Ethically, is there any difference between buying a house in a good catchment area and just PAYING fees?

[Fillyjonk]

Seems pretty much the same to me

Both ways you are paying for an edcuation

Both ways the intake of the school is limited, one by catchment (local, expensive) one by just upfront paying fees.

Thoughts? Justifications ?

(this got posted in SEN for some reason. Not sure how. Apologies)

And unfortunately achieving only Cs puts him at a disadvantage when starting A levels as he will have gaps in his knowledge- in the case of modern languages, this will mean he knows a very limited amount of the grammar needed to progress to an A level in languages. He may be way behind in maths if he intends to take it on to 6th form, and have to work really hard to catch up. The schools however are not scrutinised as closely for their post-compulsory education, or in any case lose pupils to 6th form colleges, so care rather less about whether bright children achieve what they are capable of than their own % of grades A-C.

< / rant >

My children's schools most children at GCSE get A* or A. Bs are rare. Cs are rare. It rubs off on the lazy ones. No one wants to be worst in the class. If worst is getting a B they might work to get an A. If worst is hardly being at school at all and one D then they move to that level.

Again, I agree with Duchesse. That is why DS has been receiving extra tuition and was enrolled in Easter revision courses. And why he will now be going to a private Sixth Form College to give him a chance (38% failure rate at Maths AS in his local state sixth form college and classes of up to 25). His elder brother went to an independent all the way through secondary and being clever but not motivated (would never have left play group if he had the decision) he thrived there.

Lilymaid at your son not wanting to leave playgroup- mine's just the same...

have not read the whole thread and am known on here as a staunch proud user of state education but I suppose that buying in a good catchment area could be worse as you are profiteering as well.

My leftie ways have seen us make about £50K in equity in a few years.

My son who didn't want to leave playgroup is now reading economics at university and will be doing a fairly prestigious internship this summer - but he would be perfectly happy still doing a 20 year old's version of play group - i.e. mixing music in his bed room! I remember all the mothers of girls saying how their DDs couldn't wait to go to school - none of the boys had the slightest interest in going!

I hope that £50k is being given away to leftist charities then....

I just don't understand why paying fees is any different from paying for tuition or helping children at home or any of the other things parents do to help their children.

lilymaid that's rather an odd gender generalisation. My ds is champing at the bit to get to school, he can't wait.

It is just my personal experience that my DSs have been less interested in starting school than the girls. DS1 could read very well before he started school and was also good at Maths but he was far more interested in being Captain Spaceman playing with his friends on the playgroup climbing frame than in starting school.

xenia, you've answered your own question surely? It's good for kids to have clever kids in their class. by sending your children to private school you are making it harder for other kids in the locl comp to do well. Well, you are if your kids are clever, if they're stupid it doesn't matter so much. Because, as it gioes, if you are the sort of person who can afford to send kids to private school then actually they'll do alright wherever you send them.

Plus there are al kinds of arguments about social segregation and society and stuff but I know you wouldn't understand those.

You mean the deprivation in the local comp because my clever children aren't in it is an adverse effect? Say in this bit of NW London I would guess 10% of chidlren go to private schools but actually the poorer parents will try them for Watford Grammar, Henrietta Barnet, QE boys, bucks grammars and if they don't pass then go private so it's an interesting local market and some want religious state secondary schools too and there are large numbers of good private secondaries.

Social inclusion... well you get better racial mixing actually in our local private schools so if you think racial mixing is more important than class mixing then you might prefer private? Also not very snobby parents at all - local shop keepers putting all the family spare money into the child place. But obviously they can afford to pay so they are better off, money often being held by rather common people - bits of London working class made good kind of stuff. But not very poor and very working class in the private schools that's true.

xenia I would imagine that all the voluntary work I do probably has amounted that in the time I have earnt that equity so in a roundabout way the money has been paid back.

places like hbs, qe boys etc were, when i was at hbs, VERY similar in profile to the independent schools i knew of.

There is usually an excellent "racial" mix, whatever that means. AFAIR, white CoE girls were in the minority at HBS, the majority were Muslim or Jewish.

Class mix. No. When I went there there were about 10 (self selected) applicants for a place. It was the norm to be tutored through the entrance exam and then continue to be tutored for the remaining time there. (not sure why parents didn't just keep them home really, save on busfare )

SenorePostrophe - ''It's good for kids to have clever kids in their class.'' This can be true but surely depends on how many. If the school is left with only a handful of clever kids and scatters them among the classes you don't get any benefit as they will be bullied by their peers for being the only clever one and will have a miserable time as a result. I get worried about talk which suggests using the clever ones to help the others as this always seems to ignore the happiness of the children.

