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.

I think Charis makes some good points. I have friends who teach at Eton and obviously the facilities are fantastic, no doubt similar at Rugby. But at the comprehensive my sons go to, there are three pupils who are top five in the country for various athletic disciplines, also national level tennis players and a rower (on the local river). Our school – and similar state schools that friends’ children are at – offer a full range of sporting options and also a full range of subjects at A level. Around 15% of sixth formers go to Oxbridge and around 40% to RG/top 30 universities.

I went to a state school and a top five university and a couple of friends from school went to Oxbridge. Purely anecdotally, we knew a number of students from Harrow, Winchester and Marlborough who dropped out as they were so used to almost individual teaching that they found the independent study too hard! And I think the old boys’ network thing is always overstated on here. If you’ve been to the “right” school, and the “right” university and you have the “right” family background then, yes, it’s a thing. But IME of 20+ years in the City (before we moved to the country) one or two out of that list doesn’t cut the mustard.

Regarding drop out rates; they are very small in the most selective universities ( where most public schooled students congregate).

They are highest in the universities with an overwhelming number of state schooled students.

So whilst no doubt for a number of reasons a handful of public schooled students do drop out, this is not a trend and almost certainly not connected to the style of teaching in such schools.

In the face of all these blatant untruths and non-factual "facts", gross generalizations, and complete inability to read or interpret statistics, I can only assume Charis is fishing for something with this thread. It's totally bizarre.

Or she started this thread expecting that we would all agreed with her, so she took a very hardline and definite position and now she can't abandon it, for fear of losing face.

"Our school – and similar state schools that friends’ children are at – offer a full range of sporting options and also a full range of subjects at A level."

Well that's wonderful workhorse, and how lucky for you. But most of us are not in that fortunate position. Our local comp has 40% A-C GCSEs in a good year, and you can't even do triple science, let alone latin or greek. The idea that it is somehow comparable to Eton is beyond laughable.

The OP has turned what could have been perfectly reasonable points -that many public school kids are over-schooled, a bright kid in a good comprehensive has a great chance of getting to Oxbridge and/or a top profession - into the utterly bonkers proposition that public schools confer no advantage whatsoever in life. Mad as a box of frogs.

This thread is depressing.
Of course private schools have more money- and they are (most importantly) extremely selective about who they take.
I still would always choose a comp over private because I think it does offer more than any private school could. And that is primarily am education that involves mixing with everyone around you- not just ones who's parents want to and can pay. It is comprehensive- for all.
I think charis may be trying to stand up for the stand up for the fact that many comps are slagged off without actual basis. At my sons inner city comp (satisfactory so not one that people fight to get in) there was mandarin and further maths offered for sure.
But most importantly of all he was part of a comprehensive society (although less comprehensive than it should have been since so many off the other middle class families took their children off to private school). This segregation is a serious problem in London and is getting worse with housing prices and benefit caps. Depressing.

My typos make me look like the product of bad education- which I am (one of the top ranking private girls schools in the country)

If charis meant that, then why not say that twisted?

Why post all this rubbish about Latin, Ancient Greek, Music, Three MFL and polo and fencing? Why say state schools get more money than private schools?

OK, I bow to SheGotAllDaMoves’ more up-to-date statistics on drop-out rates. And of course, zoemaguire, some state schools are better than others. The point that I agree with the OP on is that a private education – even at the top public schools – is not the be-all and end-all and a guarantee of “success” in the fairly narrow definition of this thread. For example, one family I know has had four generations at Eton and Balliol. Another has had a few members (including the current school generation) going to Rugby and Durham. These two families are affluent middle class, but nothing exceptional, and appear to have had no more doors opened to them than people with a decent state school education and a good degree from a reputable university. I think TwistedReach makes very good points.

Since you seem so concerned about people not offering evidence, can I repeat my request for a link to te cheaper-than-football polo lake please?

And more than one, ideally, because if it is only one accessible by only a tiny minority of the population, it doesn't really count, does it?

Edu, I googled our local sailing club fees, minimum of £120 for a junior member.
That's 4 times the cost of a year's football club membership.
We're not near London though. Maybe London prices don't count when it comes to water sports?

Our local learn to row course is £45 a session, for 5 sessions in the first stage. That's not on a river.

Maybe I am being dim, but isn't polo played on ponies on a polo field, and water polo played in swimming pools? So what is a polo lake?

I could gather a few locals and jump in the river for an impromptu game of water polo, that would be free.

The World Water Polo Championships were played on a lake? Only Google seems to think they were played here

I did wonder about the lake comment.

Our local sailing club is £400 a year membership. And that's before you start sailing.

well, like I said, my Dc took up sailing because we couldn't afford football. They also did it for free at school, and at scouts, and played polo, and were taught by a world champion, and attended the world polo championships on a lake in south London.

Right. You do realise that's not the experience for the majority of the population, though?

I lost the will to live at the point that Op asked why doing triple GCSE science is something that people might want.

I'm state and Oxbridge. My Dh is state and Oxbridge. A hell of a lot of my friends are state and Oxbridge. We can afford private but dd is currently in state.

If the Op has lost me then her arguments must be bad!

What sort of polo, Charis - water polo? Because that is not the expensive sport people are referring to when they talk about polo - that is played on horseback, definitely not in a lake (the horses couldn't hold their breath long enough) - and polo club membership fees would make WhoTheFuck's sailing club fees look bargain basement, I suspect - and that's before the cost of the horses/ponies. Polo is really hard on the horses, so you usually need more than one polo pony for a match - sometimes one for each period of play, or chukka.

I bet you were not playing polo at scouts. I believe you played water polo.

The world canoe polo championship will be held on a lake in London in 2016, cannot find any other polo played on a lake in London in the last 50 years.

Independent schools do not get better exam results than state schools.
Seriously? Local non-selective secondary gets 90%+ of its kids to 5 GCSEs A-C. The local comprehensives manage less than 50%.

OP, I went to a posh school on a full scholarship for the Sixth Form. I hated it, and some of the kids were snobs of the first order. But the academic education it gave me got me into Oxbridge and really did change my life, and there were opportunities there - just being able to go and mess about in the art department after lessons, even if you weren't doing art, or sing with a very good choir even if you were crap at singing - that were not available at the state school I left.

I've taught in quite a few state secondary schools and one private girls' school (which, though excellent, was probably nothing approaching Rugby, as it's one of the best-known public schools).

There is no doubt in my mind that a good private or public school can offer advantages that a state comprehensive cannot. I have never heard anyone try to deny this before, even if they are against private schools.

The advantages are too many to list, but here are a few:

Smaller class sizes
Better facilities
Uniformly highly-qualified staff
Lack of constraint by government initiatives, national curriculum etc
Able, motivated pupils, generally very well-supported by parents
High level of support for Oxbridge applications, with added experience of many staff who have been to Oxbridge themselves
Generally better behaviour

The standards of behaviour, academic achievement and motivation in the private school where I taught were far, far beyond anything I've ever seen in the state sector.

Exactly sdt. I somehow don't believe any comp or scout leader produced a string of polo ponies for each child present and told them to crack on. Where did they get the grooms for starters, or did the school also run pony club exams and produce their own?