Why would anyone consider going to Rugby school better than the mixed local comp?

[Charis2]

I read this article in the standard earleir, and just thought what is this headmaster on? Why is this scholarship presented as such a huge honour for the boy, when in fact it is a way of the school paying to improve its results by taking in some of the best sixth form students without fees.

What "lifechanging" opportunities does he expect he can offer, which Hassenbrook acadamy can't?

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/needs-pic-teenage-footballer-wins-70000-scholarship-to-boarding-school-that-invented-rugby-a2953791.html

Headmaster Peter Green said he hoped Michael and other Arnold Foundation scholars would have a “ripple effect” on their communities when they return home.

He said: “We might be able to be transformative and transform their lives. Then when they go to university, and after, they can start to transform their own local communities. It’s not about parachuting someone out of that. We want to keep their association with where they are from.”

What a snob. Does he think the staff at Hassenbrook only teach poor peoples maths and physics, and the maths at Rugby is somehow a better class of maths? perhaps he thinks the laws of physics perform better there too?

I hope this lad has fun, but I don't think for a moment his life is going to be in any way better because he spent two years mixing with rich snobs rather than normal people.

"s. I thought, at least I wouldn't be bullied for being a swot."

You obviously didn't read Enid Blyton, then. A lot of swot-bullying going on there...

I think bullying happens in most schools and am always wary of any head who announces it doesn't happen at their school.
It's how it is handled and identified in the first place that is important.
Maybe there is more of a worry if they are boarding as you might not know immediately and as other types of school children may not speak up straight away.

My parents didn't allow me to read Enid Blyton, Bertrand - they were very snooty about her writing. Tbh, I was relying mainly on the Chalet School - and Miss Annersley, Miss Wilson and Jo would never have allowed bullying, I thought.

I believe lots of children can do well at an average local state. But not all. And unless your child fits in with the majority, then I don't believe there is the same chance to reach potential, however good they do. And that goes whatever the majority is, and whichever minority the child is by comparison.
I don't measure secondary success by grades alone. It's the experience that's important too. And in the case of the most able, learning that not all education is effortless.

sdt I wanted to go there too!

Lurked- if your child is in the very top %tile, why do you think that she will be with a large crowd of academic peers at a private school?

sdt and lurked

It is the most wonderful place in the world apparently I know one child who doesn't think weekends at home quite cut it now.

Agree that some comps may be 'better' than some independent schools.

But to compare Rugby to Hassenbrook and query why Rugby is a better school is madness.

Hassenbrook is not a high achieving school. It achieves pretty poor exam results, has poor attendance and there are very few high achievers in the school. It has a lot of challenging kids. It is just incomparable to a school like Rugby and it is bleeding obvious that one would choose Rugby over Hassenbrook.

You may be meaning well but not thinking of the reality.

Ds's time at his school was certainly not all rosy- and there was a lot that was really not good. There were also some dedicated and very good teachers and the kids were definitely given opportunities to do interesting things. I would have liked some things to have been better certainly.
It does makes me cross that schools like his, in which a high proportion of children were deprived, would have been much more mixed, if all the local rich parents had not bought out (very often without even setting foot in the actual school to discover what it was really like).
I do think that if the school had reflected the actual social mix of the neighbourhood, it would have been better for all of the children involved in both sectors.
My experiences of private schools include at least as many things wrong- just wrong in different ways.
But even when I say some things were not really not good, it was nowhere near the picture of horror (!) that many depict. There are obviously much better state schools than his was- but that was what was on offer near us. But the arrogance of the head thinking that the children in school's like ds's need to learn from kids at his, is offensive. That is not to say that I don't think all would be better off if there was not this segregation.
I do find it depressing because I don't think it has to be like this.

Last October DS1 was approached by the Director of Sport at a local (I say 'local'- its 20 miles away) Independent School and offered a Sports Scholarship. After sitting the entrance exam he was awarded the Scholarship and an Assisted Bursary which made it quite a deal that was too good to refuse.
We did agonise over whether we should take it, mainly as DS already attended a state school that was in the top 30 in the country so in terms of academia, we already felt that he was well in receipt of an outstanding education. However felt that this was an opportunity to open him up to new experiences, especially in relation to exposure within his chosen field of sport (Rugby, which he played very little of at the secondary school)
I can see that the new school is drawing out the best of him, he is being pushed academically and he is also flourishing at his chosen sport and other sports.

I realise that he would be lucky whatever school he would have chosen to attend given that his previous one was also such a good school so my 'story' may not even be relevant here. Interesting thread though.

I do agree with PPs that unless that article was clumsily edited, the HM would have come across a lot better had he talked about the benefit both ways, i.e. also what the boy would bring to the school.

