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.

Honestly, I'm not getting at you if you do send your kid to a private school, you must make what you think is the right decision.

But be honest, there are far too many people on MN who use the "my local sink comp" its funny that so many who can afford fees live in areas with rubbish schools, you'd have thought they would be in leafier areas.

Be honest, you think that by paying for education you will get your child a leg up quicker, or open doors to them that wouldn't be available because of the funding differences in schools. You probably also think there are more extra curricular opportunies than you could provide if you were to find after school clubs.

Be honest, and this is a big reason why some people pay for education, you think your child needs a little bit more help and probably would benefit from smaller class sizes and more teacher time than they would get at a state school.

The Ofsted data about the number of good and outstanding schools just simply doesn't match the number of people who live near such vile and shocking comps that their DCs couldn't possibly go to.

I don't think my local comp is a sink school. I think it is ok.

What ofsted rate a school isn't the same as being actually good in all cases. Ratings or league tables mean fuck all to me outside selectives. Dds primary looked shit on paper, but was amazing, unlike two outstandings I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. My assumption about secondary was that same as primary, the intake or end averages wouldn't matter, my Dds needs would be adequately met. I was dissappointed to discover that wasn't the case, and I needed another one like Dds or the safety of numbers. And short of moving house or bribing a church neither was possible.

Fwiw I don't pay for independent. They were prepared to offer her education my lea won't, despite the fact the former has no obligation and the latter does. Nor am I deluded about ability. That came from her state primary, and afaik hens tooth full fee remission isn't handed out based on deluded parents with social aspirations. Haven't a clue how naturally gifted tarquinellas are, not many of them on the council estate which is my local community. Nor at the undersubscribed neighbouring council estates primary which I chose over the outstanding posh estate one I was catchment for.

You keep telling yourself all comprehensives are equal though longtime and there is no unfairness in the system about accessing them, and anyone saying so is just being snobby about state schools.

I never said they were all equal, i said i was tired of the sweeping statements, several times, I said SOME state schools are awful, I know I've worked in some, worked with some on raising attainment. A lot of poor schools can't keep staff because of the pressure.

So you know better than OFSTED? Gosh I've had decades in this profession and never been that confident, I disagree with some things but actually its hard to hide glaring weaknesses from them, schools have to work fecking hard all year round, for years to get goods or outstandings, not just on the days, the data would show that (oh and they really drill down on the data).

Again, I think your tale must be very unusual, you got access to a private school who will freely provide you with something your LEA which is legally obliged to wouldn't. Why were you not on the phone to OFSTED yourself then? Or the Ministry?

Well done on getting full scholarship, you are right about that being rare, your situation sounds like a very different one to anything I've ever heard. But please don't talk about exceptional circumstances like they are common.

Some parents will do that. I think mine in schools like NLCS are not there because they need a bit of a leg up. Most who apply don't get in and most girls there are fairly clever as indeed they are at the London state grammars.
However, yes some parents will pickthe better state or private school because their child isn't particularly bright and they want a small class and lots of attention and high expectations in a particular school. I would say any parent picking the best school for a child has the moral high ground, though. It is called love.

First it is absolutely not the case that the top set at comps do as well as DC at grammar schools.

This has been the case for a long time; the lack of progress amongst high ability pupils.

This was the driver for the change in OFSTED criteria. Or are people saying they did that for shits and giggles?

TBH I can't think of one academic or one study that does not acknowledge that problem with achievement at the top end of the academic curve in comprehensives.

And schools refusal to accept it ( as the posts of longtime aptly show) is part of the problem.

This is not just an issue of money.
This is an issue of ideology and decision making by SLTs that adversary affect students. Decisions and policies that would cost nothing to change. But they would require open mindedness. Something rare and previous.

As for the reasons for choosing private school; it is absurd for any one person to assume they can sum them up for thousands of strangers. Arrogant in the extreme.

It is a completely individual decision.

For me I have perfectly good secondary schools close by. But I wanted better.

People would be foolish to say that all comprehensive schools, or all or any type of school are the same.

But bright supported children will do well. The debate really shouldn't be about grades. It should be about the cultural capital - the extra "stuff" that a good private school has the time and money to provide. And which goes in spades to kids who have lots already. And which does not go to the kids who need it most. That is the issue which really needs addressing- it is what keeps our society divided.

