Would you pay for private education when there is a very good state alternative?

[alfiesbabe]

I know this is a contentious issue, but am really interested to hear other people's views. Our situation: have just moved DS (Yr 9)from private to local state school. (His choice). He had been on a scholarship as a chorister, and finished in the choir, but money wasn't an issue as DH teaches in the private school so we paid peanuts for fees. DS is really happy and likes the wider range of students. He is in top sets for most subjects and reports back that the work is more challenging and behaviour better than was the case in his previous class. He gets less homework, but to my mind what he does get is more relevant (eg in maths he might get set 5 questions to test that he has understood a teaching point, whereas at the private school he'd be set several pages of the same type of question). Results wise, the private school had 85% 5 A-C passes, the state school had 72%. Bearing in mind the state school has the full ability range, whereas the private school is selective, this smacks to me of better teaching in the state school. It seems like a very small difference considering parents are paying about 12K a year for the private school. A-level results are similar - statistically the private school is a little better, but not by much. The private school offers more in the way of music and sport; but DS has gone as far as he wants with music for the moment and isnt bothered about sport. I'm not looking for validation of our choice - we know we've made the right decision - but I'm left with this feeling of 'What were we actually paying school fees for?' The experience as a chorister was valuable, but I can't get my head round parents who pay the full whack, specially if their child isnt musical or sporty. I'm aware that our local state school is outstanding and we're very lucky in this respect. So.... why WOULD anyone pay for private in this situation?

So much depends on where you live. The system is unequal (is that a real word?) and unfair.

Where I live, the good state schools are partially selective or even totally selective. I don't like the system, but, this is the way it works in this part of London. My dss got into a partially selective comprehensive because they passed the exam. They did not have any tuition. It is a very good school and I am thankful every day that they have that opportunity.

However, in common with many parents in this area, I probably would have found a way to scrape together fees if my only other choice had been the local sink school.

Ds1 was very badly bullied at primary school for no other reason that he was clever and wanted to learn. He was fortunate to be able to go to a secondary school where it is cool to be clever.

The difficulty lies in the fact that whatever our politics or principles, faced with a stark choice, would any of us really sacrifice our children's education to make a political point. Remember the debacle of Dianne Abbott - Labour MP for Hackney, who cast her principles to the wind and sent her son to a private school saying she would not send him to her local school because she "could not do that to him". I was amazed that there was no real uproar at the time - indeed it was very short-lived.

The tragedy is that so many parents don't have a choice.

I do realise that in many parts of the country the non-selective comprehensive schools are extremely good. It is a matter of geography. I have friends in Northumberland and Cambridge/Herts and I understand that there are some very good state schools. I wish it was the same everywhere.

That Sutton Trust report Virgo has copied for us above lists 5 reasons why private and grammar school pupils are overly represented in leading professions. Three out of five of those reasons are purely to do with money, the other two being confidence and family connections.

So it's not so much that private schools are so brilliant or so much better than state schools, it's more that these pupils are coming from very privileged backgrounds to begin with. Is it really any wonder that they do so well - they have the backing of money to support them in many ways as shown in the Sutton Trust report, and they go to schools where the unacademic and usually the less well-off have been weeded out.

Exactly Exbatt.

If we lived in true meritocracy, many of those people would not be in those positions.

Oh Scienceteacher, I do!

"So it's not so much that private schools are so brilliant or so much better than state schools, it's more that these pupils are coming from very privileged backgrounds to begin with. Is it really any wonder that they do so well - they have the backing of money to support them in many ways as shown in the Sutton Trust report, and they go to schools where the unacademic and usually the less well-off have been weeded out."

Yes exactly. People give far too much credit to the private schools actually turning children into the type of child who would be successful in certain careers when they merely reinforce what already exists in the child's home life.

Re the Sutton report - I also would like to see the breakdown of percentage of pupils from state schools who actually applied to enter these professions and were successful compared to the amount of pupils who applied from private and were successful (all other things being equal - exam grades and class of degree)

Oh Science teacher, so do I!

And so do my 4 state educated nieces and nephews - a barrister, an academic, a pupil barrister and an undergraduate!

In stitches, science teacher!

Of course, how "good" a local state school is (whatever that means) is inevitably going to depend to a great extent on who goes there.

So if parents who are dedicated/involved enough to be making these decisions are actively choosing not to send kids to the local catchment school, the state sector is left with the people who have no choice or who are making a point.

I get the feeling some people don't even consider their state schools and don't even go and look at them - they are not on their radar. The same way that most of us, when buying a house, wouldn't look at renting a council house instead. (I'm not equating them, just trying to draw a parallel.)

There was a programme on TV the other week about how muh Britain earns.

One of the statstics that were discussed was that social mobility seems to be pretty static these days. So, it is now far more likely that people in their 30s are earning the same level/same occupation level as their parents at that age.

