than a state pupil.... Interesting. And to be honest - with all the comments on here and that fact I suspect that a number of examiners work in the state system quite possibly true!

All the private school children bashing aka 'hooray henry's', dimwitted etc are just water off a duck's back to me, I'm happy about the choices we as a family have made, infact the more the bashing the more convinced I am

I don't get into the long winded debates because the truth is you will never convince an anti private person here that private is good or better vice versa. Its simply a long tireless journey that yield's no fruit at the end of it.

I Mark exams. I Mark all exactly to the marking scheme (which is refined by all markers at the meeting). if I don't, I'd get a poor marking grade and not be reinvited to Mark. I'd never Mark anyone harder because of their school. Why? He integrity of the exams is very important!

maisiejoe123

I don't actually think you need as much as £100k to go private... if you have a girl, that is, and choose day school over boarding.

We are lucky enough to live in an area where there's an abundance of good private schools and most of the day schools for girls (e.g. one gets 20% admission to Oxbridge, loads to Bristol/Durham/St. Andrew's/King's/UCL...) costs around £12k per year.

I know plenty of working mums pay that for nursery fees alone - with a household income of about £80k. Of course, things would be tight here and there, but nursery would have "trained" you for that. Obviously, it is advisable to have more - but considering that these parents may have only been in their careers for 5-10 years, they will probably earn more as time passes by.

However, if you have a son, you are looking at around £15k+.

And boarding, obviously substantially more.

Bullet - you do have a point. As if the bashing would immediately make us think - goodness, how well balanced and normal people are in the state system. They can certainly see all sides of a story. Wow - I would like my children to be part of that. Let me cancel my private school place immediately and join them!

Please would you show me some bashing?

We have 2 kids in private school (paid for by us not GP or bursaries) and certainly don't have 100k income.

As socareless said, everyone living in the UK is privileged. Free health and education. Benefits safety net.

So its a bit silly to have a conversation about who is privileged and who is denying it or getting defensive about it.

Oh God Seeker! I wish i could

Seriously. Where is all this private school bashing you are talking about? Give me three examples.

seeker
Couple of examples to start you off

They are often intolerant/judgemental of others and fundamentally live in the private school bubble

To me having good exam results basically handed to the children on a plate takes away much of the sense of achievement. They probably kid themselves that it doesn't though.

Two different posters

Tasmania - and that's really how we got into private education certainly at the beginning the fees were no more than the nursery fees and we went from there. TBH - if we had a good private day school within striking distance of where we live we would probably have used that. There is a very average day school (wont mention it!) and my view was 'if we are going to do this we might as well try and aim for one of the well known schools'.

We didnt plan for boarding and tbh we do have a nice house and a couple of holidays so things have worked out well for us. There is a Plan B and Plan C (much too boring to go into now but revolves around releasing equity) should it be needed it. We are not in the first flush of youth btw...

We are in the very expensive years - I know we are. We still have a largish mortgage but just 7 years to go and just fixed at a good rate for 5 more years so some stability. We havent moved and moved racking up stamp duties and estate agents fees and although this wont be our last house its fine for us!

Seeker - and here is another bashing. Probably the worst of all....

I do dislike the sense of entitlement that some private school kids end up with.
And there is no way that 3 As at A'level from Westminster or whatever is the same achievement as 3 As from Bognor Regis Community College (if it exists). To me having good exam results basically handed to the children on a plate takes away much of the sense of achievement. They probably kid themselves that it doesn't though.

Seriously, show me some of this all pervasive private school bashing. Because I will bet dollars to donuts that it will fade into insignificance beside the wave of you can't step into a state school without out getting beaten up, that I would love to send my child to state school, but I want him to have a peer group with high aspirations so I can't, that "he will be eaten alive in the local comp" that "I've seen what happens in state schools-" ........I could go on.

Well, the handing GCSEs on a plate thing is silly. Doesn't stop everyone saying it about state school pupils every summer though...!

And sadly, some people from private schools- particularly the major public schools- do have a sense of entitlement! Have you listened to the Cabinet recently? Not exactly bashing....

Seeker, honestly if you have to ask that question after all the private v state threads you've been on, never mind this one, then there really is no hope. You're completely blinkered. I agree there has been state school bashing also (mostly from the same poster) and one very particularly unpleasant comment calling state school children "scrotes', but how can you even ask that question on this thread ?

maisiejoe123

I do know we are slightly lucky with all these great day schools around (also well-known, not your average indy). So unless we find anywhere else that offers the same thing (unlikely), we are unlikely to move outside the area - in fact, current private school bus routes serves as our house hunting guide (I know that sounds mad!).

Though to be honest, this probably does come at the expense of the state schools where the secondary ones are particularly dire. Most likely because parents will go private, if they can afford it.

But Seeker has a child at a GS school so for her things are more than OK even though she doesnt believe in them. They arent for others who dont have that choice. I would bring back the grammars for all.

If I knew what I know now. I would have moved to Oxfordshire, lovely part of the country and so many day schools with great reputations.

But, my DH's office is only 5 mins away when he isnt abroad which is a couple of times a month for a day or so so we made our choice. We could move house and get a day school but then DH would have a 60-70 min communte and not be near Heathrow to get his flights. I worked out that moving house would be so expensive that it was the same to pay for boarding as it would to move and of course there's all the extra petrol costs my DH would pay so we stayed where we were. But Oxfordshire definitely on my list to look at when we are nearing retirement

Well, if I had to choose between being called a Hooray Henry or a scrote.....

maisie - how strange ive often thought that too, oxfordshire or surrey if i had known.

And is being called rich and privileged "bashing"?