OK: this is the big difference I see between our private schools (for a son and daughter) and our local comprehensive:
The private schools we chose are unashamedly academic. They choose IGSEs for maths, French, English and some sciences. They discourage 'soft' GCSE choices. You can, of course, study music and art and drama and lots of them do, everyone needs to express these sides of their personality. But you are under no illusions that if you want to get on an academic university course you need to study the old-fashioned 'difficult' subjects and have a preponderance of them.
When I tried to explain this to our primary school head, whom I respect deeply and like very much, he looked at me as though I was mad and told me I was 'old-fashioned'.
Maybe. But my DH and I have worked in many fields: business, the City, the law, accountancy and management consultancy. I have written recruitment brochures for many firms in these sectors. I know what employers are looking for and it's rigorous academic qualifications: exams they understand, such as Maths, French, Physics, History. My children may not want to do any of the above careers (and my sympathies are with them if they don't) but I want them to have the choice.
At the local comprehensive a lot of the very bright children are guided towards GCSEs that will not help them academically. You can study one language only at GCSE: French. There is no Latin, no Spanish, no German. Most of the children have to give up history because it doesn't fit in with most of the timetables. There is a lot of pushing them to do resistant materials, and a kind of business studies with economics GCSE, plus PE plus art. That's three or four soft GCSEs--even for very academic children. Even when the parents realise that this is not right they can't always do anything about it. Some of my friends don't realise that having four of these GCSEs on a bright child's CV is doing them no favours and you can be sure that nobody at that school is going to enlighten them.
And of course this limits their A level choices. And this limits the chances of getting into good universities.
This is why we pay: to get honest advice about the subjects the children will need to study to have the maximum choice.
Another thing I've noticed: ours do no more homework than their peers at the comprehensive. There are hardly any project-type 'design a poster or a box' pieces set by the schools. They'll learn a list of French verbs or write an essay or do some maths. Then homework's over: often in 40 minutes, even the year 8 child. The year 6 child has very little homework: perhaps 25 minutes three times a week. In the state primary her arty-crafty homework took much longer than that because we were having to source bits of cardboard and ribbon, etc.
This is why we pay. We know exactly what needs to be done to get them where they need to be and we are under no illusion that it will necessarily be easy for them, even though they are both bright and motivated. Sometimes they will complain that the work is hard. Good, I think. As long as it's hard but not impossible and as long as the teachers are supportive, that's as it should be.
Is it unfair that we can pay and others can't? It's damn unfair. Not every child would enjoy these kind of schools: I'd guess that perhaps only a third would. But it's a wicked waste that all of that third can't all have it.