school fees - huge increase next year

[helenmc]

I feel very mean moaning about this as we are very fortunate enough to be in the position of paying for school fees. But we have just got next years fees, and the fees have got up 27% again. Since my eldest started the fees have almost doubled!! The governors quote they have gone up in accordance with the Independent SChools Bursars Association, but surely £280 a term is extortiant. Should I be looking else where?

In an ideal world Chick - but ours isn't!

The kids I teach are very working class and speak with very non standard grammar. Although I do not teach English I constantly pick them up on what they say - not so much because there is anything intrinsically wrong with their regional accent/grammar code but because often they are not aware that the way they are speaking is 'non standard' and would not , for example, do them any good in an interview for an accountancy job or similar!
I have a personal example of this in an ex boyfriend - his parents were illiterate , from the Punjab and he went to an inner city school. He was very bright and eventually went to university and did science - but his English was truely appalling - not the fluency, he spoke it as a native, with a midlands accent - but his grammar - and he had no idea of what was right or wrong much of the time( ok, ok I know I'm being controverisal there - should I say 'standard or non standard English!) and more to the point he WANTED to know and actually encouraged me to correct him!
I don't think children should be 'made' to talk in one way BUT I do strongly feel that they should be taught what is standard and non standard grammar so that they can use their register appropriately to the circumstances - because I said at the beginning, rightly or wrongly we ARE often judged on the way we speak...

Oh, this discussion is great! The title of my next essay is 'To what extent is it reasonable to label certain kinds of English as 'good' or 'bad'?'

I have to pick up on philly's point about her husband and her "working very hard" to afford private education. Since when has "working hard" been synonymous with being well-paid?

Rhiannon, I love your point to Grizzler, it made me laugh out loud, it could have come from my mouth! (Except I'm a dedicated Telegraph reader, mail on Sat & Sun only)

DD is reading over my shoulder at this thread, and has reiterated all the positive comments about private schools. Her words, Oh God, I'm glad I don't go to state school anymore, I know where I belong and learned the hard and emotional way. She'll probably be castigated for being blasphemous, but what the h**l, she's happy.

Batters,
i am ashamed of other people's views, as i am an optimist and i continuously strive to think the better of people, that now living in the year 2002, we could all become a little more thoughtful about the way we all live and that we should all recognise that what we all do as individuals has some sort of repercussion for the majority (not quite the right word but it will do for now as it is early in the morning!)
True!your efforts of now will be of no instant success but at least the ball will start rolling and 5 years down the line the changes will definitely be felt!
Who says instant results are the best! (a tea bag dunked in the cup vs. a nicely brewed teapot!)
I yearn for more of a community spirit i suppose!

(i have made many contributions previously but under another name... i have used this name due to a change of e mail address and place of 'computering'! - did you go searching through mumsnet to see what contributiions i had made????)

Nobody said that working hard was synomous with earning a good income(more's the pity)but I refuse to feel ashamed about the fact that we can afford the fees and that we are reaping some reward for the years spent studying and climbing the ladder.As regards changing the system for all etc all of that is very nice but you only get one chance at childhood,it's no good saying to your 25 year old "there you are, the school's OK now"because we all know that despite all the lipservice paid to life long learning real life rarely works that way.

Just a point on the "speaking proper" bit. I'm all for regional variations in language, I'm foreign myself. But we were taught 'formal' English at school. Currently I'm working in a unit that helps the unemployed gain work. I spend most of my time going through people's application forms correcting the English. It is amazing to me how many educated intelligent people cannot construct a proper sentence. God knows how some of them graduated. The point is unless you are able to at least write 'proper' English, you are at a disadvantage in the job market.

i'm chuffed to bits when someone can tell i'm from manchester!!!

after living from north to south to the midlands... i thought my accent was sort of dissappearing but! flippin' 'eck! it's still there! and would love dd to pick up some of the twang...

