Private Education Sector to "Loan " Teachers......

[Boobsgonesouth]

I know that this one will be such a hot potato...couldn't resist the temptation to post it

here's the article

lm, must depend on the school then. I can't remember about my daughters. My son paid. But presumably the school has to pay even if they don't pass it to parents on the bill. Presumably the LEA pays edexcel and the other boards from funds tax payers provide.

Most local independent schools advertise that exam fees are included in fees, except for re-sits.

Text books, etc also included. However I spoke to someone recently who had been charged (without reference to her) £120 for textbooks for her daughter's A-level course. No option to buy these from students from the previous year and it's difficult to believe new books are required EVERY year, since updates aren't done every year, are they? And the syllabus doesn't change that much every year.

Yes, but the parents are paying for the exam fees in the fees as we pay for my sons' lunches in his fees but are still paying whereas if they were at state schools the parents don't pay the exam entrance fees.

I know the point has wandered but just want to add my opinion anyway.
The government recognise that the private sector is successful, no one can dispute that. The problem is that they don't recognise why.

1. Most are selective, so they start from a position of success.
2. Parents who pay for education are by definition interested in their child's education and therefore are likely to be supportive at home too .(not to say other parents aren't but a much larger proportion are likely to be in the private sector)
3. Discipline is better in private schools as the structure allows for discipline, private school teachers don't have their hands as tied as state school teachers do in this respect, also generally once again parents are likely , on the whole to be more supportive in this.
4. Class sizes are much smaller.
5. Teachers spend time teaching and not doing crowd control or paperwork.
6. Private school pupils come mainly if not exclusively from a class which expects to achieve academically and attain good jobs as a result.
7. Private schools are better funded and have better facilities accessible to pupils in smaller numbers who are therefore able to benefit better from. Of course they are likely to be more successful if you take all this into account. Put a private sector teacher into your average state school and your result will be similar if not worse ( lack of experience of discipline etc.) Give the state sector ALL the benefits of the private sector and you'll get success accross the board. It'll do no good vilifying the private sector, what they need to do is actually improve the state sector. If they want to attract the 'best' teachers (and I don't believe for a second they're all tucked away in the private sector) they need to make the state sector a place where children can actually be taught. I know some of these points hace already been made, just wanted to have a go too. I'll get down off my high horse now.....

Interesting article in the Independent today. Boazer - you made really sensible points. This article says much the same.

Very good list and very true.

Exam results repeatedly get better and more and more children go to university from state schools. By no means is state education poor.

Some children aren't suited to many exams as well. Bedales the public school which was always a bit alternative is not going to bother with most GCSEs. Harrow School has its own farm. The private sector can cater for children who aren't very academic pretty well too.

What has annoyed me has been all the changes and mess. You get used to one thing in the state sector and then it's changed. You have comprehensives but then you allow specialist sports, languages etc schools or you keep grammar schools in a few areas but not others. No consistency. No years of stability and certainty. Just changes all the time.

Thats true about consistency, a teacher friend is fed up with all the changes, the government doesn't seem to realise that to see any changes in results from new schemes they need to be in place at least 5 years so that the new year 7s take their GCSEs. Plus since each new iniciative often only covers one key stage teachers are constantly having to take on board 2 or 3 new initiatives for the different ages they teach. This simply does not allow them to plan, conduct and refine lessons to give the best they can. The private sector of course can merrily disregard the initiatives and leave the teachers to adapt to what suits the children best.

Textbooks- they were provided at my private school and not new every year. My state 6th form also provided books but they were often one between 3 and I ended up buying a lot of books too as the ones given were usually just the exam board ones that were over simplified. A text book I was given for biology was printed in 1983, I took the exam in 2001, a fair amount of the syllabus hadn't been invented in 1983!

We still have to cope with AS and A2 in the private sector and some schools are doing the IB and international GCSEs - again yet more changes and those are in the private sector. I wish they'd just say - here is the new scheme for the next 20 years - one school only in each local area in the state system and if you're religious you do that outside of school and no grammar schools either. Just some simplicity.

Or here is a £5k voucher for every parent in the UK. Spent it were you like and all schools will opt out of the public sector and become private.

Well yes true, but then the AS and A2 thing was a disaster really. I was in the guinnea pig year for that, some subjects had no syllabus until well into the first term the poor teachers were just trying to guess what would be on it.

Just a minor formality, but am I right in thinking that teachers in the independent sector don't actually need to have a teaching qualification? Whilst those in the state sector do? Not trying to start a debate here about whether or not these quals make you a better teacher, just wondering how a technically unqualified private school teacher could simply be allowed to walk into a state school classroom without a BEd or PGCE to his/her name?

The proportion of unqualified teachers in private schools is generally fairly small tbh. Whereas there are "unqualified" teachers in state schools for some subjects. Think it is a bit of a red herring tbh.

I could set up a school tomorrow. I could offer to choach your children in maths and English. No one needs a single qualification to do that but I doubt you'd hire me (although actually I'd be quite good). Same with private schools. But they virtually never have unqualified staff. 20 years ago you might have the odd teacher with a degree in their subject teaching A level without a GCSE but it's very rare now.

