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.

I was reading someone in the paper today writing about schools who was suggesting paying for clever poor children to go to good private schools, that we have some of the best schools in the world (in the UK private system) and how to ensure we can return to a position where more poorer children got that leg up some of them used to get by being taken from poverty and got into grammar schools at 11 with other middle class children. I think he was a university man.

"who was suggesting paying for clever poor children to go to good private schools"

Was this article in the Daily Mail by any chance?

im sorry that this old bag of a woman put your son down because he is mildly deaf my four year old son is deaf and cannot speak very well and isnt like the children in his nursery class but hes a happy child always smiling ad his teachers remark about how happy he is. ayway to cut along story short one of the mums siad a similiar thing to me saying that ds2 shudnt be in a state nursery because hes autistic she said my son was autisitic cos he plays on his own and cant speak naturally i said to the mum to mind her own ffing business and at least my son doesnt spit on other children and run amok she didnt like that at all well tough tittie. my seven year old son was the same as well with a speech therapist saying he had a speech level of a three year old and wudnt be able to read and write well he bloody can his reading level is of a nine year old and his writingis spot on as long as ur son is happy then that is all u need to worry about hun it sounds like he doing fine hun

If our private schools are among the best in the world (which I am sure they are), then why on earth are so many of our state schools such dumps?? Why can't someone shake up the whole system to make sure that all children get a decent education - by, for example, removing education from the state entirely? As for making them all stay on until they're 18, heaven help the teachers who have to deal with them...

"If our private schools are among the best in the world (which I am sure they are), then why on earth are so many of our state schools such dumps??"

Our private schools teach small groups of well motivated children from highly supportive, aspirational families, in well equipped classrooms. They also offer them the opportunity to engage in a huge range of extra curricula activities that broaden their horizons.

Many non-selective state schools teach large groups of poorly motivated children from families where education and learning isn't valued and where parents sometimes have poor literacy and numeracy themselves.

Most teachers working in the state sector are well trained and good at their jobs, but they CAN'T change the culture these children grow up in. FFS - many of the children coming into reception at my daughter's school are already horribly behind because they never get read to or spoken to at home. And they never catch up.

You could take the entire staff of Eton College and draft it into St Scumbag's comp around the corner from me and I doubt it'd make any impact on GCSE grades, behaviour or attitudes. Any intelligent person who's received appropriate training can teach well-behaved children who are hungry to learn. Good god, they teach each themselves! You chuck them a mere morsal and they gnaw it over for hours, extracting all the marrow. Less motivated children with a narrow frame of reference take all your energy, all your enthusiasm, all your knowledge - and they piss it to the wind.

We didn't have state education until about 1870 I think or possibly earlier. But that just meant the poor often didn't get much of an education at all. If people had to pay as they do in many countries then there might be less attendance but they might appreciate it more.

The state never does things well in any sector. The less it's in charge of the better. Free markets work best.

If only it were that simple tb

Xenia - I am so with you re. the state!

Actually the state does get it right sometimes. My dd's primary school is fantastic - outstanding ofsted reports, happy children, good behaviour. And that's despite the fact that its catchment area is very deprived.

Doesn't hurt though that a large number of the children at her school are from aspirational new immigrant families.......

BTW, I've been to a couple of piss poor private schools myself so I know that the private sector doesn't always get it right.

If the chidren have supportive parents and are prepared to work then they can do well.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3405934.ece

I think it would help if all state secondary schools were made to take their fair share of rich and poor people, bright and stupid have an ethnic mix which matched the town they were in.

Many state comprehensives aren't comprehensive and this is where they fall down.

If the "good" comprehensives (i.e. ones where people can afford expensive houses) started taking their fair share of "stupid" (etc) pupils (RT's word), they would soon become as crappy as the other comprehensives. Private schools would be rubbing their collective hands with glee and making plans for expansion!

I still don't see why the state should have any say in education. What on earth do they know? They're politicians, so whatever they do has some kind of political ideology behind it - it's not done because it's in the interests of children and their education. Education is used only to make political points - the current ones being a) we are all rubbish parents and our children should all be at Sure Start nurseries, where they will learn governmentally-approved ways of thinking; b) schools are getting better and better as a result of this government's marvellous input (as demonstrated by the fact that my six-year-old could pass a Physics GCSE - I kid you not); c) all children are the same, and all must jump through the same developmental hoops at the same time so a box can be ticked; d) Ofsted is God.

I still think that all education should be private, run by people who really know about children/education and aren't toeing a party political line. Schools should be free not to teach the National Curriculum, and teachers should teach in the way they think is best, not according to some state-imposed "best practice" ("best" by whose standards?!) As for tests: scrap the lot of them. Thank goodness my DS's school doesn't do them!!

Rant over...

I see a logic to the 'make all schools private' point. But I would go further and suggest that most parents should have to make some (means tested) level of direct financial contribution to their childrens education.

