Unfair towards private school kids

[Angelkid]

Hello everyone,
I have seen an advertisement about national youth choir north east 2024. I am shocked to find out that they only admit state schools and home schooled kids. I am wondering if it is even legal. It is a clear discrimination case.
We have already experienced about music competitions/festivals are biased towards state schools. Judges don't have impartiality and blindly towards state schools.
Why aren't not judged by its own merits nowadays.
Very frustrated.

OP, it's one weekend to help get children started. Most independent schools have choirs and don't need such help.

Your dc can still join NYC if they want to. Talk to your school.

OP, it's one weekend to help get children started. Most independent schools have choirs and don't need such help.

Your dc can still join NYC if they want to. Talk to your school.

I could be mistaken, but in the UK, scholarships etc don’t usually offer a significant reduction in fees.

The days of window cleaners’ kids getting free places are long gone.

Therefore, a child still needs to have relatively affluent parents and are not the target audience of these type of outreach programmes.

My heart is breaking for you.

@Apolloneuro To be fair you are wrong about scholarships & bursaries. Maybe they are less common, but my ds is on an academic scholarship that covers 50% fees. I'm a single mum, he wouldn't be there if it wasn't so. I know of two children in the school who pay no fees at all for various reasons.

This makes sense. Where I live there is still significant financial aid at private schools - some more than others - for children from fairly impoverished backgrounds. Some for kids with strong sports/music/whatever but some just to diversify the school.

Can you discriminate against the ridiculously privileged? Wait till OP finds out that families that can afford private education generally don't qualify for food banks. They'll clutch their pearls so hard they might pop.

Personally, I believe wokeness is exclusively racial but going by the mainstream definition, it is woke. It is acknowledging that there is an injustice in the fact that state school pupils will get less opportunities and is attempting to address that. Despite what the daily mail would have you believe calling someone woke is not an insult.

OP you aren't making much sense here

@Apolloneuro I love your work on this thread 😂

What some posters don't understand is the utter paucity of provision in many state schools. Many don't have a choir or an orchestra or any musical instruments. No Christmas concert, sometimes no school play, no swimming, no theatre trips or extracurricular opportunities that private school parents take for granted. Kids who excel in average state schools are very, very able or have parents who can afford to make up the shortfall. It's not right but it is reality for many students.

OP you could turn what you are saying around. Private schools effectively bar entry to all but a few exceptional middle and low income children through their fees. If that is acceptable, then it is perfectly fair to exclude more privileged students from initiatives designed to provide opportunities to children who might not have them otherwise.

Jesus wept.
i can guarantee that the vast majority of the instrumental entrants in our local music festival in two weeks will be from the 4 local private schools. As will the choirs. There is barely ever a state school represented after beginner piano or recorder. Music provision in state schools is woeful abd if the music teacher has managed to get a choir together to a performance ready level then they should get extra credit. The private choir may be much more polished but it's nit just about that. They have extra rehearsal time, facilities and parental involvement to get the choir to a certain standard that the state teachers don't always benefit from.

and yes, I speak as a parent of one of those private school pupils. Orchestras and bands in state schools are closing because their pupils don't have the opportunity to learn instruments, funding has dried up and there's no space in the curriculum. It's appalling what has been done to education since academisation seemed to remove any encouragement of the arts from the general curriculum.

i hope this thread hasn't tarred all of us private school parents with the same brush. We don't all think like the op

People (myself included) shell out for independent schools precisely because we recognize they can provide children with advantages and increased opportunities overall. Every so often organizations acknowledge this and have limited programs designed to provide a tiny portion of those opportunities to children who weren't fortunate enough to be born to parents able (and willing) to pay for private schools.

If you think that private school kids are actually getting the short end of the stick in life then you would obviously withdraw yours and send them to state schools.

What about them? I was from a poor single parent family and went to a private school on a fully funded place, and that afforded me more opportunities and infinitely improved my life outcomes compared to if I had ended up in the very inadequate state school I had been allocated to. I had ample opportunity to get involved in choirs, orchestras and drama, compared to my brothers who went to a (semi-decent, all boys) comprehensive. I wouldn't have begrudged state school kids getting access over me to things like this when I was 11-18, and if I had kids at private school I would feel exactly the same.

That's the whole point of outreach. It's the same principle as university widening participation - to reach the kids who might have talent but never have a route to explore it.

Maybe you and OP need to watch Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit.

@Angelkid

The replies weren't very constructive I agree. Um, I went to a state school and there were no extracurricular activities except (occasionally) the odd sport.

I've never even had the opportunity to touch a recorder in my life

We had some basic education in the core subjects (maths, science, English) and the rest of the time we were at home - I was home by I think 2 pm on a Wednesday as it was a 1/2 day

Depending on the state school, the level of depravation can be enormous. My friends and I dreamed of being rich enough to be able to do the Duke of Edinburgh Award - as there weren't activities etc in our area, it's impossible to do

My dd was at state primary and secondary then changed to a private school for year 9. She has therefore had friends from a variety of backgrounds and still keeps in touch with certain friends from her former schools, both primary and secondary. The difference between the private and state educated children is stark. She was hanging out with “baby roadmen” in years 7 and 8 and at the start of year 11 went all preppy and posh.

I really don’t think you’ve seen poverty or witnessed disadvantage op if you’re in a private school bubble. I am all for equity and any small attempts to level up.

OP, just listen to the cognitive dissonance in your thought process. Essentially you have said the children should only be judged on merit, but you are completely ignoring the fact that private schools offer much more support in attaining that level of merit. It isn't a level playing field for judging because it isn't a level playing field for access and skills development. There exist some programmes that aim to balance that in extra curricular activities.

If you really thought things should only be judged by merit then you wouldn't send your kids to private school! Oh the irony!

Cringing hard for this op. Don’t ever say what you have posted in real life op !

😂😂😂

Well OP, quite some breakfast reading for you this morning! If you remain in any doubt as to the consternation and scoffing your post elicited, perhaps book yourself a tour of local secondaries and quiz them about their music provision and numbers of pupil premium students. Then you might be a little more informed and not make such a turnip of yourself in future!

not judged by its own merits nowadays

Why would pay privately for schooling for children if you want them to be judged on their own merit?

Take all the time you need.

I hope you are joking op..its not funny but you cannot truly believe this shit..can you?

Thank you to all.the private school parents on here who are defending the outreach programmes and acknowledging the privilege and opportunities their dc have as opposed to stare educated children.

I doubt the OP will return, and I suspect they were aiming at a Katie Hopkins style of saying something extremely provocative to get a reaction.

Rather pathetic