I've read here on mnet recently that ..."The cost of private education is state education."

[Bubble99]

The problem is, IMO, no parent wants to be the one who puts their child into a failing school to raise the standards for future children.

I live in an area where the state primary schools are some of the best in the country but the secondary schools have the highest truancy rates in the UK and each OFSTED report for these schools mentions poor pupil behaviour and results.

The reason seems to be that involved and supportive parents use the primary schools but opt out of the secondary schools to go private by hook or by crook.

The result is that, as the local secondary schools are undersubscribed, they are then 'opened up' to children in neighbouring boroughs where parental involvement/interest seems to be less.

It is cyclical. Poor attendance/behaviour and results mean that local parents will not choose to send their children to their local school.

I am aware that I'm (as are many of us, I think) parents of only primary/junior aged children.

Teenagers are different, of course, but the children at our local school are still trouble, even with my fluffy baby/child glasses on.

I work in a secondary school, so I am fully aware what teenagers are like in schools these days: so no fluffy baby/child glasses on for me!

It is great when you get through to them and build up a relationship with them, but when I first started in a secondary school I was horrified at some of the routine behaviour.

Yes, you could rally all the supportive parents together from the closest feeding primaries and get them to support the local secondary instead of running off to faith schools and private schools and home educating.

You could change the local secondary school for the better and avaoid having to go to church or pay private school fees or lose out on a slaray from educating your child at home.

But - the children from the poorer neighbouring areas who used to occupy the school, would no longer get into your now well performing secondary school - so how would that help the problem? You would raise the standards of the school but not necessarily the standards of the pupils who are failing.

Secondary schools are too big IMO. How can it be a good thing to put that many teenagers together?!

People talk about wanting smaller class sizes for Primaries but I think smaller class sizes for Secondaries would be of more value.

I agrtee that Secondary schools are too big. The poor kids are just cogs in a machine- it seems that the important thing is the System, not the children.

my son attends the local school where no-one wants to go. tbh he loves it and his grades are really high. we are surrounded by faith/private schools here. all the other local kids get on coaches to take them to school. it does nothing for community relations.

Bubble99 and Fleusis, are you in RuT Borough by any chance, as the problem sounds familiar? Good primary schools and below average secondary schools.

One Secondary School draws lots of pupils from three good primaries, incl. one church school, still it's only mediocre - ok, better than some sink inner city comps but not great either and while there are lots of nice and normal pupils some are indeed scary.

The best state school is all girls.

Unfortunately we have three boys and can nowhere near afford private education.

At least one of our dc will never make it into Tiffin or a grammar school (even if we moved close to one) because of SEN (he's in mainstream state school though). Even with the other ones there's no guarantee, of course.

But with the SEN ds I'm very worried that he'll be in the bottom set not only with the nice-but-just-not-very-bright children but also with the very rough ones...

Despite the overall good primary school results I'm not so sure if all the parents at our primary really care that much, some seem to be very relaxed about education.

On the other hand, some are apparently not and pay for extra tuition, but would never ever talk about it, it's only by chance that I find out or suddenly spot a previously completely-anti-homework-mum at the local Kumon centre, .

For me it's very difficult to know what other parents really think. I have to say I'm from another European country so sometimes find it hard to be too outspoken myself as not to offend anyone, don't want anyone saying go home if you don't like it, lol.

So I'm really grateful for mn as everyone here seems to be a lot more open than at the school gates. Obviously views here are often v. controversial, as the number of state vs. private/homework vs. no homework messages etc. shows, but at least there is talk about it and most people here do seem to care, still I never hear mums in real life talk like that.

They're either happy with state education (maybe because they have no financial choice or out of principle) or pretend to be, some are disillusioned and say, well, the schools are not great but ok and what can we do, or others say nothing and just seem to be able pay for independent schools.

I'm also not sure if the primary schools, despite getting good results for state schools, are actually that good. I'm not blaming the teachers, I'm sure they do what they can with 30 in a class, but feel I'm not informed at all about what really goes on at school, plus I am constantly being told by very delightful, kind, understanding teachers that my children are 'fine' while exactly secretly wanting to scream at them, 'no, they're not fine at all, at least not academically'. They are in fact so nice that I don't even dare ask if 'most boys have trouble learning to read/write etc.' why nothing is done about it, and I also know that they can't do much about all those Goverment rules, initiatives etc.

