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.

Keeper- what OFSTED grade did that school get?

sorryforher we're not poor but I can't offer to my DS even half of what his school offers him in terms of a broad education. He has a daily lesson unrelated to any public exams, in this lesson he has covered a wide variety of topics from Rousseau to opera to architecture to Shakespere, the school run at least one lecture by an eminent outside speaker a week, frequently two, there are 30+ concerts a term, 6+ plays a term, there are numerous sporting activities he does his chosen sport three times a week and numerous other cultural activities and trips. Where I live I can't access a weekly lecture, to pursue his chosen sport requires me to drive a 60+ mile round trip and and then only twice a week, many of our local plays are musicals (wince) and I also simply can't access that volume of concerts again to do either would be at least a 60+ mile round trip. None of this for me is doable on a regular basis as I have a job. The daily non examined lesson covering a huge variety of topics is pretty unique to his school.
Obviously our location plays a big part but even if you lived in London you'd have to be an exceedingly motivated organised and let's face it wealthy parent to enable your child to receive that broad an education outside of school.

Regarding the disappointing school with over 400 empty places in it, which a previous poster mentioned, saying they had avoided that one (like many less well off people) I would also point out that whilst many people have avoided it, there are still some parents whose children go there, as there are in many many inadequate schools.
And who are those people who send their children there? Typically they are people who are less well-off, less well educated and who value education at a low level. Perhaps they did not fully understand the system of applying or did not apply by the deadline (a surprising number of people are in this category) so were allocated the school. Perhaps most people who live on their estate go there, so they applied to. Perhaps they don't have a car, and would not get free travel to other schools, so it was the the only practical option. perhaps they are not interested in Ofsted Reports and Exam results and have no idea how the school performs under those measures. For whatever reason, many children are still in those schools.

80% of schools might be good or better. However in many areas it is far fewer and it is fewer at secondary level. Many children DO go to these schools. However, the people on these threads don't tend to. By very nature of wanting to debate educational issues, they are interested in education and manage to avoid these sink schools.

So who is there on here, who has chosen to go to such a sink school? Or have you gone for the best that you can find for your child given the choices available to you? for some,that means paying, for others going to Church, for others moving or driving your child to school when they could actually walk to a nearer one, or putting your child in for an exam. We ALL choose what seems to be the best for our child. Some people have more choices than others, which is unfair.....but we have yet to hear from someone whose child is in the sink school and who chose to be there. But children do go to those schools, because some people really don't have ANY choice.
I don't think there has been anyone on here yet, who is truly in that position. So we all make choices and avoid what we regard as bad.

Hakluyt

That will be our catchment area school - the one that somehow got bumped up from "special measures" to "good". The only thing that changed since the "special measures" report is that it has improved somewhat in some areas apparently… but given the comment that "improvement in prior year was not sustained", I wouldn't bet on those improvements to remain in the following years. This isn't even one of those schools where other people may say that kids would be exposed to a variety of cultures - there are hardly any minority groups, mostly white kids according to OFSTED. The school is on a council estate where if I type the specific name of that estate into Google, the next word that Google "predicts" is stabbing.

Not that comforting, is it?!

I find it ridiculous that this is our "catchment area"… the catchment area is some weird elongated L-shape I've NEVER seen before, meaning there are other primary schools much, much closer (like you'd pass two of them on the way to this school!) that we'd be happy with, but we are out of those catchment areas, and they're oversubscribed as it is. Catchment area school is well undersubscribed… as in they only have 66% of the number of pupils they could have. And there's no need to question why.

There are many, many private schools in this town and neighbouring villages, where I presume a lot of professional parents send their kids to.

ChocolateWombat
In a better managed system, nobody would have to have their kids at the school with 400 places
because if an LEA school had collapsed like that it would have been put into special measures, a new SLT parachuted in and the mass resignations of teachers dealt with rather than ignored.
BUT
Its a sponsored academy with a shiny new building so nothing is done.

FWIW there are other secondary schools within cycling / walking / cheap bus outside London kids do not get free buses so you are probably right that it is the least informed / engaged parents who still use the place.

But why should they have to?
Its the job of the better informed to help them out by improving the options.
Sadly the politicians in London reckon they know better than everybody round here.

HG- your son is at a top 4 public school. Of course the experience he receives is exceptional. I honestly think that it's not helpful citing his school in debates like this because it is out of the reach,financially and academically of even most other private school users. When most people say "private school" they do not mean schools like your ds's.

I am amazed that a school with comments like that is classified as "good".

Would you PM me the name of the school if I promise not to breathe a whisper of it on here?

Marking place. Am trying to read all the posts on my thread!!

happygardening - most people wouldn't feel a speaker a week, a concert every other day and a play every fortnight was actually necessary for a broad education, more a way of filling someone's time up so much that they miss out on a lot of other experiences!

Hakluyt

I'd rather not tell - it's the internet after all, and I've come to realise I posted more than I should have…

Fair enough.

So were those comments actually in the report that concluded that the school was "good" or did they come from the "special measures" report?

KeeperOfSouls - I just don't believe your quotes could possibly come from the Ofsted report which moved the school from special measures up to good - the description is of a classic special measures school, not one that has achieved the massive feat of escaping special measures and acquiring a "good" label. You need to look at the Ofsted framework describing what it is looking for in a "good" school and you'd see that description would make it utterly impossible to label the school "good."

"out here in the sticks Catholic Schools do not even require one to be Christian
and CofE schools operate on catchment not Christenings"

This.

I genuinely did not know until someone with a child my DD's age commented on it (we went to church together and she didn't want her DD to go to the non CofE school I was putting mine down for) that not all state schools were CofE. I thought it was a standard thing, and hadn't even registered that this school didn't have it as part of the name.