Oh and I agree. The number of mumsnetters with the available money to pay private school fees who appear to live clustered round the country's really awful schools is quite astonishing.

During the admissions procedure, before I knew independent was definitely going to be possible do you not think I investigated everything I could do get one of the state schools that would suit?
The only possible was perhaps getting a sympathetic appeal panel. But again that's my point, there are no specific guidelines or policy to form the basis of an argument when it's an able childs needs failing to be met. Ofsted are already aware our school fails the high achievers and it makes no odds.
Again the state system itself is far more unfair than a tiny minority attending independents.

bertrand bright supported children cannot do well if the subjects are not on offer, if the school system is not set up to achieve that. You can't get high grades in double MFL if your school only offers one!

As we move towards the new GCSEs and AS are decoupled, more and more students will not cover the material at the top end. There will be every reason to avoid covering the grade 9 material and not undertake AS which will no longer count.

This has nothing to do with cultural capital.

Agreed you can't get high grades in subjects that aren't offered. But in general GCSEs are just facilitating exams. I don't think my ds will be massively disadvantaged by only doing one MFL, frankly.

Indeed, SheGot.

If your DC doesn't have piano/violin lessons you would be foolish to expect them to attain Grade 8 in those instruments, however well supported and bright your DC. Ditto tennis/show jumping/ski-ing. Why should academic subjects be any different? If they aren't on offer - or only on offer to a low standard - DC are very unlikely to be high achievers in those subjects.

By international standards a single MFL at GCSE is a huge disadvantage.

"First it is absolutely not the case that the top set at comps do as well as DC at grammar schools."

Keep telling your self that, they do at mine.

"The lack of progress amongst high ability pupils."

At schools where the pressure to get kids who are attaining D grades Grades yes. Anything when i becomes the bar of measurement will be hit. Why do you think so many comps became brilliant at this? Because its what you got hammered on, when you lack resources you must choose where to allocate them.

My kids went to a comp, I have one Warwick graduate, one Cambridge student, and one at 6th form. They've done just fine.

TBH I can't think of one academic or one study that does not acknowledge that problem with achievement at the top end of the academic curve in comprehensives.

Show me them, makes a difference from all the studies that show that its parental involvement not the school that you go to that makes the difference.

You call me arrogant in the extreme, throw the ad homs dear, it makes your argument flawed.

i am prepared to be corrected, but I don't think there is a school in the country that does not offer 8 or 9 GCSEs. As I said, in the vast majority of cases, GCSEs are facilitating exams. I know many hildren from a variety of schools who have gone to university with one or- shock horror- no MFL at GCSE.

Well not having the option to take more than one MFL at GCSE probably won't matter if your DC knew from 11 that they wanted to be a tax lawyer. In London.

But for most kids, who just don't know, pre-16 education should be about keeping doors open. Not shutting them off.

You may not value MFL and not feel your DC are disadvantaged, but many many parents do value them. And naturally, they are drawn to schools which share their view.

longtime why do you persist in calling posters 'dear'? It makes you sound like a sexist idiot!

I weep at MFL teaching in this country. When I was working in Paris, I had a British assistant whose French was, frankly, abysmal. We had her language level assessed, and she came out at level B1, B2 for comprehension. She had A* at GCSE, A at A level, and a 2:1 in French from a RG university. She had spent a year in France as part of her university course, but by her own admission "only hung out with the Brits." Her EU counterparts, in contrast, could speak 3 or 4 languages fluently.

Interesting that whenever I try to turn the conversation to cultural capital it drifts back to grades. Could that be because people find the idea of privilege attracting privilege an uncomfortable one?

I do think also that we need to define "able". One poster on here has a child who could breeze through a normal set of GCSEs doing no work at all. Obviously she is at the extreme right hand side of the bell curve and would need special provision. I have no idea how that could be arranged- I have never met a child like that and so can have no idea what they need. But I suspect that any school- even a private one- would need to think again about her, and I can well understand that a normal comprehensive school would not be able to accommodate her.

But for-forgive the word- "normal" able children- the sort who in selective LEAs go to grammar schools- there will be plenty in the top set of a comprehensive.

Once again, though, we are talking about able children as if they are the most important group. They are important. Just not more important.

