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.

MsHerodotus
I mentioned a fight - but it was outside the school - and was actually between boys at 2 well known London Indies

nobody ever, anywhere on the thread has condoned fighting in classrooms.

I often see on MN parents smugly complacently saying that low level disruption is acceptable because their own DDs ( and it is always DDs) learn to work despite low level disruption. In fact, the main reason teachers are leaving the profession, or just quietly despairing and plotting exit strategies in staffrooms is because it is corrosive for the class, even if a few girls (always girls) can work on regardless - (carefully colour coding their planners - actual work, no so much...). I wonder of those Mnetters would tolerate that in their own workplaces, if they were aware of how unsettling it is.
There are fights in classrooms - I often hear them!. I am a supply teacher, am constantly employed in several comps and primaries because I do have good class management. However, I do hear what goes on around me. Recently in the type of leafy comp much lauded by MNetters, a GCSE mock maths lesson had to be abandoned after 15 mins because of disruption - even tho' SLT were present. So those DC who had conscientiously worked for the exam were sent back to their classroom because a minority were uncontrollable - even by SLT.
So - yes, my own DC go nowhere near these schools - they go to an indie where that behaviour is not tolerated. And fights ( which do happen on classroom - I hear them!) are not tolerated in the indie.

they go to an indie where that behaviour is not tolerated. And fights ( which do happen on classroom - I hear them!) are not tolerated in the indie.

That's nice.

At my indie school
the head did nothing about girls being hit in the face with lacrosse sticks in the cloakroom
offensive grafitti about teachers and pupils on the walls of a particular room,
let alone what went on in the toilets
not much fighting in classrooms, but then we were too busy bunking lessons

at the school my brothers attended there was a game of stabbing each other with compasses
and single male teachers who specialised in late night tutoring at their homes

NONE of which would be tolerated in a modern state school.

Errr- the OP is trying to decide where to send her DC now.
And I am recounting what I observe, now - ie October 2014 - in the schools I work in, and in the school attended by my DC - not some distant past date...
As with everything - Your Mileage May Vary - just including my own experience which is up to date, as a teacher and parent today.

The indies you are describing TalkinPeace seem a bit ... irrelevant. Everything has changed over the past 25 years.

So, of course, schools both state and private have too.

Have you taught in the school attended by your dc, then, MsHerodotus? Or are you being complacent?

I can't help thinking that a supply teacher is going to have a somewhat jaded view - it seems to me that the less good schools are likely to need to call on supply teachers more often; and children hate supply teachers, because a supply teacher is disruptive to your education and vastly inferior to a teacher who knows the class well and exactly what has and hasn't yet been taught.

The only time, when I was at school, that I felt my education was being disrupted was when I had a supply teacher...

I tell what I observe.
To sneer at schools that use supply teachers is to sneer at all schools.
I teach in leafy comps, which are oversubscribed - the kind the MNetters seem desperate to get their DC into.
This is not about my own classes - I hear stuff going on in neighbouring classrooms, and I hear the conversations in staffrooms.
By all means cover your ears, and chant la-la-la,
That doesn't really help the OP and others with their school choices.

Sometimes I am tempted to give up. Yep- state schools are hell holes of chair throwing anarchy where staff spend the day besieged in the staff room while hordes of drink and drug crazed teenagers roam the corridors looking for the one child in the school who wants to do any work and ruthlessly bullying them. That's what all state schools are like. The only possibility of getting even a modicum of an education is to go to an "indie".

Happy now? But before I go and see whether I can get my feral child into the nearest non state school (unlikely, because 8 years as a "statie" will have rendered him uneducatable) can I just say something I've been longing to say for ages? Nobody who knows anything about anything says "indie". Nobody.

At my dds' statie, fighting isn't tolerated and both have got a* in Planner Colouring In. So ner.

And yeah, 'indie' is positively vomit inducing. It's not a quirky off beat school specialising in curricula heavily influenced by The Smiths. It's a private school: like a private house, or a private party, or a private chat: it picks the people it wants to let in, and bars the rest. That's why it's private.

Hak

Unfortunately, your statement isn't too far removed from the schools in this area.
yes state schools CAN be absolutely the grimmest place on earth for some dc in some areas.

Loving how statie is catching on now.
I still think public school children should be pubes.

*MsHerodotus I teach in leafy comps, which are oversubscribed - Please feel free to name them as you claim they are already being named on MN.

MsHerodotus I tell what I observe. Can you see through your ears? - There are fights in classrooms - I often hear them!., However, I do hear what goes on around me.

MsHerodotus This is not about my own classes - I hear stuff going on in neighbouring classrooms, and I hear the conversations in staffrooms. Feel free to tell us all about what you have seen in the comps. you work at.

MumTryingHerBest is it just me who thinks it's not coincidence that MsHerodotus's schools are the worst schools in this country?

Things which went on at my private school:
Homophobic, disablist and racist bullying
Sexual abuse
Rape
Drug taking on a fairly epic scale
Under age drinking

The idea that bad behaviour doesn't happen at private schools is laughable...

Hakluyt. There is a smug superiority from those on here about private education over state education. It is untrue and does a disservice to state education. As you know I believe in state education (although in Selective state education for those able enough). Selective state schools are equal to private schools academically. All those people saying we get so much more from private than state, for gods sake it is a school at the end of the day, its exam results that matter, nothing else.

