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.

What are the differences?

• The higher your class and more you earn and the taller people tend to be (chairmen of the board over 6 foot, ex pit workers small and troglodyte....) you only had to watch my daughter's lacrosse team at school (short Jewish or short Indian/chinese or her - short of peasant stock-ish from grammar school type school) against very tall and almost universally blonde giantesses from the better known boarding schools.

• Obviously if you're richer the age 5 blazer you wear is probably better quality and looks better than standard issue state primary average UK income is £20k kind of thing. So clothing differences.

• Class differences - lower your class more likely you have piercings at age 5 and be dressed in inappropriate clothing, crop tops and probably more likely to have runny nose, unresolved chest infections, poor diet rather than all that healthy veg etc.

• If you're rich enough to be in the 6% who get a good education bought for them the parents probably are pretty bright and hard working and into education and books so genetically and physically that shows in the children too.

• Scroll forward to my three at university and yes you can see the differences between those from richer home and those who went to private schools even now. What is really fascinating me at present is the difference in career ambition at university stage based on family background. What sounds like a brilliant job for the poor like a civil service tax office job or teaching wouldn't cut the mustard for the richer ones who know they want to buy houses, keep horses or whatever hobbies they want so there are very different expectations of future income too.

On work experience there is a new service where you can pay £5k to a company that will get your child good work placements by the way. But my children seem to prefer more interesting holiday work and it didn't seem to stop the oldest getting her job, in fact I think doing fascinating work abroad was better on her CV and in interviews than I worked for 8 weeks in my local XYZ office to earn money to get me thruogh univesrity next year.

Interesting stats in today's paper (FT p3) - 57% of parents would pay for a private school if they could afford it and 54% of Labour voters.

My experience has been a little different from Xenia's.

Four of my husband's nephews went to private schools: two to an elite school, probably the most famous in the world; two to Gordonstoun.

The first 'Elite' still hasn't found a permanent job nearly two years after leaving university. He is a lovely lad: friendly and kind, but he ain't no intellectual. He had to change course after a year at university because what he'd chosen was too difficult.

The two Gordonstoun lads didn't get good A levels. One has chosen a job in horticulture and is doing very well. Again, he's a lovely, unpretentious boy. The other is doing a history degree at a former poly.

The second 'Elite' is finishing at Oxford and finding it hard to get job offers on the milkround.

I think what's happened is that they all hit a level where you can't get beyond natural ability. Private schools can push a child so far, but when you get to university, you're on your own.

My personal experience at Oxford was that, on the whole, the children from state schools ultimately got the better grades.

That said, both mine are/will be going to private schools, in the hope that they can take the IGCSEs, which, I believe, are more rigorous exams. And because I think the extra-curricular activities are richer in the private sector and you don't have so many fears about behaviour, etc.

"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?"

RT - speaking as someone who spent 13 years at a selective girls' private school, I can say it's perfectly possible to combine former private school attendance with long and happy marriages! (And I don't have any job, never mind a well-paid and successful one).

What "life skills" do you mean? If you mean things like how to have a relationship with someone, surely the main example there is the one children are shown at home? Or do you mean things like learning to cook? The link between a lack of "life skills" and private schools isn't at all clear to me.

I'm sure Bridie3 is right that you can only push any child so far before they hit their own particular buffers. My own university experience, though, is that the privately educated students did better than the state-educated ones. Maybe it just varies from place to place, year to year, subject to subject...

"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"

I'd still like you to say how these differences manifest themselves because you haven't been specific. You say that these differences are 'visible' and are 'glaringly obvious' and you blame them on the schools themselves.

Personally I think you are completely wrong - you are not comparing like with like. Private school children come from privileged backgrounds, are taught in very small groups and have access to lots of extra curricula activities. They are generally not exposed to the disruptive behaviour of other children. They are also coached and 'hot housed' when it comes to exams and interviews.

I'd say it's these things primarily that make the difference to their achievement. It's not so much about method as it is about home involvement and educational resources. Children who come from households where both parents are well educated, and fully involved in their child's education, who are taught in small groups by well trained teachers, who are not exposed to constant low level disruption in the classroom, who are given the chance to engage in extra curricula activities and encouraged to have high expecations will do very well - WHETHER THEY ARE PRIVATELY EDUCATED OR EDUCATED BY THE STATE.

I'm sure that if you drafted the management of your child's school and the entire teaching body into my daughter's school and asked them to work with groups of 30 children in each class (a significant proportion of whom have English as a second language and learning and behavioural difficulties) and with no access to additional resources they would flounder horribly. That's the reality my child's teachers face and they do a BRILLIANT job in very difficult circumstances: the children love school and they achieve at a reasonable level.

Teachers and schools can't achieve miracles. In my daughter's class there are two boys who are allowed to stay up until midnight on a school night watching DVDs, a boy with two alcoholic parents who swear at him all the time; a girl who's one of four children born to a single mother who had them all under 20 and who suffers from serious depression; a boy whose single mother has three different children by three different dads and has never worked; a girl whose father is in prison and whose mother has 5 children by three different dads.

