Private schools are a bloody great rip-off

[fillipo]

and I should know because I used to teach in one!! I'm an English teacher, taught for 8 years in 2 different independent schools and then took the plunge and got a promotion into the state sector in September. It's like a breath of fresh air! And I've moved into the 21st century! Can't understand why I took so long to take the plunge. The teaching staff are on the whole far more professional - they don't have the complacency that some of my former colleagues had. Lessons are vibrant and interesting, the pupils are well behaved and interested. And it's free!! Well paid for through taxes but you know what i mean. Now I fully expect I'll be shouted down by lots of people telling me i'm wrong, but I don't understand why anyone pays for a private education when the alternative seems just as good.

Lorayn - we are treading on dangerous ground - I have been flamed more than once for saying that I am insulting the intelligence of nannies by insinuating that I am better able to develop my baby/toddler/young child than any surrogate childcare .

But yes, I do agree with you . And I know exactly what you mean about siblings - my sister's three children feed off one another like crazy.

And yes, of course, education also allows women (1) to earn a decent living before children and to accumulate wealth/purchase property that allows them not to work for a while without being entirely dependent on men (2) to attract educated and affluent men who are able to support their families and appreciate the value of mothers bringing up their young children themselves full time.

But these are very, very sensitive topics on MN . There are very many schools of thought and different circumstances represented on here...

Hmm, I can see how people might take offence with what I'm saying, but I was brought up on a council estate, left school with no GCSE's, got pregnant young, lived in council accomodation for years, and mainly self-educated myself by reading and watching documentaries, so I think having not been in the position you found (put) yourself in, and deciding at 23 to go to college to start my education, I can get on my soapbox

Lorayn - and presumably you want your children to have more opportunities in life when they are young that you did and you think that on balance the best way to achieve that is for you to stay at home with them and bring them up yourself as far as possible?

I would entirely support you in that...

Definitely Anna, I can provide them with the best basis to learn upon, once they have all grown up and started school then they will see mummy go to work and start the teaching career she has worked hard for, and hopefully decide that I am a good role model in both examples.

yep, i too went to the local comp. A good school, but 3 different senior teachers told me that medicine was not a job for women . they had one prespectus for an english uni (essex) and generally did not encourage me to fulfill my academic potential, for that I am still resentful. (despite now having a master of science degree and my own business)

I don't want my kids to be held back like I was, which is why I veer towards sending them to an independent school, partcularly as the alternative is dire in my area.

We are not so different after all?

Quite suey, we all wish for the best education we can provide our children with, tbh by the time my DC's start secondary we will probably be in a position to afford education for them that we cannot afford now, and the primary they currently go to is a great example of a good quality state school, yet the two secondary schools in my town are currently not particularly well thought of, so I may end up paying for it myself.

Lorayn - I agree with you .

Women need to use their education both to bring up their children/manage their families in an intelligent manner and to earn a living.

Doing those two things is often (always?) difficult to reconcile and requires very different decisions for different families dependent on circumstances.

And on the subject of teachers not supporting you in your decision, I was going through an awful lot at school during my last few years, and not one of my teachers gave me five minutes, which is why I left before I was supposed to take my GSCES. I was constantly told that because I was intelligent and found learning easy that I was lazy, there was so much more to it.

Yet when I started college I ahd the most wonderful English tutor, who made me realise how much difference one good teacher can make, which is why I decided I want to go into teaching.

Yes - one great teacher who manages to instil in you the confidence to be an independent learner and to trust in your own judgement can change the whole course of your life.

My comp told me that I would never pass my O'levels let alone get into university. I did not listen to them as my parents told me otherwise. Consequently, when I passed all my O'levels, I won a prize for "The Most Endeavoured".

Similarly, I know people who went to private school and who were not allowed to sit certain exams because the schools felt that they were not likely to pass with good grades and it would affect the school's rankings.

In both cases, if your parents support you, you can prove the schools wrong.

My parents are wonderful in many ways, but mum also thought that medicine was not a job for a woman! Because neither of them went to uni and I was brought up in rural scotland I was never shown the plethora of options I had.

However, mum and dad did raise me in a happy home and absolutely wanted the best for me. I hope I can pass on those values to my own kids, in addition to the advantages of the sort of education DH had.

My parents were immigrants from the Caribbean who left school when they were about 10yo. However, they had much foresight and ambition for their children, more so than any of my teachers had for me. For my parents, anything was possible in Mother England.

"FC, I want my children educated with other very clever children which is an IQ issue rather than a class issue but I certainly don't shy away from saying I think they do better in a school where most of the families are not troubled, broken homes, drugs etc which you do get more on some council estates than in some other groups of parents" Quote Xenia

Xenia. Your children are from a "broken home"

Yes, I know they are. And Anna has a live in lover/partner, isn't married and has step children from a fractured family set up I think from what she's posted here. None of us are perfect, least of all me but I am the only single parent of both classes the twins are in (except one lady whose husband died last year) and the homes tends to be fairly well off and stable.

