How do we ensure all UK children regardless of back ground/ability receive high quality education?

[happygardening]

Contrary to what some may think I'm not anti state ed and as someone who works with disadvantaged children it really matters to me that they receive a high quality broad education and they fulfil their potential. But sadly in many cases they are not (there are I know exceptions) frequently their parents cannot assist them for a variety of reasons.
Is there an answer to this problem or are they condemned by their circumstances which are not of their own making to remain at the bottom of the heap?
No judgey DM comments please.

The reasons it is morally a better course as a woman to earn enough to pay school fees and you are less morally good if you take a state school space are:

1. You relieve the state of huge cost and accept your own responsibilities for your own, rather than leeching off an over burdened state in difficult times.

1. The private sector does things better than the state so you do better for your child which is one of your principal moral duties if you educate it privately. Better to support private sector capitalism than socialist state provision.

1. You have a duty to assist your own child. Paying school fees is one of the best ways to do the best thing for your child.

Actually Xenia I would prefer it if the state relieved me of the 'huge cost' of privately educating my DC and give me a good (free) GS that is in my catchment.

.... and even after that, and perhaps a bit because of it, I still think your children should go to school with mine Xenia

Ah, but Xenia, buying education is not without unintended consequences. In this case, by spending money on your own child and removing him or her from the state sector you are actually contributing to the development of quite expensive long term social and economic consequences for the country as a whole, mainly negative. So in actual fact, if a theoretical accountant was to sit down with the national accounts and look impartially at what money was being spent where, and what the outcome was, this fictional accountant would probably abolish independent schooling.

Now I am not advocating this, as the situation is a lot more complex and actually I like the fact there is a public/private tension to keep both sides on their toes. Plus I am largely independently educated myself, have worked in the independent sector, and one of my children went predominantly to independent schools. However we can't get away from the fact that spending 25% of the country's education dosh on 7% of the pupils has left some areas of the UK vastly undereducated and under skilled in comparison with their European counterparts. This is to everyone's detriment.

Boffin - your spend 25% comment has left me

If you are talking about private education why does me paying £x in fees result in other people's children being under educated? It's not as if I get a tax rebate if I don't use my local state school.

Perhaps funds could be hypothecated for education. So the state allocates funds for my DSs education and if they are not educated in the state system then the money gets shared out into the general education pot.

I suspect what actually happens at the moment is that the state allocates a pot of money to education to cover the education of 93% of eligible children on the assumption that 7% will go private. The funds that would have covered the 7% are allocated to another Department entirely.

Boffin, does the government spend 25% of its education budget on Private Schools? I find that hard to believe, I thought parents paid?

Do private schools get any state funding at all? If this is true that is completely new to me, and seems wrong!

Private schools get funding for special cases. If local state schools can't satisfy say a SEN need for example but the private school can then the LEA sends the child there and foots the bill.

But I can't imagine that the above scenario is that common.

I can see that point but I don't agree. If parents did not pay fees they it is not the case that taxes would go up and what we would have spent on fees is then spent on raising the state education budget. Instead we would do with our money what state school parents do - buy shoes, cars, holidays, meals out. All that would happen is that state school costs would rise as our children were dumped on the state system but taxes would not go up so state school pupils would have less not more spent on them.

Also the argument is the same on other things too - if I choose to read to my children at night or buy them healthy foods not bad foods or correct them when they say "for free" or "on the weekend" or"I wil meet with them" rather than meet them I confer an advantage on my children and not on those of others. If I chose instead to buy the children processed food every day instead that does not mean other children whose parents already do so benefit. It just means instead of 80% of children having a bad deal 100% do.

My children have taken to saying 'excited for'. They are doomed

Joining in a bit late, and sorry for long post as educational inequality is something I feel extremely strongly about. Might be going a bit back to the start...

I'll nail my colours to the mast first. I went to school in a mining village in the 70s/80s. Most of the other children were from mining families and very few boys cared about education because they were destined to go down t'pit and why on earth did they need to learn stuff first? Parents thought the same so didn't encourage. Girls didn't care either because they expected to marry early and have their menfolk provide for them and the kids. Housing was mostly council.

I was one of the few odd ones out, but from a white collar LMC household one generation up from WC labourers thanks to my mum going to grammar school to 16 and dad being a natural mathematician (but with no exam self-confidence: he became a bookkeeping apprentice at 14). I got mercilessly bullied for wanting to learn, from junior school on. So by the time these kids were 7, they'd turned off. Jesuit maxim anyone? So I have seen what happens if nobody at home cares, first hand. My primary teachers were brilliant but couldn't help in all cases because everything they taught was negated by the constant "What do you want to do that for? Only swots do that." from the families. Swots were bad things.

