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Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

First post: what is wrong with considering private schools?

999 replies

dietcokeisgreat · 07/10/2014 14:12

Dear all,

I just starting looking at mumsnet last week and joined today. Some of my work colleagues talk about it and i am thinking about options for education for my son, who is just 3 and thought i would take a look. Well, i just starting the thinking, so it is early days.
We could pay for school, or maybe not, we don't know yet. He is our first child, we are having problems getting pregnant again, so unsure if there will be more yet.

I was surprised at some really negative comments on lots of threads towards people posting for advice/ whatever about private schools. Why are they doing that? What is wrong with people thinking about different options? Or asking about a school they know that is private? Twice i read something 'well i can't pay for school' as a response. For me, its no different to whether or not people have cash for other stuff. I can't afford to live in the smarter part of town, or pay for a boarding school but that doesn't mean no one should be allowed too!

Just wondering...don't want to post something that will enrage others or be and be upset by responses ....

Thank you.

OP posts:
MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:04

MiddletonPink OP there will be quite a few rude people telling you their opinion on private school and why they disagree with it and how their state school is fabulous. Obviously there aren't any rude people saying that all state schools are only fit for the scrap heap. Perhaps if you search Wikipedia and check out some of the people who have attended these scrap heap state schools, you might be quite surprised at how many people actually came out the other side and managed to do quite well for themselves despite an education that was quite evidently well below par.

MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:09

NancyJones Those kids, even the bright ones, we're not applying to Trafford grammars. Good to hear that my friends DC will the first to do so then.

NancyJones · 09/10/2014 19:11

Also just to add that the state schools where I live at not at all 'crap'. They are good schools offering a decent education. The kids are affluent and on the whole well motivated. If I was interested solely in academics, my dcs would be there. I am not and the state cannot offer me what I want. The independent sector can and does.

MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:15

NancyJones the state cannot offer me what I want. The independent sector can and does. Fair enough :-)

NancyJones · 09/10/2014 19:15

Your anecdote doesn't change the fact that very very few children from places such as Langworthy have historically applied to Trafford grammars. And a data score of one does not make a trend big enough to suggest that the top is being creamed off by the neighbouring LEAs grammar system.

sorryforher · 09/10/2014 19:16

"The state system can co-opt me by giving me what I want, or repel me by refusing to teach my children properly. I don't know if the failure is down to inability, laziness, the politics of equality of outcomes or what."

Yesterday I visited a comprehensive with less than 30% intake of high ability students. A dozen students had got more than 8 As and A's at GCSE this year. One student had got 15 A's. Several students had got distinction in their grade 8 music exams.

How does it happen that at so many comprehensives you get students achieving at this level every year, if these schools are fundamentally inadequate when it comes to provision for the very brightest and most talented? How has my nephew got 9A's and A*s at a truly non selective comprehensive, without private tutoring? How have kids at dd's comp (33% high achieving intake) got onto medicine, pharmacy and law, got into Oxbridge?

People who believe that non-selective state schools cannot provide a good education for the brightest and most talented children are simply ignorant about what is out there. All the schools I mention above are within three miles of each other and all have a high intake of disadvantaged and non-English speaking children.

Really - you can get an amazingly good education in a non-selective state school.

MiddletonPink · 09/10/2014 19:18

It's ok Mum. I don't need to check anything out as I have first hand knowledge of how dire some state schools are hence my reason for jumping ship.

MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:20

MiddletonPink I have first hand knowledge of how dire some state schools. And I have first hand knowledge of how dire some private schools are but I don't brand them all as being the same.

morethanpotatoprints · 09/10/2014 19:20

Mum

Have you seen the threads on Trafford, well worth a read.
My dd does an activity with Trafford and Manchester Grammar school kids.
One parent told me her dd did 5 entrance exams, as I know absolutely nothing about it and my dc wouldn't pass 11+ haven't really been interested before but just stood there Shock. I don't know what she thought of me Grin

Hakluyt · 09/10/2014 19:21

"MiddletonPink OP there will be quite a few rude people telling you their opinion on private school "

And the people offering their characterisations of state schools as places where clever children are bullied, teachers spend 90% of their time "firefighting" and describing children at secondqry modern schools as "dregs" are models of politeness are they?

MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:22

morethanpotatoprints Mum Have you seen the threads on Trafford, well worth a read. I've read them and had plenty of discussion about them with a friend who has a DC preparing for next year.

MiddletonPink · 09/10/2014 19:22

How have I branded them all the same?

Stop being defensive. As long as you're happy with your child's school choice who cares?

Hakluyt · 09/10/2014 19:24

You said you know that some state schools are dire so you "jumped ship". That looks like dismissing the entire sector to me!

MiddletonPink · 09/10/2014 19:24

Hakluyt we can only go of our own experiences of state schools or should do.

MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:26

Hakluyt You said you know that some state schools are dire so you "jumped ship". That looks like dismissing the entire sector to me! That's how I read it too

grovel · 09/10/2014 19:26

Well, as an ex-Eton parent, may I observe that our best universities are stuffed with tens of thousands of brilliant state-educated kids with wide-ranging interests.

My BiL was here recently. He told me that this year's crop of apprentices at his firm are "great". These kids are not "mainstream academic" but their schools/families had them ready for the workplace in terms of qualifications and attitude.

I'm sure that there are lousy state schools but there are also loads getting a whole lot right.

MiddletonPink · 09/10/2014 19:27

No I didn't say that. I said I had first hand knowledge of how some state schools are dire hence my reason for jumping ship.

My dc"s were at those schools.

NancyJones · 09/10/2014 19:28

sorryforher, what you really mean, it at least all your post shows is that you can get a really good academic education at a good state school.
I have worked in the system. I know that a child like my dc2 would be pushed into taken something ridiculous like 11 academic gcses. I want her encouraged to do art or textiles rather than maths and physics if that is what she wants. Ime, that attitude just doesn't happen in the state sector. Ben when I was there the bright kids were pushed into doing the academic subjects without question.

morethanpotatoprints · 09/10/2014 19:29

Mum

Good luck to your friend dd Smile
They are a bit too far for us and think only Urmston vaguely in our catchment as further lancs really.
Nobody from here goes to grammar a bit like Salford really in terms of schools and parents not knowing or being bothered about bright kids trying for grammar.
I think your friend is fantastic for giving her dd a shot at this, the mothers are really competitive but the dc are lovely generally speaking.

AgaPanthers · 09/10/2014 19:34

"Happygardening- your son is at a school which is one of the 5 top private schools in the country. I honestly don't think that is what most people are talking about when to talk about private school!"

Hmm.

Well over and above my local comp, which has above average GCSE results, my son's private school (which isn't world-famous) offers:

Greek, Russian, Mandarin, sport: vastly more - rowing, climbing (professional outdoor walls), fencing, swimming pool, etc.

Higher aspirations - they measure A/As, not A-C. So my son's not going to get ignored because he's a B student, whereas the local comp devotes a lot of resources to turning Ds into Cs.

Higher aspirations - Russell Group/Ivy League is an expectation not an aspiration - 25 to Oxbridge last year, etc.

Higher aspirations - pretty much all students come from successful professional backgrounds

Better facilities - much more extensive sport facilities/grounds, use of IT, music, drama

Smaller class sizes

More extension work - instead of the occasional pupil making through from maths challenge to Olympiad, there are a dozen+ every year

A route through to 18 - my local comp is only 11-16.

Actual choice - we looked at, and rejected, ten other fee-paying schools, by speaking to SEN department, individual subject teachers, etc., to find out what we wanted. In the state sector the top local choice sends out letters basically telling you to fuck off unless you live right next door to the school - apart from Ofsted fail-rated schools there was only one school available in the state sector for us.

rabbitstew · 09/10/2014 19:36

If that's the case, NancyJones, then why has the government been wittering on about state schools not pushing enough of the brighter children to do "facilitating" subjects? Our local comprehensive offers things like textiles and drama. Are you saying it will refuse to accept the more academic children onto these courses if they ask?

