Selective independants

[poppydoppy]

Do they look better on League tables because the standard of teaching is better or just because they select the children most likely to do well?

"BUT as you have no way of testing the hypothesis that if you had not been rich, a state school could also have done excellent things with him, please do not dismiss all state schools on the basis of your perceptions of his needs and abilities."
I dont think I have dismissed all state schools I've frequently encouraged people to consider the state sector not once have I ever said that the independent sector is perfect or always the better option.

You're right I have no way of testing this hypothesis I'm interested that you think the outcome would be the same although ultimately it couldn't be because of lack of opportunities is that your experience?

TalkinPeace precisely! They are ticking over the work they need for the GCSE, but expanding their interests outside the narrow confines of the syllabus.
Slipshod teacher. Love the school I am in, and do the best for the students, as do all the teachers there. The maintained (state) sector can provide an excellent education for those who work hard, and bends over backwards for those who are disadvantaged, but it IS a postcode lottery.

and too many fee paying school parents do not realise that the state schools do the fun stuff with the bright kids too ....

stuff beyond exams does not show up in league tables after all

happy
based not only on my personal history, bus also on DHs experience of working at around 100 schools a year for the last 14 years,
if exceptional kids are supported in a constructive manner they will excel anywhere (sadly too many thick mums think Titus is bright and skew reportage - I do not count you in that list)

Since when have people called them "maintained schools"?

Maintained is the what state schools are called by the DFE so is the official terminology really.

Hasn't been in common use for a long time, though, surely?

Talkin - I don't doubt that some state comps do some 'fun stuff'.

But let's be brutal here. It simply won't be the same.

First, there won't be the critical mass of students in the same situation. So the students in question will be an after thought rather than the norm.
Second, you won't get the same resources. Teachers is state schols are knackered. Go to any threads with teachers on them and you'll find reams of posts explaining that they're over worked, underpaid, undervalued and leaving in their droves.

You just can't expect them to prioritise kids like these! It's as you say for your DD; they coast!!!! And whilst you might not mind that, I jolly well do.

So what happens to the "children like that" if they happen to be born into a poor or disadvantaged family?

I am out of date but I use it when writing, though not in conversation. As far as I know it is still commonly used in educational settings and certainly in DFE communications

Same as happens now seeker ...

I didn't say the posh, the rough, the emo, the thin or the fat or the anything gang was desirable but I do think parents in effect pick a peer group when they choose a school for teenagers and if you pick well you can benefit your child. I would hope most of us want our children well able to be individuals but if the peer group is 100% going to the best universities they are less likely to err and stray than if the peer group is headed for the doll. Thus pick a school with the right gang and half your work is done in a sense.

seeker sorry I thought you asked what will happen, not what does!

So what does happen to them.

Well some 'em manage a place a selective school.
Some of 'em will find their way into a non selective school and happen upon some or one great teacher who challenges them.
Some of 'em will coast but do just fine.

But IMVHO most of 'em will underperform. Which is a shocking waste of talent.

xenia
but you - as my parents did - pick on a date in year7
and my school till year 10 was fab
then the head changed
and by year 13 was 17 / 42 having to retake
GDST high profile school that picked wrong ...

May be but the leading schools tend to be in the top few for exam results for 40 or 50 years. North London C where a daughter went has always been pretty good since Miss Buss and Miss Beale founded it in the Victorian age.

As long as you have that good reputation evne if you have a not go good head for a couple of years until Governors realise their mistake you still have the teaching staff and the local parents fighting to get the best chidlren into that school so I don't think they suffer that much which is why I like league tables which give you data going back a very long way- not just how did one school fix its figures in 2013 but has ie always be a top 10 school for 15 years or whatever or placed at 50 or whatever is what people feel matters to them.

"The best children"

Interesting thread.
Let's face it Xenia in your perfect world, children will be selected by their IQ's, the cut off point for you is 120, anything less is not fit to sit next your dc in class, as you have said on many a thread. Only these priviledged einstein's will be allowed to go to university, majority of university courses will be scraped e.g teaching etc as anyone can teach! The "thick as two planks of wood" children as you call them will be
sent to the gas chambers used for hard labour and serve the 'bright citizens' have I summed it up well

Copthall Xenia does not get what you are pointing out re: confidence v arrogance and entitled because she is the embodiment of it. These ghastly 'gangs' that she has profiled are exactly what makes people like her tick. She will never understand attributes like moral and spiritual growth, empathy and caring, to Xenia these are weaknesses, for the dim.

"Thick as two planks of wood" comment is an improvement for Xenia. "Dregs" was her word of choice a while ago.

I am being taken rather out of context. I have simply said most parents want to do the best for their children and bright children do better in schools with other bright children. I obviously understand the average IQ is 100. I have never said I am against the provision of state schooling for children of any IQ level.

No, the gang can be one which is caring. having observed so far at least 3 groups of teenagers and their friends under the veneer some of them have teenagers can be some of the nicest, most open caring beings on the planet. However without doubt most parents even on mumsnet are choosing a gang, a peer group when they decide which school and in life and in work and in relationships people tend to be in groups.

If anyone is suggesting children who are not clever should go to university or obtain jobs as brain surgeons I think they need to think very carefully about the implications of that. Do you want to be operated on by a surgeon with an IQ of 95 who managed to qualify through paying bribes or who qualified under a system where you need no competence?

