Why is this forum do dominanted by private school matters?

[Titogovi]

Don't get me wrong, I was privately school educated myself and my kids attend one, but I do think that a forum entitled "Education" should be about more than parental issues regarding fee paying schools.

I know how everyone can suddenly hate you when you send your kids private, and how people are unfriendly and wary of you personally, as you grow up and well into adulthood, on finding out you were privately educated. Hence the rush to this forum to hopefully find 'people like us'.

But I just get the impression that there is a bit of a bunker mentality on this forum vis a vis private schools, which is not particularly healthy and certainly mitigates against the intellectual satisfaction to be gained by discussing educational matters in far broader sense.

(Ducks for cover..)

What do you mean by bunker mentality ?

Do you mean the way you can't talk about private schools without the thread degenerating into a private v. state ruck regardless of its original purpose?

I'm state educated with a state educated ds. I have to say that I've not noticed that private schooling dominates the discussions here. I think fee-paying parents are over-represented compared to the general population (as are Boden-wearers!), but that's down to the demographic of MN's users.

I do find private school discussions here interesting though and I've learned a lot. My prejudices have been confirmed a few times, but also they've been challenged. I like this.

I agree with Otter 93 % of children are state educated. That is obviously not that case on Mumsnet.

Is it dominated?
I have not noticed.

Five out of ten of the top ten education threads are about private schools at the moment - changes often though

If you want the Education topic to contain more threads that are not about private schools, then feel free to start some. I think the state/private discussions tend to be concentrated in Education, and much less so in Primary or Secondary.

FWIW I do think the % of private school users is a lot higher on MN than on average in the country as a whole, but that's just the way it goes. You can't really tell people they shouldn't start threads about something which is important to them, even if you don't think it should be.

Fair points. I guess that that mumsnet posters are not particularly representative of the 93% of population who use the state system. (Have the mumsnet forum moderators not thought of doing a poll about this?)

Even so, all the posts regarding private schools, interesting though they are, tend to focus overtly on administration and management issues (admissions, appeals, bursaries, fitting in, finance etc.) and hardly ever on teaching and learning issues; curriculum development, type and quality of teaching, learning strategies etc.

Surely we need a bit of both; focussing on the curriculum/learning side of things would probably encourage those who use state schools to contribute to these threads, as I'd imagine they often feel they have nothing to offer otherwise.

Just trying to be inclusive.

But the threads here reflect what the members of this forum want to talk about! And if they don't want to talk about "teaching and learning issues; curriculum development, type and quality of teaching, learning strategies etc", then they don't want to!

Not entirely sure what your point is, tbh.

Admissions, appeals, fees - they're subjects that MN-ers feel the need to post about, and feel that MN is the place to go for opinions or advice.

There are plenty of curriculum (for example) related posts on the Primary and Secondary Education topics - "Education" tends to be more generic imo.

Agree that not sure what point the Op is making - this is not a gvt dept with quotas to maintain representative of the proportions of specicific groups - mercifully - yet. Just a group of people who sometime s log in and talk about issues they have. If the OP is interested in eductaional theory, why not start threads about it?

Maybe if there is a dislike to independent school related questions in education, maybe there should be a separate section, like there is for primary, secondary, home education etc.

As a new poster to MN, I must admit I've noticed a lot of discussion re private schools, however, is it possible that this is a seasonal trait as now is the time private schools take in their applications for the Autumn term?

Yes, Mumsnet is weirdly skewed towards private education (and Boden). I have noticed it too.

moder what? You must be new!!!

I think that there is a lot of conversation generated by private-school fee-paying parents because it is such a huge financial decision for most families to send their children to private school. Money that is spent on fees can almost always be used for other things and therefore parents constantly question their motives and are demanding of the education their children receive in a way that parents who don't pay fees are not quite so emotional about.

Perhaps the parents who are starting (or contributing to) threads about curriculum, learning strategies, teaching etc are not specifically mentioning whether their child is at a private school? There are plenty of threads about these things, under Primary (eg reading schemes) and Secondary (eg subject choices).

Parents will mostly be mentioning the fact that they're talking about a private school when the issue is specific to that - admissions, fees, scholarships etc - and are less likely to mention it when it's not relevant. TBH I'd wonder why a parent was even mentioning the fact that it was a private school if they were discussing reading schemes or phonics etc - it could sound like boasting unless it was relevant, like not having to follow the NC.

I agree with Bonsoir - I am guilty of posting a thread asking opinions about state vs private (in a roundabout way) but that is because I wanted to hear varying opinions about the situation in UK. It is a subject that interests me at this moment, so I posted!
It is a huge financial decision to choose private education (and I'm sort of hoping I don't have to as both myself and my DH are state educated) but I do pick up that some people who have chosen the private route dominate the board - but then that would indicate they are also very concerned with the quality of education. Not that parents of state education aren't concerned, but when you pay a lot of money for something, it naturally becomes more of an issue for you. Even at times, if it sounds like you are justifying your own choices a little too loudly.
I am fascinated by how far some people in this country go (or give up) in order to fund this private education for their children. I believe that children should be given the best start, but I also don't think I would like to have seen my parents re-mortgage homes, reduce their lifestyle so much that camping holidays were the only option, and we had to live in a small house. Just for my schooling. I am interested in understanding what the difference in outcome may be, when I am surrounded by very rich and successful, and happy people in great careers, who are a mix of private and state education. The outcome in their case appears to have been no different despite the huge difference in cost to their parents. I am still deciding - therefore still posting on this topic.

I don't know the stats but I would imagine at least a quarter of MNers use independent education.

I don't think very many threads are started by independent school parents. A lot are started by parents in an attempt to criticise independent schools.

MN moderators? You new? You want guidelines about what should be discussed?

Doesn't really work that way here.

You want to talk about something, start a thread. But you cannot proscribe what people should talk about on an open forum to suit your own personal philosophies and agendas.