Are all private school parents petty minded snobs?

[ReallyTired]

I had someone at church telling me that she thought I ought to pull my son out of his state primary and send him to a private school that helps children with learning difficulties like dyslexia.

My son is mildly deaf, but does not have any learning difficulties. He is doing well at his state school. Even though the class is big he has a good teacher. He is in middle ablity groups for everything at the moment.

He is in year 1 and can add and subtract numbers below 100 nicely. His reading is developing well as well. His spelling is very strangem but don't most six year olds have odd spelling? I can't believe that private school kids are two years ahead already at the age of 6?

This person made it clear that she thought that if my son went to a normal private school he would be in the bottom group for everything. Apparently her daughter is bright and she attends selective girl's school so she isn't held back children with SEN.

Comprehensives practically all set or stream kids. The peoblem is not that the children are in classes with others who's ability does not match their own.

The problem is more a much more general one of poor standards of behaviour and generally low expectations of results.

I don't think that you have to cream off kids at 11 to expect high things of them. I think that we woould expect high things of all our students. neither do I think that only the brightest kids can behave well.

The problem isn't the comprehensive system per se, but the behavioural issues.

Why do you think that the system can't work in practice? Do you think that bright child needs a different uniform to the rest so they can perform?

If they are in a top set group, in a comp, they are working with their peers already.

Comprehensives allow for greater flexibility to deal with the quirky kids who are ace at one thing and crap at others, ir the child who matures later.

Everyone is very pro grammar school right up to the point that their child gets sent to the secondary modern.....and I've seen this happen on mn

My Mother, who was consigned to rubbish secondary modern where they taught sewing and cooking is a firm advocate of comps but my own experience was mixed to say the least.
Everything was reduced to the lowest denominator.

'Tis true that my experience of comps is limited. I didn't go to one, though one of my best friends did go to a highly regarded one. Her experience was that, as a bright girl, she was left to get on with her 'A' levels on her own (I remember going to the university bookshop and library to try to find her Biology and Chemistry text-books!) She got into medical school, and rightly so - but the school either couldn't or wasn't able to provide for her needs.

My (considerable) experience of private schools is that they are much better able to cater for quirky/unusual children. My DS is a very unusual creature as well as being extraordinarily clever, and his (noon-selective) private school is happy for him to be himself. They also give him work to suit his personality/intelligence, as they also give the less bright children extra support. Not following the National Curriculum is a great advantage to all the children, so it would seem!

I'm sure poor behaviour is the big downer at comps, and a real problem for the children who can behave and do want to learn. The children at our local comp are generally a foul-mouthed, loutish bunch - (yes, obviously there will be exceptions...), some of whom even took the p* out of my DD (then two) for wanting to examine some flowers near to where they were standing...

Noon-selective?
I think it must be lunch time!!

There aren't really many proper comprehensives and there never have been so it's impossible to judge how successfull the comprensive system is at catering to different needs.

We have a system of educational apartheid in this country. It's really sad for the majority of children who are educated in comprehensives who aren't benefiting from being taught alongside their peers who have strong educational aspirations.

I would love to see the government do something really radical to change the system we have here, which is so socially damaging and devisive, something like get rid of private schools' charitable status (most only offer a few burseries and even these rarely go to children from the poorest backgrounds) and get rid of selection on grounds of ability and religion in the state system. There would be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among the middle-classes, but in the long run it would be a better for the majority of children.

I used to teach in a proper comprehensive. With some children getting 5 As at A level and others who struggled to read and write.

I completely agree with MN on this one.

I don't think comprehensive systems work as well as some people think they ever could. They certainly don't work here in France - the percentage of children leaving the state system for private rockets by the year. Comprehensive schools just don't stretch the brightest children fully. And the economy / society as a whole needs children to be stretched to the fullness of their ability - it is not just an issue for individuals.

MN? MB!

I think the problem may be with the size of schools. The school in which I taught was very large, so could easily accommodate setting within a quite narrow range. Smaller schools tend to be favoured by parents, but then classes, in a properly comprehensive school, would have a wider range of ability, even with setting.

I think that what you say is reasonable providing you also factor in lotteries for school places so that the effects of living in a wealthy catchment area are eliminated.

People are still a bit traumatised over the abolition of the grammar schools - I've heard many people talk about the "big levelling-down" that was experienced when comprehensives were introduced.

The reality is that many of the positive effects of being educated alongside children with academic aspirations are illusory.

Certainly it's difficult to see any benefits for the child with academic aspirations of being stuck in a school with lots of badly behaved and disruptive children (hence the increase in numbers of privately educated children and faith schools etc).

The benefits for badly behaved and disruptive children must surely be so diluted/irrelevant as to be almost non-existent.

Message withdrawn

Quattrocento - there is an argument that says that children from disruptive or poorly educated homes who are at school with children from homes with much greater aspirations can and do benefit from comprehensive education.

That is one of the main arguments that the French use in favour of their system and, having seen some pretty amazing products of that system, I think the argument has some merit.

You know, there are some children with (quite legitimate) academic aspirations who are also poorly behaved. IME.

I was brought up in a town with four single sex grammar schools. I went to the only school even approaching a comprehensive (at leastin terms of ability of intake - a Catholic school). We were banded to within an inch of our lives in order to reassure parents who ummed and ahhed about the merits of Catholic comprehensive versus non-denominational grammar. It was a good school.

