Private school fees up 43%

[UnquietDad]

story here

Deliberate, do you think?...

So if only "18 professions" can now afford them, and they don't include teachers, architects or police officers, what are they? Any offers?

Becuase i can go wherever i choose

and if your best argument is that inequality is ok becuase it was already going on in other forms - then it doesn't need a response

nice to know that swedes
dya feel a tinsy winsy bit validated?

Do you think it's OK that we have state grammar schools? Do you think it's OK people move house in order to secure a better school? Do you think it's OK for people to supplement education with private tutors?

do you have a point?

I think people should damn well do what they choose to do without having to justify it. It is their money, their children and their choice.

Not everyone wants the same in a school, if they did there wouldn't be the demand for Independent Schools.

We should count ourselves lucky we live in a Country where we have choices for our children, a free National Health Service if our children are ill and the State Schools we do provide, the majority do pretty damn good.

oh we have choices do we?

If you can't afford it now they will have to go somewhere else.hardly the end of the world

"Choice" is a much-maligned word. Education should not be a supermarket.

Is the fact that you can get a better education if you are able to pay for it in one way or another (either by buying a house in the right area, or going the grammar school route or going private, or by adopting a faith) right?

No

Should all state schools have small class sizes, specialist teaching, no disruption, proper resources?

Yes

Is it my fault they don't?

No

Should there be equality in education?

Yes

Should I therefore send my kids to my nearest school where they will definitely not get a good experience of education when I can afford to send them somewhere else?

No

Does my decision to send my kids to private school really have any impact on anyone else or make any difference to govt policy?

Probably not.

If Ruth Kelly who was in charge of education in the country for a while and supposedly a Labour MP can send her kid to a private school thus telling us that she has no faith in the state education's ability to cater for every student then I think I can do the same with a clear conscience. I do my bit for state education (for a start by teaching it) but I think it is seriously flawed. When the Govt invests in it properly I will reconsider.

nice that(theoretically) you could make those choices.

Even when I was at comp back in the late 70s/ early 80s, it was a two tier system with the streaming and setting. Even in comps today you have this with those who can and can't achieve.

I used private schools for my ds as we could afford it; it provided continuity of education (service family), and a familiar environment if he had to board.

State schools should be good enough for everyone to achieve their potential - this unfortunately is not the case for all state schools.The spend per child per area varies widely and wildly; the schools are under resourced and the teachers frequently teach upwards of 600 students per week. It is a system I was educated in, and taught in, and I wanted small class sizes for ds, as he is bright but lazy and needs to be pushed. That wouldn't have happened in the local comp in Cornwall, and isn't happening at the international school he currently attends, so he may be UK bound for boarding school before much longer. If we had stayed in the UK, then he would have had a go at both the 11 plus and common entrance /scholarship exams for boarding.

We don't live in Utopia and if there is something your child could benefit from and you can afford it, why not? It's not illegal, and I don't think educating a child privately is immoral either.

i think it is immoral

There will always be those who don't believe education a fundamental of life should be better if you have more £.I am one but also don't give it a lot of thought most of the time and certainly don't care if it goes up and up as there are alternatives

No, in my ideal education system there would be no private schools, no grammar schools, no faith schools, no league tables and lots more investment. But to try and make individual people feel guilty for using the choices that have been provided by the Government is misguided at best. Like, I said I do my bit. I probably do more for kids in state education and know more about state education and my community than those of you who are slagging off parents for choosing private schools and accusing them of snobbery and using the same tired old stereotypes about uniform etc etc without a shred of evidence for this. Especially those of you sitting in your leafy suburbs busy paying private tutors to ensure your kids get into the local grammar school or sending your kids to the church school up the road.

The OP is deliberately provocative. "Private School Fees up 43% By the same measure the cost of state education is up over 66.6%.

UQD, What do you mean by "deliberate, do you think?" in your OP?

Gah.

UQD - you posted this:

"I await with interest the first "Oh my god, this year the credit crunch means I've had to send my children to a state school and I had no idea what they were like, is this what people put up with?" article.

I predict:

a) it will appear around September 22nd
b) it will be written by a woman
c) it will appear in the Mail or Express"

I find the combination of chippiness and sexism quite unusual.

Your posts on other threads have indicated concern about the schools available to your DCs so why should it concern you that people turn to private schools? And why, apart from pure schadenfreude would you be interested in the effects of the credit crunch upon feepaying families?

well whatever helps you sleep at night

Why? That's what I don't get. If we've earned the money, it's up to us how we spend it. I don't spend it on expensive clothes, or Caribbean holidays or drugs, but on buying my son small class sizes and a broader curriculum than he would have received otherwise. How is that immoral? I am not denying those things to other kids - the government are by insisting on a narrow curriculum, stuffed with too much bloody testing and taking the will to learn away from students.

Yes, my ds has access to things that others don't; but we have worked to give him those opportunities. Why should he be unable to take advantage of that? We all want our kids to do better than we did...this is one way of achieving that.

There are those who work their **'ses off who can't give their kids those things

Sexist to suggest an article in a newspaper will be written by a woman? odd. And I'm not sure what "chippiness" is really.

My "deliberate" comment was a suggestion that maybe, just maybe, private schools are putting up their prices not just to cover costs in the current economic climate but to ensure that some people who could afford them are no longer doing so. In a way it makes more economic sense - going "boutique".

Noddy - I do love a bit of moral outrage from someone who has sold their house and is renting waiting to capitalise on a fall in the housing market.

I wasn't denying that at all Noddy, but we can, so why shouldn't we? Otherwise, you will have to legislate for how people spend their earnings, and that is a tad draconian.

ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh