First point: I do not in any way, shape or form consider that 'private' necessarily implies superior. A few years on MN tells me that alone! DS1, now in Y7, cruised happily through the same school(s) and is now doing well (grade 'B'-ish) in a well regarded state secondary.
The issue is with DS2, who is 9.5. As my title says, he is very average. His maths and perhaps science are a bit better but his ability to read and write, the latter in particular, are heading towards a 'fail'. I think the primary is actually doing as good a job as they can, faced with classes of 30, albeit in middle class suburbia (the point being the school isn't riddled with the sort of issues that can inhibit learning like poor behaviour, non-school ready NS DCs, large numbers of non-native English speakers, itinerant populations, massive staff turnover).
The teacher identified him as struggling in a pre Xmas test where he scored 2a in his written work (eek!); they sent him to a one hour per week, 10 week 1:1 tutoring block, where he appears to have been taught about punctuation, use of capitals and so on... I am not sure how effective this has been, really. This is the only instance where DS2 has been 'singled out' as struggling sufficiently to need intervention but he is in that classic situation of being not 'bad' enough to qualify for ongoing help, but not 'good' enough to be sure of 'passing' English. He is also a quiet, well behaved boy so does not constitute the 'squeaky hinge' that might get the oil.
But, despite tutoring, for example, (and as another thread reveals!)- he managed to sit through what appears to have been several weeks of a 'persuasive writing' teaching topic, only to have completely failed to grasp the basic tenets! I know how it happens that one of your 30 DCs can slip beneath the radar to the extent that my (helping with homework) question: 'DS, how should you set out a persuasive letter?' (Correct answer- an introduction making your main point; 3 or 4 arguments using persuasive words (and avoiding others!); a conclusion remaking your original point'). HIS answer? "It's gotta have 'I's and 'you's in it. Or something."..
At parents evening, I look at his work in his tray, and there is page after page with what appears to be at most 2 sentences, the output of a complete lesson.
Anyway, the upshot of this is I am wondering whether I should consider moving DS2 to a small-classed independent for Y6 to try and get him 'up to speed' a bit before the freight train of secondary hits? He is happy at his primary and would rejoin his mates at the secondary, but I am thinking the one thing I think he needs is more individual attention, more 'you can do more/better than this' which I appreciate a state school teacher does not have the time to impose.
The problem is that, being leafy middle class suburbia (with the 'best' secondary in the county), the 'local' private schools all sell themselves on their academia, their getting of DCs through the entrance exams for various private secondaries, their 'getting the best out of bright but lazy DCs'. I basically want DS's present school but with 12 in a class!
Please, please understand that this isn't about private v. state in its usual MN sense. This is about whether there is any sense in me trying for smaller but more intense for DS, even though I may have to drive him further afield to find it (and pay through the nose!).