Twisted - surely once young people get to university or the workplace they will meet lots of people from a variety of backgrounds? I think you said in an earlier post that many privately educated people liked this aspect of university.

Because at hers she does have academic peers bertrand. Its large and has the reputation to be able to pick and choose the brightest children. It's also big and wealthy enough to have more than one scholarship/ generous bursary child a year, and they are never stuck for extremely able kids to take them up. I haven't got a clue where she comes in for iq testing or what % bracket she comes into though. Admittedly probability dictates maths wise she'd have been an outlier even in a higher ability cohort when we're talking about primary intakes of 30. Language subjects she was a massive outlier because of the cohort, rather than her ability.

I also think that if you put her in any language or humanities classroom with a class of peers en route to gcse a* she wouldn't stand out from the crowd in anyway. It's more cross over intelligence than raw ability that means she does well at them iyswim. Her writing and spag are l6 without much effort, but she is not in that minority capable of the l6 reading. But if I (or her primary) were that way inclined she has the intelligence that she probably could have been hot housed into learning and therefore meeting the l6 reading criteria, even while not in all truth being that able if that makes sense. So on that side, plenty of peers. Not to mention her skill is behind her ability compared to prep school peers who whatever their ability have the skills to match. So plenty to strive for there.

It's only maths (and therefore anything similarly logic based) in which she's ahead of what would usually be the en route to a* at gcse children. But neither is she in the ready for uni at y7 bracket either.
Her school is simply just big and academic enough that she isn't the only one like that at maths in her form, and I'm sure when they get put into sets it won't be just her and the couple in her form she's currently bouncing off that have that ability in maths type subjects.

I'm not saying that's the case at all privates, even the selective ones. But at one like hers where a straight A is what pupils get in their weaker subject, it is the case. Nor do I think it's impossible at any state school. But at the ones actually available to me it is.

Don't get me wrong, any maths she did in her primary classroom dd did sat next to her friend who was other end of the scale. Great for both, there's no chance of any personality taking pride in beating a close friend who really struggles. And no loss of pride on the friends side for not keeping up with dd, unlike if the friend had been with the group at below average. And I honestly would have said that was enough, until these few weeks of having peers has demonstrated just what she's missed out on.

I think that the OP has disappeared orf and is currently playing Polo on her horse at the local swimming baths....

Yes, and absolutely nowhere near Hassenbrook either.

"TBH a lot of the state v private debate is rather fallacious. In reality the two categories are:

1. Private schools (most) and the best state schools

"

Eh, it's not like that really.

I went to the best state comp in a leafy area of the country where private schools were irrelevant, but I can see that my son's private school is far superior.

Example: I was the best in my year at maths - school's response - nothing.

My son is the best in his year at maths - school's response - recommend maths camps, take part in numerous maths competitions, removed from top set (of a school which gets 90% A*/A at GCSE) to do extension work.

I wasn't good at ball games - school's response - nothing

My son isn't good at ball games - school's response - you can choose numerous other sports NOT involving balls. So he signed up for rowing in September and is now doing five training sessions a week with worldclass facilities and coaches.

This might not be true of all private schools, but there is no doubt that many give children the opportunity to excel - and sorry, but 10 A*s at GCSE is NOT excelling.

And btw if you compare the exam results of super-selective state grammars (the places with 2000 entrants for 200 places) with super-selective independents, the independents perform much better.

I think it's true to some extent that the gulf between the top and bottom state schools is greater.

My friend and I both went to state schools. She went to a selective grammar in a very naice area. She sang in 3 different choirs, conducted the chamber choir, gave speeches as head girl on speech day, had been invited back several times for careers events and had access to some pretty good sports facilities.

My school didn't even have a working piano, assemblies were stopped because behaviour was too poor, we didn't do cross country as in previous years half the class just took the opportunity to go home, there was no sixth form and we were named amongst the 100 lowest performing schools in the country.

Although we got almost identical exam results, her educational experience was far beyond mine and she had access to far more opportunities. I had some great teachers, but there's only so much they can do if the resources aren't there.

Although I would like to point out that I can appreciate that I am talking based purely on my own experience, something OP seems to be lacking

What a load of rubbish, what exactly in the curriculum of a top public school is more stretching than that of a comprehensive?

Typically, more hours tend to be spent on teaching (longer school days) and on homework, enabling more material to be covered. Teachers are more likely to take students further beyond the "this is what you need to pass to scrape through the exam." Typically, less time will tend to be spent on "academically unchallenging activities" (like making models or decorating posters or copying and pasting stuff off the internet etc. etc.).

Please note words like "tends" in the above. There are some terrific state schools and some God-awful private schools.