I think, Xenia, that some people are questioning what "doing better" means. I think also that trying to find the right group or gang for your children is more of a concern for parents who are that way inclined themselves. Those parents who never felt drawn into any need to change the way they thought or behaved in order to fit in with a group themselves are less likely to have that concern cross their minds with respect to their own children (unless and until it happens).

"I am being taken rather out of context"

The last refuge of the scoundrel.

if anyone is suggesting children who are not clever should go to university or obtain jobs as brain surgeons I think they need to think very carefully about the implications of that.

What a ridiculous statement! No one is suggesting anything of the sort and this is why we already have a system that can select the best candidates for each vocation wether it be brain surgeon or car mechanic.
Who exactly are these not very clever people going to university AND becoming brain surgeons

Do you want to be operated on by a surgeon with an IQ of 95 who managed to qualify through paying bribes or who qualified under a system where you need no competence?

You do talk a lot of bollocks! The point is Xenia under thinly veiled arrogance you look down on many children, university graduates and professions that in your opinion don't quite meet your IQ of 120 and above, the right accent, gangs, and earnings. Youhave said in the past that the majority should never have had the opportunity of attending university. I completely agree that there is a proliferation of what i would call useless degrees i.e degrees in 'line dancing' whatever, but you go quite beyond that.

Like rabbit has pointed out, most parents who never felt drawn into your type of 'mean girls' world would not seek this out for their own children. Your comment above about 'parents fighting to get the best children into that school' sums it up neatly for you its not enough to fight to get your OWN child into a good school, but YOU also feel the need to to fight to keep OTHER children OUT of that school. Basically you're not quite satisfied with the school selection system, and so you and your gang do everything you can to squeeze any 'dregs' that might slip through by being actively involved in the school. I can just see you sizing up the new intake every year and tutting at certain children, especially if they're fat!

"First, there won't be the critical mass of students in the same situation. So the students in question will be an after thought rather than the norm.
Second, you won't get the same resources. Teachers is state schols are knackered. Go to any threads with teachers on them and you'll find reams of posts explaining that they're over worked, underpaid, undervalued and leaving in their droves."
word Couldn't have put it better my self especially the 2nd sentence. DS1 IQ puts him in the top 5% to enable him to access the curriculum and produce the work he is capable of and to his ability he needs a little bit of help he's not even an after thought the staff at his school couldn't care less. I just want to make it clear that Im not hoping for a string of A*s and A's at GCSE I'm just asking for a string of C's rather than D's and E's. What hope have a tiny tiny minority of super bright got if you could care less about a child who has an extensive and detailed ed. psych report. Oh its that particular school I here you say. Sorry he's been in a variety of state schools same story. At one school I removed him from I actually said on the day he left to his teacher "I know you think he's as thick as a plank (pre ed. psych report) but I don't think he is" Her reply "Oh no I actually think he's the brightest child in the class but he's got something wrong with him but I dont have the time or the interest to find out what it is!" DS2 at another state was identified by them as a gifted mathematician "the governors actually told me to my face that they didnt have the interest or money to channel into one exceptional child as statically the chances of another one like him coming along in the next 30 years were negligible.
talkin I obviously don't know any thing about your DC's I am assuming they are doing very well at a state school or for that matter what your husband does for a living but this is my experience of state ed and its not just my experience if you talk to to may others with either similar profiles or even worse than my DS1 we will tell you the same thing or even more depressing stories and even more interestingly the general consensus from many parents I meet (and because of my job I met a lot) is that those at the very top the really supper gifted like my DS (maths and related subjects) their needs are not met in the state sector. talkin you can voice your opinion all day on MN but my experiences and others are real day to day experiences real experiences we actually know what if feel like to have our DC's in schools where when the push comes to the shove they couldn't care less.
The other thing you all need to take on board is that there is just no money left in the public sector. I still do some occasional work in the public sector and I am shocked at whats going. I've spent 29n years of my life working in the PS and thought i'd seen everything, in the last 10 years its been bad but I've never seen anything like this before. I for the first time am really frightened for Joe Public in particular the most vulnerable but even the likes of you and me are now regularly being out in life and death situations (I am still having nightmares about a situation the other week and) I cannot whistle blow because I will loose my job. So you who think that special schools groups or God know what can be set up for the 1 in 10 000 you are deluding yourselves they isn't any money left.
seeker you are right what about those who dont have the money to pay or those who dont have the confidence to fight the system (not that its going to do them nay good), who aren't articulate enough to at least try and fight, those who cant write a good letter and know who to complain too. Well they frankly are fucked.

I am thinking of MY peers who grew up on Council estates, went to state schools etc. and ended up at my uni (lower reaches of the RG), trying to think of what professions and careers they have been excluded from because they were not in one of Xenia's gangs, They are in the city, in banking, lawyers , barristers, senior management roles in business, publishing, advertising, doctors, journalism, including a couple of quite famous broadcast journalists . One thing is for sure, it doesn't matter what gang their children are in, they have next to no opportunities, in fact I know one Oxbridge DC who by the by is blonde and thin but also bright, charismatic and has built up a very impressive CV of internships and other activities but is now in their fifth year of trying to break into paid jounalism, even 30 years ago when we were starting out they would have walked straight into the BBC, now for someone from that "gang" it is actually an impossibility. The only thing I can think of that they might have been (self ) excluded from is upmarket estate agents and fine art auctioneers. Is that Xenia's career I wonder. Xenia inhabits a strange anachronistic world.

Xenia has lots of contact with the real world in her work, she just chooses to stir it in her posts on here.

How do you know she has lots of contact with the "real world" in her work?