I agree that no one should have to use a sink school, where 2/3 of the places are empty. The reality is that some people HAVE to be allocated to those, because there are not enough places in the better schools. And as we see, even the 'Good' schools are not always great shakes! No wonder people vote with their feet when they can and go elsewhere......and really, who can blame them? So again I say, until the system offers a quality education to all, most people will search out the best available to them, by whatever means available to them.
Sadly it is those who most need a quality education and 'value added' because they are starting from a low base, who are most likely to be in the poor schools. It is all very well to say it is not fair and private is wrong, but I don't see anyone volunteering their child to join those schools 'because everyone should have the same opportunities'

And I wasn't surprised that the school described upthread turned out to be 'Good'
Our local state primary was 'Satisfactory' under the old guidelines. When they were re inspected about 18 months ago,they became 'good' but many of the phrases listed above were in their report. They have a more affluent catchment than average, but their SATs results year-in, year-out are marginally below national averages, whilst similar catchment local schools achieve a good 10% or more at L4 and above. And when you look now at the figures for L4B which is the new benchmark, they score woefully poorly.
The Headteacher is probably good at filling in the forms for Ofsted and knows what to do and say....but in my opinion (and clearly I'm not an Ofsted inspector) the school 'requires improvement'.....it's previous 'satisfactory' judgement was only 12 months before the inspection where it was deemed 'good'. The school were thrilled....I suspect a bit surprised, as were most parents who are interested in such things.
Given a choice, many people would avoid this 'Good' school. However it is a village school and people in the village are outside the catchment area for the better schools in the nearby villages. So many move, or go private....and as people leave each year, the standard will fall further because it is the interested, educated parents who move their children. And can you blame them?
No good simply saying people should be parachuted in to sort it out, it should be better managed etc. None of that is happening and it may well not be inspected again for several years, as it is 'Good'. So given the reality of the situation, I totally understand why people move or pay if they can. And I am sorry for those left behind.

Hac

In fairness to HG the thread is talking about private schools and her ds does attend a private school even though its a top school.

I agree that nobody should have to go to an under performing sink school, it is sad that they exist.
This is not the fault of those who are able to afford a private education, or those who do without all luxuries to afford it because of the alternatives.

Sorry, I still don't see how the school you are talking about, ChocolateWombat, could achieve "good" under the Ofsted framework, either, unless this affluent catchment nevertheless sends children to the school who are performing well below the national average when they arrive and are not as affluent as the catchment would suggest (given that if they were, any claims that they were arriving at school performing well below national averages would be looked into quite carefully). A school just cannot be good if children do not make good progress from their starting points year after year.

"In fairness to HG the thread is talking about private schools and her ds does attend a private school even though its a top school."

Of course. But it is so far outside the experience even of most private school users that it isn't really relevant!

Well Rabbit, the report says that children enter school at broadly the levels expected. When they leave, about 60%get L4 in English and in maths and only 50% achieve L4B in reading, maths and L4 in writing.
These levels have been static over several years. And they were Ofsteded as 'Good' at the start of 2013.

I dont know how it can happen, but these are the figures and this is what the report says.

One of the most interesting bits of Mumsnet demographics is the number who live in the catchment of failing schools. I honestly don't understand how this works, considering that 80% are "good".

But have 80% of schools been consistently good or outstanding in the 5 years or so that might affect decisions parents have made? The 5 closest schools to me are all 'good' or 'outstanding' but in the last 4 years, three of those have been in special measures. I know quite a few people, including us, who were at those schools and went private because they felt that their children had had a poor education/bullying. Clearly you're not going to jump back in just because Ofsted ups its rating or because the school was officially closed and became an academy with a 'clean slate'. Once your child is settled and you're on that track you are unlikely to move back to state unless finances require you to. So you could talk to a lot of parents round here who have moved to private because their school was failing, even though we have a 100% good or outstanding rate at the moment.

Also the 80% relates to the score at the last inspection. About 1/3 of schools inspected this year have had a 3 or 4. So there are a large number of schools whose last inspection was a while ago. E.g. the 'outstanding' school near us was last inspected 6 1/2 years ago. Since then it has changed head and expanded by about 50%. By all accounts it is still a nice school but it bears no relation to the OFSTED report - there must be lots of schools that have a very out of date report.

That's before you get to all the people who feel that the school failed their child e.g. poor provision for SEN etc, even though it is officially good.

I know quite a few people, including us, who were at those schools and went private because they felt that their children had had a poor education/bullying

But only around 10% of the population can even consider private school so you are proving the point

half the people in the country earn less than the fees at a day school

ChocolateWombat nails it there…

That is the kind of school I'm talking about. Except our catchment school is in a council estate but right next to areas with more 'desirable' properties. The town itself has several prep schools, and quite a few more prep schools just a few miles away in neighbouring villages. Do we have to wonder where those families in those 'desirable' properties send their DCs to?

Estate agents always talk of the private schools in the area when selling those properties. Never the local school...

It wouldn't achieve good under the new Ofsted framework (which has been changed several times in the last few years, resulting in "good" not meaning remotely the same thing in different schools, any more, which is unhelpful to say the least - changes have been rushed and regular, which is just unhelpful to everyone. 18 months ago is a very long time in education these days).

Oh, and KeeperofSouls' school should never have achieved good under any of the frameworks of the last couple of years...

Well, if the system itself is so unreliable, it explains even further why people may lack faith in it and go private.

But only around 10% of the population can even consider private school so you are proving the point

Yes TalkinPeace, this is an area with above average incomes but the point was that lots of mumsnetters say that their school was failing. Whether they move schools (private or state) or not, there will be more than 20% of schools that have been failing within the 7 year period that a child might have been there.

NB isn't it more like 15% of the older years that are at private? (No source other than vague memory!)