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)

I know this is irrelevant to the argument, but it is illustrative of what schools are up against.

I used to teach a really troublesome/spirited pair aged 14 and 15, whose 29 year old mother worked in the school kitchen. In my first year, I was carrying out GCSE orals in French in a hut round the back of the school, behind the kitchens. Young Brian was supposed to be one of the candidates. At the appointed time, I was set up in the hut, waiting for young Brian. Nothing.

Next candidate turns up, is duly done, and leaves. Suddenly, I spy young Brian on his bicycle heading up the school drive. By the time I reach the hut door, he has dismounted and is lighting up a cigarette with his mum at the kitchen door.

I go out to tell him he can come in. He says: "Na, it's OK, I don't think I'll bother." and cycles off. I speak to Donna, who says: "Well, I'll speak to him, but I don't think he wants to do it."

Sound of my jaw hitting ground.

Brian never did his oral, and predictably failed his GCSE.

Five years of learning French, wasted in a moment, in agreement with his mum.

Brian was by no means unusual (think 12-15 in every class of 27) in this attitude to learning and exams, in a state school in a well to do town in Surrey. Whilst I am quite certain he was probably embarrassed and not wanting to show himself, he was also wrecking his chances of anything other than labouring jobs and low pay, possibly for life.

My question is, how much learning do you imagine was going on in those lessons with such involved and interested pupils? That's right, not much. Chaos barely contained just about describes it.

i have been trying to find the book which takes the line that i have summarised in my previous post to no avail.

xenia

rubbish grammar! and me from a private school and everything [wimk]

i can't find a reference to the book the argument of which i have summarised below.

i wasn't entirely convinced by it either.

Twinset, I was not commenting upon the validity of RE, I was saying that many who push RE want it as a tool to improve "community relations".
Even if I believed this, it shows the kids own interests are too far down the list.
I would say the same about Geography, if it was changed to make kids like "others" more. I have no problem with liking "others", but should not be taken into account when deciding the curriculum.
Same applies to sciences.
Kids get told "learn physics, it will help Britain". Really, I've seen the posters and got drunk with the people pushing this dopey idea. (I used stronger language than dopey).

I learned physics, computers, computers etc because I saw them as ways to get my life better. I did serious work in chemistry, then dropped it without looking back when I realised it was a mug's game.
I'd be just as worried if my kids wanted to do chemistry or computing at university as if they wanted to do media studies.
Kids are being pretty rational over these choices in spite of the lies told to them by teachers like "French is useful".
There are now more computer science places at university, than kids who want to do them. Given this is the "Internet generation", that's quite a trick.
DS at 5 loves computers, a lot. He regards being allowed to do programming as a carefully rationed treat. But he'll do it at university over my cold dead body.

so what would you want your children to study then, dc?

Dominic, FWIW, as a modern languages teacher, I regard modern languages not as passport to a job, but as a politeness to others when travelling, an intellectual exercise, and a way to access alternative literature.

French actually is useful, should you happen to find yourself stranded in the middle of Auvergne or Senegal with a broken-down vehicle and little knowledge of mechanics.

French is not just useful but also a very lucrative tool if, as mine is, your career is in business consulting and academic business research in France but you write and publish in English.

Or if, like me, you also translate for a living.

bk, may be write it yourself then but I can't see how less harm is done reading to your children and helping them get good A levels and a rare place at university which involves in a sense kicking those below you because you get the rare place is any different from buying a private school place.

In some ways that's a choice families take - either mother at home and family a bit poor as htey lost her professional wage but she makes huge inputs into the children, baby mozart, early French and Mandarin, push push, learns the piano when they do, does the GCSE course work or like me mother back at work full time in part to pay the school fees then delegating to teh school that stuff (I never looked once at a single bit of GCSE course work of any of the 3 children now at university). It's all just parental advantage given plus of course your best legacty your brains genes and your looks and health genes which may count for more than most of us think.

Bossykate, I don't have as clear a picture as I'd like. Too many variables.
Maths, obviously, and they'll learn programming to a professional standard, but as a mental exercise, not a career path.
Drama, as in the ability to articulate in real time and handle a text is really valuable, certainly more utility than bizarre ideas about being stranded in some shit area of the world. The Auvergne/Senegal makes some interesting assumptions. Firstly my kids will learn how to fix cars, and how to get drinkable water and food on most of the Earth' surface. Not because it's useful, but because it's hard.
Also has someone who's done more than his fair share of travel, I've found the best solution is money. Gets you out of trouble with far greater reliability than schoolboy French or German.
Economics now that it's lost it's leftie delusions is now a real subject of lasting value. I'm tempted by music, DS2 has been offered a place at some top place for that, but I don't like the risk/reward in that game.
History of course, but that's a hobby, not a destination, as is geography.
Physics has little value, but is useful as subject to practice maths.

I'm implacably hostile to all legacy languages, but DCs will be lab rats for my own pet theory of how to teach them without the use of British arts graduates. DVDs of their favourite films set to use whatever bollocks nationalist foreigners still cling to instead of learning Terran.