Compared to homework/spelling tests etc. at most private schools (even not hothouse ones) even a good state primary still seems to be a joke.

So no clue what to do. If you have to be within commuting distance of London it's not easy.

Bubble99, if you are in or near my area, let us know more about your knowledge and plans, I should be very interested indeed...

Yes, we are talking about RuT. But, my older child has only just been accepted to reception. So, I'm not yet well versed in the secondary applications and options. The girls school you are referring to is Waldegrave? But, even though it's highly regarded, it doesn't really hold a candle to private school test results.

I stopped having children at 2 largely because I think there's no way I'll be able to fork over 3 private school tuitions, but two is MAYBE within reach. So, having a third child could deprive the two I have of a good education (for senior school).

'tis all about money I'm afraid.

edam/Rhubarb, you'd get on well with Fiona Millar. The problem is, why should we? We pay our taxes for state education, we are involved parents who take an active interest in our child's education, we make sure she goes to school every day with her teeth and hair brushed and her uniform clean and her homework done, we got to every parents' evening, open evening and nativity play, we support the PFA and put the Tesco vouchers in the box. DW and I are working parents and we do everything we can.

I'm relieved every day that it's a good school and haven't got to put in loads of effort, day after day, to "turn around" the school, battling against a tide in order to improve it, probably not for our children but for those who will be coming in 10 years' time.

Sorry - I can't be arsed. That's why we moved to a good catchment. The bad school can be someone else's problem.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I'm just being realistic.

I had a conversation once with a person from the LBRUT school admissions section. It was at an NCT group, (most mothers with babies!) so you can tell how paranopid parents were already getting. She said it was amusing that there was a total bunfight among parents about getting into a specific primary in our area, but actually the difference in the primaries was minimal, they are all very good - it was the secondaries that were /&%.
Of course, many of those NCT mums heeded her, and were smart enough to move to Bucks on the basis that of course their little darlings would get into grammars, and save the school fees...

I agree fio - we were lucky to be able to move when we did. I'm not going to judge people who use private school because to me there's little difference between paying that way and paying through the mortgage.

If even Waldegrave (one of top 50 comprehensives in the country) isn't good enough for you, then basically you just have a preference for private schools, yes? I mean, how can you complain about Waldegrave (I'm an old girl, BTW!) Comp results will always be worse than the results from good private schools, because private schools have a selective intake (dur). Have you thought about what your child might gain from going to a good comprehensive - a wider social circle, for a start? I met girls at Waldegrave (and became good friends with them) that I would simply never have encountered in other contexts. It changed my life for the better in a lot of ways.

Oh, and I got a pretty blardy good education, too.

I'm very sceptical of the idea that parents "getting together" will improve state schools.

Firstly, they will be simply ignored.

...and with good reason. Parents in Britain are sad examples of why we need to improve standards, not a group who should have much influence over trying to improve them.

Many parents have heard that phonics are good for reading. Which one ? There's more than one style, which is better ? Assume MNers are a representative sample of parents, so how many know what the "old" system was called ?

Anyone here like to even guess the contents of Physics A level ? Which Spanish are your kids learning, which do you think they should learn. Is it news that there is more than one ?
Look at the sad sorry state of sex education which has had a lot of "input". Imagine if parents got in on that even more.

Some schools are only too happy to listen to parents when they insist that girls get taught more "appropriate" subjects for people whose role it is to cook and have babies.

Most telling of all look at a brochure for a school, or it's web site. 9/10 the leading item is ....
Sport
Sometimes sport is second as well. One of the prospectuses we got sent, gave the impression that other subjects were merely to give the kids breathing time between sports lessons.

That's because schools have sussed out that parents like sport. Does your kid's school have a newsletter ? What % is sport ?

Oh, and they like uniforms as well.

Haven't read all the thread, but however socially minded I am, there is NO way on earth that ds1 is going to the local comp. I think he would be stabbed or shot tbh. My clever sensitive son is not going near somewhere like that - it just isn't fair on him.

