Slightly loathe to start this thread .. but I honestly want to know with regards to Private Education...

[Twiglett]

I can understand when people say they choose private education for their particular child

But I'm not sure I totally understand how to analyse one's child to see if they would be better in private education

what are the key areas of a child to look at (in your opinion) .. and which ones would be better served in a private rather than a state school (again in your opinion)

I'm not trying to be contentious .. I should just like to know how I should look at my 6 year old who's school life is rather a closed book really

They read every day and have to read at home and have to get the book signed to show they have. I never particularly wanted to buy tiny class sizes in the private sector - I think all my children's fairly large academic private preps have had about 20 children per class and could fill that many times over if they took all that applied but everyone is a similar sort of level and you can do whole class teaching and most children behave so in their schools 20 is fine. Some parents though say oh only 8 in a class in this privafe school therefore it's better. I'm not so srue. My mother used after the second world war to teach classes of 40 in rough state Catholic schools but she said they tended to do what they were told and sat still and I think she was quite good at enthusing them and getting their interest.

Results were one thing I prefer in the private sector but all the other things too as some others have mentioned on the thread.

Thought you might be interested to see why private schools can 'control' the behaviour in their classrooms. Have a look at the 4th paragraph of the admissions policy in this school

But it is a school of no more than 70 pupils aged from 4-16 - so it is in effect closer to joint homeschooling. I know that there are a lot of such schools around (and usually springing out of religious communities), but I'm not sure that it was these types of school that Twiglett was referring to?

Though yes, if you have on average 5 or 6 pupils in a year group, SN is a very different issue.

Lots of reasons they can control behaviour. If they are very academdically selective like state grammars and many of the best private day schools then clever children who are being stretched don't tend to misbehave. It's very simple really. You're all clever and most work.

Also may be the parents feed the children a better diet, no sweets on way to school and there is in most private schools loads of physical activity every single day which has a massive impact on behaviour.

Wheresthehamster - Oh the irony that the school includes in its ethos that "The school affirms every person as different and special to God and there is an emphasis on each pupil achieving his or her full potential."

"Different and special" as long as you don't have SN eh?

THey can control the behavior for a mixture of reasons,

1)smaller classes, I can control even the toughest of my classes when a few are away.

2. any trouble and you are out, it is extremely difficult to exclude kids in the state sector and if we do we have to take in an unknown and sometimes you are better witht the devil you know. So for us our ultimate sancction is too often unuseable.

3. Parental support, you are paying for your kids education so you will support even , even though our parents are paying through the tax system (actually many of ours don't) we often don't have the parental support. I have a boy in my form whose family I have never met, I have met the neighbours. She refuses to take calls and won't come into school and absconded when we tried to do a home visit. Her son runs riot in our school to the extent that we mayahve to refuse to educate him until we can meet a parent. We have parents who can only come into school if if we have someone present to protect staff as they are so violent and offensive. I doubt any of these kids would apply for the private sector and if they did they certainly don't wouldn't get a place.

4. I don;t know on this but I wonder if staff retention is higher so control is better as kids tend to play up for unfamilair faces. When I used to teacher at Haberdashers at New cross, not private but not your average state school the heads line was always to the staff if you are not happy go and get a job in the jungle, no one ever did as the thought terrified most of them.

I could go on but I am bidding for a dress on ebay and it is about to end.

Good reasons. Also I think on average in better schools but this may be as much state as private teachers stay longer. I've loved having teachers who have been at my chidlren's schools for 20 years and we never ever had a supply teacher. Not sure why because sometimes primary teachers get pregnant but with 5 children at private schools over the last nearly 20 years never had supply always had continuity.

I suspect it's easier to sack bad teachers quickly in the private sector too although that contradicts my first point above I suppose.

Another thing I like is the fact that its common for private schools to go from 3-18. My dds' school is really a family of schools with a co-ed kindergarten, boys and girls' prep schools from 7-11 and boys' and girls' grammars from 11-16 with a co-ed sixth form. I like the way the teachers are therefore always thinking about preparing them for the next stage rather than being aware that they'll get rid of them and the way the children have a clear sense of progression, continuity and stability. Obviously there are some private schools that don't work like this and I know there are some state schools namely the new city academies that are using this model.

I'm surprised you see ages 3-18 as being an advantage, I would see it as a definite disadvantage.

Agree with you Porto.
I started my DC at a private Junior & Infant which did SATs. Over time it morphed into a through school from 6 months (yes I do mean that) to Y11, with no SATs or any other external test data. You had no objective idea of how your child was doing with reference to the rest of the world until you got the GCSE results (by which time it was too late to do anything about it) and you never knew how they were doing in relation to their own potential. We left, of course.

Can't think of any disadvantages if the dds are happy there. My dds' school do SATS at KS1 but don't do SATS at KS3 as that's when they sit the internal test to the prep school. Continuity to the prep school is fairly automatic but if the teachers don't think the kids will cope they have a quiet word in plenty of time for you to find an alternative school. Passing through to the grammar school is again by test but, again, it's rare for this not to happen. So there's lots of data to compare with national data and to compare with other independent schools. It's all positive. Well above average on both counts and also good for value added. The advantages are reducing the sense of fear of moving to 'big school' especially since there are regular visits both from kids to the other schools (e.g kindergarten kids go to the grammar for PE and swimming) and older kids come back to talk to younger kids etc. The teachers and heads of the prep and then grammar schools are familiar with the kids (not just academically but as people) long before they get there. Many kids who move from a primary to secondary in state schools find this traumatic and typically (according to research) regress by a year. At my dds' school there is a very genuine sense of community (like other posters there's an irony in that the independent school is the only school which is not divided by faith and therefore by race in the area) and a very genuine concern for the development of the whole child and not just academically.

