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.

Truancy is still a major issue there though, Foxy. I know this as I see them wandering by the nursery at all times of the school day.

The problem is, IMO, that there are no sanctions. Do detentions still exist?

I'm intrigued, bubble. Why do you want them to go to a mixed sex school. I tend to prefer the mixed sex scools too. But, I find I'm in the minority. So just wondering why you prefer them.

I imagine there are (sanctions) bubble - I'll have to ask her. It still needs a lot of attention that school though - think the result of the failing Ofsted was to be given more money/attention so hopefully, that might start paying off soon. I haven't spoken to her in a while - I'll catch up with her at some point and find out what's going on.

Is there no chance you'd get into the one near us? - not that it's perfect but it's not bad (you're not that far if you consider the footbridge) - it's due a major rebuild that is supposed to include a sixth form too.

Eleusis. Mixed sex for the social aspect. I know that results-driven parents prefer single-sex education at secondary schools as there are no distractions in the classroom for their hormone-riddled offspring.

Mr Bubble (one of 2 boys) spent all of his school years in single-sex schools and has said that he didn't learn that women can be disliked/loathed. He idolised girls/women by default as he had never had any experience of being around them.

OK, he got a good degree. But social learning is as important as academic, IMO.

Yes, Foxy. I think we may be in the catchment for that school, too. I must go and have a look. It's quite 'artsy' too, which I like the sound of.

Interesting suggestion that 'taking your child out of the system is not a very socially ,minded thing to do'....because I don't see us as having taken our children out of something the state has imposed. We have chosen (and, I accept, are able to choose) to send our children to a well known public school with 1/3 assisted places, a considerable international mix, and a very strong faith basis, although with every faith group represented. Were we to stay 'in the system' our children would be attending the local, highly selective secondary school, where ethnicity is 98% white and where multi-faith issues are dealt with in RS periods once a week. We would be there having paid the inflated prices required to live in the catchment area, and we would be making exactly the same contribution to Gordon Brown's coffers as we do now.

Something else I've heard recently (round these parts) is that, because of the high property prices, where lots of people would have opted for private secondary school, now (because of forking out massively for a house round here) they are unable to make that financial sacrifice - can see the improvement in local schools and are willing to stick with state the whole way through.

I've heard that more and more and was told (by a mum whose boy was in yr6 last year) that although they still had some who went on to private/Tiffin, that there appeared to be a larger proportion of parents who were adamant that their children would stay in the state system.

(I don't know if it is possible to analyse admission figures for that although I suspect it is more of a gradual creep back towards the state sector rather than a stampede).

Good point and it makes me ask, is there a state "system"?
For accountancy and political purposes, yes, but for the kids ?
To me a "system" is something that responds to input and has choices.
I have no choice in state school, and the headmaster of nearest state school to me (St. John's Buckhurst Hill) has "responded" to parental input to regard the teaching of maths past 12 as "a waste of time". Yes, his actual words...

If my child is better served by a different school than the one allocated, there is little chance that he can move, so it's not a "system", it's a lump.

In other words it is a "system" as long as you are on the provider side.

There is a lot of stateism in educational policy. To me, the only valid criterion is the welfare of the child to which it is applied. Not "society", and not the parents.

We see a lot of things done to education whose stated motivation is to help "society" and "respect the parents wishes" when it clearly is not in the interests of the kids.

But private school numbers are rising, hugely up in the SE (but down slightly in the North) so there's a trend to them not away from them for all the obvious reasons and I'd agree with the comment below that if you want a good ethnic and religious mix and entry by academics not by the group who self select by the area in which they choose to live then private can get you the best mix.

this is one small specific area though Xenia with a very strange mix of excellent primaries and so so secondaries (and grammars and private schools) where the dynamic has changed ever so slightly (doesn't mean the private school role will be less but perhaps, less from this specific area iyswim)

Sometimes paying more for the house to get into the good school where the rules as to who gets in where can be changed on a whim and there's only one decent school limits you more than buying a house in a cheap area and using the spare money to choose between 4 or 5 good private schools. in other words doing it by house price limits you more and you still may not get your choice.

it's madness talking like this though - private school, by and large, will still only have children who have not only been academically selected but can afford to pay the fees.

Being able to move house/select an area for a good state school also only applies to a small percentage who have the financial ability to take those sorts of decisions - it certainly doesn't apply to the majority of people in this country.

According to these school statistics - which make an interesting read by the way -
29.2% of pupils attended private schools in this Borough in 2006 which is a very high percentage, the highest in Outer London (Outer London average 8.1%, National Average 6.9%)

you'd expect that though paranoid - given that RUT is a borough with a larger than average (for London) proportion of well-off peeps (I imagine) - same goes for Ken and Chels.

Of couse you'd expect that (in fact I'd expected more than that, I once heard a rumour of 39% but this is the first time I actually checked).

