Tristram Hunt's Speech

[kellyandthecat]

So, what did everyone think?

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/24/private-schools-labour-warning-tax-breaks-tristram-hunt

Seems to me like Labour have made a big deal out of it but he hasn't really done anything at all, and it's a bit hard for him to sound sincere when he's so posh himself. Honestly, I don't know why Labour don't just admit they were wrong and bring back the grammar schools. DH and I both went to grammar schools and are putting/have put our DCs through private. Hate how in this country politicians can't just admit they were wrong! It's a strength in any other area of leadership surely?! All this messing around on the margins just looks like pointless busy work - I would not support it but I would be more impressed with their convictions if they said they were going to take away the charitable status. Making them play football together?! Stupid.

They seem to deal with them very well IME - clear boundaries and rules that apply to everyone, all the time.

Are you suggesting that state school teachers don't know how to do that?!

I am horrified by your post actually. You just think we need to be a bit tougher and we'd have it cracked?

Their fair share barcoda? I agree that wealthier children can have behavioural issues but much of the problems that I see in my children's primary (with a high degree of deprivation) arise from poverty. The mother with mental health issues who can't work, the recent immigrants escaping horrific situations in the home country, the parents with drug problems. None of them are sending their children to a private, selective or otherwise.

To use a hospital analogy, private schools often strike me as like hospitals that only take on healthy patients and then crow about how much better their doctors must be since their death rates are so much lower. Bursaries are like them looking at the all-comers hospital next door and stealing the very healthiest patients they have. If they really wanted to prove the superiority of their medicine, they'd take on out the very sickest.

no of course I am not

I have absolutely no experience of state school secondary

that is my experience of a non-selective independent school

hence the phrase: IME?

I think state school teachers' hands are often tied.

You don't have much flexibility in how you discipline. Not your fault.

yes children at private schools can have behavioural issues

as to why noone would think this is the case?

almost certainly not arising from poverty - but all children who live in poverty do not have behavioural issues so the two are not always linked

Thinking of two off the top of my head - two very disruptive children - one has Slds - one has extremely rich parents who give child no attention whatsoever eg they jet off on holiday without her leaving her to board

We're agreeing that private school kids can have behavioural issues, I'm just questioning whether they would be as prevalent?

And of course not all children living in poverty have behavioural issues and of course they're not always linked, but in many cases they are - such as the ones I've outlined above. The child living in utter chaos will not achieve educationally as a child with a similar IQ living in middle-class affluence. And it's unfair to claim that it's a failure of discipline or talent within the staff of state schools to suggest otherwise.

Sharing out private school teachers and resources won't help the problems that come from hands being tied over discipline. It won't help reduce poverty or homelessness or parental drug use or similar. It just won't help. Even placing the most difficult children into private schools won't necessarily help those students.

And also as I said, if it all takes is 'clear boundaries and rules that apply to everyone' to succeed then why don't private schools take those excluded by state schools and sort them out to prove it?

clear boundaries won't solve the underlying problems

but it does mean that disruptive children are managed in such a way so they don't disrupt other children - and other children's right to learn quietly is respected

I am sure this happens at state secondary also but that is my experience of the private sector

Not quite sure where private teachers are supposed to get the time to sort out problem kids in state schools?

"My other idea is completely controversial and a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but if private schools really are these amazing bastions of achievement and good practice then the bright-but-poor are the last children they should be taking on for free. No, if they're so amazing, they should be taking on a percentage of excluded children and the ones with behavioural difficulties. I mean, really if their practices are so superior they should be able to work miracles"
Interesting suggestion but what makes you think that an independent schools is any better able to cope with excluded children with behavioural difficulties than the state sector? I've never read the website of any mainstream independent school claiming that this is something they are experienced in and therefore can offer "superior" practices to those found In the state sector.
I'm not necessarily supporting Tristan hunt but he was talking about sharing for example sporting staff where coaching standards are often considerably better, or helping improve university applications an area again where independent schools it appears have more success, not teaching disruptive, excluded children.
There are of course disruptive children in the independent sector and they will eventually be asked to leave if they don't improve. This is hardly surprising as I said before independent schools exist because parents pay the fees, parents generally are not paying for a very disruptive child to be continuously effecting everyone else's ability to learn.
Having said this recently had lunch with some friends who were describing how their apparently very disruptive rule breaking nephew has been repeatedly excluded and now expelled from his school, the poor mother is at her wits end and the school have been very unsupportive. Not an independent school but one of the most famous state schools in the UK with fantastic results, not apparently academically selective but children are selected according other very rigid criteria. Even if the story is only half true IME of the independent sector they would have been more supportive and helpful than this school has been.

Happy, I don't think that private schools will be any better at coping - that's why my suggestion was tongue-in-cheek. It's more of a thought experiment to question the belief that somehow private schools achieve so much better results because they are bastions of excellence and discipline.

Some are, some aren't.

And I agree that some state schools are neglectful in their duty to educate all. I think that the selection that goes on via faith schools, remaining grammars, rowing aptitude or whatever, also goes to further this idea that we can judge schools as 'good' or 'bad' according to their results when often these results are as a result of having an easier cohort to begin with.

And I also agree that the two areas you mentioned - sports and university applications - there might be a good argument for knowledge and facility sharing.

Hmm-what do you think the private school would have done better?

" to question the belief that somehow private schools achieve so much better results because they are bastions of excellence and discipline."

well they are most of the time which is why people pay to send their children there. It's more than a 'belief' I am afraid.

BUT - just because an independent school IS a bastion of excellence etc etc

doesn't mean that a state school ISNT

of course both can be excellent

Surely independent schools are "bastions of excellence" in their own field. There is nothing wrong with this. In my profession specialisation is positively encouraged and in fact becoming increasingly the norm now. We are not afraid to say Im sorry this is not my area of expertise but I know someone who's it is". I would be negligent if I didn't say this. I'm always keen to meet those who are experts in areas Im not, working alongside them is usually a very positive and interesting experience, I feel no shame in asking advise because we all acknowledge that we can't know everything, my governing body also say I have a legal duty to undertake such training where it's available and relevant and gain such experience. I don't care if they come from the public or private sector or even Mars for that matter, just like teachers I would like to think we're all here for the children I work with, to ensure they get the best possible help and support it's not a oneupmanship pissing match.
Surely both sectors can learn from each other?

Private schools just exclude children who do not behave. How would these bastions of excellence come to a state school and sort them out when these powers or the threat of exclusion are not present?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that independent schools come in and sort out behavioural issues in the state sector.
They are "bastions of excellence" in other areas and maybe they could share some if this with the state sector.

"maybe they could share some if this with the state sector"

Did this initiative come 'bottom up' from teachers in the state sector, or is it being imposed by Labour politicians?

I think it is extremely unlikely that the challenging school where I am a governor think the answer to (any of) their problems might lie in borrowing a Latin teacher twice a week.

Are there no children at the school who would like to learn Latin?

Are you being deliberately obtusebarcoda?

No. Are people really suggesting that because a school is challenging there would be no children who would enjoy learning Latin?

Terribly sad to be so sneering about it.

barcoda there may be a handful of DC who would like to learn Latin, but frankly the least of their problems is the lack of it.

Bringing in a local private school teacher twice a week would not go any way to alleviate the problems. To pretend otherwise is delusional and patronising.

yes of course it is not going to sort out the problems of the school. But that handful of kids might like it.

private schools have an attitude that if even one or two children really want to learn a subject they will bend over backwards to provide it