Only about 4 of the mothers of children in my daughter's class are graduates. Most left school at 16.

We live a 15 minute train ride from Victoria but many of the children in her class have never been to a gallery. They've never ridden a horse, they don't have access to a car, they've never been on an airplane..... What could your daughter's teachers do with these children that would make a material difference to their ability to achieve and to 'shine' - if they had to manage with the same resources as state primaries?

cannot read all of this thread but draggin it back to the OP no not all privately educating parents are petty minded snobs , how would you like it if all of us private educators came on mumsnet and said " all parents who send their children to state schools are fag smoking, illiterent , dole bludging chavs " ????

In our state primary often the problem hasn't been the children with SEN, it's been children who are, frankly, rude and have few social skills. Some of them come from very solid middle class backgrounds. They refuse to do what they're told and delay and disrupt lessons.

My son has recently moved to a prep school. The behaviour above just isn't tolerated. I don't know what the difference is? Perhaps if parents are paying a lot of money they will be very anxious not to waste it by having their children excluded from classes or school. I suppose each lesson is worth, roughly, about seven pounds. So each time your child is sent out of the class, you're throwing away seven pounds. Doesn't sound much, but if it was happening once or twice a week, every week, you might start to take note. I dunno.

"The behaviour above just isn't tolerated. I don't know what the difference is?"

What size are the classes in your son's school?

At my daughter's school the classes are all large (there are 30 kids in her class).

In her class there are 5 boys and two girls who are persistently disruptive and have been since nursery. That's nearly a third of the class. These children aren't SEN but are like you say, just rude. I really can't see what the teacher can do given the sheer numbers of these hildren. She does her best and things don't routinely get very out of hand. She can't keep sending children out of lessons because other teachers already have their hands full. And children won't be excluded for being disruptive - unless it's very, very high level disruption.

"Teachers and schools can't achieve miracles." Obviously not! But the problem with a state-run system is that it's so rigid in every possible way (from the ages of the children in the class to the numbers of them to what they actually learn) that bright children whose families encourage them to learn can't be catered for alongside the disruptive ones from tricky backgrounds. Why can't someone set up a school specialising in helping children from really disadvantaged backgrounds? That way they'd get the attention (and expert handling) that they really need, while a separate school would cater for other children. And another one again would give special attention to bright middle-class-but-foully-behaved ones (why should any hard-working child have to put up with rude and disobedient classmates, whatever their social background?) Why does everyone have to be lumped together? It must be very distressing to have your child labelled as disruptive and violent, rather than given the real (probably one-to-one) support he/she would really need.

Oh, and one of the mums in my DS's class is a single mum with three children by three fathers, and she's never worked either. Okay, so she's from a wealthy family - but social/familial problems aren't exclusive to any one sector of society.

Xenia said 'Interesting stats in today's paper (FT p3) - 57% of parents would pay for a private school if they could afford it and 54% of Labour voters.'

Following my earlier post would any of you with DC's currently at state schools pay £900 a term for a school of your choice with smaller class sizes, better discipline and a broader curriculum??

(£900 is roughly is the difference between state funding per child and prep fees per term in my area).

Without question! I just looked at my local primary and as schools go it's good, no discipline problems and try to engage children more broadly than just the curriculum, good results etc BUT tiny classrooms with 30 per class and a very desk shackled environment. The private school reasonable as they go and it's a max of 14 per class and a whole host of activities combined with child centred teaching helping each child develop what they are good at. The two schools are worlds apart. It's in fabulous grounds and they can climb trees and make dens. It's a sacrifice for me to put her there as namely I wanted some time to change career but will have to go back full-time but the difference in the children, their confidence and the breadth of learning. It's genuinely multi-sensory and child centred. The approach is so different and they are really interested in your child.

Good sales pitch anyway

If 900 per term is the difference then we are not getting value for money from state schools imho

"that bright children whose families encourage them to learn can't be catered for alongside the disruptive ones from tricky backgrounds."

Except that bright children who are well supported ALREADY achieve in well resourced, well run state schools where there are not DISPROPORTIONATE numbers of disadvantaged children (ie where schools reflect the make up of society, rather than the make up of a particularly disadvantaged sector of society).

"Why can't someone set up a school specialising in helping children from really disadvantaged backgrounds? That way they'd get the attention (and expert handling) that they really need"

I would say the last thing disadvantaged children need is to be 'ghetto-ised' and kept away from their more privileged peers. How would that help them - to mix with lots of other children who have low aspirations? Secondly, schools can only do so much. The educational problems of disadvantaged children start BEFORE they even arrive at school. It's FAMILIES who need support.....