Hakluyt · 09/10/2014 19:46

State schools can't win! Usually threads are full of "they don't do the hard academic subjects- I want Latin!" Now they're getting it in the neck for for not doing enough subjects with "studies" in the title!

Tansie · 09/10/2014 19:46

Amber -15.15pm today."Saying you're happy to advantage your own children even if it disadvantages others is at least honest, even if I find that attitude rather depressing. Refusing to acknowledge that the decisions we make affect others is, I think, disingenuous."

Yes.

Which is what I said 20:33 on Tuesday, only more forcefully (and acknowledging that "I wouldn't care"- slight artistic license, for dramatic effect, really!): I quote myself "So, to answer the OP, go, go, go private..... You are buying advantage in a world that tacitly accepts this reality. There is nothing 'wrong' with your choice. Yes, it further entrenches the inequalities that hold back and strangles British Society; it may in future, looking back, be recognised as a massively divisive, unfair and ultimately counter-productive force at work in C21 UK; but, if I had the choice, I'd be buying an education that can ride rough-shod over your DC because, when it comes to one's own DC..... that's all that matters.

And I mean that. Do what you can to advantage your DC over everyone else's..... It's understandable. Just don't tell us you're doing it because of 'the art/drama/sport', thanks."

And not much I've read since changes that!

I 'get' that some state schools are better than others but the thing is, if you look outside the London orbit, you can move into the catchment of many, many good schools and rent to get your DC in. There is some sort of 'way in' if you want to take it. That only applies to private schools if your DC brings something desirable, via a bursary, or more telling, scholarship- to the school. Even if it is only a tick in the Charities Commission box.

I smile at the 'generosity' of Eton bursaries and would wonder what their selection criteria are, also musing the already made point that the DC who would most benefit from very small classes and forensic personal attention- are the least likely to get it.

I would question the Art'n'Sport'Drama'n'Philisophy'n'-what was the rest?- brigade to tell us, honestly, if they'd still pay to model their DC into Renaissance Wo/Man if there were no GCSE results at the end of it? Education for the sake of it, eh? It's very, very easy to claim your only motivation in going private are instilling those disciplines, safe as you are in the knowledge that the individual attention in selective, small, motivated classes that your DC receives, surprise surprise, also results in better GCSE grades! As a wonderful 'by-product'! Wink

Personally, I still fail to grasp why 7% of our population, merely by dint of a an exclusive (as in 'excludes others') education, get to make the rules, and pocket the money. Whilst I have already acknowledged that yes, there is some sort of correlation between living in poverty and, yes, lower IQ (I said it!), as in 'the clever make money thus can afford choice'- that's not to say I believe that only 7% of the population achieve what they do only via their own, un-advantaged efforts ; and the other 93% get what they deserve. Yes, of course, maybe the 'next' 20% do very well, as well- the MC DC who attend very good state schools, comp and grammar. But the fact remains, the power in this country is united in one thing: Private Education.

There's an awful lot of productive talent lying untapped out there which we, as a society, in our apparent acceptance of the status quo (that privately educated people are 'better') ignore at our peril.

So, back to the OP. By all means go private in order to advantage your DC. It is only 'wrong' inasmuch as if someone is 'advantaged', someone else will be 'disadvantaged'. Which, it seems, shouldn't even enter into it.

NancyJones · 09/10/2014 19:48

No I'm saying that the bright kids are pushed towards getting as many gcses as possible. And bright kids are pushed into the academic subjects because the more a*-c the better and the more of those that are what Gove would have considered as real subjects all the better still.
And Aga, is correct to point out the ridiculous amount of resources thrown behind ensuring Cs as that is what is being demanded by government. Far more time and effort than is put in helping the B kid make an A or the A kid make an A*.

MumTryingHerBest · 09/10/2014 19:50

Hakluyt State schools can't win! Usually threads are full of "they don't do the hard academic subjects- I want Latin!" Now they're getting it in the neck for for not doing enough subjects with "studies" in the title! I'm hoping all the parents in my area read this thread. With a bit of luck they will all opt for private making it easier for me to get my DS into one of our local state schools.