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

[Schmedz]

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

Increasingly grown men aren't wearing ties either. It seems a very odd fashion - all part of the "back to basics, weren't the 1950s a golden age?" mantra.

Well, some things were good - we wanted to eliminate the scourge of unemployment for one, but plenty of things weren't good - the blatant sexism, racism, homophobia. But then I am getting off the thread, sorry.

To be fair, the uniform was ana aside. Her main concern was the head teacher kickibg off with the good news that installing CCTV had reduced violence. Are people really saying that wouldn't worry them? Do your state schools have to have CCTV?

No. But replace the word "violence" with "bullying" and there are a lot of schools in both sectors that might find it helpful!

I bet anything you like that he did not say 'violence', but it makes a better story. Ours doesn't have CCTV, though I know one that does which isn't particularly 'rough' but that's obviously the way they've chosen to tackle bullying ... Not what I'd choose, no.

I have to say I thought the paragraph quoted sounded pretty snobbish to me, overall. Her narrative of the evening was hardly unbiased, was it?

I do wonder why we are discussing this article at such length. It's surely no more or less valid an opinion than any of ours? Less, really, becUse we can't ask for clarification. Maybe the school had a big bullying problem and the head was very keen to show that he was taking it seriously? The uniform thing is just silly, and the '"containing' thing wasn't even a quotation. And even if it was all as she reported it- that's one school. Nobody ever condemns the entire private sector because of one bad school/experience!

It is no more valid than anyone else's opinion because, like all articles of this type, it is personal. For some of us who had similar experiences - I was educated at the time of change from grammar/sec mod to comp - it felt like an accurate reflection of much that we observed and experienced. If you are to young to have any experience at all of the old system it is hard to explain the differences. Schools didn't just become comprehensive in philosophy and approach to children for some time, despite being comprehensive in structure. The teachers were the same as were attitudes.

"They don't wear uniforms on continental europe. Why on earth should what they wear make any difference?"

You'd be surprised at how many kids in Europe would actually prefer a uniform. For now, they do wear "uniforms" based on what they can afford, i.e. posher kids wearing similar clothes while less well-off kids wear the same things, too. It's extremely "divisive", seeker. I'm sure if you were there, you'd have a rant about it, too.

Oh and who said that about Oxford buildings? How bizarre.

Some previous thread like this. There have been many...

I'm agnostic about uniform, actually. What I am not agnostic about is expensive, "exclusive" uniforms, and the strange belief that somehow putting an 11 year old in a shirt and tie is going to make them learn better than a polo shirt and fleece.

And I remember the Oxbridge building thread, but I can't remember anyone saying that the Bodleian should be bulldozed. I do believe, however, that any environment that is completely alien to you is going to be off putting at best, intimidating at worst. And if you have spent your schools days in a gothic cloister, you are going to feel more at home in Oxford, and are more likely to feel you have a right to go there. Which seemed a no brainer to me- but was surprisingly controversial.

There are ways round that though, Seeker, if state schools have the desire to redress the balance. There's a comp in Newham, East London, that was in the local papers the other day which has upped its grades across the board by having a really strong work ethic. A boy from the school fancied going to Oxford, so they took him three times to visit, so he knew his way around and could feel confident. brilliant. Simple idea but one that shows how much difference the right school attitude makes. When I told my comp I wanted to go to Oxford the teacher took a step back, put up her hand and said, 'Well don't expect me to teach you.' She didn't think she was up to the job, which was so sad.

Absolutely there are ways round it. But on the thread in question, everyone said how stupid anyone would be to be remotely intimidated, everyone knew about old buildings, what nonsense, any child from a sink estate who was even remotely suitable for a university place would have somehow saved up and bought themselves National Trust membership by the age of 8..........

Now that sounds positive and productive, RacingHeart (not your old school, sadly, but the one that showed the boy around Oxford).

I think there are ways around a lot of things, and it just takes the right people, the right attitudes, and the right support. I don't see why State schools should be any shorter of those than Private schools, really - except for the 'support' part, when the 'support' in question involves cash, I suppose.

why on earth? because going private would mean DS was on a bus at 7.15 am and returned to the village at 4.55pm . State school means a 10 minute walk.

dd is at a secondary school which owns a riding stables, a country house in France, it has a planetarium, swimming pool, climbing wall, a gym & the grounds are reminiscent of a 5 star hotel... It is in the top 100 performing schools, dd loves it there AND

we are not paying a penny

so to paraphrase the question OP, why on earth would we pay for a private education when an outstanding school is being provided by the state??

Actually, I'd add a huge sackful of changed attitudes and expectations to that mix - eg I heard someone talking on the radio the other day about how the UK is still abysmal at valuing vocations generally. Whereas Germany, for example, values engineers very highly.

Which would need a change of the underlying class crap that still lingers in the shadows, but also probably a different funding structure - as 'value' tends to link to 'pay'.

Sadly, I'm not equipped to argue all this coherently....just to appreciate it when someone else does!

oops - last post was meant to be a ps to the one I posted before! Too slow

I know the (Oxford-educated) head of a very challenging school (11 - 16, so leavers do not go direct to university, and as far as anyone is aware has never sent any former students to Oxbridge) who drove a mini bus-full of 15 year olds down to his old college and took them round the sights, got them introductions to various key people etc.

2 of those students are applying this year. He's taking another busload down next term.... including some younger ones as it's important that they make the right GCSE choices etc.

Over 50% of British parents would pay fees if they could afford it and 7% are able to afford it (too many women pick low paid careers are teenagers which means they are unable to afford fees to do the best for their children).

Oh Xenia, change the record.

Locally, my state school options are better - in terms of exam results and post-18 destinations - than the private schools. What is best form my son is to go to a state school, which is locally what even the highest earners do, unless they wish to send their sons away to board.

but the question was why pick state IF YOU CAN afford private

I answered that question from my perspective

(And before you tell me to move to somewhere with better private schools, why should I bother, when my state school options out-perform so many of them?)

We could afford private, by making different choices (mostly by downsizing or re-mortgaging the house, thus increasing insecurity but releasing cash). Not worth it, though - why increase inecurity or live somewhere worse AND move to a school with poorer A-level results, just because the school we would move to is labelled 'private,?

If we lived down the road from Winchester, or one of the other handful of private schools which are absolutely worth every penny, then that would be different. But to say that it is my duty as a loving mother to send my children private even when the eduation that they receive from the state is better is dogma taken to an absurd degree.

seeker possibly the controversy was sparked by the fact that that view (that 'disadvantaged' young people are unable to appreciate architectural beauty when they see it and yearn to study at unis which closely resemble the sink estates of their youth) is deeply, deeply patronising.

I'm sure all these middle class socialists mean well but they do need to respect the intelligence and perception of others.

Oh don't be silly, yellowtip!

Yellowtip, surely it is not that some pupils do not appreciate the beauty of the architecture, but rather that they read too much into it - they perceive that Gothic twiddly bits (real or Victorian) indicate a kind of social exclusivity that is not, in fact, the case.

There is, in the town I live in, a very twiddly Gothic private school. As my mother (herself Oxford educated) remarked 'no wonder they believe themselves to be lords of all they survey'. And I, although Cambridge educated, find it an intimidating building - as the architect intended it to be for us hoi polloi - in a way I do not find my children's ex Victorian board school to be.

Buildings and architecture DO convey messages (compare Winchester Cathedral with a local Methodist chapel, for example) and intelligent and impressionable young people will pick up on them. Ensuring that those messages are true ones - e.g. that Oxford is intellectually exclusive but not always socially so - is important.