We couldn't even afford to send 2 to private schools so no 3 didn't really make a difference. As ds1 is the one with SEN (although when he was a young baby/toddler it wasn't that obvious as they're rather 'mild') private education for him would cost even more, as he'd need an appropriate ind. school (ehtey do exist but normally cost 3 times as much as a "normal" ind. school).

In my country private education does exist, but not to the extend it does here, so the problem didn't even occur to me when I started a family...
So really we would have to have stopped at one child, but really, neither can I reverse the decision nor would I want to. Funnily enough, ds3 has the highest potential so far, even though he's only 2 you can see that.

I'd be happy to send a girl to Waldegrave (if I had one).

In a hurry now, will be back later.

paranoid, my Waldegrave rant wasn't inspired by your posting! Your situation sounds pretty stressful - hope you can resolve it. For what it's worth, so long as a school isn't really awful (and I don't think many secondaries in RuT are), then one of the biggest determining factors in a child's academic performance is whether his/her parents are motivated and interested in education themselves.

I'm not sure why tortoiseshell thinks private education is anti-social.
To be sure it embarrasses those who think of school as an opportunity for social engineering that they fail to achieve as much as the private sector, but as we all know the close an organisation is to involvement with the government (of any party) the less efficient it will be.
Also it betrays the state-ists view of what people are. By not sending my (very smart) kids to state schools, they see it as depriving the school of it's rightful assets, ie my kids.

They see people as the state's property.

If my kids school taught racial or religious hatred, then they might have a case. Except of course as we see in places like Northern Ireland, a primary source of race/faith hatred are state funded schools.
Even in England we note that the state allows religious groups of many kinds to take control of schools and refuse to admit those who are not paid up members of their sect.
There are even state schools which openly discriminate on the basis of race.

What, precisely has the state done about the violent racism against English kids this is observed in Scottish schools ?

Very few private schools deny access on the grounds of religion, and I'm not aware of any that deny access on the grounds of race, doubt they'd be allowed to.

Also are the stateists prepared to pay more tax ?
Private schools cost the taxpayer very little, if state funded then taxes would have to go up.

What I mean DC is that a very socially minded person might take the view that in order to improve, schools need to take a totally balanced intake, and therefore taking your child out of the system (especially if your child is likely to benefit the school) is not a very socially minded thing to .

Does anyone ever suggest all-girls schools should be abolished? Isn't it unfair to the boys in an area where the girls school is doing well and the boys school is failing?

My husband worked in the state education sector for 20 years, and then moved into the private sector for the following reasons: a)better conditions of service b)easier life c)reduced fees for our children so the opportunity to give them what we believe to be an excellent education. What has been really interesting is the reaction of some of our friends - they are outraged at what they see as us letting the side down etc! What makes us giggle is these are the friends who work in privatised industries, who wouldn't dream of working in the public sector, whether it be education, health or whatever. They also wouldn't dream of saying 'no thanks' to the perks of THEIR jobs - company car, private health care, dividends etc....Which leads me to the conclusion that some people are just jealous that other people have made certain choices in their life. We struggled for years on a teaching salary, watching many of our friends outstrip us financially, and now we're kind of reaping the benefits of that career choice. I know this is a bit of a digression from the original thread, but it's an interesting point. A large proportion of the kids at my dcs school are in the same position - children of the teaching staff - and i think its absolutely fair enough that in a profession that has so little to recommend it these days, this is actaully a great perk!!

Hotcoffee - given that once they leave school girls face glass ceilings at the workplace, reduced career prospects if they start a family etc etc, the last thing we should do is anything which would negatively affect girls' progress.

So those who think private schools are better do you think you've failed your children by giving up work and not being able to afford fees or picking career choices which mean you'll never be able to afford school fees?

I would like my sons to go to a mixed-sex school (important for us as we have all boys) where they can be in a class with other children who want to learn and not get stabbed on the way home.

The academic results of the school are not my top priority, the atmosphere is. My sons will have another 4 - 6 years of formal education and I want to make sure that this takes place in a school that they can learn in or I may as well take them out of the system now.

When I went was 11/12 this kind of school could still be found within the state sector. Now, in my area, it can't.

it's definitely changing (for the better) our side of the river bubble

in fact, a very good friend of ours is a guvnor at the school I imagine you are referring to and they are working hard there to improve matters (and it has indeed improved over the last few years since the dire Ofsted)