Do you actually know an indie family?

[TotallyBS]

We chose to go private because we don't have any grammar schools in our catchment and the local. comps aren't brilliant. Other choose private because their state schools have to work hard just to be not brilliant. Many of us would love to put the fees towards reducing out mortgage or holidays for e.g. if only we had decent state schools to send our kids to.

Of course there are those choose private imply because they have the disposable income such they don't have to carry out a cost benefit analysis. They do it for the same reason you like a nice hotel while on holiday complete with room service, big pool and a kids club ie nothing to do with avoiding less well off families.

As for the parents, away from places like Eton, they tend to be accountants, dentists, estate agents and the like. So not much opportunity for social climbing at most indies

The above is the preamble to the question in the subject because judging from the views expresseb by various anti private posters, very few of you actually know an indie family.

I mean, all they seem to go on about is how indie parents are snobby, social climbing and don't want their kids to mix with less well off kids. Maybe those generalisations are true for places like Eton but most indies that trade on their academic record are full of ordinary albeit well paid people.

So the next time you go on about how some parents think that the state system is full of underachieving DCS born to unsupportive WC parents, have a good look at the mirror. I suspect the person that you see isn't that different from the person you are complaining about.

Incidentally, there is another school gate politics thread going on at the moment. Apparently state school moms can be bitchy and clique-ey. shock horror

[Sulawesi]

Why are you only asking the parents of 'bright' children?

Mine are at fee-paying school (cringes at Indie description or overt suggestion of little club) they are there because they are not very bright as it happens.

I know lots of people (obviously) who send their children to private school and none of them do so for snobbish reasons. Maybe it's because we don't live in Surrey .

Indie my a!

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

What Mintyy said in the last sentence.

[rabbitstew]

Of course, there are a great many who would view aspiring to be a dentist or accountant as a bit of serious social and economic climbing, which they would love to be able to achieve. I'm not so sure about the estate agent bit, though... When you think you are a "mere" dentist who cannot climb the social ladder and who is "ordinary albeit well paid," I think you must have confused your status with someone else's considerably lower down the social ladder and therefore have fooled yourself into thinking you mix with "ordinary" people - risking making you a snob who actually thinks that the vast majority of the population are in fact, "underachieving DCS born to unsupportive WC parents," because they aren't ordinary dentists and accountants.

[FlouncingMintyy]

I know several "indie" families, some of whom I like better than others, but on the whole are nice enough groups of people. I also know some awful people who send their children to state school.

None of that has any bearing whatsoever on my views on private education. Its rather simplistic to suggest otherwise.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Ooh, do we have a flouncer!!

I have to say that the responses you have had are, in part, due to the condescending tone of your posts.

And also for deliberately picking a controversial topic.

Not sure what else you expected really!

Try next time posting about cake baking or the uses of industrial fertilisers if you want fewer people who don't happen to share your particular opinion 'lunatics'

[EarlyInTheMorning]

I was going to say I know an indie family because they don't own a television or a mobile phone
That's not what this thread is about, is it?

[lljkk]

I thought that it would be interesting to engage parents who had bright kids but were put off going private

Why does state-private choice matter more if the children are bright (or not)?

Are we all supposed to buy into the myth that state schools don't cater for "bright" children?

People go private for all kinds of reasons. The private school DS attended had low attainment levels (below state school avg, even). DS still shakes his head in disbelief about it. Not supposed to be a low achiever specialist school, either, just turned out that way.

[Copthallresident]

[Copthallresident]

It does make me annoyed when people post that the middle classes should put their children in state schools and that it would result in their improvement. It is simplistic and ignorant.

Some of us would love to but we live in boroughs who have a deliberate strategy of deterring parents into the private sector. Our borough only has school places for half the school age children. Come allocation day hundreds of families find themselves without a school place for their children. When this happened to us and I was in the midst of the rigmarole of appeals etc. I uncovered the Council Education Committee minutes that said that given the 120 surplus pupils in just three local wards the proposal was to set up an extra class in a portacabin at an unpopular ofsted failing faith school, because it's numbers were low as a result of parents fleeing it in the older year groups, and it would ensure that the numbers of surplus pupils would reduce to the level that the class could provide for. The strategy wasn't then even implicit, it was explicit. Now they are a little more careful what is said in public but the proportion of pupils in private education in this borough is one of the highest in the country. If the proportion leaving state primary schools and going on to private school was the average for the ten most affluent London boroughs (and it isn't one of the most five most affluent) then it would need two new five form entry secondaries. If it was everyone forced into state schools they would need to double the number of school places!

This problem is going to become a crisis in the next two or three years as a population bulge hits the London secondaries which Councils have failed to plan for and school place provision is now subject to the vagaries of the Free School process

Nor are the middle classes the magic pill that will improve schools. Ofsted highlight that some comps in deprived areas are able to be outstanding, so there is no excuse for a school in a deprived area to be four times more likely to be failing. In London they are demonstrating that the gap in attainment between poor and middle class children can be narrowed. In fact Ofsted are highlighting that their biggest worry is the attainment of poor children in schools where they are the minority i.e otherwise filled with middle class children

[BigSpork]

I know families who educate privately. Most of those do so because they think it will give their children better opportunities (and many have issues with state schools not having enough discipline and spending too much time on those who don't care about 'real' education). Many speak about the diversity though most of it comes from overseas families looking for education.

