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)

duchesse I teach in a state sector and I can almost guarantee that it is one that you woul turn your nose up at and we provide all that you ask for with perhaps the exception of more PPA time for teachers, however being proffessional the only kids that affects would be my own as she never gets to see me in term time as I am so busy planning and providing an excellent education for other people's children.

Kaz33 it is only a selfish society because people make it that way. It doens't need to be that way, infact I see lots in my daily life that suggest societyis not as selfish as we would think.

I was also interested in the comment about clever children in state schools, I teach in a school where to be honest the kids we get at yearseven have on the whole no done that well, although our results show that we do very well with them as wehave a dedicated workforce. OUr clever kids do tend to stand out but they don't get bulllied or beinbg clever, bullying does happen but for other reasons. Our clever kids do get a very good education because they do stand out and we certainly do not aim for mediocrity. They do get specialised teaching, subjects often laid on for a few pupils and they benefit from our very good gifted and talented scheme. This is one of the reasons why mnay staff send their kids to our school and the fact that slowly but surely our image is changing in the community.

twinset- I taught in just such a school for two years, so I do know whereof I speak. It is not a question of "turning my nose up" at the school, more a question of being realistic about what the school was achieving and knowing that it would not be appropriate for my children.

I know for a fact that the higher-achievers were not being stretched adequately, and I really, really, dislike and disapprove of the notion that brighter kids should help others, as though they are some kind of teaching assistant. They are there to learn as well, and if they are not being anything they do not already know, then what is the point of them wasting 6 hours a day there?

THere may be bad state schools, I have taught in one, but that does not mean theyahve to be which was the point I was trying to make. Too often we think a school is a cross between beirut and strangeways with the academic acheivement of a soft playcentre when this is not the case.

I'm guessing that your school is an inner-city one, twinset. I may be guessing wrong. The "excellence in cities" programme strikes me as an very good thing thing. If our local school in any way offered this kind of support, I would not be spending £8500 per year on our older two. All our local comp does is hand out patronising "well done" certificates all the time to the kids who exceed expectations. Every child deserves to have something to aim for, to feel that if they work they an achieve more. If the most anyone expects of them is to stagnate at the top of teachers' and the national curriculum's expectations for them, that is not doing them a service.

I went to a perfectly decent comprehensive, where I was not pushed and got an acceptable 3 B's 4 C's for olevel. Should have done a lot better my brother got 9 A's at the local grammar school.

However, I learnt that i had to work if I wanted to achieve and got 3 A's at A level and a 2:1 from a decent university. My sixth form college was full of private school kids who mucked up their A levels because they partied and didn't know how to motivate themselves.

My brother ended up with 3 ok a levels and a third - only really got the self motivation thing for his MBA.

Better to muck up your GSCE's than your degree

Self interested argument for state schools if that is any help.

duchesse - that is an excellent way of putting it - disliking and disapproving of the idea that brighter children should be helping others as if they were some kind of teaching assistant.

Good points Twinset - I do realise that there must be beacons of hope out there but can't help being influenced by my own experience of being a state sector guinea-pig.

The bright kids in my school are being stretched and are beign taught something new, I had a parent talk to me last week about how glad she was that she ignored comments from other sniping parents about our school and sent her very very bright child to us becuase she has absolutely blossomed with us, and yes other children benefit from her presence but that is a by product not the aim of her education.

I also think that individual teachers have the power to turn around a school, I have taught in an awful school but my own classroom was a centre of excellence, unfortunatly other member of staff were not doing the same. But I knew that when the kids came to my lessons they were getting the besteducation possible.

My present school has turned itself around as individual teachers have created centres of excellence in their own subjects and this is raising acheivement and standards within a school.

I can't see how anyone can think if they can afford a good private school they should sacrifice their children for some supposed good which isn't proved anyway by sending them to a school which is worse. If they're clever they like to debate and bounce ideas of other clever children. I never understood the appeal of mixed ability teaching. Most comps stream anyway don't they - segregation on grounds of brains.

What about this issue that it's wrong to have elites? Why is that wrong? What if yo siphon off the best people and train them to be the leaders of the country, industry etc. May be that's a really good thing. The average person has some pretty silly views which is why we have politicians to decide things rather than millions of citizens voting everything by referenda. What used to happen with grammar schools was that poor clever children got a chance they now don't get.