Still this doesn't really explain why the state primaries are not just 'good' but even among the best in the country and the secondaries not at all.

Are there really hardly any secondary school parents who are caring and involved who just lack the money?

It would be interesting to have the % figures split for primary/secondary but have no idea where to find this.

I just don't see what parents can do to change a school. A supportive parent is one who has aspirations for their children adn ensures that they attend school, complete their homework and follow school rules. The more of those children in a school, the better the overall school will be.

I can see merit in rallying together those local parents who normally send their children somewhere else and persuading them all to use the local secondary. The school would then be made up mostly of supprtive parents as defined above. The school would also be made up of local cghildren and that is good for that particualr community and those children who live there. It is especially good for the children of supportive parents who could not have afforded private school or opted for a faith school.

But, the children who are brought in from other poorer areas, won't be benefitting from that. They will just end up at another under-subscribed, failing school.

Oh yes, and the question I posed about girls schools failing boys was hypothetical - it's not actually what I think

That list of % in private education is interesting. The wealthier areas have more children in private schools so presumably instead of poorer parents moving there to get good state schools more not fewer parents pay for private schooling.

Interesting statistics. Some distortions, though, that you could only interpret if you knew the demographics of the area -- eg. Hackney has relatively high proportion of children in private school, but that will be almost entirely down to orthodox jewish and muslim children in private religious schools, rather than people sending their kids privately for more conventional reasons.

And City of London, which actually has no state schools -- the primary serving that area is in Islington, but there are two private secondaries taking children from outside the borough. Plus very few families actually live in the City.

Xenia - I agree about the house price thing - in our area, we are between two good schools - ds1's, which we love, it's a lovely community school, mixed intake, does averagely well on league tables, but fantastic music, drama etc. The other school came top in the whole country on the league tables about 3 years ago, house prices are 30-40k higher than an identical house just out of their catchment.

I think it is paying for your education by stealth, but I can't see a way around it unfortunately.

BTW, we turned down a place at the second high achieving school for a place at the first school!

paranoid - there are some good secondaries though (and some not so good primaries). Just not all of them.

Historically, lots of children went from state primary to private secondary because they could - i.e. they were in a position financially where they were able to choose where to send their child (and also, this area isn't a labour stronghold by any means so you don't necessarily have lots of people who are ideologically opposed to private school). That then left (as bubble said) the state secondaries taking a proportion of children from outside the borough who hadn't had the same excellent start that most children in RUT get.

I don't know if you have ever looked round any of the private secondaries here (I've been in Hampton and Eleanor Holles for a swimming thing) - the facilities are amazing, really, truly amazing and I can see why people would choose to send their children there.

The state primaries have drawn local children because they are good but also because they are able to draw their intake from a relatively small area thus ensuring they get a good proportion of people who will invest an interest in their education - RUT doesn't have loads of problem estates but even then, you can tell where those are from the primaries that aren't necessarily faring as well.

It's a chicken and egg thing - the primaries get better, they draw more local support and carry on improving (there are some exceptions to this obviously). Even with good state secondaries, there will always be a (larger than average) proportion of children in RUT sent to private secondaries because they tend to be excellent schools with great facilities (and good reputations) and simply because They Can!

Hotcoffee, I'm not sure how strong the good example of some parents is. You could equally argue that supportive parents are dragged down by duff ones.

As for "rallying" parents, is this a serious idea, or some irony that I'm too dumb to spot ?
The social problems with the more broken state schools are almost invariably down to a small minority. If you have 100 serious cases in a 750 kid school then diluting them with 50 "good parents" is going to achieve absolutely nothing except fucking up the lives of even more kids.

Would you send your kids to a bad hospital so that the staff could spend more time on kids with fewer problems ?

Also I seriously doubt you can get parents to gang up like this.
This is an example of a deeper problem. Socialism didn't work because it not only said "if people were radically different in this way", it actually assumed that it could change people to be like that. Hence the structural defects in our system that last long after it's political base has become an endangered species.

but if those 100 cases happen to be from an area further away from the school and you can persuade more local people (in catchment) to use the school, then you will dilute the problem as many of those 100 cases will have to go elsewhere (as they won't get places) and another school will end up with them (thus shifting the problem).

The 'rallying' parents thing happens - we were approached by a number of parents (years ago) when we lived in W6 and asked whether we would consider supporting our local school (we were going to anyway). They were trying to make a concerted effort to attract local families who they felt could offer something to the school (in terms of support) as it had not been doing very well and they had a new headmaster and wanted to make a good start (think it had been a 'failing' school but not 100% sure). I notice this school now (around 5 years later) has an excellent value added and does v well and is now a sought after school. It can happen.

But sometimes you're better off just earning extra money in the time you'd spend campaiging so you can buy a place at a good private school without all that other risk and hassle. Look at those parents in london who have taken somethin glike 10 years to get funding to found a new hopefully good secondary school. I can't remember exactly where but it wasn't exactly a stellar success.