WHY the general assumption that private schools are better?

[tootsietoo]

I know this is similar to other recent threads, but slightly different!

I know very little about education - never worked in the sector, don't have many friends working in it, never been interested til children arrived! However, in my limited experience (DDs 6&7 at local primary school) the level of professionalism of the teachers is impressive! There seems to be such a comprehensive structure for planning progression and for assessing children's attainment, whilst the teachers seem to have the freedom to work with the children to inspire them in that they choose topics which interest them and can tailor classes and working groups to match children's abilities.

Yet within my group of friends there seems to be this inbuilt assumption that if you ever can pull enough cash in then off to private school your children will go. I also frequently read on here that the existence of private schools is unfair because it means only a few children will have the best opportunities. Which seems to assume that all private schools offer the best opportunities.

Is this a hangover from the 70s and 80s when we all grew up? Were state schools much worse then? Why is it just assumed that private schools offer the best education? I know private schools have more money therefore usually have the glitzy facilities, but surely it is down to the person standing in front of the children day in day out who is the really important part? I recall that at my small private girls day school I experienced the most inept teaching methods imaginable and I am told that at private schools today there is no requirement for teachers to be qualified! I do appreciate that my children are at a good school (that is, classified by ofsted as "good"), but are they all that unusual?

As if, somehow, if state schools just tried harder, they could have a fives court, polo ponies, a full time theatrical director on the staff and a helipad too........

mind you even our crappy comp sent two or three boys to Cambridge one memorable year. and I know a girl who is at Cambridge right now from a back of beyond school that shall remain nameless......if you are going to do well you will do well at any school tbh.

martorana you do sound a bit chippy. I spent some years at a rather well regarded girls school in north london and there was not a polo pony or a fives court in sight!

I really dont believe that if you are going to do well you will do well anywhere. Really really not true!

My rubbish sec school didnt do me any favours. I could have gone to university but there were no expectations to do that.

I have a really good job now but it was no thanks to my school. So, I chose private education for my children.

And yes I do pay over 30k a year for the school

I experienced state education myself and didnt like what I saw.

Some children will do well at any school but quite a lot with equal potential won't!

if I had the money I would do the same handcream, (what i really have in mind is a nice school with equestrian facilities for dd and no i am not joking)
What particularly struck me when i finally moved from my north london girls school to the local comp was the way the teachers spoke to you as though you were utter scum. I never really got over that actually.

I think it's rubbish to think a bright child will do well anywhere. It's just a sop. The reality is that the list of LEAs sending DC to oxbridge doesn't include some. At all. You're not telling me that there was not one able DC who wanted to go on an entire LEA!

yeh i agree actualy it is rubbish my son was v bright but all he did was annoy teachers with his endless questions and insistence on having the last word. schools are only interested in nice bright children arent they really?

If someone had told me when I was younger I would send my boys to the top (and most expensive) private schools in the country I would have laughed. I really didnt consider private AT ALL.

There are plenty of things that we could of course spend our salaries on! We both work full time, had children late in life, no previous relationships, no expensive hobbies, we have nice holidays, we are certainly not camping in a tent in Scarborough every year. I wouldnt have chosen private if we had to do that.

Of course having the children at boarding school makes it much easier to manage two careers although I have had my fair share of childcare issues and panic travelling back from meetings.

word of course DDs school doesn't do boarding (and hooray for that) and I'm sure the facilities are sumptuous at the posh school in question. And we come back to my portaKabin education - lack of facilities hardly held me back. But I do not believe the ethos is better. Not for one second. Not in any generally accepted or morally defensible sense of the word 'better'. But the thing that annoys me is that while I don't believe another school has a better ethos than the one I know, I don't claim that the school I know is better. They might be equal. Some proponents of posh schools dismiss everything else (even though they are talking from a position of extreme ignorance both of the schools they slate and of the top universities and careers they believe will be their children's' automatic due) as inferior and imply that other people wouldn't recognise a good education if it smacked them in the face and danced a tarantella. That's what annoys me.

Nigella - now a carefully selected private school would have welcomed a DS like yours! My younger DS is still at prep school. There are some VERY clever boys there (hope it will rub off on DS!). Their needs are addressed. State schools just arent set up for this. 30 plus in each class and one teacher just wont do it.

Some aren't set up for it. Some are (the one I went to, the one my DD goes to). I was A Problem at school, although I was nice. Didn't phase my school. My DD has complex needs (which became more complex this year as a result of ongoing medical treatment) (when I say complex I mean complicated, not suffering from a life threatening condition or something like that) and her school have been brilliant. Absolutely brilliant

Just to remind you- there are some VERY clever boys (and girls) in state schools too!

Yes there are martorana which is why, as you know, this whole issue of underachievement winds me up like a good 'un .

schools are only interested in nice bright children arent they really?

Well, that's what I dislike about private schools, yes!

Bright child in state school = underachieving? Really?
Oh I forgot about the fucking leaves

nit whilst there are LEAs sending no DC to Oxbridge there is under achievment, yes.

I don't know how you can say otherwise!

I briefly taught in a private school. Packed lunch when it had to happen for whatever reason was this: White bread jam or cheese sandwich, packet of crisps, kitkat and orange/apple. And carton of orange.

Their lunch gave "pudding" option of crackers and Dairylea triangle. Can't spread it, no cutlery.

£9k a year...

Spratton Hall School, by the way. That's the lunches.

What did you expect caff a wicker hamper full of quails eggs and smoked salmon?

These are kids. Ordinary kids.

£9000!

I wish.

I thought it was 9k a term ...

Blimey for 9k a year, I'm suprised they got a Kit Kat...

Didn't expect anything - but since I had been informed by pre prep leader about hoe AMAZING it all was was a bit surprised it was just ...ordinary...

how, not hoe...

Here are all the things I don't really care about at a private school:

The food (I provide most of my children's food during the year so I don't care if it's not 100% fantastic as long as it is not actually dangerous or from horribly tortured farm animals).

The state of the premises (don't need swanky surroundings).

The refreshments at events.

Other parents' cars.

The background of the other parents.

Where they go on holiday.

Here are things I care about. Oh, there's only one:

Teachers who have the time to pay attention to my child and encourage them to enjoy learning, do the best they can academically and non-academically and to be kind and thoughtful people.