arabella weir on why we must send our kids to state schools

[nowirehangers]

Arabella on why she would never send her kids to private schools
What do people think?
Fwiw I find the tone unbelievably smug. I also disagree with a lot of what's being said. I don't think all parents send thier kids to private schools so they can avoid the great unwashed, though some do. I would love my dcs to go to a state school for the reasons she mentions.
What puts me off is the fact the teaching is so often mediocre - as the Chief Inspector of Schools admitted this week. Of course there are so incredible teachers in the state system but I fear there are a lot of second-rate one too. I went to a state primary where the teaching was awful then was moved in to a private school and couldn't believe how much more stimulating the atmosphere was and how much more inspirational the teachers were. I dislike the idea of my dcs mixing only with posh kids, so I'm going to put mye experience down as an unlucky one and give the local state school the benefit of the doubt but if I feel they're being taught badly I will remove them and remortgage the house or whatever to make it work. Anyway, that's my opinion, interested in others.

Several posters on this thread have described the school her kids go to as 'rough' actually, Expat.

My sons go to an independent school and they don't get driven or drive to school.

I agree with Anchovy.

And she fails to mention how a lot of us parents who chose the independent route did so to avoid the teach to the test, SAT, national curic debacle that is strangling so many state schools.
Year six spent doing practice papers? No ta.

And if we all have a duty to improve standards in state schools does that mean no one should HE?

Message withdrawn

Scareyteacher- DS1 has 3 TAs and a QT in his Y2 class, in a school similiar to the one described in the article. The LEA have an SEN policy which ensures that the TA's work with all the pupils in the class. This is to ensure that the statemented children do not feel stigmatised about having an adult 'glued to their side.'

Obviously we are very happy that the ratio in his class is 1 adult to 7 pupils.

Also on the issue of language. It has in no way held our DC back to be in a class where many of the children have English as an additional language. It has given them a real awareness of different modern languages being spoken, rather than being carted off to mandarin/spanish/french lessons after school.

A lot of people choose independent education because of the sports offered. In my experience PE in state primaries is very poor. An hour a week of skipping around a dinner hall with a teacher who had no interest in sport whatsoever is not what kids deserve.
Perhaps your experiences have been different but I have been extremely disappointed with this.

Cissy - your DCs should have been at DS2's state primary (small village school), known locally as the junior sports academy. Football, cricket, rugby, netball and cross country all done, all local competitions entered (and frequently won) and the rugby team went to Twickenham twice in the 4 years DS was there. It really does vary a lot from school to school.
Usually Fiona Millar writes that article in the Guardian - no doubt the Daily Telegraph has a similar article that is regularly trotted out with its writer saying that he/she would never send DCs to a state school.

I really hate these articles, almost (but not quite) as much as the Times/Torygraph "We decided to send our children to a state school, but it was ghastly, just cruel, so we had no alternative to going private otherwise our little Griselda would have got mugged for bringing a violin to school, all the other kids in Y3 had knives and submachine guns" routine.

And like Arabella Weir, my dc have been in sundry rough-ish round the edges inner-London primaries, and have largely been happy and done well. So do I occasionally feel pleased that I'm not shelling out £12K a year per dc in school fees? Well obviously, yes. Do I mouth off about it to friends and family who might have made other decisions (let alone crow about it in the national press)? No, cos I realise that we are lucky to have okayish schools near us, lucky that we are sufficiently educated/organised/solvent to make up for the schools' shortcomings in academic or extracurricular terms, and lucky that our kids are robust and academically able enough to do well where they are.

It's just so pointless, so class-warry. So you've had a good experience at a state school many people try to avoid? Great, bully for you. So you've decided to go the private route because you want extracurricular/small classes/sport/lakes/academic pushiness/are a raging snob? Great, if you can afford it, fair enough. Either way, please spare us the "aren't I fabulous, anyone who makes the other decision doesn't care about their kids/society etc etc."

Bleargh.

Just another aticle and another debate full of inaccuracies and hgeneralisations on both parts from what I can gather. Again!

I don't see the point in these articles. People should be free to choose the education they want, whether it be private, state or HE. Most people have to settle for state through personal circumstances. Everyone tries to do the best for their DC. Luckily we are all different-one size doesn't suit all.

I agree that this article is full of the typical assumptions that people make based on their preconceptions, that sometimes bear very little truth to reality.

For example, the private school I taught in was far more racially diverse than either of the state schools I taught in. The private school was not particularly academically selective, and did take children from around the world. As it was boarding, it had girls from Russia, Hong Kong, Eastern Europe and Asia (about 60% British and 40% foreign students) whereas both the state schools I taught in were overwhelmingly white (over 95%), one was white middle class, the other a mix of white working and lower middle. Either way, there was very little racial diversity. Interestingly, there has been some research which shows that it is the white middle classes who are least likely to put their children into private school -whereas it is the Asian middle classes who are most likely to use private schools these days.

In an ideal world I would send my DCs to a state school but the world is far from ideal.

Up until last term (we moved abroad for DH's job) all 5 DCs were at a prep school in London, by the virtue of its admissions criteria any child who could have disrupted the ambience of the classroom or slowed the pace of the lesson wouldn't be offered a place.
Chances are any parent who is willing to spend money on an education is going to be reasonably interested in their child's...

There is always the opportunity to engage in socially diverse extra cirriculars such as rainbows or beavers.

I thought there were some good insights in the article but I also think that most parents forking out for private schools in the UK do so because they are certain that their children will learn (much) more than in their local state school. That's all.

My daughter is in a private school in Paris; my stepsons are in state schools. My daughter's school is far more racially/culturally/socially diverse than my stepsons' school.

Anyway, Arabella Weir went to Camden school for girls, which is hardly Bash Street Comprehensive. I'd be interested to see how smug she sounds when she's staring at the blunt end of a secondary transfer form -- Crouch End is a notorious secondary schools black spot. Unless she's made sure (as she probably has) that she's in the catchment for Alexandra Park School, one of the up-and-coming desirable ones.

Honestly, smuggificating in the press about your school choices sucks, it really does.

A large part of our school decision was that we didn't want our DD to go to a nearly pure WASP school. Or a WASRC school come to that... the state choice round here is CofE or RC.

In this northern town, DDs private school has ethnic mix and mostly down-to-earth types who value their brass and dont fork it out for mere snobbery.

"any child who could have disrupted the ambience of the classroom or slowed the pace of the lesson wouldn't be offered a place"

And this is an advantage of a private education? An advantage to whom?

I do not want my dcs being educated in an environment where those with less academic ability are simply cut away and tossed aside.

The bit that surprises me is that we are to believe that the only way to appreciate diversity and to understand privilege and disadvantage is to be educated along side children from a wide-range of backgrounds.
I am much more than the school I went to ( state) I travelled the world as a child , I mixed with children outside of my school in other activities. My parent's outlook determined, at least as a child, my vision of the world- not my school. I think we look to schools provide too much of parents and communities as a whole should provide. I want to school to provide education and opportunity, I want to be able to provide my children with morality; spirituality and socail awareness and responsibility.

If your community is ethinically and economically diverse then you and your children may have very many opportunities outside of the schoolroom to encounter that community.

But diversity is not just about colour is it?
Surely it encompasses all kinds of backgrounds and social class.
By their very nature private schools can't provide social diversity.