Do private schools have better teachers?

[hercules1]

Read this on a different thread and it has peed me off a bit. I know lots of really good teachers who don't and won't teach in private schools. I've also known some teachers leave the state system to go to the private as they could no longer cope within the state.

Private doesn't equate with better teachers Of course it means lots of other things and I am sure there are lots of excellent teachers in the private system but no more so than the state.

that "fun, interesting parents" send their children to private school, Xenia
Bit of a sweeping generalisation there maybe?

My current interest is in primary schools, and while a great dealof emphasis has been placed on the ability of private schools to attract specialist teachers at secondary level, I don't believe that the same would apply to primaries. I still think my mother is right in saying that if you are a career primary teacher there may be greater career development opportunities at primary level in the state sector.

Will all the teachers amongt us now all snort with derision together at the thought of the lead examiner?

I have worked for 10 years with an examiner. Lovely bloke. Can't teach for toffee.

U think though xenia that you undermine you argument bysaying that unless left wing - which from my experience most teachers are - the best teachers will be in private schools.

The best teachers do tend to see their job as a vocation and most teachers as you say are left wing ( well the ones I work with who are in the state sector) so they arein the state secotr because they are good teachers wnating to make a difference rather than because they are crap.

So maybe good right wing teachers work in the private sector, good left wing teachers teach in the state sector and the rest are in unhappily frustrated and in the wrong job or not good enough to get the job they wnat.

My PGCE tutor was an Ofstead inspector. Couldn't teach to save her life, and wouldn't last 30 minutes in any modern school, state or private. Her grasp of biology wasn't too hot either!

I am an examiner and a coursework moderator. I teach in the state sector. TBH anyone who thinks ties, beards and accents have any kind of place in a discussion about education and spouts statistics which are made up and meaningless anyway is not worth responding to.

OTOH, she had a cut glass accent and always looked so smart.

LMAO!

I have some friends who have moved from state to private and were shocked at the poor quality of teaching (especially the complete lack of planning). A state school teacher friend tutors girls from one of the private schools which is fabulously ironic. Its one of the reasons why its results are so good.

I can see your logic, Xenia, but I don't believe that it works that way. Look at it from the other point of view - you can get away with extremely lazy teaching at a private school. The good results achieved by private school pupils have much more to do with the selection process, parental influence and generally smaller class sizes than the actual teaching, imo.

No, they don't.

Now I'm not saying that in some circumstances private schools are not better. If all I had been offered was our local primary for the sluglet then I would have seriously considered bankrupting ourselves. It's not that the school is in the middle of a sink estate that was the problem, rather the reputation it has amongst teachers, who are always a far better measure of the school than an OFSTED report.

I think the problem is that if you have paid out large fees for private schools then in some way you have to justify it to yourself. For people who don't understand how the private/public school system works i.e. selection by behaviour, parental income and potential, then it's very easy to look at the raw measure of A level results and pronounce on the worth of the school. A far better measure of a school's effectivenss is the 'Value added' score. Basically what it does is look at students and measure how well they progress based on a measure of similar students at similar schools. So if a school in a sink estate area is getting average GCSE results, even though it's students are mainly second language speakers or refugees, it may be judged as producing better results than a private school that selects it's students on the basis of intellectual ability. Chances are those children in the private school would have done just as well if they went to the local secondary, or possibly even better.

The problem is, that private schools are not compelled to produce value added data, so making the comparisons are difficult if not impossible.

agree with slug

that was an order btw

Not disagreeing with you Slug but again it just depends what school you're talking about. Have just looked at my dds' independent school inspection report again which measures the school's performance both against otehr state schools and against other independent schools. It finds that at the secondary school tests indicate that although some of the girls are well above the average in ability, many are broadly in line with the national average (for state schools) yet 99% go on to achieve 5 grades A-C at GCSE with a high percentage being A*-B. Also, the report finds excellent and very good teaching, planning etc etc. Also, difficult to produce value added data when don't sit national tests like SATS.