The only reason to use private schooling is when a selective state school is not available ( don't just mean Grammar schools with my term selective). I mean a school that has an ethos of good behaviour ,instant punishment for bad behaviour and high academic standards. A school that is not hindered by pupils who can't or wont buy in to high expectations of behaviour or academic standards.

If we had more "selective" state schools , we could laugh at the private school is best idea because they would not be. Selective State Schools , schools that could admit children in any way they like would also put many private schools out of business. This would be done because the means of parents would be met by the state. I do not understand why posters like Hak cannot see that this is the best way forward. If there were schools allowed to be set up in this way Hakluyt DS would have had the choice of a suitable school for him..

*MumTryingHerBest MsHerodotus From what you have said, I can only assume that the problem is not the children but the crap teachers at the school, after all you don't seem to have any problems. Has the head not realised that you are the only effective teacher at the school and asked you to train everyone else in best practice?

MsHerodotus - I tell you what I observe. You do not admit to having taught in your dcs' own school. So I observe that you are as complacent about it as any parent with children in a school they have not themselves taught in...

All schools have supply teachers. Some schools use them more than others. Also, if you have no problem in your classes, then what you are actually saying is that it's the teachers at those schools that are the problem, because they can't achieve the excellent behaviour that, apparently, you achieve in your superlatively organised supply lessons. The Sherlock Holmes in me therefore concludes that you do not teach in excellent schools. This does not mean that excellent state or private schools do not exist.

I'm not sure MsHerodotus reads Mumsnet enough, otherwise she'd know that the sorts of schools the majority of Mumsnetters appear desperate to get their kids into are predominantly public schools, private schools and grammar schools, and as a last resort, comprehensive schools with excellent exam results. Given that the DfE recently turned its sights on comprehensives in "leafy areas" as not producing good enough results, letting their children down and being complacent, it is self-evident that if people move to leafy areas, it's because they're nice places to live, not because of the incredible excellence of the schools.

I wonder what MsHerodotus would think of her children's teachers if she were a fly on the wall in the staffroom, there? Since I've never met a teacher who will happily let a parent anywhere near a staffroom, given the unprofessional comments that take place in there, I'm quite sure she'd be upset by it.

smokepole
you are in favour of selective schools : so Salisbury has it perfect then ?
2 Catholic
2 grammar
2 sec mod
2 private

I don't understand why some posters refuse to see the DEGREES in the comments in here, rather than interpreting what is being said in black and white terms.

No one has said that all Comps involve violence and chair throwing. Most people have clearly stated that this is not the norm, but that if it happens in your area, knowing it isn't the norm,isn't very comforting.
And when people say that this wouldn't be tolerated in their school, they mean their school, not all schools of their type. Not here certainly are to hols where chair throwing would not be tolerated, but perhaps more to the point would be extremely unlikely to ever happen (and thankfully, that is MOST schools). However low level disruption is rife in many schools, making it difficult for pupils to learn as well as they might. This is a feature in certain schools in both private and state sectors. However it seems that some parents move their children from state to private to avoid this....the move seems to happen more this way round than the other way.

And let's not keep saying that people only move to independent schools to avoid mixing with a wide range of people. Whilst that might be the case for some people, it is far from the norm. People move for a wide range of reasons,following disatisfaction with their current school, or simply a sense that the new school is better. Some go for the exam results,some for the extra curricular, or university success, or the whole package of stuff put together. Many move their children from sate education regretfully and sadly and at great sacrifice to themselves.

I think it should be possible to recognise the truth in all of these things and variables about why people choose independent education. It doesn't mean you have to think it is fair, or the system itself which allows independent and state schools to exist is right. But isn't it a feature of a developed and mature mind, to be able to accept the subtleties in the reasons why people make decisions, rather than being so determined to simply argue that every single reason is wrong and unacceptable.

There are people on here, who say they wish to engage in debate. However, they don't. They want to pick comments out of context and mock people and refuse to see what is being said or to consider it. Why is that?

I maintain that the fact that some people can pay for an independent education is unfair. There are many unfairnesses in our education system, because not everyone has access to a good education. Some people access it by having the money to live in an affluent area near a leafy school. Others access it by going to Church or having clever children who get into grammars. Others find they are stuck with the awful school. And by that I mean a school where very few pupils achieve a decent clutch of GCSEs, where pupils don't achieve what they are capable of, where they struggle to learn because of poor teaching, poor resources or poor behaviour which disrupts learning. These can be schools with a culture of low expectations,mso even the bright get channelled into non academic courses and are not encouraged to do A levels or university courses which they are capable of.

Even if the system is unfair, I think it is TOTALLY understandable that parents are willing to find whatever alternative they can. Different people have different options available to them but most people will try to get the best they can for their children. And for some that means independent schooling.

As far as I can see, absolutely no-one on this thread, with all of the complaining about those who choose independent schools have found their children in the truly awful schools. And whether they recognise it or not, that is because they have made choices based on the options available to them, to avoid those terrible schools. They are doing EXACTLY the same as those who choose independent education...making choices which are not open to everyone.
We have not heard from a single person whose children go to the awful school I describe above and who either cannot get out of it,due to having no car or the money for the bus fare, or who just see it as the norm because everyone they know goes there, or who don't even realise it is awful. Until we hear from those people, I think all this complaining about private school choices is often shows blindness to oneself and ones own choices.

ChocolateWombat However, they don't. They want to pick comments out of context and mock people and refuse to see what is being said or to consider it. Why is that? Feel free to educate me as to what it is that MsHerodotus is saying based on their last comments...