Two of my friends (that I meet through 1st DS) have children in private schools - they are the lovelist people i have ever meet.

I'm afraid my children will be the losers in the system we have now.

I live in a poor area where the choice is between three 'comprehensives'(note - not really 'comprehensive', as commented on earlier) all of which have major behavioural problems and not one of which has a GCSE pass rate of over 40% (two of these schools had GCSE pass rates of under 20% a couple of years ago.....)

All parents who can afford to move to areas with more successful schools do so before the end of juniors. We can't afford to move. We can't apply to the local (excellent) church schools because we are not church goers. There are a couple of grammar schools (out of the area) which we could apply to. My daughter is bright but the youngest in her class. She would be sitting the exam alongside hundreds of children who get bussed in from local prep schools, children who've been taught in classes of 15 since starting primary and who've had two years of private tutoring on top. We can't afford private tutoring either, though we'll do our best to help her ourselves. I don't rate her chances of getting in, even though she's bright. She's not outstanding, and there are plenty of bright children who will also be applying.

So basically we're stuffed. She'll be going to the local sink school along with all the little Vicky Pollards who live round here. If I thought I could get her into a socially mixed school which got even half way decent results I'd be ecstatic, but it's not going to happen because they don't exist in my area. It's sink school/church school/selective/private - and that's it.

Titty- just out of interest, there is a very good website that has loads of 11+ verbal, non-verbal and maths tests for free as well as videos telling you how to answer the questions because it thinks it wrong that prep school kids have the advantage etc. It could be worth going through them with your daughter as the tests are very formulaic and once you know how to do them, obviously a lot easier. Google: Chuckra.

Thanks for that hullygully - I'll have a look.

I'm not optimistic though about her getting a place in any selective school, for the simple reason that the ones in our area are HUGELY oversubscribed because of the lack of decent comprehensives. Even if she does well in the tests it's very unlikely she'll get in - sheer numbers make failure almost inevitable.

some of these posts are very snobbish, fgs the local comp isn't usually on par with pentonville prison.

two of my family members have left our local comp and both got places on very sought after courses, ds(14) is doing very well too.

Why is it snobbish to say that some areas have worse schools than others? Isn't it just factual?

er

'She'll be going to the local sink school along with all the little Vicky Pollards who live round here'

Wasn't that post-post-ironic? (Or again, depending on where she lives, instantly accessible shorthand for factual info)

Comprehensives vary in the same way as private schools - good and bad.

The Vicky Pollard comment got me a bit too. I've heard local parents say the same about the local comp here - admittedly it's not the best in the area but it's hardly a sink school. (My dh went to one of those. And he's got 2 degrees thanks very much)

Grrr.

yeah it's all a bit precious isnt it. FGS, I went to a comprehensive which wasn't that great;it didn't set for many subjects either. I went on to University and got a good degree and a higher degree. Yes of course some schools are better than others, but same goes for state and private. I know some private school teachers who are really mediocre, and probably wouldnt survive in a comp as the kids would challenge them more. Some schools can be very complacent. If you have a comp which is reasonable, good or excellent, then most children will be fine. If you have a bright child they should certainly have no problem.Someone said earlier that comps are all about trying to make children 'equal' - rubbish, they are about creating equality of opportunity which is a different thing.

The Vicky Pollard comment was a bit unkind, but I speak as I find. I live in the roughest part of SE London - we have a higher crime rate than Peckham. The thing is that I've worked in London comprehensives and unfortunately some do have a very high percentage of children who are disengaged with education and who are difficult to teach. I know this isn't true of all comprehensives, but it is of most of the schools near me.

I look back at my time in the classroom and remember weeks when my year nines would take three 40 minute lessons to complete work which they could have done in 10 minutes flat if they'd only just sat down and shut up, instead of spending their time milling around shouting things like 'Oi Miss, Connor's a fucking gay twat cause he stole my pencil'........, texting their mates, sexually harassing me, or gouging chunks out of their desks with compasses. The pace of learning was sooooo slow. It'd take you 15 minutes to get them into the room, to stop them hitting each other and sit down, to make them take their coats/personal stereos off etc. It was horribly frustrating for me. I can't imagine what it must have been like for those kids in the class who actually wanted to learn. It must have been torture.

And I wasn't an especially weak teacher - just a bit inexperienced and unlucky enough to be doing supply in a school that couldn't keep teachers because the kids were so challenging... Four teachers started at the same time as me. I was the only one left by the end of term. One very experienced teacher, who'd been head of department at another school left in tears after three days. Only the most charismatic, dynamic and experienced teachers succeed in this sort of learning environment and frankly there aren't enough of those to go round. I hate the thought of my children being bexposed to casual bullying, homophobia, racism and low level disruption as part of their normal school life. It's just horrible. And by the way - this wasn't a school with a particularly evil reputation. It's a school on the edge of a big council estate in a borough where the majority of schools are selective.

Findtheriver, I totally agree with you about mediocre teaching in private schools. A lot of teachers gravitate to the private sector because they can't cut it in the state sector. Most teachers I know have been tempted at some point. I was, but I decided to go into FE in the end, where the pay was shite but where behaviour management wasn't so much of an issue.