I'm sorry Boazer, but I've got to take issue with some of your list:
'Parents who pay for education are by definition interested in their child's education and therefore are likely to be supportive at home too .(not to say other parents aren't but a much larger proportion are likely to be in the private sector)'

Are you seriously saying that people who don't send their children to private school because (whisper it) they might not earn enough money or prioritise their spending in different ways aren't interested in their children's education? I really take issue with that. It is the most ridiculous, patronising and frankly snobby generalisation I've heard. If you want generalisations, I could also say that parents who pay for boarding education aren't in the least bit interested in having their children around and want rid of them. Bloody ridiculous.

'Private school pupils come mainly if not exclusively from a class which expects to achieve academically and attain good jobs as a result.'

Ditto my point above. Not all private school pupils are upper class, and not all the upper classes expect their children to achieve academically. To generalise again, ime the Asian community also expect their children to achieve academically and attain good jobs, and generally (again) most of them would be described as working class or - shock horror - poor.

Sorry if this sounds stroppy, but those comments have really wound me up, both as a teacher in the state sector and as a state-educated person who has a degree from York University, an MA and whose parents always had high expectations of her.

That's why you get a higher proportino of Asian children in our local oprivate schools than whites actually...

But if you don't agree with the list what are the true reasons then? Do the rich have cleverer children? Are the private schools just much better at teaching?

bb, I don't think I would ever want to teach a class of children. I was talking about one to one English coaching and I think I could do it quite well. I do loads of adult teaching and I've helped my own 5 over 22 years one to one lots and I think I'm good at explaining complicated things in simple language. I certainly didn't say I could walk into a school and be a brilliant teacher and nor is having a PGCE any guarantee of that either. Some teachers with 30 years experience who started when you just needed a degree are as good as many with PGCEs

A lot of the teachers at my children's independent school are Oxbridge graduates (with their degree subject being the subject they teach). A lot of them prob do not have PGCEs but I don't think this matters. It would matter if your degree subject was sociology with nursing and then you wanted to teach chemistry!

I went to private school and there is no way in hell half of my teachers could have coped with a class in either of the local comps (though one or two of my teachers were excellent).

Private schools have better results for these reasons:

1. smaller class sizes
2. lack of truly disruptive pupils
3. smaller class sizes
4. (in many cases) longer school hours and less faffing about (because school is phisically smaller)
5. smaller class sizes.

do you see where I'm going with this?

NB I do also agree that parents of pupils in private schools are likely to be highly pushy, sorry, encouraging of their child's education. Obviously some parents in the state sector are like that too, but not as many.

Miss M - I think you are reading Boazer's comments rather badly. If I said people who go hunting (or used to!) are upper middle class - it does not mean that everyone who does not go hunting is from a class other than upper middle.
I would agree with the statement that parents in the independent sector care about their children's education and therefore are likely to be supportive at home.

BelgianBun - everyone thinks teaching is easy except teachers. Everyone thinks writing is easy except writers. It's just one of those things - annoying and silly but there you go.

I'm not sure a PGCE is a big deal in a private secondary school, BB although those that have them would generally be better teachers. It's true that some (many?) teachers in the private sector don't have them though.

As I say, I do not believe for a second that teaching quality is the reason why private schools get better results than public ones.

I'm just astounded that there seems to be this assumption that just because you pay for you child's education it means you care more about it. Are you saying that a single mother working as a cleaner living on a Hackney council estate doesn't care about her child's education because she sends him to the local comp? Or that she doesn't want him to do well in life? Or any parent who doesn't send their child to private school for that matter? That does a huge disservice to the millions of parents who care passionately about their child's academic achievement because they know that it is a ticket out of the possible poverty or limited life chances that they had. But they can't afford to pay what they might receive as a yearly wage in school fees.

Senora's list is spot on. And it doesn't always follow that private is better than state. You can't tell me that there aren't bad private schools out there, just as there are good and bad state schools. A friend of mine went to one, failed her A levels, re-took them at the state sixth form and lo and behold got As and Bs.

teaching is easy if you have a small class of intelligent, well motivated pupils though. It's teaching the less well motivated pupils that's hard.

MissM - but I think the point is that probably the biggest problem in a lot of state schools is the number of pupils whose parents simply don't give a stuff about their education and who are therefore badly motivated and may be disruptive. You don't tend to get those kids in private schools, you only get the ones whose parents do care.

The qualifications issue is a none point. I can't think of a single teacher at Habs, North London, Merchant Taylors, the schools the older children were at (and now left) who didn't have a PGCE. My ex husband had one and worked in the state sector. It's a useful course I'm sure and I think this Government is taking people from industry and if they can find a school to sponsor them they learn on the job as it were which I am sure is good too. Like most jobs you learn a lot at the studying stage but you probably overall learn more through the next 20 years of experience.

Anyway so when these private school teachers if they agree, go off to teach at state schools do we get the state teachers in the private schools and what if we don't like their accents or clothes. Can the parents vet them?