New labour have poured billions into education over the last 11 years with limited success. Many parents are prepared to move house, pay for tutors, Kumon, french lessons etc. Why not get this money paid directly to their children's school (and not the estate agents' pockets).

Most of our kids have more spent on them than any previous generation (ipods, Nintendo's, own TV's...) yet their school experince is often third rate.

As a parent our choice is binary - state or shell out £7k a year plus on fees.

A direct contribution would put money directly into our children's school. If this were combined with more autonomy, then state schools could start to have some of the benefits of good private schools.

Dottoresa - private schools are not generally governed by teachers. They are often profit making organisations run by boards dominated by business interests!

"not done because it's in the interests of children and their education"

How do you know this? Do you have proof? Do you think all politicians are so evil and stupid that they'd actually deliberately and knowingly sabotage the education of a whole generation of children because they wish to promote a particular ideology?

I think that's an unfounded and unfair accusation. Most politicians from all parties genuinely believe they can make a positive difference to the lives of people in this country. Of course education policy is sometimes misguided or even positively destructive - they can't always get things right or forsee the consequences of change. That doesn't mean that they make policy in the spirit of cynicism. And you're naive in thinking that politicians just sit down and bash out education policy without reference to research and expert opinion. There are plenty of educational reasearchers, teachers and heads with decades of classroom experience working with the government in forging education policy.

"If the "good" comprehensives (i.e. ones where people can afford expensive houses) started taking their fair share of "stupid" (etc) pupils (RT's word), they would soon become as crappy as the other comprehensives."

A school which is poorly managed and has high staff turnover will not fully meet the needs of the children who study there - whether it's in leafy Surrey or in an inner city. I don't think there's any truth in the suggestion that if popular, well run schools with lots of middle class kids took their fair share of disadvantaged children they would become 'crappy' - we're talking about schools having a balanced and representative intake. The problem with the 'crappy' comprehensives where I live is that their student body is not representative of the general population and the schools are often not well resourced.

Amey - yes, I think that would be a good idea. Parents are prepared to spend a fortune on anything that they think might help their child's development, so why not on education?

Our choice is either state primary (well regarded, but completely unsuitable for DS) or prep. At secondary, it's private or shockingly rubbish comp! As I'm not sure we can afford two lots of secondary fees, home education is our other alternative...

TBB - no, I don't think that "all politicians are so evil and stupid that they'd actually deliberately and knowingly sabotage the education of a whole generation of children because they wish to promote a particular ideology". However, I think they are more than able to convince themselves that their own ideology is in the best interests of children, regardless of whether it's the case.

"you're naive in thinking that politicians just sit down and bash out education policy without reference to research and expert opinion. There are plenty of educational reasearchers, teachers and heads with decades of classroom experience working with the government in forging education policy."

My goodness, I know this (I have been involved in some of this consultation!!) It's just that politicians so often choose to go along with the expert view that suits their party political line. Take nurseries, for example. Penelope Leach's (non-party-political) research suggested quite compellingly that under-twos should not spending long hours in day nurseries - yet the government's aim is to get all women into work so they can be "useful" (i.e. tax-paying) members of society. If that's their aim, they couldn't possibly endorse research like Leach's, however compelling her conclusions may be. That's not to get at nurseries - it's just one instance of the government hearing only what it wants to hear because, obviously, education is only one of their priorities.

No! At the risk of using a dreadful line that I hate when used to talk about people's openmindedness... sigh... some of my friends are Private school parents. They are lovely! However, I have met some knobs!

Do you know, some of my friends are state- school parents too, and I even allow my own children to play with their unwashed state-school neighbours. Isn't it strange how niceness (and petty-minded snobbery isn't confined to one kind of parent)?

Am liking the turn of this thread to privatise education. The problem in the UK is we have two parties which have very similar policies and no one with any effective radical agenda any more.

I see in today's Times that state schools are now doing even worse at getting children into the best univesrities despite masses of our money as tax payers being wasted on useless initiatives and they've making a load of children who are nothing like clever enough to go rubbish universities which employers know are useless from which 30% or more drop out.

fgs

The difference between what my LEA gives a state primary school per child and local prep school fees is about £900 per term.

Would parents pay this to get their child into a good primary school with small class sizes and say more, sport, music and art?

I don't have the secondary numbers but it must be similar.

As to the political will to make this happen. I think the Conservatives were proposing letting people set up their own schools (and presumably getting the LEA funding per child). So, you only need to add in the ability to ask for direct top up payments from parents to make it happen.

"I see in today's Times that state schools are now doing even worse at getting children into the best univesrities despite masses of our money as tax payers being wasted on useless initiatives"

Or maybe it's because state school pupils are having to compete to get onto courses like medicine and law at the best universities with the children of doctors and lawyers, who've been to private tutorial colleges to do their A levels where they were taught in groups of 3 or 4.......... plus had the advantage of prestigious work placements courtesy of parents' posh friends during summer holidays...... Of course they don't stand a chance - whatever their potential.