The only disadvantages I know of in the 3-18 set up is where the child does not get into the secondary school or where he child, by 16 has had enough of the place and people. Both happen to some extent at DS' old school which has exactly the same set up as B&WCats (though it isn't the same place). At DS's school,if the child doesn't get accepted by the upper school at 11 he would have to find a prep school to take him from 11-13. At 16, a smallish number of the boys (and rather more of the girls in the girls' school) have had enough of their schools and go to one of the 6th Form Colleges in town.

Are any of you watching that channel 5 programme where some kids from a state school in Wembley and some from Wells Cathedral school spend time in each others' schools? V.interesting. I thought it was striking how much better the state school children's confidence and social skills were. And they all seemed to be performing pretty similarly academically. Do you think either of these schools are typical though? Wells comes across as very muted and subdued in teaching style, from a cursory glance.

I must admit I wondered if a potentially more lively and demanding clientele results in more brilliant and dynamic teaching sometimes (as well as in a minority of teachers becoming despairing and openly unable to hack it) after watching the tedium of the Wells lessons where both teachers and pupils appeared fairly unanimated. Perhaps teaching in a state school is a bit like doing stand up- many die on their feet but those who can engage with and entertain the heckling crowd come up with genuinely innovative, entertaining and clever work.

I thought with the Wells school programme that they have chosen a very average independent school (clearly non-selective and not full of academic children, and given that it's a cathedral school I suspect it may be chosen for musical children...certainly the orchestra was fantastic!) against a top state school, and the comparison is perhaps not as fair as it might be. It doesn't make Wells look like a particularly good school that's worth all those fees, that's for sure!

A friend of mine taught at Wells as recently as a few years ago and I'm sure it was/is academically selective.

And I think those selected on the basis of musical ability are actually a relatively small minority.

Have to go and check now!

It is selective, I think, shergar. The school website implies so, anyway. I'm not getting at the school per se and it didn't seem an unpleasant place at all. Just terribly dull in the bits they showed! Apart from the music, which, as you say, was great. Perhaps there is an agenda behind the programme and they simply aren't showing the more dynamic side of the teaching there. I'm sure there are lots of different sorts of private schools just as state schools vary. But I do wonder if a uniform intake of fairly well behaved, fairly bright, fairly motivated children means that teachers don't need to go the extra mile to hold children's attention and therefore don't think so much about how to make lessons exciting and engaging.

I haven't yet caught up with the 'Wells kids go to London' part (was it part 2?) but I was amused at the young Wells pupil who, on a piece-to-camera, was frankly amazed that the state educated children were as clever as they were! To me that one off comment reminded me of something I read a few months ago where a house master (?) at Winchester College stated that what they taught was CONFIDENCE which, - ho ho!- might occasionally be mistaken for arrogance but wasn't really, of course, it was just a sign of what a superb school they were. WELL (excuse the unintended pun!), maybe that young lad at Wells was demonstrating the same trait, having been taught to believe that one is somehow more clever/ better than a state school pupil. That blind confidence in oneself regardless of the talent or ability to actally deliver is evident in many of the Institutions in this country.

It would actually shock me if either school were chosen for anything other than editorial purposes.
A state school doesn't have to be selective to have better kids input to it, just a better catchment.
Several days filming of many kids will give you more than 100 times as much material as fits in the 40 minute running time. Add some voice overs, pictures of the schools, etc and for every minute you see, two hours are thrown away...

Which 1% do you think made it to the finished programme ?
Right first time. The material that fits the script. You may think I'm cynical, but go look at the media requests thread.
Most aren't "what is the reality of this thing
?"
They are:
We are doing a show about people liking X. Have you liked X ? What sort of X do you like most ?

Wells Cathedral School is not particularly selective - certainly not one of the academic "premier league". It is a specialist music school, so the music standards are high. If you compare the GCSE and A2 results of Wells and Preston Manor you will see that Preston Manor does almost as well.

Interesting that the results are broadly simialr given that Preston Manor is not selective, imo.

This is the description of the school according to ofsted:

Preston Manor High School is a larger than average 11-19 comprehensive school. The present school roll is 1360, with a
large and growing 6th form. Students come from ethnically diverse backgrounds. Increasingly, over the last few years,
there have been slightly more boys than girls. About two thirds of its students come from Asian backgrounds and a fifth
from Black Caribbean and African backgrounds. A high percentage of students do not have English as a home language
but few are at an early stage of learning English. The number of students with learning difficulties and disabilities is
broadly in line with the national picture but above the national average number of students have a statement of special
educational need. A small percentage of students come from refugee backgrounds and a number of students are in the
care of the local authority. Just over a fifth of students are entitled to free school meals; this is above the national
average. Mobility in and out of the school is generally low. The school acquired specialist status in science and
mathematics in 2002 and leading edge status in 2003. A city learning centre is attached to the school.

Rather a different intake from Wells, I would guess.

Lilliymaid do you think it was "accidental" that a private school that doesn't go for top academics was chosen ?

But they do have an academic entrance test, dc. And none of their pupils are entitled to free meals. And I would be very surprised if the number of students with learning difficulties and disabilities is broadly in line with the national picture. I suspect you're right that there will have been manipulation to fit the message of the programme but I really was interested to see that some aspects of some private schools can be pretty darn mediocre.

I think it wouldn't have made such good television if the Preston Manor pupils were exchanged with a top academic independent school. Instead the programme makers chose a very good state school in a very diverse area and a moderate independent in a beautiful setting.

Total aside, but I thought the kids' bedrooms at Wells were really grim, actually. Is that common in boarding schools?