Ordinary working class kids don't need to be put in 'special schools'. I think what you're really saying is 'keep the plebs out because they spoil things for our children' - that's what it amounts to. Which is fair enough - but you shouldn't dress is up as an argument about different schools catering for different needs. The children at my daughter's school need the same as your kids - to be taught in small classes, alongside other children who model good behaviour and who have aspirations, and to have access to extra curricula activities. Doesn't look like they'll ever get it though.

Hmm I'd have to say special schools did some excellent work with behaviour problems before they were closed down. Quite often a child doesn't thrive because they don't get the attention they need because the classes are over-subscribed and they have difficulty concentrating so long shackled to a desk so misbehave. Quite often smaller class sizes more interest and running around is all a lot of children need. Not providing this causes the problems in the first place. The private school I looked at gets quite a few kids who haven't thrived in state schools and by providing activities, less time at a desk and more individual attention have solved behaviour problems in children that were written off by state schools.

You can hardly describe schools for children with special needs as 'ghettos' my friend is a special needs teacher in a 'ghetto' and achieves some superb work with children whose needs were not understood in mainstream schools.

Our primary classes are small, tittybangbang--few of them have more than about 24 in them.

But it still only takes one or two to throw a teacher off course. Even though all the classes have excellent TAs.

It is getting better, to be fair. Some of the really difficult children have now left the school.

To give children the best chance it shouldn't be more than 20. They shouldn't have closed smaller local schools and opted for warehousing kids in comprehensives. It's not just a more difficult learning environment it's unhealthy and stressful.

Just to add practical application of academic subjects is really important, children get bored and if they can't see the reason or value of what they are doing then they become disinterested and don't learn. They should learn the theory and apply it, they need to be engaged on more than one level.

"You can hardly describe schools for children with special needs as 'ghettos' "

I wasn't talking about schools for children with 'special needs'. If children have learning difficulties then they need special SEN input - whether that happens in mainstream school or special schools is a different argument.

Dottoressa seems to have been arguing for special schools for children who are simply badly behaved and for children from deprived backgrounds - this is not the same as children who have learning difficulties.

Dottoressa sugggesting that socially deprived children should have special schools is snobbery.

A common reason for bad behaviour in schools is bright children being bored. This happens when poor children get sterotyped in the way that some people have done on this thread.

I think a big problem is the inablity of rough schools to attract the best teachers. I think that teachers should be paid far more for working in a challenging school.

Rather than having special schools, I think that schools with a lot of children living in poverty should be given significantly extra money to spend as the head sees fit.

Incidently state special schools still exist. I work in a state special school and our county has several special schools of different types.

We have a couple of very good ones near us. Sadly, they're very oversubscribed.

Whenever i read Xenia's posts, I always wonder what it is that ultimately motivates her. I mean, clearly money is a huge factor, but what does that mean, other than being able to buy bigger house/more handbags/shop at Waitrose etc.
I have family, friends and colleagues who have been educated in the state sector, and also those who have been educated privately. I would say there is no significant difference in how they are getting on in life in terms of the things that to my mind. really matter. For example, I have 2 friends who were privately educated who went to Oxbridge and really floundered. They had been educated beyond their natural ability, and ended up miserable. I also know some privately educated and state educated people who have been absolutely fine there. Some people may not achieve top academic qualifications, but have the insight and wit to form happy, successful marriages/partnerships. Some people choose to not go into the (very few) really highly paid careers, but nevertheless have a working life which challenges them intellectually and makes a great contribution to society.
I think parents generally get too hung up about formal education. What do we ultimately want for our children? Sure, I want my children to ahcieve well academically, but that's because I happen to have bright, academic children (which as Xenia rightly points out is a lot to do with genes - and as DH and I are both well qualified graduates - state school educated then that's pretty much par for the course). However, I am not under any illusions. Achieving well academically will give them greater options in terms of career, but it won't necessarily make them happier, or better able to form good relationships, or better able to be a good parent.

No, no, no!!!!! I didn't say socially deprived children should have special schools. You are looking for snobbery where there is none.

I said clever, socially deprived children should have access to the very best education possible - and that children who swear, throw things and are generally rude and disruptive (whether they be impoverished working class or upper middle class) should not be allowed to ruin the former's education.

My own mother was very seriously socially deprived, and clever. Unlike her siblings, she went on to - guess where - a grammar school, despite being positively discouraged to bother with school by her parents.

I do think that children who've had a very difficult start and/or may struggle academically need extra attention, and that one school can't possibly give them that attention whilst also giving attention to the other pupils. And likewise, clever children need extra attention for being clever (though heaven help those in the middle, who would just be left to muddle through...!!)

There surely has to be some form of separation - in the same way that there should be academic setting for pupils. Even within my DS's class of 12, there are three sets (well, they're colours so far as the children know - but they're sets to parents) so that all the children can achieve at their own particular level.

If bright children are bored in any school, it is because everything always ends up reverting to the lowest common denominator.

I think the problem really is that the whole education system is a mess, and the fact that the private/state thing is so divisive is a real shame. When it comes down to it, all private school parents are seen as snobs!