"and they've making a load of children who are nothing like clever enough to go rubbish universities which employers know are useless from which 30% or more drop out"

It's simply not true that all students who drop out of university are 'not clever enough'. My nephew is hugely bright but went to an appalling local school and scraped into a place at University with three very mediocre A level grades. He had really poor study skills and was terribly anxious about going into debt (he was living at home with his mum, who is a single parent with poorly controlled diabetes who can only work part time). These factors, plus inadequate support from the college, huge tutorial groups etc etc, conspired to make the experience of university a bad one for him, and he dropped out at the end of his second year. I still think he benefited from going and who knows - he may go back to college one day and complete his degree as an adult.

It's hard to say. Very very few drop out of Oxbridge and vast numbers drop out of the ex polys like Middlesex "University". Some people find university in general hard to cope with which is a personality issue.

The point about parents helping with work placements etc that is also true of middle class parents with children in state schools doing courses where work experience helps. I have had two people in today's post asking to do work experience with me .It's very hard to find it. Two of my children should be doing some this summer but haven't fixed it up.

What does help children in the world of work in due course is obviously a mix of skills some of which you learn at school and others you're born with or learn at home. I think it is very very much worth paying for a good private school place because it's one of the easiest ways to improve your child's life chances.

Also some universities want people who are interesting and if everyone has AAA as is the case in the better places you're looking at things like personality, brains, interest in the subject, hobbies etc. I just think the private schools help you be better at those all rounder kind of things.

Of course not all students who drop out of universities "aren't clever enough" (though some of them aren't very clever and should never have been there in the first place). In my former life as a university teacher, I was always very struck by the huge numbers of students with depression/anxiety problems - many of those, I think, stemming from the fact that they would have been better off doing something else (for whatever reason).

I'm also not convinced that all people able to offer "prestigous work placements" are "posh" in the rather derogatory way that TTB means it.

It is quite striking that - even at five - there is a difference between private-school and state-school children. If you were given a line-up of photos of anonymous children, some privately educated and some state educated, the chances are you'd guess which were which. Now, I'm not saying that's "right" - but if the difference is obvious even at five, it's hardly surprising that it's even more obvious at 18. Given that so many children now obtain 4 As at A level, it's well-nigh impossible for Admissions tutors to judge potential students' academic abilities - so they really have to look at how well-rounded they are as individuals as well. Which brings us back to the fact that the whole system needs radically transforming so that academically able children of whatever background have the chance to shine!

No - I didn't mean it in a derogatory way. I'm just very aware of the fact that the vast majority of children I know who live locally to me don't have relatives or family friends working at the BBC or in top city firms etc.

"even at five - there is a difference between private-school and state-school children"

Oh go on Dotoressa - humour us. How do these differences manifest themselves in concrete terms? Do middle class children of 5 whose parents have forked out £10 000 a year for their school placement have a look of complacent superiority on their little faces.....?

My daughter is 8 and she's very beautiful - she has huge brown eyes that shine with excitement - she's excited by everything and full of life and spirit. Do you reckon she'd stand out as a child who 'hasn't had the opportunity to shine'? And there was me thinking she was a successful human being because she can engage with all sorts of different people, she's articulate, caring about others, she sings beautifully, adores reading, writing stories and poetry and animals. She is loves school - thinks it's wonderful. And all this without me shelling out a penny. But I suppose to you she'd be a second rate - because as a state school pupil in an inner city primary she's not had a chance to achieve academically according to the standards your child's school deems 'acceptable'.

Really... this is so sad.

Not at all, TBB! Your DD sounds like a really lovely girl with all the qualities any parent could want from their child. As for my DS's school deeming certain academic standards "acceptable" - well, it does have high academic standards, and all the children end up achieving well, but isn't selective, so manages to get good results from all abilities. The school's focus is very firmly on creating well-rounded, polite and happy children - children like your DD, in fact (unlike another two sausage-factory crammer-style preps near us, which really are fixated on academic achievement at all costs...).

What I really meant was that the (perceived or real) differences between state/private start very early on, and are often - not always - glaringly obvious when it comes to pupils having to face university admissions tutors. It's a real shame that this should be so, and the only way I can see to get around it is to make all schools so good that all children have an equal chance (to be academic/sporty/arty/a generally nice person). And the only way to achieve this, in my opinion, is by freeing all schools from state control.

And no, we don't know anyone who works for the BBC or in top city firms, either!!

I think that comprehensives have to have a balanced intake. This is to ensure that there are enough children to create a range of classes for children with varying ablity.

The most popular state comprehensive on the other side of town enters top set for three seperate sciences. They have the same number of science lessons as the other children, but cover more material in the time.

Our local comprehensive only offers double award science as there are not enough children who are bright enough. It is hard to be a bright child in a school where lots of the children are low ablity.

Most state schools do offer a good education. Although children do need to be more self moviated.

I went to a private school for secondary education and although I got fanastic academic results, I learnt no life skills. I know very few of my old class mates who have sucessfully manage to hold down a marriage. Yes, they have well paid and sucessful jobs. But are they happy?