I have never seen bright kids used as tecahing assistants, sometimes I may ask one of my brigher children to explain something to the class but that is because not only will it help the class as a whole but it will deepen the learning of the child doing the learning as you have to really understand something to explain it to others. This is not using kids as teaching assisitant but signs of a good education in which the teacher is pushing the children in his/her class.

I teach lots of "poor" clever children and they all get a good education.

Xenia, I don't think anyone objects to a true meritocracy based on brains and self-motivation. This whole thread is about how difficult and ethically unsound it is to achieve that, whether in the state or private sectors, as access to good education in this country is largely based on wealth. This perpetuates the bad concept of "elitism", which protects the unmotivated yet moneyed from the rigors to which everyone else is subject.

twinset- chances are they bright child already understands fully, and you are just using their adolescent language and deep understanding of the topic to get the message over better to the ones who have not yet cottoned on. I know this is supposed to be best practice, but is one of the things that makes me wary of teaching in the state sector.

Not sure. Sometimes it's the fact the parents talk to the children at home that helps them or because the child was born with a high IQ or ate fish or was lucky or found a mentor - all sorts of factors so I can't see why people criticise parents for paying for a good school but they don't criticise them for say talking to their children or giving them some other advantages like mother eating iron tablets in pregnancy or breastfeeding which I think improves child IQ. You can't say - stop the feeding because that's unfair on the unborn babies of heroine and nicotine addicts do you? So why bring your child down to a level of a bad school deliberately as a social engineering thing when oyu aren't also trying to correct other things to ensure we are all clones in a Maoist society?

No atually that is not true, I was marking some books the other week when one of my year sevens had completed some work that was correct but I had a feeling that she did not fully understand what she had written as it was a bit jumbled. I asked her to lead our class in summarising what we had done the lesson before and it became clear that she onlyhad a surface understanding that quickly became unravlled as she tried to teach others. I was able then to help her understand fully what wehad been doing.

But I am not giving my dd iron tablets in an exclusive commnity that only welomes the wealthy and sections off part of the community.

If there were some superior iron tablets that only rich children could take while others in theory would have to suffer, surely Xenia even you would think that was wrong. Woudn't you want to share the iron tablets out so everyone had a chance.

Life is unfair. Some people are born into rich families. Some people are born beautiful and talented. Some people are born handicapped.

Society can only go so far in compensating individuals for their misfortunes. Ideally, every child should have the opportunity to develop its full potential, but, as a society, we haven't managed that yet. In the mean time, let us not put a spanner in the works of progress by artificially holding some children back in the name of equality of opportunity.

But how are they being held back ?

xenia, the argument would be that education is a zero sum game, that by buying into private education you are actually harming state school pupils by getting a leg up when it comes to entry to the best universities - a limited number of places. the argument would go that by reading bedtime stories or administering eyeQ or whatever, you wouldn't actually be harming the life chances of others.

not saying i subscribe to this view btw, but that is the argument.

You could hold a child back very easily by putting a bright child in a school that didn't push him much. So if you decided against an academically challenging private school in the name of egalitarianism and sent a child to a less well-performing state school, you would probably hold him back.

Of course there are millions of things parents do every day that affect children's life chances, for better or worse. School is just one of the very visible ones.

bossykate- the logical extension of that is that our country's standards in areas such as science and technology slip back even further on the world scene. I don't think we are in a strong enough economic position not to at least attempt to be competitive.

bk, not sure you harm others by going to a private school. I suppose you might if you're very bright and we're sure bright children in comps from rich homes are a good thing. Not so if you've a less clever child though as many are in the private sector - in that case you're sparing the other comp children who don't have that child dragging the rest of the class down and in either case you're saving the state £5k a year.

Also things we do to help our children like say the fish oil which I buy and is not that cheap and does seem to help one of them in particular, or Tony Blair buying tutoring from Westminster school for his pupils or even just checking out which are the best state schools and choosing those where uninterested parents hardly bother to make sure the child turns up - those all give your child an advantage, push it ahead, help it get better exam results than others in this competitive world so in a sense you're kicking others just be helping your own.