I know families who educate state. Most because they feel it is the best option and opportunities for their kids and better connects to their community. Some have moved schools to be in a district that will give their children better opportunities (and I live in a city where the lines are obviously drawn by class and race so the mix with everyone doesn't always work. Even Ofsted have made complaints about it).

I know families who educate at special schools as they feel it will give their child better opportunities to use their abilities the best they can and staff that can fit their needs because other school options either won't take their kids (mostly private) or don't have the resources/experience/time for it (mostly normal state).

I know families who educate online because they think it will give their child better opportunities. Most do it because of issues at schools, both private and state, and it suits their child needs.

I know families who educate at home because they think it will give their child better opportunities, more connection with family and local community, and fits their child needs. Most I know who didn't start out that way had problems at normal schools that wasn't being taken care of - both state and private (typically bullying and special needs being ignored). This represents most home educators in the UK. Of those who started educating from home from the start, it's usually issues with the quality of local schools or the quality of the national curriculum/constant meddling in it, or wanting an education that fits their family/child that they couldn't access any other way. Or live too far away from schools that travel time would eat into everything else.

I know families who flexi-school and I know families who educate in more than one of the above to fit each child's needs.

It's annoying to feel your choice (or lack there of) cause you to be stereotyped, and in the end all each family wants is the best for the kids. However, if that's your biggest problem that you need to bash people over not seeing it your way, then I would say you are quite blessed.

[TotallyBS]

I started this thread because I couldn't sleep and the only active threads were about baby names and breast feeding. I

I thought that it would be interesting to engage parents who had bright kids but were put off going private because of all the talk about snobby parents or social climbing parents.

Instead I got a lot of either deliberately or naturally obtuse people going on about how many rich people they know or how I wasn't using the right term to describe people who privately educated their children or how they know someone who is friends with Richard Brandon.

Too many lunatics in the asylum for my liking so off to see what is going on in Breastfeeding.

[TotallyBS]

at secondcoming. How did you go from me saying that people don't necessarily choose private for snobby reasons to me saying that I think that I am special because I can afford the fees?

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

You're trying to 'engage' them by telling them to 'look in the mirror' and understand that they are the problem? Good engagement skillz there, BS.

What do you want to engage them for? Do you have anyone in mind? How are you hoping to change their minds? And do you see that, where you try to argue that private school users are just the same as anyone else, not rich, not snobs, just normal etc etc - you completely undermine that point by using the definition 'indie families' as though there is something innately different about them and they belong in a different category from everyone else!

[TotallyBS]

Pend - what are you going on about? I am trying to engage posters who think that private schools are full of snobby parents.

If YOU don't think that private schools are.full of snobby parents then you and I are on the same page so to speak

[socareless]

I'll second that notadragon. I remember writing on a thread once how frustrated I was with my then DS's state school because they had little or no homework (so did not know what he was doing at school), I was immediately swopped down upon by state school teachers/parents telling me that homework was the work of the devi;l and citing one research or the other blah blah blah

so people want different things in life.

[TotallyBS]

Indrid - I excluded Eton from my view for the same reason that I exclude sink schools from my view of state schools. Neither is representative of private or state schoolsm

[Pendipidy]

Op , so you know what everyone thinks of certain kinds of people and you have decided to educate us all!? Why thank you, i certainly didn't know how to form my own opinion.

You do realise you are coming across just like the very people you are claiming 'indie' are not.

[NotADragonOfSoup]

What is one person's not good enough, is another persons outstanding.

And one person's "not good enough" is more often lots of other people's "utterly shite and failing"

[Ronaldo]

So what you're saying, Ronaldo, is that you send (/would send?) your kids to private school to keep them away from the common types in state schools? you have come on the thread to refute TotallyBS' OP? Fair play to you

I dont actually have my DS in a private school. I have not stated any reasons I may have for making a choice for ( or not) private over independent for my own DS at all here. (you might be surprised at those reasons anyway).

I have just based my answer on the question asked by the OP - do I know people who send their DC to private schools ( Iknow many.I also know many who send their DC to state schools). I just stated my experience of that.

[mnistooaddictive]

I dont get the argument that "we were forced to go private as the local state schools aren't good enough" (to paraphrase).
What is one person's not good enough, is another persons outstanding.

[NotADragonOfSoup]

I think you'd end up with private and state education even if you banned' private schools. The dividing line would just be higher up in terms of "wealth".

[BoundandRebound]

Yes I agree they are privileged by having 2 highly educated and involved parents as are many in the state sector.

[BoundandRebound]

No I think that a large proportion would join state as not everyone is suited to home schooling. Although you would probably get a load of free school proposals based on"people like us" :)

Although its a pointless and unprovable theory we have private and state education it will never change.