First post: what is wrong with considering private schools?

[dietcokeisgreat]

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.

I actually typed educationally and it auto corrected

Educationally socialised

"I have also repeatedly stated that admissions offers to uni should be recognisably lower for DC who haven't had the advantages of a private education." This is a simplistic suggestion of a private v state split in university offers.

Universities do not prefer privately educated pupils. They spend a lot of time and resources on attracting disadvantaged pupils. Academics and administrators put a lot of effort into contextualising applications and offers for selective courses - it's insulting to say that this doesn't happen. The university nearest to Thornden - Southampton - takes the majority of its students from state schools (70% or so, if I recall correctly).

Still I think that a typical ex-Thornden/PSC student does not particularly deserve to get a recognisably lower offer than a grammar/"ordinary" private school student precisely because Thornden/PSC have very high value added scores.

(And I do know kids who are/were at Thornden who have had tutoring.. quite a lot of them. Thornden teachers themselves admit that there is tutoring, but they don't keep track of or know how much.)

uilen...Thornden/PSC have very high value added scores...And I do know kids who are/were at Thornden who have had tutoring.. quite a lot of them. Do you not think the tutoring is helping to increase the value add scores?

"Still I think that a typical ex-Thornden/PSC student does not particularly deserve to get a recognisably lower offer than a grammar/"ordinary" private school student"
Percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals 1.4%
High attainers 53%
Medium attainers 42%
Low attainers 5%

Given that it does not appear to be a typical comp. I agree with you (if it was a typical comp. I'm pretty sure there would a few more low attainers).

I am not so sure that Thornden is adding value.

They have a hilariously gerrymandered catchment (shown).

Deprivation levels outside their catchment are massively higher, and this shows up in the results for schools on the wrong side of the tracks (or M3 in this case).

If you ask me the govt uses people's strong feelings about the 'unfairness' of independent education to mask the fact that they're not doing enough to make state education better and fairer. If they modelled the curriculum and teaching of state schools on that of private schools surely all kids would benefit. And they need to look closely at why some state schools are great and others crap.

I think if there were no private schools there would be too much pressure on state school places and there would still be no great improvement in state education across the board.

E.g, workless households with children in Hiltingbury wards (Thornden catchment) - 0.8%, cf. Eastleigh South - 5.5%.

"If they modelled the curriculum and teaching of state schools on that of private schools surely all kids would benefit. And they need to look closely at why some state schools are great and others crap. "

State schools aren't great and crap, generally. It's 98% to do with intake. Rich intake = successful school. Impoverished intake = 'crap' school.

If 25% your intake comes from the local traveller site, then you are going to struggle, and if most of it comes from leafy detached houses like the school above, then failure is impossible.

That's the reality, 'good' schools most of the time are the ones that keep out children from poor backgrounds.

And you'll never convince people that a school doing well with a very poor intake is a good school, because a school that gets a poor intake has to have a different focus (teaching kids to read, basic life skills) than from one where kids have private tutors and 10 times more of the local population is degree-educated than the national average (as is the case with Thornden).

In some areas even with the country's largest comp there won't be enough kids interested to put together a Latin class, a rowing club, or an Oxbridge maths stream, as a private school might.

"If they modelled the curriculum and teaching of state schools on that of private schools surely all kids would benefit."

What does that mean?

NancyJones - does the type of extreme polarisation you describe (where all your local schools, state and private are, apparently, stuffed full of horse riding, Gambia-visiting children) exist in many parts of this country? I've lived in several parts of the UK and never had this experience, even in the state grammar school I attended (not a super-selective, mind you, but nevertheless not accessible to just over three quarters of the local population). Are you sure it isn't just a small social circle you are limiting yourself to? I've never had trouble finding less well off types!!!

"It's 98% to do with intake."

So the 80% of state schools that are good or outstanding are all in "leafy" areas?

How does that work?

I can see that the less well off might go a bit under the radar, if they aren't the ones taking part in the orchestra, school play (taking advantage of all that Stagecoach training to nab the best parts ), rugby tour of the Gambia etc, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. They are probably, actually, a silent majority...

There's leafy and leafy... Schools in very rural catchments where the largest town is under 5000 people educating 1600+ students, many of whose parents have limited education, job prospects and income, tend not to attend after school activities because the only bus leaves at 3.15. This limits the range of activities and their uptake.

Like, countryside leaves and suburban leaves?

Even so, the school is rated outstanding.

Rabbitstew; Cheshire. The footballery bit. But I'm sure it's the same in very affluent suburbs around most major cities in the country.

sorry cross posted! Very muddy lanes round here, but the wind is fragranced with methane. Lots of cows!

Like the wrong kind of snow

I'm not sure it is the same in very affluent suburbs around most major cities...

Cornwall... but not the millionaire resort bit!

And I don't have trouble finding 'the less well off' as you call them. I work there 2 days a week!

And I don't have a long commute either

Cheshie, I miss it like mad.
It wasn't how many on here envisage it though, there are good and bad like everywhere else, affluent and degenerated.
In Lancashire it is referred to as The Surrey of the North

Do you not think the tutoring is helping to increase the value add scores?

Perhaps, but I have no objective evidence of this. Tansie says she doesn't know kids who are tutored; I know that some are but I don't have hard data.

Admissions to university can't use anecdotes and hearsay; they can only use objective measures (and indeed such measures are shown on the UCAS forms).

Re Thornden's catchment: the neighbouring secondary schools are clustered just to the right of the M3, so it hardly surprising that kids to the right of the M3 are sent there. And Thornden excludes the southern half of CF, even though the demographics are not particularly different, because these roads are closer to Toynbee. There is no school to the west of Knightwood, so the kids in Knightwood have to be sent to Thornden or Toynbee. Around half go to each.