Errr Rozzy I think you miss the point there in you comments to Slug and are guilty of being patronising yourself! People have been making points - Slug included - that didn't just embrace accent but non standard grammar. My comments have all been regarding grammar and I have daily evidence that students who are not aware that they are using regional/non standard grammar DO use it as written language - they are not aware of 'register' and so cannot change/adapt at will.
IN response to the question 'Isn't Mitesh here today?'' I might expect

''he's gone India init''
as a 'normal ' response at school. The student might well drop the 'init' in written form be he would almost certainly NOT add a 'to'.

It seems to me that there are two different conversations going on here, grammar and accent. I have to admit that when I interview people that are customer facing for the company I work for, if they do not speak properly / are not literate I wouldn't employ them in a customer facing role.

I think there are some really interesting points here. To go back to the whole private vs state school discussion, I think that one of the things that happens when you become a parent is that you question and test your principles to establish whether you can follow them through in practice.

As a socialist (I know, not a very commonly used word these days, but I can't think of another one at the moment), I disapprove, in theory, of private education (and healthcare). My reasons for this are as follows:

1. It seems to me to be inherently unfair if the education or healthcare a person gets depends on their income. Only the well off being well educated or cared for in sickness seems medieval.

2. If everyone who can afford it sends their children to private school, who is left to shout loud and take action to improve matters in the state sector? I applaud whoever it was who said below that they are a governor to help change things for the future. We should all be doing this if we can, although it would be better if we didn't need to.

3. The government shouldn't be let off the hook for failing to get education right. Teachers are underpaid and not given the professional respect they deserve.

BUT, and it's a big but, if all that was available to me for my ds was a terrible, violent, "failing" school I would re-examine my principles. As we're not very well off we couldn't afford a private school even if we wanted to, nor could we afford to live in an area with sky high rents/house prices. So I guess my only option would be to send him anyway and get involved, big time, to try to change things from within. If I had the money? I can't promise that I absolutely wouldn't consider it but I'd like to think I wouldn't. (Easily said I know, when we a)don't have the choice and b) we have excellent state schools were we live).

Wickedwaterwitch I agree with you in theory about it being wrong to have to pay for healthcare or childcare and it not being fare that some people are able to afford it and others not. I resent having to pay for these things as much as the next person. However, having looked after a teenage cousin during her really bad years (14-18) who was in an abominable state school, she was achieving VERY averagely because the classes were overcrowded and there were a lot of disruptive students. I took her out and put her in a private school for her A levels (not funded by me but by her parents) and she became an A grade student and just thrived in every way. The individual attention she received (6 or 7 to a class for A level) just helped her so much. I have to say that my dh and I are going to make every effort to send our dd to a private school. We will sacrifice other things to make sure we can. I absolutely resent having to pay to get a decent education for my daughter but where I live I don't believe the state schools are that good at all although it is a good area. They are not terrible, just not great.
I also agree the government should do something about it but I am not prepared to put my daughters education at risk while I try and fight to change the fact that teachers are underpaid, class sizes are too big and there are a lot of undisciplined, disruptive kids in the schools today.
It's a sad thing that we need to pay for decent education and healthcare (in most cases, not all, as there are some very good schools and hospitals) but unforunately it is a fact in this VERY overcrowded country we live in.

excuse my appalling grammer (how ironic !) I meant fair, not fare !!!!

Tillysmummy, I agree - it's got nothing to do with the accent. When I go to work I put on smart clothes and speak to colleagues/clients on the phone in what I would call my 'telephone voice' - not a plummy tone but speaking clearly and sounding efficient and grammatically correct (I can't think of any other way to explain it really). When I'm at home I'm in my civvies, my conversation gets a bit casual too, I don't mean dropping H's etc., but if I'm asking dh if he wants a cup of tea, it will probably come out like 'cuppa tea' or I wouldn't say ds fell out of bed 'this morning', it would be more like 'th'smorning', or maybe that's just London regional, I don't know.

I think we definitely behave differently at work than we do at home as Jodee points out. From my point of view, the way a person sounds on the phone and how they behave gives me the first impression of the company so if they are very polite, professional, helpful etc and speak well it gives me a better impression. Having said that as long as they are professional, polite etc, if they are not terribly well spoken that is less important - I guess it's manner more than anything.
But I wouldn't want my dd saying ' init ' and 'wot yer talking bout' or anything like that

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