Of course 10 years later, no more pits and cue a lot of unemployed men and women with no qualifications. Nobody knows what's round the corner but you can never take away education. I came out of the state comps with good A levels and a RG uni offer and a determination that any kids of mine would not have to fight the system if I could bloody help it.

So I would focus everything on reading and writing and numeracy at a very early age. But above all, making it relevant and fun and importantly, getting parents especially mothers involved as a group and as teacher for their own children. Keep classes small for YR, Y1 and Y2 and have a couple of teachers in them. 30 is too big. 20 or less. It's the one-to-one attention that helps most. All the parenting books for early years say it's talking to babies and toddlers that improves vocab and helps hugely. I want the UK to have positive learning culture, not a negative one. Smart = good.

I am sure that the kids who most need the help are the ones with the parents who also think it's a dead loss so don't encourage. Kids are naturally curious, they just don't need it knocking out of them.

I would not change private schools in any way. It would cripple the already overburdened state sector if a flood of children from parents struggling to pay fees were released by their bills going up 20%. If people want to pay taxes and also fees, that surely is saving the economy some considerable money. Also, I believe strongly that striving for the best (should!) produce people who will be capable of helping the country as a whole stay afloat. We shouldn't snipe at those who can as they can look after themselves: we should direct resources to help those who can't or don't have the chance. We need everyone, or things will get (more) unbalanced.

(deep breath... presses post...)

Oh no, TOSN! It is entirely your fault. You have failed to realise that state education is actually immoral and leads to parents dumping their children on the state without wanting to pay for them via their tax bill.

Good for moonbells.
I do not see why it is more wrong to pay school fees than to pick one of the better state or religious schools or read and talk to your children and all the other things parents do to benefit their own child without benefiting others. It is not a moral wrong to do right by your child. Most of us do not have the resources to read bed time stories to every child in the village. Indeed if you pay fees as a woman you are likely to earn more money and then have more money available to help less fortunate people. Women who work hard in high paid work are better able to help those who need help than women who are uneducated and on the minimum wage.

Chaz will be right that the education budget is based on children in the state not private system. I would obvious like a voucher for the £5k a year state pupils cost to be used anywhere and topped up a bit like the age 3 and 4 vouchers which can be used at private schools which Labour introduced and always made me laugh - only political party who gave you an education voucher to set against school fees was Labour.

moonbells - Substitute British Steel for coal mines and you have my life story.

With a lot of people Page 1 of their strategy is to get rid of private schools. Page 2 is what they would do afterwards but when you turn the page you see that the words 'we'll sort that out after we get rid of private schools'.

MNetters regularly post about the lack of school places. Imagine the problem compounded by x thousands of ex private school kids and kids that would have previously gone private.

Good thing that these armchair experts aren't in charge of education policy eh? :)

And current government policy is to remove Local Authorities from the equation, so that all schools become academies and free schools and can become their own admission authorities. The Local Authority will no longer collect all the figures on who is applying for state funded school places and where, because they will no longer be allocating places and schools don't have to opt in to give them the figures. When parents discover there aren't enough school places to go around, they can no longer legitimately complain to the Local Authority about it, but will be free to go through the extended process of applying to open up their own free school for their kids. What a good thing these experts are in charge of education policy, eh?

Disadvantaged children under perform because of a whole list of problems that I won't bother rehashing. So lets solve the problem by getting rid of GSs that affect only a small proportion of the population.

What a good thing these 'experts' aren't in charge of education policy, eh?

MNetters regularly post about the lack of school places. Imagine the problem compounded by x thousands of ex private school kids and kids that would have previously gone private

Don't follow the logic, the buildings and teachers are still available, so you just convert them to state schools (we could even call in nationalisation to really really upset some people )

This is actually happening in some cases, a couple of small private schools I know of, are in the process of applying for free school status. My guess is that they weren't very attractive private schools and were/are financially in trouble, but I don't actually know much about it.

You can call it whatever you want :) but it is going to cost the government money.

.. money they don't have.

We could easily afford decent education on the money the government has now, with different priorities.

But even if they didn't, I would happily pay more taxes for good education for all, and if they are saving money on school fees, then lots others can pay more too :)

seeker
DH does not have THE answer.
But he would abolish all selection of any kind in State funded schools.
You want religious / sex / academic selection? Pay for it.
Also backtracking on some of Bliar's "parental choice" will mean more kids go to school locally (which would hit us directly)
But would mean that motivated parents might work on the weaker school rather than driving past it.

Talkinpeace - how does your DH propose to abolish selection by postcode?

to abolish selection by postcode

That's easy. For example, you could use catchment areas designed with a mixed intact from richer and poorer areas or award places by lottery.

It would depend on population density and school size.

Richer and poorer areas do not always sit side by side, do they?

Bonsoir.
You cant. No country has.
But get rid of the other forms first and then see which schools genuinrly need support.