Yes it does because you are removing your child and you from the state school system. Schools need motivated intelligent pupils and parents who will not settle for second best - as I am sure you would not

I teach in a school full of kids like you describe in your post duchesse and my lessons are not disrupted to an extent that more able pupils are not able to learn because I am a proffessional who is good at her job. I plan stimulating, challneging dynamic lessons and have effective classroom management. As a classrom teacher it is my job to teach the kids and do it well not use theor background as an excuse for my ineffectiveness,

Or PhD multilingual mother at home pushing the children plus private schools plus lots of travel and educational experiences outside school, which is what my sister's family is like, and my eldest cousin's family, because both of them married very successful businessmen. Is that grossly unfair or are my sister and her cousin just trying their hardest to give their children every single lovely opportunity for development that life can afford - and why should they be chastised for that?

Dominic- I may be able to speak, read and write fluently in several languages, but you will never manage to make a mechanic of me. That was true when I was a child, and is still true now. Things fall apart when I touch them, rather than the other way around.

And more seriously, I really really disagree with you about the (lack of) value of communicating in another language. Money is not common currency to buy your way out of trouble if someone is trying to mug you. They could just take the money and you'll still be stranded. Only communication would offer you the chance of getting out of that one...

duchesse I wasnt calling you innefective I was saying that too often "sink" schools can't attract good tough teachers and this just makes challengeing kids impossible to teach so the fault therefore lies with the teachers not having the skills to do their job.

Actually, I was by all assessed standards a bloody good teacher, and was frequently told so by pupils and parents alike. I found the job extremely rewarding on the whole largely due to wonderful colleagues and encouraging management and quite a few wonderfully lovely students who were in the main neglected. This did not prevent the attitude of many students from stinking to the highest degree, a fact that was later remarked on by Ofsted in an inspection in June 2004. It's just that after 2 years in the job, giving it 110% at all times, I was on my knees physically, and spent the entire second year ill (and still going in!). Other excellent colleagues were being forced into early retirement and leaving through ill-health and the stresses of trying to deal with the zoo-like behaviour.

I do understand I left teaching for four years as it drove me to a breakdown, caused mainly by my workload but a few nightmarekids as well who would haunt me in my sleep.

When I returned to teaching I decided that if it ever got to that again I would leave but I seem to have come back stronger ,or perhaps found the school that suits me. BU tif I felt I could not teach our kids I would leave.

But by keeping my 5 children over 13 years out of the state system I'm not so sure I've really damaged that system. Surely the benefit of my freeing up 5 places is big and also presumably they would have gone to a state school where all the parents are motivated anyway, not a bad comp. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion you never do a Blair and bust them miles the the Oratory but you find the worst sink school near you or even far from you and force them in there to suffer for the good of all.

Actually Duchesse I could make a basic mechanic of you, not a F1 pitstop guru, but competent. I'm not wildly expert myself, but can do basic stuff.

I don't see how a legacy language can help with muggers ? As it happens DC does Karate, and at home we do some stuff his mother really doesn't approve of one little bit. That's intertwined with game theory of knowing when to walk away, and knowing when to run.
Actually money isn't what's in your pocket, it's numbers I can ring, and get a helicopter or someone who will do the talking for me. The chopper ain't overkill, since a lot of the things that will leave you without money (like serious mugging) will need more than the locals can deal with.
Also, it's not the case that legacy languages will help you in out of the way places. The "local" language may be French, but doesn't mean that they speak it in any useful form. Underdeveloped places often have cryptic dialects. Given the "Jean va a le jardin. Le jardin est beau. Brun is dans le jardin aussi", which is the level of French most Brits fail to even achieve, it's hard to believe that you could cope with the Algerian equivalent of a Glaswegian accent, much less the equivalent of LA banger.

DC - if you had learnt a foreign language to any degree of proficiency, you'd also be better at your own...

ahem xenia - i have expressly said i didn't espouse those views - was just trying to offer a possible answer to a question you posed!

Anna888, when I actually try, I write to a professional standard, as in people pay me to do English for them. I find this annoys people who've done English and language degrees really quite a lot, since often they want such work, but never even made it to interview.
I don't actually claim to be a very talented writer, people pay me because I have something to say. The problem with languages, including English is that far too often they learn words, which to them are empty because the rest of their education and experience is so hollow.

To me learning French is like learning MS word, a minor technical skill that gets you B/C grade jobs.

DC - you are wrong. Learning languages is a pre-requisite for lots of fascinating and well paid jobs in high level international business and in international organisations. It is also impossible to get to grips with the intricacies of other cultures without a high-level grasp of other languages. International tragedies might well be avoided if people in positions of power, like the President of the US, were properly educated and had a better understanding of other cultures.

By the way, there is nothing "technical" about language learning.

By "!lots" I assume you mean "thousands" ?
Maybe that true, but the workforce is millions.
A mate of mine is deeply expert in the ways of weighbridges for weighing trucks. Big economies have these niches.
You have here an easy opportunity to prove me wrong, and quite possibly a complete fool.

All you have to do is point me to the job site where these "lots" of "high paying" jobs may be found.

DC - in my experience, fascinating, high-powered jobs aren't advertised on the internet. The internet is an appropriate medium for standard jobs with standard skills... like MS office...