I have a real problem with an assumption here.
Time & again I see people talking of issues that have nothing to do with the kids benefit.
To me mixing with "different" kids is good (or bad) entirely on how it helps the children doing the mixing.
We see people talking of "the community needs...", followed by "RE Teaching", "Welsh", "Urdu", "less/more sex education".

Yet often this is not because these things benefit the child, but some view of the author's view on how things should be in general.
I don't want my kid used as cannon fodder in some implausible attempt to "improve" society.

If you genuinely think Welsh or Urdu offer job opportunities or that they expand the set of ideas that a child grasps and thus helps them think better, that's fine. For some unintuitive reason, Welsh speakers in my experience speak English better, but that's not the reason usually advanced. Typically it is to "help the language survive", a rather shabby reason to screw with education
The benefit to kids is a minority of voices, it's typically some "social agenda".

DominiConnor - ''I don't want my kid used as cannon fodder in some implausible attempt to "improve" society.''
Well said - that's what I'm driving at too. Back in the '70's I was used like that and I resent it to this day havinh had a miserable time at school as a result.

Wheresmysuntan- I completely agree with you. I went through French state schools (high=aiming almost by definition) being and feeling like an alien. I think I might have been tougher than my children are due to my harsher upbringing, but I was still as miserable as anything for 10 years (first and last years were fine). Since they don't have to, I see no reason to inflict that on my children in full knowledge of how they would feel. My father did it me, and I have no intention of passing it on to the next generation.

Dominiconnor-that is the argument that always gets me coming from this government- "put your kids in the local schools, and they will magically get better". How? When? How quickly? How much? I too have no intention of sacrificing my children's chances of achieving what they are able just because some government minister tells me to. If they really want children like mine in their schools, then they should make an effort to see the problem from our point of view encourage us by doing what we want: teach not to lowest common denominator but to the 60-70% mark, have regular stretching activities (eg extra classes for the higher-achieving as well as the lower-achieving), setting from year 7 not year 9, fewer contact hours for teachers so they can at least feel human. Why do they not do this, instead of repeatedly failing to convince us that what we really all want our children is 5 C s at GCSE (unless we coach them to get higher grades). Unless...gasp!...they actually BELIEVE in elitism, and want to preserve it at all costs. Truth is, if all these puushy parents ended up in the state system requesting all these (perfectly reasonable to my mind) things the schools would be woefully underfunded.

Yet: My youngest daughter's school manages to provide what we want for her: a rigorous education coupled with plenty of extra-curricular activities, smaller class size, a very wide mix of children including a fair proportion of kids with problems such as ADHD, Asperger's and dyslexia (5 out of 16 in my daughter's class, plus one with other issues), kindness and attention, all for £5400 per year. This is roughly comparable to what the state sector charges. Where does the state budget go? On technology largely superfluous in a primary school, on staff sick leave, and on admin time. Hardly benefiting the children then...

I don't see a problem with either. If parents have the money and want to spend it how they see best for their kids education, how can anyone mind about that?

Not that I have the money, but if I had I would certainly spend it on getting the best possible education for my kids.

And I agree with you Duchesse - £5400 per year sounds like a bargain - is that primary or secondary? I am fast concluding I might want to send my dd private for secondary but have been frightened by the fees. DP dead against the idea - he went to public school I went to state comp - it's funny how it has affected us.

Interesting though process....I think I concur with the OP

Lovely school, Wheresmy, but it's in Devon! Can't advertise here, but google "school Aylesbeare" (it's the first one), see what you think. It is starting going up to 16 in September and offerng GCSEs, to be taken as when a child is ready (ie any time between 11 and 16).

Some people want to repeat their experience and others avoid it. I suppose it just depends how you found that experience. My ex husband was happy for the children to be private educated as I had (he was at a state school) because he'd taught in both sectors and is not left wing. In fact in 1988 my daughter would have gone to the state Catholic school near us where she got a place had she not passed to get into Haberdashers at 5.

Lots of private schools cost about £2k a term. Often the cheaper ones wedded to inclusion and academdic success often with origins in helping clever poor children are better in terms of A level grades than some of the more expensive ones.

Thanks Duchesse - I'll look at that. Devon's a great place but a bit of a commute from Sussex.

It is like hitting your head against a brick wall, it always comes down what is best for my kids. We are a selfish society.

But the segregation in sociey is getting worse, despite 10 years of labour rule. All that has happended is that the "elite" has changed, now the new middle classes are determined to hang on to their status and power. Of course they buy into private school education, after all the old elite used it as a form of exculsion.

How ever you look at it, it is a bad thing for society as a whole

DC I we back on the old hobby horse of REis about brianwashing children or trying to make them bland nice people. THat is about as true as Geography helping kids to like the countryside.

Myself and others have corrected your assumptions about RE to the extent where it is getting boring.