Felt compelled to air a view. I have an excellent degree in Russian and French. Have always taught in the state sector and achieved excellent results in one form or another. Have managed to achieve position on SLT in a relatively short space of time and can afford lovely clothes. If when the time comes I choose to send my dd to private school I would expect her to achieve high results due to her own intelligence and the small classes. I have several friends who work in seemingly prestigious schools, who are driven mad by ladies teaching as a 'little something to do', who also bring the rest of us into disrepute by wearing woolly, bobbly cardigans and pearls. These do not look cool with big hair and a blue rinse. There is good and bad everywhere and all children deserve to be taught well, whether their parents can afford to pay for it or not.

there is a problem with value added - if you have pupils who do well whenyoung, even if they achieve 5 grade As at A level, they will appear to have had nothing added to their achievement - the calculations just didn't take into account the best pupils. i work in a very mixed state comp - my lovely top set will not have a good value added rating, even if they all get A* at GCSE.

used to work in a very difficult state school - anyone living in leeds will have heard of it as it was notorious. the teachers there either became very good, very quickly, or left quickly. you had to rise to the challenges. none of us would have wanted to teach in a private school, and very few of us had great academic qualifications, BUT we knew how to get the pupils through the system so they left with the best results for them. interestingly, we were (appartently) the only school where alistair smith (learning styles guru) found that we were all strong in all types of learning styles - probably something to do with the all singing, all dancing approach to education.

Quite a lot of private schools take particularly unintelligent pupils (Millfield isn't very hard to get into etc) and add a lot of value. Aldenham I'd say the same.

I suppose we should sak teachers would you rather be head of department at Manchester Grammar or St Paul's or the best state grammar school in the country? I just think there's a flight to quality and because of free fees for your children, higher pay, often staff accommodation, lovely atmosphere etc you get more than 6% of the best teachers. It's self evident but fairly irrelevant as very very few children go to private schools anyway. And all the other arguments too like you're not just paying for better exam results but to have children educated with clever children in a single sex environment where people want to learn, behave well etc etc etc And I know loads of teachers because the children's father is one.

Really interesting thread - not least because of the myths/prejudice/downright ignorance it exposes!!
Briefly (speaking as someone with experience of teaching in state and private) private schools DON'T necessarily pay better - some do, some don't.
Teachers - you get some amazing teachers in each sector, some crap and everything on the spectrum inbetween.
Bit like every other job I suspect (though thank god we don't ALL assume we have inside knowledge of everyone elses!!

'I suppose we should sak teachers would you rather be head of department at Manchester Grammar or St Paul's or the best state grammar school in the country? '

Neither, thanks. Perfectly happy where I am. And, while the dds are small at least, perfectly happy as a mainstream teacher. And brilliant at it of course.

And dp, who teaches at a school for kids with severe EBD, also brilliant natch though his students' ACADEMIC qualifications aren't usually much to shout about.

'I just think there's a flight to quality '
I really don't think this is the case for the vast majority of teachers. As I've said we all have our own idea of what makes a 'good' school. Some of the most gifted teachers I've ever met have worked in inner city comprehensives out of choice and loved it. I, personally, would hate to work in a private school or even in a school full of hard-working, middle-class kids. It's just not for me.

sar, didn't mean to imply all private school teachers dress better... can think of some very interesting exceptions to that.
My daughter's Head (daughter now at university) looks okay and dresses well www.nlcs.org.uk/welcome/index.shtml but even not all Heads do.
I wonder if I can find a really awfully dressed teacher to match that one then.

QUOTE: "I just think there's a flight to quality and because of free fees for your children, higher pay, often staff accommodation, lovely atmosphere etc you get more than 6% of the best teachers. It's self evident"

Actually, I don't imagine the majority of NQTs are motivated by the above 'perks. IMO it's illogical to think that most teachers want to teach in a private school environment when most have probably come through the state system themselves and because teaching is a vocation very often motivated by more altruistic forces.

No, it's not the teachers that are better at private schools, it's the classes, ie there are approximately half as many children, and not as many discipline and special needs problems to take up valuable time.

Teachers in the state system (I'm talking Primary) have to teach EVERY national curriculum subject, but in private schools there are specialist teachers, so once in private schools the teachers become de-skilled in a way. It's therefore pretty hard for them to go back to state schools - assuming they would want to. Obviously the long holidays/small classes will attract good teachers, but there are many good teachers whose principles wouldn't allow them to leave the state sector.

Obviously there are good and bad teachers in all schools. I think what attracts people to independent schools is not the teaching, but the facilities etc. Also, in private schools they are not bound by the national curriculum, although most of them follow it loosely, so they can take time out to persue anything that interests them. Some parents prefer this less rigid approach.

Hercules, am interested to know why you think teachers in state schools are actually better.

You are making a number of assumptions about good teachers Xenia. As I said previously, there is a lot of intellectual satisfaction to be gained from teaching children who are, to generalise, more difficult to teach, whether it be due to EBD or other SEN.

I know my subject pretty well, and although as MB says, the very bright A level student can really keep you on your toes, it is more challenging to me to research, develop and apply techniques to help children who really struggle with their learning.

So, despite my enviable record in A level teaching , I made a move into SEN. And the attraction of the clever, well-behaved classroom is limited for me.