I want the children educated in a vibrant fast moving class room environment where no one is sitting there patiently waiting for the penny to drop with little Johnny in the corner who isn't quite so bright. If there were good grammar schools (there are none where I live) I don't however think I would choose those either. I want a school with lots of good resources more than the state system can provide even where it is academically selective.

You might find more housewives amongst parents in state schools than private because there is no need to earn the school fees so those who think children who need mothers at home (which I don't ) might get more stability in the state system.

As for passing down things I was cooking with one of the twins yesterday who was telling us how his nanny does it which is how her mother did it. So he has a double benefit - learns down my line of generation, learns from his nanny as well. Children with a few loved others in their lives perhaps learn more.

LOL Xenia - you are the one who said you wanted to keep your children away from other children from broken homes. I have never, ever said that I wished to keep my child away from other children whose parents weren't married or had stepsiblings .

Please acknowledge how hypocritical you are.

On the nanny passing things down - nice, but not the point. Your son won't be able to share his nanny's grandmother's way of doing things with his cousins or second cousins, will he? That was the point being made - family transmission.

I can see what Xenia is saying from both sides here, and the fact is children from council estates are more likely to have family who are in prison, mothers who fell pregnant by accident at a young age and are not in a normal stable family environment, and less educated parents, not because they live in council estates, but moreso, they live in council estates because these situations do not lend themselves to the financial security which leads to being able to buy a nice house or pay school fees.

Having sent my Dd to a school in the middle of a council estate where I watched her come home in tears because of some of the little shits who saw hooligans as a role model I know that the quiet school she goes to now, mainly attended by nice middle class children (of course some are still little fuckers, but nowhere near as many) I can see it definitely does make a difference where the children live that attend the school she goes to.

yep, despite how good my school was, i was still made to feel a geek for being in all the top streams and my brother was beaten up on one occasion- unsurprisingly he didn't do well after that.

yes Lorayn, I think Xenia used 'broken home' as a shorthand for 'unstable' home. I suppose we imbue certain terms with certain stereotypes.

Like for me, when I read about immigrants to the UK, I always get the image of an unskilled worked from Eastern EU 'stealing' jobs from the local population. But then, I have only lived in the UK in the last decade. I forget I am also an immigrant, lol!

"education also allows women ...to attract educated and affluent men who are able to support their families and appreciate the value of mothers bringing up their young children themselves full time."

Unfortunately quite a lot of research shows that educated men tend to marry women less educated than they are. And several studies have shown that the more educated a woman is the less likely she is to marry and have children.

Of the eight women in my English group at an Oxford college in the eighties, only half have had children. A quarter have never married. One of my friends is a DPhil and lecturer at a university. She is now 43 and her chances of finding a husband who's her her intellectual equal are very small.

I WISH it wasn't like this.

lol, eliza, took me almost all of my best reproductive years to find "a responsible and affluent man" who would have me. They are not easy to find. The more successful a man, the more 'traditional' their expectations of a wife, I find. Education, career is not necessarily high on their list.

Eliza2 - you are right, too much education isn't good for women's marriage prospects.

Men like women who are marginally less clever/successful than they are (at least, outwardly ).

Yes, but you'#re all assuming marriage and children is some kind of nirvana. Plenty of women are gay. Many are happy with no men or just having men for sex and lots get huge fulfilment and always have from their work.

On broken homes etc yes I meant what lo said. I am sure all parents whether looking for a good state or private school do want some separation of their children from children who will completely disrupt the classroom. You only need one or two of those in a class and the education of all the other 25 etc is really spoiled on a day to day basis, children who won't sit still, shout, swear etc. Same with the playground.

I know in my children's schools which get a lot of children to Oxbridge and get good A levels and almost 100% go to good, not just any old universities being clever and doing well is not something looked down on. That's something else I feel I pay for. Even there teenagers work very hard to get the right balance of appearance between cool and studious etc.

So if that is so bs, we should be sending girls at 16 to finishing school and getting them invited to the right parties and introducing them to the right men, concentrating on their looks etc etc just like it was.

I have a PhD, just like my DH and he says that I am far cleverer than him. I have 4 close female friends, all with PhDs and all married to their intellectual equals who treat them with respect and don't make a song and dance about being intellectual. Where I work, all my male colleagues are dating or married to their educational equivalent.

I sometimes wonder if women (and men) who hark on about finding their intellectual equivalent are so overt about it that potential partners find it a turn off. I know that if I was still looking for a mate and came across a guy who thought he was intellectually superior to most people, I'd run a mile!

Also, Xenia, I can guarantee you that there are plenty of housewives at private/public schools. I wonder how many of them can tear themselves away from their tennis coach, personal trainer, nail technician, etc to spend a couple of hours helping out in their children's school?