Also where do you see me claim that "all" comprehensives top sets achieve the same as grammars? I've said many of the good or outstanding ones do, some of course will not and THESE schools will be the focus of your attainment criteria, not good comps.

Well said Bert, I've never taught at a school that does not offer more than this.

"As we move towards the new GCSEs and AS are decoupled, more and more students will not cover the material at the top end. There will be every reason to avoid covering the grade 9 material and not undertake AS which will no longer count."

AS do count, and your understanding of the new system is flawed. AS's have been made a singular qualification, and the new A2 has less content than the former stand alone, there is more pushed into AS to make it more appealing not to sit it.

The grade 9 material will be covered with the top end, for exactly the same reason that the A material is that schools push students to achieve the highest grades, as repeated we got 71% with % A-C including English and Maths in a non selective comp, we a whole raft of students who got 9-10 As, we got well over 100 who got a "good grammar school" mix of As-B.

You're arrogance in making sweeping statements is gratifying in the least, because you expose the flaw your argument repeatedly. Thanks.

I value MFL very much.

I just know that in a school with restricted budgets you can't have everything.

I also think that getting to GCSE level in a MFL would take somebody who suddenly discovered they needed it about 3 months............

Don't worry about the languages issue as everyone speaks English internationally although I think from an academic point of view it is best if children do at least one foreign language. i did two and one at A level (German) and all my 5 children have done at least one at GCSE even the one predicted an E who this year managed to pick that up to a B so good for him, worth perservering.

I am not clustered around bad state schools. In London there is huge choice. There religious schools of allk inds in the state sector with reasonable results. There are academic schools like Watford Grammar, Dr Challoners, Henrietta Barnet and some of the best private scholols in the country. However some are poor. The comp about 3 minutes from house was getting 34% A - C at good GCSEs when I last checked. They seem to finish school at 2.50 every day too and many of the presumably not very able pupils do lots of subjects lke travel and tourism GCSE, car mechanics etc.

Cultural capital for certain jobs matters although not as a post man at Royal Mail for my graduate son, I'm sure. So it much depends on what you want as a career. I certainly notice with my daughter in her 20s that in all the job applications processes, seond and third interviews and all the rest as well as good exam results they are looking for someone who can speak to their clients in a way that is understood and has something in common with others - she's formed a work netball team which has gone down very well and presumably anyone who goes to any school state or private in the UK probably learns netball. Until recently she was playing lacrosse for England and achievements like that they like to publicise company wide and they particularly like competitive and team sport where she works.In other jobs no one could care less. I am on a committee where about 50% of us sing in classical music choirs by some huge chance. I am sure in some gaming companies your ability to be at higher levels in certain on line computer games is equally as compelling (although don't tell that to your teenage sons).

Oh i don't know about that Bert, some people might others might not.

And yes it does come down to funding, put it this way, the very highly academic Camden School for Girls has stopped offering Ancient Greek at A level, primarily because only 5-7 girls wanted to take it.

Now these are bright, active clever girls with a desire to study, but the small numbers mean that it just isn't viable to have classes of these sizes taught. WHEN I worked in a private school, and when I have worked with private schools this sort of size of class is fairly common at A level.

Oh and I call people dear, because its a bad habit, I write as I speak, I call my own children, students I teach and even random strangers dear, didn't realise it was bad.

We are sending DDs to private secondary school because we live in Greater London, and it means we can access some of the best secondary education in the world. Youth is a fleeting, precious and pivotal time in a person's life.

We decided it was worth it. We aren't that materialistic. We won't join the buy to let crowd, or the second home crowd, or the second car crowd, or the skiing in winter crowd, or the summer sun crowd, or even the second tv crowd. This, education, is what we value most and what we want to spend our money on.

Luckily it's a free society and we are allowed to make that choice. School is more than a lever for social engineering you know. It's also there to educate children.

longtime the AS will no longer count towards the A2.

They are being de coupled.

Without doubt many schools will no longer bother with them. The pupils involved will get no say.

As for level 9, many schools have already said (as part of their opposition to the new GCSE system) that it will be difficult to incorporate that part of the curriculum into an already crowded timetable.

To be honest you sound ridiculously defensive and closed minded.

And yes, calling women 'dear' is sexist (particularly when trying to put them down, as you were). You are clearly very out of touch.