So, if this is true, it is not suprising to find that people from high earning families profuduce children who are also higher earning as adults. And that lower income families tend to prduce children who earn less in later life.

UQD- I guess good for a state school is whatever you think good is for a private school.
Although I believe many state schools do a great job and bright children can an do thrive in them, I say if you cannot bring yourself to even look at your local school, don't.
Just go ahead and pay and leave places in the state schools for those that can't/ don't want to pay.

Bit harsh to dismiss the state sector without even looking at local provision though. That smacks a bit of "it's beneath me".

Well, yes, and a lot of posts on here have confirmed that attitude.
But that's the point for many people isn't it? They think by going to private schools thaey are protecting their children from the riff-raff, or undesirables as someone here put it.

And bumping the mortgage up to go to a better catchment - as we have done and I freely admit doing - is one other (less watertight) method of getting away from the "riff-raff".

Probably cost you less than school feees in the long term though!!!

Seriously, my dd goes to a fab state school, not perfect by any means but very academic, inclusive and caring.
The school happens to be near me so I am very lucky. I like to think I wouldn't have moved if we didn't have this school near us but when I look around I do wonder.

Oh I think you'd have moved MrsRuffallo.
We don't have any "academic, inclusive and caring" secondary schools in my LEA - Greenwich. I am sure some of them aspire to be inclusive and caring but they are shite academically and we are bottom of the London League Tables this year, a steady progression downwards from five years ago.

Over my dead body will my children go to the local comp, which gives new meaning to the word sink.

Actually it very probably will be my dead body - I want a radical sahm to produce some statistics on the effects of working a 60 hour week, week in, week out, upon longevity and general well-being.

Greenwich is interesting. Riverston is an Independent school and it scored about 44% on GCSE passes whereas St Thomas More, the catholic comp, scored nearly 70%, St Ursuala comp scored nearly 60%, and St Paul Academy (another comp) scored over 50%.

Greenwich suffers from the fact that

1. Parents coach their kids to pass the 11+ and send them to the grammar schools in Kent or the Borough of Bexley.
2. Private schools like Colfe and Blackheath are used by those who can afford it (they always score higly - high 90s)
3. Those who cannot get their kids into grammar or private, send them to schools in Bexley or Bromley.

Consequently, those left behind try to get into the better comps in Greenwich or else do the best they can with the other schools like Crown Woods.

The other point is that Greenwich does have a vast swathe of socially deprived areas so obviously the more affluent folk will and do separate their off-spring from children from those areas.

I don't live in Greenwich but have a friend who is a governor at one the socially deprived schools and whose daughter teaches at one of the comps.

spokette and marina have described Greenwich perfectly. Spokette, out of interest, what are the results so bad for the private Riverston?

Some independent schools choose to sit international GCSEs. I have no idea why, or how they difffer from GCSEs, but I do know that they are not recognised in the league tables. This may be
the explanation.

They are suppose to be non-selective (academically) and places are offered following an interview. Consequently, their results are probably very good for their intake. The other independents like Blackheath and Colfe do academically select and weed out those who do not make the grade so no wonder they have exceptional results.

Which are the "better comps" out of interest spokette?
I hear great reports of Thomas Tallis for children of all abilities but also that they operate a quota system with only 24 year group places awarded to pupils who are innately capable of high academic achievement, so the kind of child who is being creamed off by Colfes and BHGS. I believe this is out of a total intake of 180 in Year 7. We wouldn't even bother applying, we don't live in that part of the borough. But 24 places is not going to begin to halt the exodus. And St Thomas More is a superb school but only accessible to Roman Catholics.
You speak eloquently of your great experiences of state education and what you've achieved since but can you honestly say you would want to study at, or send your child to, many of the secondary schools in Greenwich? I wouldn't, and my parents didn't in the early 70s either. I went to a state school out of borough. I don't blame anyone who does likewise and that's what we plan to do too.
And, although it is an independent school, my understanding of admissions at BHGS is that it has a very good and generous scholarship system, and modest fees compared to eg Colfes, which makes it one of the more socially diverse private schools in SE London.

Marina, I can't imagine the comps in Greenwich are that different from those in Tottenham and Hackney (where I live and teach). I would happily send my child to the 'challenging' schools I have taught in - as I have said in previous posts, school really isn't everything.

I would hazard a guess that their value-added scores are better though Umlellala
I think what did it for me this year was not only bottom place but how unimpressive the value-added scores were for most of the local schools
I agree with spokette that there are pockets of great deprivation in Greenwich but Crown Woods, a huge school formerly in Special Measures and a well-regarded superhead currently in post, has a catchment area consisting in the main of boring-but-respectable lower-middle leafy suburbs. Eltham is not economically deprived IMO, cultural and multicultural wasteland though it may be