What on earth makes you think rich children are better behaved?

Really, what a silly straw-man thing to say. You will meet badly behaved and well behaved kids in all income groups. However, private schools have entrance exams and other criteria, which tend to filter out a lot of the most difficult and disruptive pupils. Pupils who do go off the rails are more likely to be kicked out--it is now very hard for state schools to permanently exclude pupils due to inclusion rules and lack of alternative provision.

I say all the above as someone WHO WENT TO a comprehensive school! Mine was not bad and many of the teachers were excellent, but yes, quite honestly, it could have been better--and I am sure I would have done even better at an academically selective private school. I mean, I'm just being honest.

Whether it is actually financially worthwhile to fund private education is another matter. Most parents just try to get the best state school they can and top up with tutoring and with doing stuff with their kids at home, which can make more economic sense.

But if some kindly fairy godmother offered free private education for my child, I think I would almost certainly say "Yes, please."

I disagree strongly that public schools are the holy grail and the passport to a life of wealth, popularity and happiness. I know people who loved their public school and have sent their kids down the same path. I also have friends who went to Harrow, Winchester, Marlborough, Benenden and Wellington and disliked it intensely – particularly the boarding aspect – so decided to send their children to the local state school. Likewise with friends from state school, some chose independent schools for their kids, some of us chose the local comp.

Most of our children are in the 16 to 20 age group now. The academic achievements and destination universities of both the state and private school kids are broadly similar. There are some in both groups who excel at sport or music or drama, others who don’t. There are some in both groups who are confident and articulate, others who are more shy and self contained. Yes, these are all children from fairly wealthy middle class homes so have lots of advantages anyway. But at least the state school children are fully part of the local community and, as TwistedReach said, have not been artificially segregated from their peers with different family circumstances.

I don't think private school is the 'holy grail'.

However, the fact remains that the those from private schools are over represented on the most selective courses at the most selective universities. This is unarguable fact and is the driver of the widening participation schemes.

Similarly, those who attended private schools are over represented in all the industries/areas that pay the most/have the most status/impact on us all on a macro level. Everything from law to the film industry. From finance to publishing. From board level business to academia.

Obviously, there are some people who went to state school who make it onto those courses and into those jobs. But that does not negate the general trend.

work I think that's not a true comparison of the difference. Dds older friend is at a different independent. No luxury frills, but academically sound, still better facilities than even the best comps round here, and a great ethos. Also at the cheaper end from lack of luxury and therefore affordable for that family. Not only does it give an academic advantage over the best comps they have access to, it gives extra curricular activities that practically they couldn't access on that scale, because even with the saving on fees, the parents are at work and there's nobody to ferry her about. Whereas catching a later bus home is perfectly doable. Comparing that teen to her peers who are very similar, with similar backgrounds at our local states, you can already see she's reaping advantage they aren't. And certainly in this local area, that difference is quite common.

The one-stop-shop value proposition of most modern day private schools is their killer app, IMVH0.

I think behaviour of pupils is more of a function of the environment rather than the school itself. For me I knew how much my dad was spending to send us to boarding school. He did it as a single parent (had no choice) and paid 3 sets of fees in full. Money was tight the first 2 years and then flowed freely as his business picked up and recovered from the settlement he paid my mother.

I didn't dare come home with poor grades and my dad hit the roof when I had a D grade for effort for Biology. He didn't care that my academic grades were A's. A poor effort or negative attitude meant a serious talk and extra effort to turn things around.

It was always the same at the state primary we attended too with any hint of low effort being addressed. My brother once answered back to his teacher. Well my dad had my brother write an apology and read it to his teacher the next morning. Yeah my dad was hard core and you are much more likely to find parents like that at private schools.

What on earth makes you think rich children are better behaved?

In my own teaching experience (and admittedly that's 5 state comprehensives and 1 private girls' school), the difference in behaviour was amazing. All 5 of the state schools had 1)some very well-behaved kids, 2) loads and loads of not-essentially-bad, but quite lazy/ chatty in lessons / a bit disruptive kids and 3) a reasonable number of seriously disruptive, very problematic kids. Ratios varied a bit between the schools. At the private school, the vast majority of kids were in category 1, with a few in category 2 and not a single one in category 3.

What a load of rubbish, what exactly in the curriculum of a top public school is more stretching than that of a comprehensive?

What a stupid question. Do you really think you'd teach exactly the same things to any class of any ability in any school? When I was teaching top set at the private school - a smallish class of girls who were all predicted A*, obviously I was able to teach them well beyond the scope of the GCSE syllabus. Which was of massive help to any wanting to do A level. And anyone who is taught beyond the syllabus in their subjects is going to come out of school with a more advanced level of education.